Chapter 4 - Tricks In The Night

“Psssst, Oliver,” Kyan hissed.

Oliver didn’t move.

“Aaaaaaaahliver.”

Nothing. Kyan poked him in the nose. Oliver hiccupped once, then started snoring softly. Humph, strange. Kyan was about to see what a second poke in the nose would do, but Oliver suddenly rolled over. So Kyan nudged him in the back instead. When that didn’t do anything, he grabbed Oliver by the shoulder and gently shook him.

“Oliver, wake up.”

In his sleep, Oliver mumbled something that sounded like, “But the elephant wasn’t holding the apple in bubble armadillo please…,” trailing off into indiscernible sounds at the end. Getting impatient, an idea suddenly struck Kyan. He rolled Oliver onto his back, pinched his nose and pulled, almost yanking his friend’s head off the floor. Oliver’s eyes flew open.

“Yow!” he exclaimed.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Kyan hissed as he slammed his hand over Oliver’s mouth. Oliver’s eyes looked like they might bulge out of his head. Kyan’s eyes quickly darted around the room, scanning the dark lumpy forms that were the girls and his father. He could hear air faintly whistling through one of their noses. Nobody moved. He looked back down at Oliver, who was staring at him in bewilderment.

Kyan whispered close to his ear, “Don’t make a sound and follow me.”

Oliver responded with a rough nod. Kyan stood and tiptoed out, leading them into the hallway. As soon as they were out of earshot, he halted and turned to face his sneaking companion. A mischievous smile oozed across his face, creepily illuminated by the dim glow of a nightlight nearby. Oliver’s face adopted a frightened expression.

“It’s time,” said Kyan.

“Time for what?” asked Oliver, worried.

“Revenge, of course. I have the perfect prank.”

“Like I was saying before, I really don’t think this is a good idea,” said Oliver. “I have to live with Amanda.”

“C’mon, it’ll be loads of fun.”

“In the same house,” Oliver added. “She has access to my room, Kyan.”

“You worry too much. We have to teach them a lesson. Otherwise, they’ll think they can just push us around, and we can’t let them go thinking that, now can we?”

Oliver didn’t answer. He still had an uncertain look on his face.

“C’mon, quit being a scaredy-cat for once,” urged Kyan, eliciting a frown from his friend.

Clearly, Kyan wasn’t going to let up, so Oliver figured he should just get it over with. If anything, he could somehow deny all involvement and hide behind Mr. Pufferly.

“OK,” said Oliver, “what’s your plan?”

“Great! So, I was thinking either the hand-in-warm-water trick or shaving-cream-on-the-face. But since there are two of them, why not both?”

“Those are the oldest tricks in the book,” sighed Oliver.

“I know, but I couldn’t think of anything else,” Kyan responded, deflating a bit.

“Fine, let’s just get it over with as fast as we can.”

“OK, I’ll get the shaving cream from my parents’ bathroom, and you go back to the kitchen and get a bowl of warm water.”

“How about you get the water and I’ll get the shaving cream,” suggested Oliver.

“What’s the difference?” asked Kyan.

“The kitchen’s closer to the living room, so you have a higher chance of getting caught.”

“OK, fine,” said Kyan, rolling his eyes. “Meet back here in T-minus two minutes, got it?”

“Got it, Cap’n.” Oliver saluted awkwardly before heading toward the end of the hall, to the master bedroom.

Kyan backtracked and padded softly into the kitchen. He carefully picked up a bowl from the dish rack and turned on the hot tap, waiting a minute or so for the water to warm up. He filled the bowl a little above halfway, then doing his best to hold it steady, he padded back out to the hallway. Oliver had not yet returned.

As the seconds ticked by, he began to worry that the warm water was steadily turning not-so-warm. Soon, it would be room temperature, making it completely useless, and he would have to do it all over again. Argh, they were wasting time! He stared at the bedroom door and concentrated with all his might, willing Oliver to come walking through it. Suddenly, he heard a click behind him, and light flooded the hall. Kyan spun around, sloshing water onto the carpet.

“Well, well, well, what do you think you’re doing?” asked Amanda in a hushed, though still haughty, voice. Zoe peeked out from behind her shoulder.

“Are you crazy? Turn off the light!” whispered Kyan.

Amanda flipped the switch, and the two girls approached in the semi-darkness.

“So, what are you doing sneaking around in the middle of the night?” asked Amanda, eyeing the bowl of water in Kyan’s hands.

Kyan noticed the direction of her gaze and quickly responded, “I was just getting a drink of water. What’s it to you?”

“You’re drinking out of a bowl? Yeah, right. And where’s Olive Oil anyway?”

Before Kyan could think of something to say, they heard the rustling of carpet as a moving door brushed over the floor. They all turned toward the sound as a figure emerged from Mr. and Mrs. Pufferly’s bedroom. Kyan opened his mouth to say something, but before any sound came out, the figure darted across the hall and into the study directly opposite, closing the door behind it.

“Where is he going?” mumbled Kyan. “Here, hold this.” He shoved the bowl into Amanda’s surprised hands.

“I’m not—” she began, but before Amanda could finish protesting, Kyan had already made his way down the hall and opened the study door. He quickly backed into the room, glancing at the girls to make sure they weren’t following, and closed the door. He wanted to have a little pow-wow with Oliver about this slight hiccup in their plans, but when he turned to face the room, he couldn’t believe what he saw.

Instead of finding Oliver, he found another boy, one who seemed so very familiar, though Kyan was certain they’d never met before. But that wasn’t the most surprising thing. The most surprising thing was that this boy was climbing down a window. Yes, that’s right, down a window. The window was in the floor.

Well, not exactly.

It took Kyan a moment to realize that the window was still in the wall, but the entire room had somehow rotated, making the wall the floor. His father’s desk, and everything on it, hung on the wall to his left, magically unaffected by gravity. Everything was the same as before, just…shifted. An icy blue light emanated from the open window and eerily lit the room.

At the sound of Kyan’s entrance, the boy halted in his escape and looked up. Their eyes met, and something in Kyan’s head clicked in recognition. He couldn’t quite wrap his brain around it, but he suddenly knew exactly who this boy was.

“Dad?”

Without an answer, the boy broke his gaze, slipped through the window, and was gone.