Kate didn’t want to go anywhere for spring break. She seldom went out in general, and preferred the comfort and warmth of her home.
But her class had already made plans, and she was a part of it. Everyone was needed for the prank, and everyone wanted to participate in it, but her.
When the last bell rung on the Friday before spring break, she wondered why none of the 10th graders were making their way to their buses, but loitering around the school building. The buses were there, but it was only the people above their grade going into them.
Kate clutched the straps of her backpack and looked at the long stream of yellow school buses that none of her classmates were occupying. Behind her, the whole class of 2017 talked, laughed and socialized to one another. She was the only one not talking to someone; she was the only isolated person.
Most of the times, she told herself that she didn’t mind being alone, and that being alone is nice. There’s no one to argue with, no one to tell you you’re wrong or that what you’re thinking is incorrect. If she talked to people, they would irritate her and try to make her feel less intelligent.
But deep down, a part of her craved social interactions from people outside of her family. Sometimes she wanted to talk to those around her, her peers. She felt like she wasn’t normal enough to have close friends or to be someone that people wanted to be around.
But she wouldn’t know what to say, or what was the proper protocol when it came to having a conversation. What would she do with her hands?
So she was as surprised as a kid who found out that Santa wasn’t real, when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She already had one foot on the step of the bus.
It was a girl she had never seen before. She had dark black hair, strange eyes and wore clothes that wouldn’t look right on Kate. Some people, like this girl, Kate thought, could made jeans and a tee-shirt look fashionable. Kate wore skirts and lace shirts with shoes that matched, but still no one noticed.
The girl with the black hair skipped introductions.
“You’re a part of the class of 2017?”
The girl had said it like a statement but Kate wondered if it was really a question, so she nodded.
“Get off the bus. We’re planning for the prank.”
Eye contact was weird for Kate. And this girl had, no doubt, a colored contact in that made her right eye blue. Kate took her foot off of the step and waited for the next set of instructions.
“Don’t you know that?” With a certain tone, the question could’ve come off rude, but the girl said it in a way that wasn’t so intimidating.
Kate shrugged. The girl turned around and was walking away. Kate stood there in her place and pulled down her skirt a little. The bus driver was giving her a hard look.
After walking a few feet ahead, the girl turned around to face Kate. “Come.” She said after making a strange face.
Kate scurried away from the buses, and towards the mob of 10th graders. Her mom was going to yell at her.
“Anna!” Someone called towards their direction. Kate was now surrounded by the people whom she’d been in school with since elementary school, but still didn’t talk to.
Was there a secret to continuing conversations? She watched curiously as the diverse group of people socialized among each other. They nodded, laughed; some even had bored looks on the face.
A tall boy suddenly came in front of Kate’s view. He had shiny brown hair and matching colored eyes. They conflicted once they landed on Kate.
“What are you doing with Kate?”
Kate was startled that someone knew her name. She had to remind herself that these people had been in her middle school too.
“What do you mean?” The girl, Anna, questioned. “It’s all 10th graders for the prank, right?”
Kate didn’t know where else to look but her feet. She wore brown boots that took a lot of persuading to buy from her mother.
“Right.” She heard the tall boy answer finally.
“Where’s Ben?”Anna asked.
Kate recognized the name. Ben was the class president which everyone despised. Sure, no one hated Kate, directly at least, but Ben, as much as he was distrusted, everyone still knew. He seemed like an okay person, but after he won class president, he acted like the teacher’s pet. Kate heard people talk about how he stopped hanging out with his friends and acted like a teacher himself.
But he was running this prank?
Sure enough he was, Kate thought as she saw a glimpse of him whistling from afar. The chatter died down and everyone eagerly looked towards his direction. He held up a white blow horn and put it in front of his mouth.
“My class!” he started off with. Some people replied in cheers, others, in mumbles as if they weren’t sure if this was worth their time or not.
Kate had history homework to do. When would her mom start to notice?
“I know some of you do not like me and my ways. I am, after all, class president.”
Most people scoffed.
“But I am also your friend. Together, we will do this prank that will get the teachers so good. Do not forget that I am among the same class and age as you all. Yes, I am familiar with the teachers, but we are in this together!”
Some people, this time, clapped. Kate wondered if in some schools, students actually liked their teachers, because here they didn’t. Kate liked some of her teachers as individuals, adults, but not as the person who assigns them what to do and when to do it by. But still, she did her work.
“We start today, and end glorious!”
Kate cringed as people burst into random fits of cheering and hollering. She looked to her right and saw, through the tangle of people, that the buses were now all gone.
“Bring it in boys!” Ben shouted.
Everyone suddenly rose to their toes, trying to get a glimpse of what was being brought in.
Kate wasn’t tall enough to see, but she heard enough people say it, to understand.
Spray paint.
Apparently someone had rolled in a shopping cart full of it.
“Nice!” Besides Kate, Anna clapped once. The tall boy nodded.
“This is just the first part.” Anna spoke to the boy or to Kate, she didn’t know. But Kate nodded and tried to ignore how much pain her heavy backpack was giving her. The weight of her heavy textbooks and spring break work dug into her shoulders.
Ben must’ve said something else, because everyone started swarming forwarding, and there were plastic bags everywhere. Plastic bags that must’ve been holding all of the spray paint together.
People retrieved with different colors of spray paint. Red, blue, green, purple.
Kate didn’t want to move, but the people behind her thought otherwise. She was shoved forward, tripping and colliding into bodies that didn’t smell too pleasant. Backpacks and feet slammed into her.
When she finally reached the cart, there were only a few selections of colors left. The ugly ones.
She watched as Anna grabbed a crimson red one, a color that looked like blood, and as the tall boy scavenged the last black bottle.
“Pick one.” He said to her when he caught her looking. Kate looked away, and reached her hand inside and pulled out whichever one touched her first.
She got pink.
Kate loved pink.
~
Everyone was more spread out, now that the whole spray paint massacre was over. People who were stuck with the bad colors grunted and complained, but they took them anyway.
There were people that were in charge of this prank, below Ben. Kate did not know that there were leaders in pranks. Those that told you where to put your backpacks, and where to stand, and when to spray.
No one followed the latter rule. Everyone started to spray at random, on the brick walls, windows, doors, even the ground and sidewalks.
They whooped and hollered. Kate was surprised that no one had heard them, but no one was home for the holiday.
So this was the prank that wasn’t so much of a prank, she thought. Vandalism.
She watched in shock as people ran around the whole school building, spraying paint in random strokes, blobs, and explicit words.
She stood in front of a wall that was empty until some small kid scribbled purple over it, and she held her bottle, unopened.
“Hey.” Someone spoke to her. She gasped and turned to find the tall skinny boy. “Relax. It’s just me, Henry.”
She nodded.
“Why haven’t you started yet?” He looked at the wall in front of her, “Unless you already used up a purple can.”
Kate shook her head hard; she couldn’t believe that someone would think that she did that.
. “That wasn’t me.” she said quickly. Henry furrowed his eyebrows. “Alright then.” He said slowly and put his hands up in mock surrender. Kate was about to walk away, when he grabbed the pink bottle from her hand and sprayed a small dot on the wall ,as if for testing the pressure.
Then, she pushed it back into her hand.
“Go.” He said. She looked down at her hand and the paint. Henry sighed and started to shake up his own bottle. “Like this.” He stood to the side and sprayed a black star on the wall.
The fresh paint smelled bad.
“This is vandalism.” Kate whispered, as if some authority might hear. Henry looked like he was trying not to laugh. Behind him, Anna walked up with a big smile on her face.
“Start yet?” she nodded towards Kate.
“About to.” Henry replied before grabbing Kate’s hand and the can. She tried to pull away, but she has already done it. There was a big pink blob in front of her that she did. Kate gasped even louder this time, and pulled her hand away from Henry.
Anna laughed and ran past them. “This is too fun!” She shouted.
“You have to keep going now.” Henry spoke. But Kate kept looking at the paint spray she had just created. She was going to go to prison for this.
“Anna, is it? You need to keep going. The school is big and life is only so long.” He started to walk away with some disappointment in his voice. “You should have fun with it.”
Then he vanished with a mob of people.
Kate was the only person that didn’t cover her wall. More people had sprayed over her pink blob though, but when Ben went around, checking the walls, he stopped at hers.
“Um excuse me?”
Kate turned to him.
“What is this? Where’s the color? The passion!”
Kate couldn’t help but think of all the trouble she’d be in once she got home.
“Spray the wall.”
Anna couldn’t do it again. When this police come and scan the DNA, she didn’t want hers to be found.
“Did someone hurt you as a child?”
Kate knew it was suppose to be a joke, but it didn’t sound funny. She ignored Ben’s random question and did it. She pressed down on the button and sprayed more pink. Just so that he would shut up.
This felt so wrong.
“Good. We’re almost done for today. Before you leave, I expect there to be more pink sprays on the wall.”
Ben walked away, leaving Kate and her wall of limited pink. But just as he left, Anna ran up to her. She was out of breath.
“You don’t want to hold back Kate.” Anna finally said after a minute of staring at Kate. Everyone’s paint can was done, but hers. The whole school looked like it came from a children’s coloring book.
The sun was setting now too.
“Life is only a breath. You breathe in and breathe out, and one day, you won’t breathe out.”
It got to Kate because these were the kinds of things she read. Inspirational and motivational quotes. How Anna knew she read these things, she doesn’t know, but she knew the truth of it all. Life was all about taking chances and doing things without hesitation. It was about pushing the limits and seeing how far you can go. See how good you can be.
It took a while for Kate to realize that that was exactly was what she wasn’t doing.
And now, she was face to face with another situation that could continue her life of nothingness, or.
Kate pressed down on the can and drew shaped, lines, letters.
“Yes Kate!” Anna cheered. Kate moved her arm so fast, that it hurt when she was done. She even ran a little to cover some of the other walls or windows, signing her name almost, in pink paint.
But Kate didn’t have enough time to stand back and realize that she had just done something technically illegal. Anna pulled her by the arm, causing her to drop her paint can, and they ran to the front of the school where everyone was gathering together.
Almost everyone had paint stains on them. Kate looked down and wasn’t surprised to see that her white shirt wasn’t so white anymore.
“We’ve created a masterpiece!” This time, she was closer to the front of the crowd and was able to see Ben shout on.
“We need a volunteer to go to the store and pick up some more,” he paused, as if he was thinking what the proper word to use was. “Materials…”
“I’ll do it.” Almost directly across from her, Henry had his arm up and a smile on. Why was he smiling? Ben went on talking, but Henry met Kate’s eyes.
He mouthed. “Go with me?”
She was already shaking her head, but Anna elbowed her. It wasn’t strong enough to hurt her, but it might as well have been. She shot a glare at Kate, a glare that read of the same things she had said to her. Life is short. There are chances to take.
Kate shrugged and began making her way away from the crowd, and closer to the streets. Luckily for her, this wouldn’t take too long since there was the store just a sidewalk away from the school.
She caught up with Henry.
“Thanks.” He said. “Do you even know what the materials are?” she questioned. He nodded his head. “Just some more things that will bring this school to justice.”
Kate felt herself frowning. Then she stopped, because frowning wasn’t pretty. And frowning created wrinkles. “Why did Ben decide to trash the school?”
They turned the corner and started to walk into the store. “He was tired of it. Aren’t we all?” Henry looked at Kate but she just kept her eyes forward.
She wasn’t tired of school. She actually liked it. She loved home, but she knew if she was at home all the time, she would lose her mind. At least at school things changed. People changed. People like Ben who was the good boy class president.
Since Kate didn’t know what they were getting, she just followed Henry around as he picked up random items. Eggs, streamers. She was struggling to keep up with his fast walk and didn’t quite see the other things he was getting.
“Can you go find the toilet paper and get a pack?” He asked her. She didn’t want to go find them. She didn’t want to go find a pack. But she did because she was with him and they were buying things together. Why did they need toilet paper? Where they stocking up for the school?
Before she could question, he had walked the other way.
Kate found the toilet paper easily. There was a whole isle full of them.
But only when she rounded the corner, did her mouth fall open. Her mother was there. She retreated her steps and closed her eyes. Maybe she was just hallucinating it. Yeah, hallucinating. She was doing something so out of the box for her, that she was just having very vivid imaginations.
Heart thudding fast, she peered around the edge again and sure enough, her mother was there. Real and not imaginary. Her mother had her head tilted, her phone squished between her ear and shoulder. Kate’s little brother was in the basket, playing with a box of cereal.
Kate’ mom was on the phone and was looking the other way.
Taking chances. Anna’s voice came out of nowhere in her head.
Kate had to do it fast. She walked, practically jogged where the toilet paper packs were and grabbed one from the bottom shelf.
But when she looked up, a pair of eyes were looking at her.
No, not her mom’s, but her brother’s, Freddie.
She quickly held a finger to her lips and began walking backwards. Freddie was only 3 and couldn’t make their mom turn around.
But when she was just hitting the safe zone. Freddie dropped his cereal box and pointed in front of him with his small finger that was shiny with saliva.
“Kate.” His pronunciation wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to get her mother to turn around.
Kate went off running to find Henry. She couldn’t do this behind her mother’s back. Kate was a good girl, one that never gets in trouble.
Her mom probably did turn around and smile at Freddie at saying his sister’s name. But then, she would probably be angry because she still hadn’t seen Kate home from school.
School.
Kate ran to the checkout line and jumped next to Henry who was getting his wallet out. He grabbed a lot of other things.
“My mom.” Kate breathed. “is here.”
“Your mom?” He raised an eyebrow. “So what? We’re just leaving anyways. God Kate you look like you just murdered a person.”
“My mom is going to the school next. To find me. She’s going to see the school and call the police.”
Henry’s eyes widen and he nodded, grabbing their bags and saying thank you to the cashier. Kate helped hold a bag.
“We better do this quick.” They ran back to the school which was slightly harder with the four bags, but still made it back quick.
Somehow the school had looked worst. And it was because it was worst, Kate thought as they walked closer.
All of the windows were smashed, cracked, and open. Pieces of the glass were surrounding the school in awkward bend out shapes.
“Ben.” Henry called speed walking. Kate jogged.
“There’s going to be a parent coming here and they are most liking going to call the police. Kate looked around them. She hadn’t noticed how dark it was getting. Had they really been at this for this long?
Ben didn’t look worried, but maybe a little nervous. “All right. We have to do this fast then. Good thing we’re almost done.”
Done with what? Vandalizing?
Kate ran away from them and closer to the school. Even the door was swinging wide open. She went inside and her mouth dropped.
Destruction was everywhere. The walls were stained in paint, words, and symbols. The lockers were dented, like someone had a bat and was swinging it and banging it.
The hallway floor was covered in paint and papers and random garbage.
She passed a few classrooms and saw that each of them were trashed to the maximum. Boards were falling off walls. Tables, smashed. Chairs, turned over and sprayed with paint. But it wasn’t only paint. It was silly string. They stuck on things like spider webs, and stretched onto other items. It was the one that came in cans and were used for parties, like ones on New Year’s.
The ones that Henry had just bought with Kate.
Papers, folders, stuck to the string. Kate turned and saw that the teacher’s desk had been emptied and smashed.
“Pretty isn’t it?”
She turned around and saw Anna, grinning at the mess like an art piece. In her hand she had a can of silly string.
Kate didn’t know what to say.
“Answer me Kate.” Anna snapped, spraying some string onto the door way. It smelled cheap, artificial, like plastic.
“It’s pretty.” Kate mumbled, not believing it for a second. Anna grinned. “So what did you and Henry buy?”
She was about to answer, just as a flying egg came through the door, right over Anna’s head. She startled, but smiled, turning around. “Eggs!” She ran and came back with two full carts. Henry had brought that much?
But they had been running.
Anna opened the cart and revealed mostly damaged eggs. She shrugged and took one and threw it at the board. Then, one at Kate.
Kate gasped, but then shut her mouth close. Yolk streamed from down her head, over her eyes and onto her cheeks. She swiped it off of her, then grabbed an egg from the cart and smashed it at Anna’s face.
“Don’t do that.” Kate said before running off.
She wanted to cry really. The whole school was coming to pieces and she was a part of it. How soon will her mom come and ground her forever. She’ll practically disown me Kate thought.
Traces of eggs were everywhere. The shells, yolk, whites. Kate felt sick.
Outside had it even worst. People were throwing toilet paper rolls.
Oh my god. Kate thought. They’re teepeeing the school. She had only seen it done on TV, never real life. But it was happening right in front of her. She stared in shock and didn’t even realize someone had pushed a full roll into her hands. She had help buy these rolls.
“Like this.” Ben came up from behind her and chucked the roll so high, it almost made it to the roof.
Kate’s hair was sticking to her head and she wanted to throw up. She took the roll and threw it anyway. Unleashing her anger at everything. Her mom, Anna, Ben, this whole school.
Her whole life.
Why?
A car beeped behind her and then a car door slammed shut. The sound was all too familiar. She turned around slowly, and saw her mom stalking out of the car. Kate gulped and was shaking. She was going to get into so much trouble. So much.
“Kate Dianne Robinson!” she screamed coming closer.
But the next few seconds happened too fast. Someone pushed something into her hand and the toilet paper roll dropped. She was holding a box, a square.
There was the sound of the people running behind her, running from her mom? Her mom’s face was red with anger. Why couldn’t have someone else’s parent come. Why must it be her mom? The principal of the school.
Kate shivered in her paint stained clothes and egged hair. She looked down at her shaking hands, and saw that it was a box of matches.
Something was crackling behind her, but she couldn’t look away from her mother’s raged face and she came to realization of what she had done.
Her mom opened her mouth, but Kate never heard what she said next, because just at that moment, the school exploded into flames behind her.