Aftermath (Prt 2 of April Fools)

There was a knock on the dorm door. May looked up from her book, startled. She was just uncurling herself from her position on her bed to go answer it when Lyra rushed out of the bathroom, hurredly throwing her fluffy brown hair into pigtails. With a wink at her roommate, she assured her, “I’ll answer it. It’s your turn for the bathroom, anyway.” May hesitated, curious to see who was at the door, but at a pointed look from her friend the other brunette sighed, slipping off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

Lyra opened the door, quite surprised at who she saw there; then again, why would she have expected different?

“Hey Lyra, I’m heading over to Ethan’s while he’s still in class. If you’re still up for a little more mischief today, you’re welcome to come with.”

Lyra’s smiled in a way that almost seemed devious. “It’d be a pleasure. Hey, May!” she called back into the dorm before she shut the door. “You can go ahead and eat lunch without me! I won’t be back for a while!” On a second thought, Lyra dashed back in to nab a bag of small marshmallows from the food stash before darting back out, shutting the door behind her.

By the time May had hastily finished and scurried over to inquire why, the two were long gone, up to no good, no doubt.
 

xxxxxP0KÉDUCKxxxxx
 

Ethan Gold trudged back to his dorm from his Calculus class, complicated number patterns swirling around in his fatigued brain. Just leave it to math to ruin a perfect day… But at least it was close enough to walk home. To clear the math from his head and lighten his mood, he began to recall the fun of the past twelve hours—about how he and Lyra had snuck over to Silver’s apartment at midnight and rigged it full of Fool’s day pranks, about Silver’s reaction to his car, (though Ethan silently admitted now that perhaps the duct tape had been a little overboard; it would be difficult to remove it without damaging the paint) how Ethan had somehow lost Silver in the chase and got away free, and how even though Lyra got caught, she skipped away without more than a few stern words. Ethan shook his head, chuckling to himself. He could swear that Silver had a soft spot for their pig-tailed friend. Or maybe it was just that the short-tempered redhead found Ethan particularly irritating. After all, Ethan was the one that kept doing stupid stuff—like duct-taping cars and replacing coffee with brown jellybeans, for instance. For the first time, Ethan wondered whether Silver had actually tried to USE the candy, and if it had messed up the coffee maker…better to hope that he hadn’t. Silver would have his head for sure.

Ethan had arrived at his dorm, and his thoughts froze in place along with his feet when he caught sight of what was out of place there.

Marshmallows. It had Lyra written all over it. Obviously a crack at her own nickname, “Marshmallow Head,” which both Ethan and Silver were guilty of calling her from time to time. Who would ever have thought that Ethan would regret it someday?

His car was covered in the fluffy white things. All were somehow clinging to the exterior, making it look like a Christmas snow had come a few months late. There was hardly an inch of the car that didn’t have at least one marshmallow. The first thought that came to Ethan’s head was how much Lyra had spent on the little white suckers. The second was why she would betray him; they never pranked each other! Other people, sure, but never amongst themselves. As Ethan approached the car, he quickly realized that the car was too white, especially around the windows. There weren’t as many marshmallows as he’d first thought, but then how could only one bag of them make a blue car look as if it were snowed in…?

Ethan stopped in front of the driver’s door, peering inside. Something white was obscuring his vision through the window. Perhaps more marshmallows stuck to the inside of the glass? Odd, but not unimaginably so. The windows were just tinted enough that he couldn’t quite tell…

Only one way to find out, he thought to himself reluctantly, pulling out his keys and unlocking the car. He opened the door…and was showered with a billion white, peanut-sized snowballs.

No…they weren’t snowballs, Ethan decided after his shock subsided. Curious, he stooped to pick up one of the off-white objects. Styrofoam. They were…packing peanuts? Someone had filled his car…with packing peanuts. This did not seem like Lyra’s work at all. She wouldn’t have the inclination or the patience to fill up the whole car, no matter how small it was, with boxes upon boxes’ worth of Styrofoam peanuts. Then who on Earth…?

“Car trouble?” a familiar voice sneered close by. Ethan spun to see Silver and Lyra standing off to the side a few paces, obviously having watched the whole spectacle. Lyra had both hands clasped over her mouth, though it didn’t hide the laughter in her eyes, and Silver had his arms crossed casually, a smirk plastered on his face.

Ethan couldn’t quite place how he felt. Surely he should be angry at them…but, of course, it was a prank worth admiring. Definitely humorous. Should he be laughing his head off? Instead, all he could conjure was incredulity.

Pausing to pluck a marshmallow from his car, Ethan approached Lyra, a stern expression on his face. “I can’t believe you!” he blurted.

Lyra let out another silent giggle, despite the nervous flicker in her eyes. She plainly wasn’t sure how Ethan would react to this turn of events. Meanwhile, Silver watched the exchange with curiosity. It wasn’t often that one found Ethan truly upset about anything for long. It would be interesting to see how this turned out.

“I can’t believe you,” the raven-haired boy repeated. He shook the fluffy white candy in Lyra’s face. “Such a waste of perfectly good marshmallows!”

At this, both Lyra and Ethan burst out laughing, and even Silver let out a chuckle. “Seriously, though,” Ethan continued with a smile. “It was an excellent prank, but there are a thousand better ways to use a bag of marshmallows.”

Lyra shrugged, grinning. “I dealt with what I had.”

Ethan’s face changed as he turned to Silver. “Speaking of dealing with what you have…” His amber gaze searched Silver’s curiously. “Where exactly did you get all those packing peanuts? And on second thought, how’d you fill my car to the roof with them?”

Silver simply smirked, his mercury eyes glittering with amusement. “I have my ways.” With that, he turned and strolled off, heading back in the direction of his apartment. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a…car wash to get to,” he called over his shoulder with a devious grin at Ethan. “You may want to clean yours up, too, before your next class.”

Ethan paled considerably. His next class was across campus. Without a car…it was a long walk.

Cursing under his breath, Ethan tackled the task of plucking marshmallows from the exterior of his car. He paused for a moment to watch Silver’s retreating figure disappear around the corner, and then turned to look at Lyra. “One minute he’s all Mr. Uptight, next he’s pranking us. He used to just get mad…now he gets mad and even. What happened to him?”

Lyra smirked sardonically, which was unusual for her. “We happened,” she responded cryptically. Winking at him, she disappeared back into the dorm building, leaving her confused friend to his work.