april fools fool

i'm about to do some reminiscing right now, so bear with me.

generally for me, april 1st marks nothing more than the beginning of my birthday month. oh, april is indeed a wonderful month. but the whole game pulling pranks on friends and family has never really caught on. i'm usually not a fooler, nor a fool. there is, however, this one april 1st that i will always remember. an april fools in which i played both roles, as my brilliant prank backfired.

i can't really remember how old i was...perhaps sixth grade. why not...we'll go with that. it was a time where becca and i were still bff with our childhood friend who lived just down the street. we spent our time from pre-school until somewhere around that time playing in the creek in her backyard and the lake in mine. nothing could sever our friendship...until the time of middle school, where old friends are abandoned to make new ones in an attempt to climb up the social ladder. its funny how that happens.

so anyway, this particular april fools, the three of us had the most devious trick to pull on our parents. i don't know who came up with it first, but somehow plans were set into motion and next thing i knew, i was up at two whatever in the morning, in the crisp early spring night, running down the driveway, and there was no turning back. all i could do was run as fast as i could to meet up with my friend halfway between our houses, beneath the yellow glow of the streetlight. tired and out of breath, we met, exclaimed our expressions of what-the-heck-are-we-doings? and then set off to each others houses. yes. for some reason, we were going to wake up the next morning and surprise each other’s parents. genius.

now that i look back on it, i kinda got the short end of the stick. i mean, they were gonna get to have a fun sleepover and giggle all night. i was going to be all alone in my best friend's house, with nothing but her unpleasant cat, friskey, to give me a not-so-welcoming greeting. i wasn't really aware of this at the time. it was a really long night...i couldn't sleep very well with all the excitement. morning eventually came...i heard her mom open the door as i pulled the covers over my head. this was it. this was the moment!

"time to get up for school" her mom said...in my made up recreation of this memory in my mind. i really don't remember what exactly she said...but it was something to that extent. i pretended not to hear through the thick comforter i had pulled around my ears. she walked over and gave me a shake and told me once again that it was time to get up. before i could reveal myself, she had turned and left the room to go downstairs to make breakfast. well crap. i quickly grabbed my clothes out of my plastic kroger bag and threw them on. i stealthily crept down the stairs...i don't know why. its not like my best friend never made any noise on her way down to breakfast. but thats what i did.

i came around the corner and her mom was busy flipping pancakes. bonus! we hardly ever got a cooked breakfast at my house. i guess the chocolate chip pancakes make up for not having a partner in crime all night. her mom assumed that i was her daughter. without looking, she started rambling off the list of all the chores i needed to get done for the day, yada yada. i sat down at the table and she finally turned around to bring the hot pancakes to the table. her eyes got all big as she exclaimed "what are you doing here?"..."april fools!" i cried. yes! the surprise had worked. she burst out laughing, along with the others, who were just as surprised. however, she didn't realize that i was taking the place of her daughter because she started calling her. it kinda ruined the excitement of the moment because i had to explain to her that her daughter was at my house.

meanwhile, my mom came in to wake becca and the replacement me. just as i did, she had pulled the covers over her head as my mom entered. my mom simply expects us to get up...so like usual, she just came into the room, told us to get up, and then left. no fantastic wake up surprise then either. they stayed in bed, not really knowing what to do. finally, when my mom realized we weren’t getting up, she came back in and saw my friend in my bed! "april fools!" oh, so good. they had no idea it was coming.

neither did we. as we were celebrating our fantastic april fools joke and pridefully sharing with everyone we could of the nights events, our moms were coming up with a plan of their own. becca and i arrived home from school to see my mother with a worried look on her face. apparently, the neighbors had seen some children running around the neighborhood in the middle of the night and filed a police report. we had broken curfew, which is a big deal in our hometown...the police are strict. as young, innocent girls who never got in trouble, we were horrified. my friend's mom volunteered to take us to the police station, where they we were to confess. of course, we were all in tears by the time we piled into their suburban and on our way to the station. we waited outside as her mom went in to talk to someone. we should have suspected then, but we were too overwhelmed with emotions.

we filed in, and i'm sure the police man could clearly read the fear that was on our faces. "follow me." that was it...we were balling and all of a sudden, things spiraled into confusion. her mother turned around and yelled "april fools" as she snapped a picture of our red, tear-stained faces. oh. that was an evil one. i had no idea what she had said, until the whole office broke out in laughter and my eyes had readjusted from the camera flash. then, it all sunk in. we'd been duped...and our own fabulous prank had totally backfired.

i never saw that picture. honestly, i don't really want to. i suppose i can still taste the salt from my tear-stained cheeks because its a pretty bitter memory, seeing as our moms trumped us on our best attempt at an april fools.