[Insert Clever Title Here] - Part One

EDIT: This was previously named Trivial Things.


I am on a roll.  Every single thing I get done tonight boosts my ego a bit. Now, I'm going to post this, then go eat some chili before embarking on a mathematical journey. I had heaps of fun writing this.


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If there’s one thing in the world I love more than anything else, it’s pranking people.

Well, no.  Actually, if there’s one thing I love more than anything else, it’s peppermints, but pranking the suckers at my school lands in a close second.  I should be paid to prank people.  My pranks are much too glorious to be done for free.  And yet I do them anyway, because the world would spontaneously combust if I didn’t.

I quite like my world non-combusted, thank you.

Now, where was I?  Ah yes, the pranking.  What does this have to do with the story, you ask?  Nothing really, it just leads us to where we are now.  Which is a room at my school with the principal in it.  Currently, I’m sitting in the most uncomfortable chair in the non-combusted world, side by side with my good ol’ pal, Ice.

And no, for all the name obsessed weirdos out there, Ice isn’t the name her parents gave her.  It’s short for Alice, which isn’t her given name either.  Her given name is actually --- ow.  Ice just punched me.  Apparently I’m not allowed to tell you her given name.  I guess that’s fair though, as you’re not getting my given name either, and won’t get it anytime soon.  But everyone calls me Darq, so you can too, okay?

Okay.

“I cannot believe you girls!”  Ah, my principal.  The one man in most need of a hug that you’ll ever meet if you ever have the misfortune to meet him.  Imagine a short, pudgy, balding, red-faced man with a huge nose, and that’s him.  His name is Mr.….something I can’t be bothered to remember (which is probably why he hates Ice and I so very, very much).  But I do remember that his first name is Joe, so we’ll just call him Joe.

“Why is that, sir?” Ice asked from her position beside me.  “What have we done this time?”  Sarcasm was dripping from her words like poison.  Which, you know, ticked Joe off.

“You know what you did!” he snapped.  True, very true.  We did know what we had done.  We had been the ones to do it.  But no way were we going to make this easy for him.  Because then the world would spontaneously combust.

Once again, un-combusted world = happy Darq.

“I’m afraid we don’t know,” Ice told him sincerely.  She was totally trying not to laugh.  “Or, at least I don’t.  Maybe Darq knows?” she added, turning to me.

Joe’s beady eyes narrowed.  They reminded me of a shrew, and I’m not incredibly fond of shrews, so I looked away to his hair.  It was getting some gray in it.  I bet Ice and I caused some of it.

“I refuse to call you by that ridiculous nickname, Miss (insert my given name here),” Mr. Schmancy-Pants Joe told me, “but maybe you can enlighten your incompetent friend as to why you are here yet again.”

I tapped my chin with my finger, pretending to think.  “Maybe it’s because you had nothing better to do than call us down here?” I suggested.

 Joe glared at me.  “No.”

“You wanted to share a cup of tea with us?”

“No.”

I shrugged.  “Sorry, I suck at guessing games.”

“She does,” Ice mused.  “She really does.”

I smacked her on the back on the head.

Joe glared at us some more.  “This is not a game,” he hissed.  “You two super-glued shut my office door!”

Ah.  Yes, that explains why we were here and why we were in the Spanish room.

But we hadn’t done that.

Ice and I exchanged a quick glance.  I could see a slight bit of panic in her emerald eyes.  I’m sure mine reflected it.  We had put an exploding cake in Joe’s office, but never super-glued the door shut.  That would defeat the purpose of the cake.

Yes, okay, we were the most notorious pranksters in our school, but there were others.  People who weren’t as willing to prank all the time as us, but could still pull off a mildly amusing one now and then.  They were always caught and charged justly.  I guess the culprit wanted to see Joe standing in front of his office door, cursing and screaming at it.  That would have been hysterical.  But no, they didn’t get that show.  Joe had automatically blamed us for it.  Maybe because Ice and I hadn’t pulled any pranks in a while.  We had been out of school sick, and thus the still un-exploded cake.  This was the first time we had been blamed for someone else’s crime.  It wasn’t fun.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, leaning forward.  “We didn’t pull that prank.”

Joe laughed cruelly.  “You expect me to believe you?”

I put one hand over my heart and raised the other.  “Scout’s honor, sir.  We – the evilest people in the entire school system – did not pull this prank.”

“And just that makes me believe that you did it,” Joe said with an exasperated sigh.

Ice glared at him.  She may be a fun-loving, purple-haired gal, but she can be scary as heck when she wants to be.

And yes, her hair is purple.  I have known Ice my entire life and haven’t seen her with a normal hair color since the second grade.  Her hair is always the same shade of royal purple with different colored streaks in it (currently periwinkle).  I don’t really remember her natural hair color.  I think she was a brunette.  Maybe.

“Have you checked the security tapes?” Ice asked coolly.  Joe’s jaws tightened.  Ha, he hadn’t thought of that.  Ice sighed.  “Thought so.”

Joe pointed an accusing finger at us.  “I am going to check the tapes.  You will stay here.”  Then he turned and walked out the door, locking it behind him.

Ice turned to me, one eyebrow raised.  “’Scouts honor’?”

I shrugged, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a peppermint.  “It was worth a shot.  Sanguine told Valkyrie that in Playing with Fire.”

Ice grinned.  Ah, did I forget to mention that we are avid Skulduggery Pleasant fans?  Well, now you know.

We like anime too.

“You’re not a scout,” Ice pointed out.

I shrugged again, popping the peppermint into my mouth.  “I highly doubt that Sanguine was either.”

“True, true…” she mused.  Her gazed fell on the locked door.  “When do you think he’ll be back?”

“Never.  He’ll probably just keep us in here all day or something,” I muttered sulkily, not putting it past Joe to do such a thing.  I brushed my silvery-white bangs out of my eyes to observe a poster with the Spanish alphabet written on it.  Yes, I am an albino.  Get over it, it’s not that amazing.  Actually, no, don’t get over it.  It is amazing, but only because it’s me who’s an albino, and I am amazing.

My ego is huge.  It comes with every Darq you order, free of charge.  Just pay shipping and handling.

After getting over her giggles at my accusation, Ice opened her mouth to say something.  I still don’t know what smart remark she was going to make, because, at that moment, an alarm in the building went off.  The evacuation drill alarm.

The voice of our vice principal came on the P.A. system.  “Students and teachers!” she said, sounding terrified.  “Please exit the building immediately.  This is not a drill!  I repeat, this is not a drill!” The P.A. was cut off.  There were a few minutes of frantic screaming, running, and shouting in the halls, and then the school building went eerily quiet.

Slowly, ever so slowly, as though time itself had slowed down, I turned my eyes to meet Ice’s.  Her panic wasn't suppressed this time.  It was blaring out at me full-force.  At that moment, I knew eight things:

1)        We were locked in our school with a bunch of crazy people.

2)        No one knew where we were.

3)        We needed to get out of here now.

4)        I had no clue how to get us out.

5)       Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain weren’t going to burst through a window and save us.

6)       No one was going to burst through a window and save us.  Period.

7)       I am going to kill Joe.

8)       I need to go to the bathroom.

Hey, I have the attention span of a goldfish.  That last thought was bound to end up in there somehow.  You need to stop expecting better things from me.  Seriously.

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Yeah, uhh...y'know how I said the recap will only last through part 1 and maybe part 2? Well, the recap will be going on for all of part 2 and probably part of part 3. Ok? Ok.