EIGHTEEN

I stood with Tyler by his locker the next day, talking about Mr Shiver's new and horrid haircut, when suddenly,

Pop!! And then a shriek.

A hush fell over the entire hallway, and then loud laughter ensued. I exchanged glances with a hysterically laughing Tyler and smiled contentedly.

Sophia Edgar stood in front of her locker, transfixed, both hands raised to each side of her face. Her entire face, white top and upper arm evenly covered in red paint. A few droplets of the paint were mingled with her hair and splattered on her blue jean trouser.

It was an amazing sight... one worthy to behold.

Within a few seconds, she was surrounded by her friends, one of whom was Claire Davis... Weird, but what happened next was even weirder. Claire, while wearing a concerned look on her face, wiped Sophia's face with a tissue, and then guided her toward the female restroom along with the others.

The next time I saw Sophia was during lunch. It was obvious that her friends had done their best in removing all evidence of the prank that occurred earlier that day. She had a new top on and her blue jeans had been cleansed of any paint splatters, but as she settled on her lunch table, I could notice some red paint lodged in her hair. A satisfied smile spread across my face, they had tried, but a little evidence of the prank was still there.

“You told me we had something to talk about.” Tyler reminded me. “You should probably get to it before Carl, Mason and Jade get here.”

“Yeah. Um, Claire wanted to find out if you had a spare room.”

Tyler had a puzzled look on his face. “Spare room? For what?”

“You know, to set up our stuff.”

“I have a spare room, but why do you guys want to use my house?”

“You live with just your mum and sister, and neither of them care about what you do.”

“Yes they do.” Tyler retorted defensively.

“We both know that's not true. You are free to do anything as long as you're doing it with familiar faces and you get home on time.”

“And it is not illegal.” Tyler added.

“That is why your house is the best place for this.”

“Fine.” Tyler sighed.

“Great.” I smiled. “You also have to pick up some stuff at her house later today.”

“How much stuff am I picking up.”

“Uh... with the way she sounded, I think you should go in your sister's car.”

Tyler groaned.

“Would you need help setting up?” I asked.

“I have known you long enough to understand that you don't really want to help.”

I smiled. “I do not.”

*~*~*

I rushed out of the taxi and hurried into Tyler's house. I was beginning to harbor thoughts of requesting for a car since most of my Saturdays now involved me leaving my house in a taxi. I glanced at my wristwatch, hoping that I wasn't late because I could not bear to be the victim of one of Claire's scowls. It was three minutes to nine o'clock, so I had three minutes to get upstairs if I wanted to be saved from a very familiar scowl.

I pushed the front door open, greeted Mrs Peter and hurried to Tyler's room. As usual, I pushed the door open, but my face crashed into the hardwood. I groaned and pressed my palm to my hurting forehead. Why was the door locked?!!!

The door swung open a few seconds later. “Hey man.”

“Why was your door locked?”

“Claire insisted that I did so.”

“Where is she?”

“Follow me.”

I walked into the room, and Tyler locked the door behind me. We walked past the study table at the right corner of the room, then past the big bed at the center of the room and finally past the wardrobe at the left corner of the room and stopped in front of the wall just beside it.

“What is this? Why are we standing here?” I asked. My forehead still hurt and it was making me a bit agitated.

“Knock.” Tyler replied with a calm smile.

“On what?” I was struggling not to yell, but I don't think I was doing a good job.

“The wall.”

“Tyler, I'm not in the mood for this, just tell me where Claire is.”

“Just knock.”

I sighed, then reluctantly rose my knuckles to the wall and knocked twice. I was still a bit taken aback by the fact that the wall did not feel as hard as it looked when suddenly, it opened. The wall opened!! Well I should probably call it a door since it opened!!!

“What is this?” I managed to ask.

Tyler squinted at me. “I told you about this room two months ago.”

“Well, I didn't think it was real!”

“Typical.” Tyler muttered and brushed past me.

I walked into the room after Tyler. The contents of the room would have attracted me if I hadn't seen Claire first. She was wearing a blue denim jacket over a black fit and flare lace dress that stopped just above her knee and a pair of black suede ankle boots. Her hair was packed just the way I liked it: in a ponytail. She had light makeup on, and the silver stud earrings on her ears glittered giving a finishing touch to her outfit. She looked absolutely...

“Let's get this done.” Claire announced, interrupting my thoughts.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“Putting a camera and a microphone on Claire.” Tyler replied and disappeared farther into the room.

I was extremely confused as to why Claire needed a camera and a microphone for the party, but I said nothing.

“Do you even pay attention to any of our meetings?” Claire asked when she noticed the confused look on my face. “We need to get dirt on our targets, and we need video evidence of it. This is a very crucial part of the plan!”

“You look great.” I whispered.

Claire's eyes widened a few inches, her lips parted, but Tyler returned before she could say anything.

He put a silver chain with a pendant around Claire's neck. “Alright, Claire, you have to keep this on at all times. It has a camera and a microphone in it, so we can see and hear whatever you see and hear. There is a little button on the back of the pendant, when you get to the party, you just push it down a little and the camera turns on along with the microphone.”

“Alright.” Claire replied.

“I gave you the ear buds earlier right?”

“Yeah, they are in my jacket pocket.”

“Great. Make sure you put them on.”

“Sure. I should leave now.”

“Yeah, one more thing, be careful with those items, it cost me a lot of money to get them.”

“I will.”

After Claire left, I was able to look around the room. It was rectangular and not so large, in fact it wasn't large at all, it was more like a wide but short passageway.

There was hardly any place to put my feet, almost the entire floor was covered with cables, some taped to the floor, others lying freely. There were three tables in the room all placed adjacent to each other. Each table had two laptops on it, two chairs in front of it and a few other gadgets on it which I knew nothing about. The last table was not too far from the mini fridge which marked the end of the room.

But why was a mini fridge here? Wasn't this supposed to be a surveillance room of some sort?

I decided not to bother myself about the fridge, besides there was nothing wrong in having a little snack every once in a while.

I noticed a few boxes stacked by the left side of the fridge. I believed the boxes contained what Claire referred to as our supplies and what I referred to as prank items, which is what they were.

I still remembered how the cashier observed us suspiciously from above his eyeglasses on Thursday when we purchased the items, before handing us our receipt.

“Jason, get over here.”

I walked to the table where Tyler sat and took a seat beside him.

“Take this.” he said, handing me a headset with a microphone extending out of one side of it. “The system in front of you is yours, so whatever Claire is seeing, you will be seeing on that screen, and whatever she hears you will hear from that headset. And you can speak to her through the microphone.”

“What are those other systems for?”

“For the cameras we installed in the school hallways on Monday night.”

“Why aren't they on?”

“Because it's Saturday.” Tyler replied with one of those looks that screamed ‘that's a stupid obvious question.’

“And the mini fridge?”

Tyler grinned. “You know how much I love snacking.”

“It still surprises me that you have managed to stay fit.”

Tyler laughed. “Me too bro.”

“I'm about walking into the party guys, can you hear me?”

“Of course we can, chatty Cathy.” Tyler replied.

Claire groaned. “I have told you both to stop calling me that.”

“The more you fight it, the longer it sticks.”

“Whatever. Is the camera working?”

“Yes. We can see everything.”

“Great. Does my hair look ok?”

Tyler sighed. “We can't see you Claire.”

“Oh, I forgot about that.”

“Hey, Claire.” I called.

“Yes, Jason.”

“I already told you that you looked great before you left, I don't think anything has changed since then.”

I couldn't see it, but I knew she was smiling, and the thought of her smile got me smiling.

“Alright, can we continue?” Tyler asked, glancing at me.

“Sure.” Claire pushed the door open and walked in.