Clair de Lune - K.M.

c h a p t e r t h r e e

"Stella, Caroline is here!"

"I'm not going!"

I'm laying in my bed in the middle of a fairly decent book, trying to ignore my brother knocking outside my room. Tyler opens the door and I lay the book on my chest, looking at him in annoyance.

"Can you not?"

"Come on, we've got to go. Caroline is here.

"I told you," I say, getting up and shoving him backwards out of my room. "I'm. not. going."

"But it's senior prank night!" he objects as I push him backwards. "Plus you haven't left your room all day." 

"It's been nice. Maybe you should try it sometime and leave me alone." 

"Come on, Stella. Caroline is in the car. There's no way she is going to let you skip."

"Well then she's going to have to come up her and drag my ass out of bed herself because I'm not going!" I say as I finally get him out of the room, shutting the door in his face. I let out a breath and walk back over to my bed, reaching for my book. I barely have time to turn a page when my door bursts open, a blonde streak rushing toward me.

"Caroline, no!"

I groan as she tackles me on the bed, both of us rolling off and landing on the ground with a thud.

"Bitch," I groan as we both lay on the floor. "What the fuck was that for?" 

"That's what you get," she says, standing up and offering me a hand. "How dare you bail on me?"

I grab her hand and let her pull me up, rubbing the back of my head that I smacked on the ground.

"It's literally just putting honey on door handles and throwing toilet paper around. I think you all can handle it without me."

"Of course we can," she rolls her eyes. "But it won't be as much fun without you! You need to get out, live a little."

"I have a life."

"No, you don't, but that's what best friends are for. Come on, Bonnie will be there. The four of us haven't been able to hang out all summer!"

I groan, feeling the cracks forming in my resolve.

"Caroline-"

"Look, this can go the easy way or the hard way. You can choose to come along or I can, how did you put it? 'Drag your ass out of bed myself?'"

I glare at her as she stands there, a shit-eating grin on her face.

"I hate you," I say, folding like we both knew I would. 

"You love me," she beams. 

"Let me grab my shoes."

Tyler and I ride with Caroline to the school and meet up with Elena and Bonnie once we get there. Despite my reluctance to come, I do feel better being around my friends. There's something about being around Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline that almost always makes me feel better. Almost.  

Caroline checks the list of prank ideas once we arrive, deciding that the five of us are going to start with setting up mouse traps in one of the classrooms. We grab our supplies and head to the room, working carefully to set up traps all along the floor. It's slow work, each trap has to be set and then not disturbed. One wrong move and we'll set them all off and have to start over again.

After what feels like forever, we're finally almost done. Elena and Bonnie are working on placing their last traps when the door to the room creaks open. Someone steps inside and flips the light on, setting off one of the mouse traps near the door.