[Kate] April Fool's Day: Part II

As Cannon already explained, the two of us had planned a very traditional surprise for the rest of our family on April first.

While Cannon was trying to get the others in the backyard area of their room so I could sneak in, I was waiting outside their room, my phone clutched in my hand, open to the clock app.  Cannon had only guaranteed me five minutes, and I was going to adhere to that timeline.

I heard a soft knock on the other side of the door, and I tapped the "go" button for the stopwatch.  The numbers immediately started changing.  I knocked quietly twice on my side of the door to show I had heard Cannon's signal, and settled down to wait for a long thirty seconds.

When I had given Cannon thirty seconds to get outside and close the front door, I eased the door open.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the room was indeed empty, and the blinds securely closed on the windows.

Immediately I plopped my phone on the bed so I didn't have to carry it and ran to the bathroom.  There were two toilet paper rolls secured to the wall, and they were proving difficult to get off the stick.  In desperation I just yanked on the toilet paper, and it came off, the stick clattering loudly o the floor.  Not wasting time to clean that up, I grabbed my roll of toilet paper and ran back to the center of the room, ripping off shreds and throwing it on the ground, looping some over the bed canopy.  When that roll ran out, I checked the clock.  It had been two minutes and thirty seconds.

I hurried back to the bathroom, getting the second roll with the same clatter.  I returned and threw toilet paper everywhere I could, getting long strips on the floor and bed.  One more time I checked the stopwatch.  It had been four minutes.  I got rid of my last scrap of toilet paper, and threw the cardboard centers of the rolls away.  Then I grabbed my phone and ran out the door, stopping only to pick up the key to our room that I had left outside.

This is Mom and Dad's bed, which we had to be extra
cunning to get access to.

When I got back to the kids' room I grinned and giggle to myself in the mirror, jubilant.  I had done it, even finished with thirty seconds to spare.  But my euphoria soon faded slightly, and turned to impatience.  When would Cannon get here?  We hadn't really set that in stone before we had split up.  Would it be a while?

After a minute I looked outside and saw nothing.  But a few minutes after that when I looked out the window I saw him running up, grinning ear to ear.

As soon as he got inside we ran for more toilet paper, and spread it over Grace's bed and the surrounding floor, giggling the whole time.  We might have been a bit overenthusiastic, judging by the fact that time we were done Grace's bed looked like ... like it was covered in toilet paper.  And it was, but that's beside the point.

This is Grace's bed.

When we were done, we laughed some more and exchanged our side of the stories, waiting eagerly for some reaction from our family.  We got it a few minutes later when our room phone rang.

I got there first, holding the phone up so I could hear.  It was Mom's voice.

"Someone toilet papered our room," she said on the other line.  At this point both Cannon and I collapsed with more giggles.

When we had recovered, we went over to their room to laugh some more.  Even if we are traveling, we can still play plenty of pranks!