[Age 13] Harvey: "Dirt."

"You did it?" I asked Axel excitedly when he sat down.

"Yeah," Axel placed his own lunch-filled tray beside mine, grinning, "I told the lunch lady that it's a special sandwich for Gideon. A girl who has a crush on him gave it to me to give through her because she's too shy to give it to him herself."

"Awesome!" I rubbed my palms together, noticing that Gideon was now in the front of the lunch line, receiving the 'special' sandwich. Normally, I wouldn't ask for Axel's help, but that day, the Coach had called me to his office immediately after the last period of the morning, and I'd had to use my friend's help to get back at him soon because filling my locker with garbage for no reason was just too much.

Especially after I'd thought we'd bonded a little recently at his party.

But Gideon had at least had the decency to take my stuff out and put them on my desk first, so points for not being a total bully. I'd just had to deal with the messy task of cleaning it all up and sharing with Axel until the stink went away.

It was a relatively tame prank to put raw fish and excessive mustard in his sandwich, but that was all I'd come up with, in such short notice. I was glad that there was at least one guy who sold grilled seafood near our school because otherwise, this moment of waiting to watch Gideon spit out his food in disgust wouldn't have been possible.

"So you only did what I told you to, right?" I slurped at my smoothie happily.

"Yeah." Axel shrugged. "Raw fish, mustard, mayonnaise, and peanuts." He shrugged, "I know you didn't tell me to add the last two, but I felt creative."

I nodded, grinning as I watched Gideon sit at his usual table in the corner with Ryker and Lyle.

"Wait." I grabbed Axel's arm, rewinding, "Did you just say peanuts?"

"Um, yeah. I had some in my locker. Probably ten days old."

"Holy crap!" I jumped from my seat, "Holy crap! He's allergic!"

"Isn't that even better?" Axel seemed confused.

"No!" I shoved my hands into my hair, panicked, "I wanna prank the guy! Not kill him!"

Without seeing any other indirect way to thwart Gideon from eating his sandwich, I gave up and ran over to his table, swiping the wrapped bread from his hands before he could touch it.

"What the hell!" Gideon looked at me like I was crazy.

I rolled my eyes, "Go get another one, rich kid."

"Seriously?" Gideon rolled his eyes back at me, "Stealing my lunch? This one isn't even creative. What's next? A whoopee cushion?"

"Whatever, dude." I shrugged and walked back to my table, pretending like nothing was amiss.

Phew. That could've gone really bad.

~

When I woke up from my nap during the free period that evening, I had an earful of dirt that I later had to go to the doctor to get cleaned.

Well played, Gideon.

Well played.

More to come.

~