Although we were both almost twenty, we still loved pulling our childish pranks around our small town. Sometimes our pranks were as stupid as 'dingdong ditching'. That's where us local kids would run up to the front of a neighbor's house, ring the doorbell and hide in the bushes.
Our favorite house to 'dingdong ditch' belonged to the old German guy at the end of the block. He lived in a ramshackle red brick house with a battered copper roof. His front lawn unkempt, that the overgrown grass would come up way past our knees. The old German would usually come out after us hollering and screaming at us at the top of his lungs. His old beagle would howl in our direction while we hid in the nearby bushes.
The old beagle sounded more like an old broken train whistle. His weird howl echoed loudly into the street. It was usually followed by a few other neighborhood dogs barking wildly, and some very angry neighbors yelling at each other. We were always fast enough to hide from the old German. But it was worth it. It was worth anything just to hear his old dog howl.
Our favorite hiding spot was in the thick bushes behind the church. That's because it gave us a perfect view of the old angry German as he swore away into the night. He probably knew it was us, but he could never prove it.
Sometimes our pranks were a little bit more creative.
One time we broke into the weather station and caused the entire town to evacuate. Stephen's dad was the local weatherman, and we knew the station was empty at night. Stephen also knew where to find his dad's keys. One night we quietly snuck out of our homes, and headed towards the station.
We looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and Stephen quietly unlocked the backdoor with his dad's key. Being a bit of a computer wizard, Stephen was able to easily hack into the weather stations computer. After playing around with their system for less than twenty minutes, he was able to set off a timed hurricane warning.
We quickly snuck back out of the station and ran back towards home. We knew we both had to get back before the warning blared over the town's emergency broadcast. Exactly Twenty minutes later the whole town woke up to a loud emergency broadcast. Our parents quickly woke us up as the town rushed to evacuate.
The crazy part was that nobody ever caught either of us. But I did I feel pretty bad after Stephen's dad nearly lost his job. The weather station blamed the whole thing on a technical glitch, but Stephen's father likely knew we did it. We felt bad about the whole thing, but it didn't stop us. Not getting caught only made us stronger.
Out of all the pranks we played, Halloween pranks were our favorite.
One Halloween we decided to outdo ourselves.
We climbed over the high wooden fence, and stole a little black goat from the farm near the main highway. Under the cover of darkness, we took turns pulling the goat around in an old Red Ryder wagon. We kept feeding it whatever we could find, just to keep it quiet. We even gave it a couple of candies, which it really seemed to enjoy. We finally got to our target. The miserable old witch was really going to get it this year.
We quietly opened her car door, praying we wouldn't wake her up. We cautiously lifted the goat off the wagon, and placed it and a few pumpkins in her car.
Mrs. Davidson was a mean old widow who lived in a small blue house. Her house was directly across the street from the old German man. She spent most of her days sitting out on her front porch, and rocking back and forth in her oversized wooden rocking chair.
She would gently stroke her shabby cat, and yell at anyone who dear to come near her house. Some people around town say that she killed her husband, and turned his body into the cat. Our parents would even threaten to send us to her if we misbehaved. One time the chubby Johnson boy from across the river stole a lollipop from the gas station. 'Tiny mike' claimed he saw his dad bring him there, and nobody ever saw the Johnson boy again.
Most of the younger kids around town would beeline around her house, worried they may also end up as a mangled black cat or disappear like the chubby Johnson boy.
We waited until the middle of night, and slowly walked up her front stairs. The stairs were old and worn out. They creaked loudly under our feet, and we nearly fell through them. Stephen was terrified but he still ran up and rang her doorbell. I was shaking so much that I decided to slowly walk back down the stairs, and hide in the bushes. Her doorbell chimed so loud that the cat scurried up from underneath the house.
We quickly ran across the street and ducked into the bushes. We watched her come out of her house in and bathrobe, and yell loudly in our direction. We had to cover our mouths because we couldn't stop laughing. I didn't want to tell Stephen, but I was so scared that I almost wet my pants.
The commotion startled the goat and it ran frantically around the car. We could see the car bounce side to side as it chewed nervously through the pumpkins. We watched as she headed down her stairs to the car in the driveway. We weren't laughing anymore. We were shaking, and terrified she would head towards us.
She slowly opened the car door, and yelled so loud that two of neighbors came outside. The terrified goat bolted out of the open car door, and ran haphazardly across the street. The goat stood in middle of the street, trying to figure out where to go.
This time we weren't so lucky. We finally got caught. We never got caught.
She somehow spotted us in the bushes. She walked over to the bushes, and picked both of us up by our ears. Not only did we spend the next day cleaning out the old rusty Chevy, she made us run around town finding that stupid goat.
We found him in the big empty lot behind the hardware store. It took us two hours to catch the stupid goat, and another three hours of chores given to us from the farmer. We didn't have choice, and we didn't want our parents knowing what we were up to. We still didn't learn our lesson, but we were happy the old witch didn't do any worse. We were happy we didn't end up like that Johnson boy.
From that day forward, we decided that playing pranks on the old witch was a pretty bad idea.
It didn't mean we weren't going to continue, it just meant we needed to be smarter.
This Halloween Stephen told me to dress up like a like secret agent.
He didn't really explain why he wanted me too. He wanted to surprise me, and promised it would be the best prank we ever played. I didn't think much of it, but was excited to go around getting up to our usual mischief. I looked forward to Halloween with Stephen because our pranks were always so hilarious. Secretly, I felt we were getting a bit old for these shenanigans. Even though I was nineteen, I still wanted to have fun.
I opened up my wardrobe and started searching for something 'secret agent' like. I decided to go with a white button down shirt, and a thin black tie. I grabbed a pair of black leather dress shoes, and slid them on my feet. I wasn't quite James Bond, but my spy outfit actually looked pretty good on me. I was ready for Stephen's secret mission.
I went downstairs and sat down in the living to wait for Stephen.
Usually he rang the bell twenty times, but this time he only rang it once.
