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You wake up to the sound of your bedroom door closing. It's definitely a strange noise to hear since you don't share your bedroom with anyone, and everyone else on board the Prospitian Battleship knows better than to try and wake up you up before you're ready. You groan and roll over and stare at the ceiling because you've already been on this ship for far too long, you think. No kid in history has ever had as bad a time as you're having right now. It takes more effort than it should to swing your legs out of bed and into the ever-cool air and set your feet firmly on the floor.
But it's not the carpet your feet touch first.
It's a bucket of what you know for sure is cake frosting.
You know it's cake frosting without needing to look at it or taste it or even smell it. You've stepped barefoot in enough cake frosting in your life to know what it feels like and this is most definitely a bucket full of cake frosting.
The question of what is a bucket of cake frosting doing beside your bed should be the first thing that comes to mind but it isn't. The first thing that comes to mind is the question of who put it there for you to step in because there is nothing worse than trying to get cake frosting out from between your toes before you've even had the chance to reach for your glasses. You snatch them up from your bedside table and slide down onto the floor carefully so you don't spread the frosting across the carpet.
You're wiping your feet off with a shirt from your pile of clothes when you hear a giggle. It's a small giggle but it's definitely coming from inside your closet and suddenly you think you know exactly what has happened here. You didn't hear someone leaving your room before, you heard them hiding because you had started to wake up. You take your time cleaning up the frosting because you need time to think of a good revenge plan but this will do for a start. Slowly, slowly, you wipe off each toe and then just as slowly you stand up and hover a few inches off the ground because if there's a quieter way to travel you haven't found it yet. You float towards the closet and someone is trying really hard to stifle their own laughter but it's too late because you are already very aware they're hiding in there.
You plan to use the windy thing to force the door open so that when it does, whoever is hiding inside will see you standing there lying extremely cross with your arms folded angrily across your chest because you are extremely cross and angry about this situation.
While you are standing there extremely cross and angry, Jade is cross-legged in the bottom of your now open closet, a hand clamped over her mouth to hold back the giggles and her pranksters' gambit through the roof.
You give her your best extremely angry and cross look but it's more just furrowed eyebrows than anything else and she seems to take that as her queue to start laughing. Properly laughing, you mean, because the sound is echoing off your bedroom walls and she's sliding down to the floor of your closet because she's laughing so hard that she's lost complete control of her limbs and you think she might even be crying a little bit now.
You continue attempting to look menacing but you fail miserably.
You blame your ghostbusters pyjama pants for this. You know it's hard to look menacing in them but you thought you'd give it a good try. In the end you just sigh and reach out a hand and wait for your sister to stop laughing long enough to let you help her up.
JADE: happy birthday john!!!
You try to scowl again because no one told you that it was almost your birthday. She's not buying your efforts, even if she has let you help her up and out of the closet. Despite her pitiful attempts at self control, she's still giggling at you.
JADE: im sorry but it was so funny!
JOHN: are there pancakes?
JADE: nannas been busy since before i woke up so i would say that there are definitely pancakes!!
JOHN: then we need to be in the kitchen right now.
JOHN: quickly!
You turn to leave but stop, hovering just off the floor because it's cold on bare feet and you enjoy not having to deal with that, and Jade takes the chance to dive at your back and clings tightly to your neck. You shift her weight slightly and then take off out the door flying so fast that if Nanna had been watching rather than baking she would have told you to slow down before you gave her a heart attack.
JOHN: who's idea was it anyway?
JADE: mine but nanna made the frosting for me!
She giggles again as you speed around a corner, and when you jump over the railing and freefall down two levels of stairs she screeches so loudly into your ear that you lose concentration almost long enough to hit the floor. You pull out of the dive with barely an inch to spare and take off at full speed down the next corridor.
You come to a sudden stop just outside the kitchen and drop to the floor again. Jade lets go and slips down off your back and you both walk into the galley as casually as you can manage.
Nanna just gives you a look. She knows exactly what you've been up to.
You smile at her and just sit down at the table. It's already covered in more food than you think you could eat in a week. There's five, no, six cakes, assorted muffins and cookies, pancakes and bacon and eggs, and you take generous servings of all the breakfast foods. Across the table from you, Jade does the same.
JOHN: nanna, i think you've done enough baking for my next six birthdays.
JOHN: i'm not saying i don't appreciate it!
JOHN: but i don't think we can eat all of these cakes.
NANNASPRITE: Don't be silly, John! I'll be making you something special for dinner tonight, whatever you like, but you most certainly can not have too much cake, hoo hoo hoo!
JOHN: i'm not so sure about that.
NANNASPRITE: Happy birthday, dear!
JOHN: thanks, nanna
JOHN: and that prank was definitely a good one! you both sure got me good.
JOHN: i didn't even see it coming.
JADE: you found me pretty quickly though!
JOHN: you were laughing, jade. laughing! you can't laugh at your own pranks if you don't want to be found out.
JADE: i couldnt help it!!!
JOHN: if you can't help it you'll never be a prank master, that is just a fact.
You're sure of that much and as if to cement your opinion as fact you pull a face at Jade while Nanna's back is turned. She looks shocked and bites her lip and it takes you a moment to realise that she's mocking you and she's not really upset this time - 'not this time' because you've already inadvertently upset her too many times to count. You're about to say something when Nanna turns back around and produces another plate of cookies that you didn't even know were cooling and it suddenly dawns on you that she's not going to stop baking any time soon.
Just as suddenly you are almost glad she was killed by your meteor. You don't think you could have survived a childhood filled with the combined baking efforts of both Dad and Nanna.
JOHN: you don't need to make more!
She's refilling measuring cups with flour already.
NANNASPRITE: Oh nonsense, it's no trouble. You just keep eating your pancakes, dear. You too Jade! There's plenty to go around!
JADE: im eating!!
NANNASPRITE: Good, good. John, don't you try and put that pancake back!
JOHN: but i dont want three!
NANNASPRITE: You're a growing boy, eat your breakfast.
JOHN: can i just trade the pancake for more bacon?
NANNASPRITE: You can trade it for a muffin! Hoo hoo hoo!
JOHN: i'll just eat the pancake.
You try not to look at dejected as you probably sound because it is your birthday after all and Nanna is only doing what she thinks is right. She's missed a lot of your birthdays in the past, actually, she's missed all of them, so you just return the third pancake to your stack and start cutting. Maybe if you cut them all into pieces you won't realise you're eating so many.
You catch Nanna trying to levitate a muffin onto your plate while you're getting some juice for yourself and Jade.
When you sit back down you realise what is going on.
JOHN: nanna what's in the muffin?
NANNASPRITE: Well, they're apple and cinnamon so there's no peanuts in them if that's what you're asking!
JOHN: that's not what i'm asking, nanna. did you booby-trap the muffins?
NANNASPRITE: Of course not!
The muffins are definitely booby-trapped so you take a lemon tart instead.
It's made of soap.
Your own prankster's gambit plummets while Nanna's explodes, and she and Jade are both laughing and laughing at you and it doesn't really feel like your birthday as much as intergalactic 'let's all pick on John' day. It's hard to ignore them when you're standing at the sink because every time you take a gulp of water to rinse your mouth out you only end up spitting out bubbles. You're not sure where Casey is this morning but she's probably still sleeping because no one woke her up with a bucket full of cake frosting. She is the only one on this ship who should be spitting up bubbles like this.
JADE: john are you okay???
JADE: nanna is he okay??
Jade does sound genuinely worried about you so you think that you'll try and string this one out a little longer. You fill a glass with water and slide down to the floor in front of the sink and try as hard as you can to look sick. You must be doing a pretty good job because when Davesprite hovers in and settles himself over a chair beside Jade, he announces that you look like shit. You thank him for the compliment.
JADE: dave!! he just ate one of nannas soap tarts and i think hes actually unwell!
DAVESPRITE: oh shit man is it your birthday already
DAVESPRITE: happy birthday
JOHN: thanks.
You add a cough for good measure and then take a slow sip of your water. Your mouth still tastes like soap but this should be worth it in the end. You've just got to out-prank the pranksters. That shouldn't be hard because you are the prank master and no one outpranks you for very long.
JADE: joooohn!!
JADE: are you okay or not??
JOHN: i'm okay. i think i swallowed some though and i'm pretty sure you are not meant to swallow soap for a lot of reasons.
JOHN: i'll just sit here for a while.
JOHN: but i'm okay so you should just keep eating your pancakes because we have so many of them.
JADE: you're awful!!
JADE: i dont know if youre joking or not!
JOHN: jade i just ate soap and i'm pretty sure you'd feel kind of shitty if you ate soap.
JOHN: definitely don't eat one of the tarts because they're made of soap.
JOHN: i think i might just stay and go back to sleep right here, okay?
JOHN: just a nap.
JADE: nanna!!!!
JADE: hes not okay!!!!
DAVESPRITE: hes faking it
JADE: i dont think he is!!
JADE: look at his eyes!
DAVESPRITE: faker
NANNASPRITE: John, dear, get up off the floor it's cold down there and you're not wearing a sweater. Why you're not wearing a sweater I'll never know. Jade, would you help him up, please?
JADE: is he okay???
NANNASPRITE: I'm sure he'll be fine, a little soap never hurt anyone.
NANNASPRITE: I might bake him an apology cake.
JOHN: noooooooo!!!!!!!!
You can't take it anymore. You'll think of another revenge prank because you don't want Nanna to make you another cake. That would bring the total to seven. Seven cakes! Who needs that many? No one, especially not you. No one has ever baked you seven cakes in the one day and you have no plans to break that streak now. You float up into the air and sit yourself down on top of the hanging cabinets.
Jade gives you a look, that look, the one where you know you're doing something that she's not happy with but you don't exactly understand what it is well enough to stop doing it. She's glaring up at you from the floor with her hands on her hips and she takes a moment to push her glasses back up her nose before she takes one hand back off her hip and points to you, then to the floor, then to you again. You shake your head and flat out refuse to move from your current position. But then her ear twitches and you notice that even Nanna and Davesprite are watching you now and so when Jade gestures to the floor one more time you slip from the top of the cabinet and float gently back down to the floor.
She continues to glower at you until your feet are both firmly planted on the kitchen floor.
JADE: john!!
JADE: that was just so unnecessary!
JADE: are you trying to ruin your own birthday??
JADE: do you want me to call you the birthday ruiner forever
JADE: because i will if you keep trying to ruin your own birthday!!!
JOHN: i'm not trying to ruin anything!
JOHN: i just think that any reasonable person would be able to see that there are more than enough cakes and cookies and brownies and muffins here for at least six birthdays already.
JOHN: it's not that i don't appreciate it nanna but there is far too much here!
NANNASPRITE: Oh poppycock! You can never have too many birthday cakes on your birthday!
JOHN: i think that you can.
NANNASPRITE: No, you can't. Would you like me to teach you how to bake them?
JOHN: no.
JADE: yes!!
JOHN: jade you've tried this before and you're terrible at it.
JADE: im not terrible
JOHN: you tried making the frosting with salt
NANNASPRITE: Hoo hoo hoo! That sounds like a delightful little prank, Jade!
JADE: that wasnt a prank
She looks a little bit sad then and you're back to feeling like the terrible brother you are, so you pat her shoulder as you hover past and sit back down to finish your pancakes. She purses her lips but returns to her place opposite you and the only one left with nothing to do is Nanna - she seems to have taken your aversion to cake more seriously this time.
JOHN: could you teach us how to bake a cake, nanna?
JOHN: it might be useful to know how, i guess.
JADE: what are you up to now?
JOHN: nothing! it might really be useful.
You don't really think that you need to know how to bake a cake as well as Nanna does because, well, you've got Nanna to bake them for you if you ever wake up and feel like you need more cake in your life. You're only asking because Jade looked so upset when you rejected the earlier offer, and she sounded almost heartbroken when you brought up her earlier attempts at baking. But your efforts to sound excited about letting Nanna teach you have paid off and Jade is at least smiling at you now. You smile back and finish your bacon, but you don't touch any of the sweets.
It doesn't take you long to realise why Dad never bothered trying to teach you how to bake. Your talents are clearly elsewhere and you're sure that Jade's are definitely in another universe because for every time you've knocked something over, she's managed to almost cut her fingers off and you can't even see any sharp knives out because you don't really need them for cake-baking.
While Nanna is busy tidying up the spilled flour and Jade is preoccupied with scrubbing the dye stains from her fingertips, you sneak up behind her and grab her by the waist then take off out of the kitchen with her screeching loudly enough to drown out Nanna's threats to take away one of your cakes.
The doors are all flying open for you as you tear through the hallways and up stairs and you think you might have taken a wrong turn somewhere but then, suddenly, you end up exactly where you meant to end up. You soar higher above the deck than usual, right up to the top of the tallest mast, and just hang there in mid-air.
Then, without warning, you let go of your sister.
She's screaming and swearing and there's going to be hell to pay for this prank later on but you don't care. You'll give it another few seconds before you move, you think. You're pretty high up, almost two hundred feet up, but you can move faster than that. You dive straight down after Jade and let the breeze pull you in every direction at once. It's a strange sensation but you're slowly getting used to it - you've been practicing this for months now. You rematerialise instantly, your elbows tucked under Jade's armpits and her toes only an inch from the shimmering planks of the deck.
There's a whooshing noise then and you're not sure what to call it but you feel like you should figure it out soon because you can't just call it the whooshy noise forever. The whooshy noise is what happens when Jade teleports herself and this time you get a face full of wooshy noise to go with the face full of her hair. You spin around to see where she's gone, because she wouldn't have gone far, but you can't see her.
JADE: up here you idiot!!!
You look up.
She's sitting on the first cross-post on the mast, about twenty feet above you. You float up so you're level with her again and sit back in the air like you would on the couch. It's not as comfortable but the breeze settles around you and holds you in place all the same.
JOHN: did you see what i did?
JADE: you threw me two hundred feet through the air!!
JOHN: yeah, but did you see that wind thing i did?
JOHN: like, i just became the wind, how cool is that?
JADE: you dropped me!
JOHN: because i knew i could catch you!
JADE: that was a terrible prank john
JOHN: it was better than yours, my feet are still sticky from that frosting.
JOHN: see?
You hold up a foot but you get the feeling that it isn't really illustrating your point very well. Maybe if you'd spent more time with your feet on the floor so that they could have collected some grime along the way, but you don't think you've taken more than a dozen steps so far this morning. You shift your foot back down and reposition yourself in the air so that your elbows are resting on your knees, with your left hand propping up your chin. Thoughtful is what you're going for but Jade isn't buying it and she looks just about ready to teleport away again.
You stay like that for a minute, letting her glare at you in silence, before you move again and end up sitting on the cross beam beside her. Your feet are dangling now that you're supporting your own weight again and you have to admit that the deck does look pretty far away.
JOHN: okay so i guess we were pretty high up before.
JADE: and???
JOHN: and i'm sorry i guess.
JADE: you guess??
JOHN: i said sorry!
JADE: i know
JADE: happy birthday john
JOHN: thanks.
You push yourself off the beam and let the breeze hold you up, opposite Jade. She just stares at your outstretched hand for a moment, unsure of what you're planning to do next. You kind of do not blame her in the slightest for being suspicious. You did, after all, just drop her from some stupid height. You sigh and take your hand back, adjust your glasses, scratch your ear, then produce a slip of paper. She takes it when you hold your hand out again and unfolds it, her eyes skimming over the single word printed on the slip in your own increasingly shocking handwriting: sorry.
JADE: okay i accept your apology john!
JADE: but where did you have the paper? youre not even wearing a shirt
JOHN: a magician never tells. quick, we should probably go back or else nanna will make another five cakes and there is no way we can even eat the ones she made earlier.
JADE: slow down this time!!
JOHN: never.
When she grasps your hand you have the wind hold her in mid-air while you turn to let her cling to your back again.
JOHN: ready?
JADE: only if you slow down this time!!!
Her screams are shrill in your ear again but you don't care. You're speeding around the deck and it doesn't take you long to do a warm up lap before you're ascending even higher than before, then plummeting the two of you to the ground again. You pull up into a loop and spin and dive and soar and you never want to use your feet again. It took you awhile to figure out just how to control this thing but it was worth it just for this.
It's your fourteenth birthday and you're dipping and diving through the sky with your sister clutching your neck with force you didn't know she had in her. Your last birthday doesn't matter anymore, that life is gone and you know it, you've known it for a long time now. But you've traded it in for all this.
You don't think that it was such a terrible trade, not completely.
Jade screeches as you fly full pelt towards the open door that will take you back down into the bowels of the ship, back to Nanna and Davesprite and Casey, if she's awake. You navigate the doorway with ease and then Jade is laughing again, probably because even she realises how close you were to hitting the wall opposite. You don't care. It's your birthday, and not even a kitchen filled with twenty five cakes is going to ruin it for you.