The Prank

Josh was totally paranoid about bed bugs. This was just the latest of his constant obsessive phobias. I was so tired of hearing about how they were infesting hotel rooms and could get into your clothes or luggage and come home with you, getting into your furniture and infesting your house. How they were all but impossible to kill and you might as well burn your mattress and bedding and even the frame if it was made of wood, because it was impossible to eliminate the insects from the small cracks and crevices. Oh, and if you have wood floors, forget it. You might as well burn down the whole damn house or move out because you’d never sleep again.

I stifled a giggle as my brother jerked awake and sat bolt upright, scratching like a maniac, eyes wide in fright, moaning “oh no oh no oh no”. At this point my bed was shaking with my held-in laughter.

Josh was a year older. Fourteen, going on 40. He knew everything about everything, especially morbid creepy things. Any subject I ventured an opinion about, he was quick to inform me just how wrong and stupid I was. Mom would take my side, when she was around, and not lost in some podcast or audio book with her expensive noise-cancelling earbuds in, which was rare. That “noise” included me and my brother. So if I wanted her to intervene and shut Josh up, I’d have to first get her attention, and then reiterate the conversation until she understood. By that time it was hardly worth the trouble, and anyway, Josh would just start in again as soon as she reinserted the buds and pushed play on her iPod.

The other problem was that Josh was usually right, or might as well have been since it was practically impossible to prove him wrong. He read voraciously and was always embroiled in some forum discussion on reddit about random obscure horrors — necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating bacteria) or Ebola virus or those insects in Africa that lay eggs under your skin so the larvae can grow until they hatch out through a hole in your head or the tiny South American fish that swim up your pee hole if you go skinny dipping in the Amazon. As if he had to worry about that. So I mostly tried to ignore him, though some days, I wanted to smack the stupid smirk right off his face, but I knew if I did, I’d be the one who got in trouble.

When I saw the itching powder in the novelty shop yesterday, a plan began to form in my mind. And now, the plan was playing out ,better than I ever imagined.

Josh threw off the covers and jumped up, standing there, still scratching madly at his arms and legs and neck, everywhere his skin was exposed and not covered by his dorky white fruit-of-the -looms and t-shirt. I could not let out a sound of amusement or the jig would be up, so I did my best to be silent. He began crying and ran to the bathroom, turning on the shower. He was all but howling, making so much noise I knew mom would soon come to investigate, and sure enough, in a minute there was a knock. I went to the door and opened it. She looked half awake but very worried.

“Mark, where’s your brother?” She asked, in her no nonsense voice.

“In the bathroom,” I said, as innocently as I could.

I hoped my face wasn’t too red from trying not to laugh. I was still dying to let loose with a guffaw, but I knew if I even so much as chuckled, I’d be rolling on the floor, and that would be disastrous.

I sat and waited while she tried to talk him down. It was hopeless. Josh was hysterical, certain that he was doomed to never sleep again, due to the bed bugs. That’s when the guilt set in. All mirth disappeared. I do love my brother, asshole that he is. I did not want to confess my prank, but I couldn’t really see way around it.

I called out, “Mom, mom, mom” escalating the volume of my shouts until she came out and asked, with barely suppressed annoyance,

"What is it Mark?”

“I did it. I’m really sorry”. And I confessed the whole thing, ready to take my punishment.

To my amazement, my mother put her hand to her mouth, snorted, then started to laugh.