A long time ago, on a campus far, far away...

Two weeks have passed since the theft of our beloved microwave. My roommates and I have been thinking of revenge some time now, but have been unable to do more than steal our brothers’ XBox controllers and TV remotes, which we were only able to keep for a day before having to give them back.

The subsequent theft of Sarah’s blender has convinced us that we need to do something more dastardly; and so we begin to hatch our plan...

They were out. They had to be all out. Josh had told us specifically that he couldn’t study in the dorm, and all of our brothers had said much the same thing. The afternoon after all our classes had ended, when they were all away at the library, would be a perfect time for the mission.

Kylie, Tiffanie, Kaitlynn, and I were the only ones who knew about it. We had planned it spontaneously, and we giggled to ourselves as we crossed the courtyard to the boys’ building, making sure to go stealthily, in case any of them were looking out of their window onto the lawn. Tiffanie carried a paper folder. If everything went as planned, we’d be able to get into their apartment, carry out the mission, and leave without them discovering us there.

We reached the boys’ building without incident, slipped inside, and into the elevator. When it stopped on the third floor, I crept out first, checked to make sure that the hall was clear, and then motioned for the other three to follow me. With wary glances over our shoulders and our ears alert for the voices of our brothers (we knew them pretty well by now), we hurried down the hallway to room 3103.

We began with the door. From her folder, Tiffanie produced six printouts of Disney princesses that I had helped her cut out and color in. We’d given each of our brothers a princess: Dillon was Belle, Josh was Ariel, Michael was Rapunzel, Cade was Jasmine, Nick was Cinderella, and Gabe was Sleeping Beauty.

(After the mission, however, we figured that Sleeping Beauty probably would have suited Cade much better than Gabe.)

We stuck these pictures to the front of the door with sticky-tack, and then this was it: the moment of truth — the one upon which the fate of the entire mission depended. I leaned on the door and pushed in ever so gently; ever so gently, it swung forward, open, just like they’d told us it was.

Perfect.

In a way, our brothers had helped us come up with this brilliant plan. When Michael had mentioned to Tiffanie and me that they didn’t feel like pulling out their ID cards to swipe into the door every time they got home, and had stuck a magnet into their door to allow them to just swing it open without ever locking it, we knew that we’d struck gold.

So in we went. The door leading to their bedrooms was closed, so we couldn’t be sure if anyone was there or not. We had to be quiet in that case. I held the door open for Kylie, Tiffanie, and Kaitlynn to creep in, and then I let it fall shut silently. 

They had no sooner crept into the living room, however, than Kylie and Tiffanie hastily stumbled backwards. “Go back! Go back!” they hissed frantically.

“What?” I whispered. They pointed into the living room. Tiptoeing, I crept into the room and peered at the couch, whereupon lay Cade, nestled in a pit of blankets and pillows and fast asleep.

Cautiously, I moved forward, my eyes on my FHE brother. He didn’t stir when I walked into the kitchen; nor did he stir when I opened a cupboard and shut it; nor did he stir when I said, “Hey, Cade. Bacon!” He could have been dead.

We worked quickly then, not knowing just how sound of a sleeper he was or how soon it would be before he woke up. First we looked for Sarah’s blender — we knew it was in the apartment somewhere, but with our luck, it was probably down the hallway with the bedrooms.

While searching the cupboards for the blender, we also collected prizes.

Tiffanie grabbed the first things she found: a box of Oreos, a metal basket of silverware. Kylie found a container of Nesquik. There was still, however, no sign of Sarah’s blender.

Though our quest to rescue the blender was unsuccessful, we figured we had a pretty good array of trophies. But we knew we had to take something else — something to crown our achievement. The microwave was out of the question; we had learned from the RAs that kitchen appliances were not to be taken out of the apartments, and anyway, it was too heavy for any of us to carry to our apartment.

Tiffanie looked around the living room, at the dishes in the sink, the backpacks spilling books onto the floor, the XBox games and controllers, the keyboard, the stereo, the TV, the still-sleeping young man on the couch. “Howabout Clint Eastwood?”

“Yes!” We all had to stifle our laughter at the thought of that. They loved their Clint Eastwood poster.

While Tiffanie and Kaitlynn pulled it from the wall, Kylie and I left with the rest of the stuff we had decided to borrow. I have never been so tense as I was walking back with Kylie. We expected any moment to hear Tiffanie and Kaitlynn running after us, with Cade (or more of our FHE brothers) after them.

However, we made it back to the apartment without incident, and Tiffanie and Kaitlynn soon arrived back as well, bearing the poster, which we then affixed to our living room wall.

Mission accomplished.

Of course, we weren’t finished yet.

Photos commemorating our success went on Facebook: the door with the Disney Princesses, Cade asleep on the couch, the Clint Eastwood poster on our living room wall with the four of us clustered happily around it, holding up our trophies of Oreos and Nesquik and silverware. We weren’t gloating, exactly — we were more interested in seeing their reaction when they realized what we had done, and what better way to spread the word without actually spreading the word than on Facebook?

Turned out nobody cared about the Oreos or Nesquik or silverware except Dillon, because all of them turned out to be Dillon’s. But it wasn’t long after we’d posted the pictures before the “Free Clint” campaign began. They had seen that we had him, and they were determined to get him back.

Clint resided with us for two days, during which we checked our door every time each of us went out to make sure it locked properly and made sure to look out the peephole before answering a knock. We did give him back eventually, and by that time both parties agreed that maybe the pranking should come to an end — for the time being.

To be honest, we probably got them much worse than they got us or ever would have gotten us. It was unfair, really.

But since those Disney princesses are still to this day hanging on their front door, we figure they didn’t mind it too much.