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Kristy Thomas was fuming. The ongoing prank war between her and Shannon Kilbourne had been mostly harmless, but Shannon's most recent prank cost her much more than three dozen pizzas or an embarrassing diaper delivery: it had ruined the BSC's reputation with the Delaneys. She racked her brain for a way to end the prank war on her own terms, for good.
Opportunity arose in an unexpected place. In another effort to appear "cool" for his new stepchildren, Watson brought the BSC on a tour of the local university, which was insured through Watson's company. Yes, Watson was trying to win her over with an insurance-related endeavor. Typical!
Their last stop at the university was the medical school. Their tour guide, the college's VP of enrollment, paused outside a laboratory. "Before we go in, I have to warn you about the smell."
"What smell?" Mary Anne asked, alarmed. Claudia wrinkled her nose.
"It's an odd mix of chemicals and the unmistakable smell of death," the VP replied with a grin. "This is the cadaver lab."
Mary Anne murmured something about an upset stomach, and ran into the nearest restroom. "Yeah, we're gonna sit this part out too," Claudia said. She and Stacey went to check on Mary Anne. Dawn also demurred.
Kristy wasn't about to let a stupid dead body scare her, especially in front of her lame stepfather. "Let's do it!" she said. But she clutched the straps of her backpack a little tighter.
The VP led Watson and Kristy into the lab. The chemical smell hit her immediately. She grimaced. Watson turned green at the gills. Kristy looked around. The room had a half dozen tall tables, several displaying long duffle bags. Duffle bags that were suspiciously person-shaped. "There are corpses in there?" she asked nonchalantly.
"All people who graciously donated their bodies to science," the VP said, eyeing Watson, who'd grown positively chartreuse. "Mr. Brewer, I'd love to show you the replacement bone saw we were able to get thanks to your company's help."
While the adults looked at expensive tools, Kristy walked around the lab, avoiding the body bags. A mini-fridge sat under a counter, with a post-it. "NOT FOR LUNCHES," the note read. Her curiosity got the best of her. She opened the door, and stifled a scream. A lone hand was literally chilling in the freezer section. It was tagged and bagged, but Kristy could still see the wrist bones on one severed end. The taut curling of its fingers gave it an undead appearance.
Somewhere behind her, Watson retched, followed by the scuffle of the VP grabbing a wastebasket. Watson tried to laugh it off. "Just imagine my reaction if any of the bodies were unbagged," he joked in between heaves.
Kristy's eyes widened. Yes, a reaction. A reaction is exactly what she needed. And wouldn't the prissiest girl in Stoneybrook have an incredible, and likely embarrassing reaction to a dead man's hand?
Kristy looked over her shoulder. Watson still had his head in the trash, with the VP awkwardly patting his back. Kristy quietly squatted, and slowly zipped open her backpack. She grasped the bagged hand, cringing at how cold it was, and slipped it into her bag. By the time Watson was upright, she was standing behind him with a small smile. "We should probably go before Watson throws up his guts entirely," she snarked.
All the way home, Watson kept shuddering. "I can't get the smell of those cadavers out of my mind." The girls agreed, opening the car windows.
Kristy just laughed. "It's probably seeped into our clothes and hair. I bet it will take days to get out." She snorted as Watson pulled over to barf again.
The next day, Kristy snuck to Watson's garage. She'd stowed her backpack and its stolen contents in the back of the meat freezer. Over her shoulder, she carried Shannon's Coach bag, swiped right from the snob's open bedroom window as the Kilbournes ate al fresco on their heated patio. The dead man's hand nestled perfectly inside the barrel shaped purse. Kristy slid Shannon's tube of Strawberry Lipsmackers between the cadaver's thumb and forefinger and cackled. She'd returned the bag back to Shannon's vanity before the Kilbournes even finished dessert.
After school the next day, Kristy hung out on Watson's porch swing with her feet up on a planter, a self-satisfied grin already gracing her face. She tried not to laugh as the bus from Stoneybrook Day School pulled up. But Shannon didn't get off with the rest of her fancy private school classmates. Further, the kids who did huddled together outside Shannon's house, talking in hushed whispers. Kristy called out, "What's the gossip from Fancy-Pants Day School?"
Bill Korman wandered away from the group to the bottom of the porch stairs. He looked up at Kristy with eyes so wide, his lashes nearly brushed his tow-headed bowl cut. "Shannon and her sisters weren't in school today. Something awful happened, but no one knows what."
Kristy knew what. Shannon had pooped her frilly underpants and was too embarrassed to go to school, that's what! Though it was odd that her siblings hadn't gone either. As the private school kids dissipated back to their own houses, Kristy wondered what had happened.
She walked across the street and knocked on the Kilbourne's door. Mrs. Kilbourne answered. Her eyes were red and her face was tearstained. "I'm a friend of Shannon's," Kristy lied. "I guess she wasn't in school today?"
Mrs. Kilbourne shook her head. "Shannon isn't seeing anyone right now," she said.
Kristy blinked innocently. "Not even her best friend?" She quivered her lip for added effect.
Mrs. Kilbourne hesitated, but opened the door. "Maybe a friend could help," she said.
She led Kristy down the hall. Maria and Tiffany Kilbourne were huddled together on the couch, not paying much attention to the episode of Hey, Dude on the television. They'd been crying too.
"We don't understand what happened. A prank of some sort, a horrible one," Mrs. Kilbourne explained, stopping at a pink door decorated with a poster of Jordan Knight. She knocked softly. "Shannon, honey? Your friend Kristy is here. I'm going to bring her in, OK?"
Something about the way Mrs. Kilbourne spoke gave Kristy the willies. She faltered at the plush bedroom carpet, before Mrs. Kilbourne waved her in.
Shannon lay on her pink canopy bed, surrounded by a thousand lacy pillows. Kristy walked up to the side of the bed slowly. "Shannon? Are you OK?" She stopped at the sight of her nemesis and gasped.
The queen of the snobs stared up unseeing at the rosy canopy, her face contorted with fright. A white streak shot through her honey-blonde hair where there had been none before. She babbled to herself, incomprehensible. Kristy's gaze moved down. Shannon's perfectly manicured hands shook, clutching the cadaver's hand.
Kristy gulped. The prank had worked. But suddenly, it wasn't so funny.