As I slowly opened my eyes, being reluctantly pulled from my few hours of true peace, I blinked and rubbed away the sleep. Sitting up, I  paused. What’s that on my hands? It… looks like… cream cheese? No wait, it’s whipped cream!

I yelled down the stairs, 

“JOCELYN!!”

It was April first, and like many unfortunate people in this world, I have a younger sister.  This nightmare of a 13-year-old  turned my face and hands into a sick kind of ice cream sundae. 

Every year, like clockwork, we prank each other, causing chaos on the one day where our parents seem to turn a blind eye to our hijinks. Unfortunately for me, even though my sister is younger, she is very clever, almost always catching me off guard.

Despite the mess that I woke up to, my enthusiasm remained unhindered. It was my first April Fool’s day at high school! 

My head filled with dreams of students bringing pies to school to throw at their unsuspecting friends, students running through the lunch lines, offering toothpaste Oreos to various lunch-goers, and various other kinds of pranks galore!

In elementary and middle school, the extent of April Fool’s pranks was limited to dull acts like stealing your friend’s pencil case. 

The relative maturity and creativity of high-schoolers, I assumed, should allow for more elaborate pranks (Emphasis on should).

Unfortunately, as I went throughout the day, I was severely disappointed. Literally nothing happened. 

No one asked for high fives with buzzers attached to their palms, no one taped papers that said “kick me” onto their friends’ backs.  

The closest thing to a prank was in first period, when I was handed a small plastic baby for some reason. 

After the baby incident, I went to math, expecting the teacher to have canceled our quiz, on the basis of it being an April Fool’s prank. As he told us to pull out our quiz folders and put away our phones, I realized I  made a grave mistake. I probably should have studied.

The rest of the day sadly passed without incident. 

As I rode home, a sense of disappointment left me feeling empty. The whole day was a letdown.

 Once I reached my house, even the sight of my sister stepping in the fake dog poop I strategically placed on the floor didn’t cheer me up.