Taste of a Poison Paradise

"You have one hour to complete the essay," Ms Taylor, a divorced forty-four year old woman who I despised with a passion, spoke with complete clarity in her voice as she spoke to her ninth grade kids. Me and my best friend Andrew could hear her speak through the open window that was situated behind her. We weren't standing in front of the window of course; we were much more expertly than that.

Standing on both sides of the window, we turned our heads to see the ninth-graders with their heads bent down, writing furiously. Ms Taylor was sitting at her desk as we had suspected. Good, everything was going as planned.

Winter holidays were nearing and we wanted to satisfy our pranking needs before Andrew travelled to the States in the June-July holidays. I didn't have any plans but to stay inside and listen to music, thinking of new ways to lighten up the dreary weather for when we returned back to university, with another semester ahead. Currently, Andrew and I had already graduated high school, but during my time at Westfield Secondary, I never had the chance to prank Ms Taylor.

Well, today was the day.

Andrew smirked as he gently pulled the smoke bomb from his bag. I held my phone up to Andrew, taping him as he tugged on the fuse and threw the bomb into the classroom. Some ninth-graders looked up in wonder, some were smirking and some were grinning at the two of us as we ran backwards, taping the scene in front of me.

"Smoke bomb!" I yelled, not caring if I was going to get caught or not. Andrew and I shared a grin at the sight of Ms Taylor standing up and yelling our names. She knew who we were; Andrew and I were the most hated in her class.

Bright red smoke erupted from the bomb and we heard students screaming as they rushed out of the classroom. The video was going to look excellent, but there was no time to think about that now as we jumped the fence and ran to Andrew's motorbike. He passed me a helmet and I put it on firmly, thoughts of escaping filled my mind as I slid my iPhone into my back pocket. Without a second glance, we left the school successfully.

---

"Another great prank by the one, the only, Alex Mandell!" I bowed to my fans, which consisted of the endless posters on my wall and Andrew, who was silently laughing at me.

"Hey!" I placed my hands on my hips. "You gotta admit it was pretty smart."

"Simple, but effective," Andrew commented, toying with my phone as he leaned back on the wall. "Did you see Taylor's face? She was ready to murder you."

"Murder us, actually -" I stopped in mid-sentence as my phone rang. Andrew answered it swiftly with an enthusiastic, "Hello?"

"May I please talk to Alexandra Mandell?" The speaker was male, with a strong British accent that could be heard through my phone.

Andrew shrugged and handed the phone to me. I put it on speaker and confirmed that it was me on the phone.

"Hello Alexandra, this is Simon Cowell." My eyes widened instantly as I recognised the famous man speaking to me. I had two suspicions to why he'd call me; one, because I may have found his assistant's number on the internet and pretended to be his daughter, requesting a few silly things, or two, because - "Congratulations, you have been chosen as one of our winners in the Up All Night tour sweepstakes."

Alright, clearly it was the second suspicion.

I couldn't speak. It was like my brain had stopped working and had decided to stop all my words that were rushing to my mouth. I won. I had won. I let out a loud squeal that was sure to burn Simon's ears. It did to Andrew's, who glared at me as he rested his hands over his ears. I sent a sheepish smile his way as a response.

"Thank you thank you thank you! I promise you sir you won't regret it," I beamed, throwing my fists up in the air as a sign of happiness.

He chuckled on the other line. "I'm glad to hear." He then proceeded to tell me the details of what I had in store for the upcoming months, but I was too excited to listen. Instead, I handed it over to Andrew who I was grateful towards for, for listening to all the boring information about what was happening.

I was going to England and meeting the five loves of my life. Nothing could get better than this.