Troublemakers                                                                                     
  
“Bye honey!” my mom said as she gave me a giant hug.
“Be good to your Aunt Ellie.” my dad warned.
          “See you in a few weeks.” My older brother Alex chimed in. Then, as my parents got into their silver mercedes and slowly backed out of the driveway, they waved, and too soon they were gone. I missed them already. I heard a few sighs as we walked inside.
        “Why do mom and dad have to leave all the time?  It’s so unfair!” shouts Carly, obviously frustrated.
        “I know,” I told her, “it’s not fair, but they have to, it’s for work.”
        “Yeah, but they leave all the time!” Luke shot back. I knew he was right, my parents left every month for two to three weeks. They were gone more than they were here at home with us. It wasn’t fair, and I hated it, but it was our reality.
        “Come on guys, we have to get ready for Aunt Ellie, she’ll be here any minute.” I yelled, trying to change the subject. Everytime my mom and dad went out of town, which is a lot, they always have some weird relative come stay with us. We’ve had Grampa Jack, our third cousin Ana, our second cousin Becca, and so many others I can’t name them all, but they’ve all been interesting experiences.
       Ding! Dong! Our doorbell rang, and Macie went running to it screaming, “I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” she pulled  open our big white door and smiled at our Aunt standing in front of her. Aunt Ellie just glared at her, as she let herself in, set down her bag, and glanced around for a few moments. She was probably about 40, tall, and skinny. She was wearing skin tight blue skinny jeans, and a long sleeve black shirt, which was strange, because it was the middle of June. She had short brown hair that was pulled into a tiny french braid. She also had green eyes, like mine and definitely too much makeup on.
       She stared at us stiffly, and finally said, “Hello children, my name is Aunt Ellie.”
       Alex stepped up to greet her. “Hi Aunt Ellie it’s nice to meet you!” He put out his hand to greet her. She just stared at it.
       “Um, okay.” said Alex awkwardly.
       “My name is Alex and I’m 14. This is Macie, she’s five,” Macie waved at her.”the twins are Carly and Luke, they’re 10” they just smiled at Aunt Ellie, “ and this is Erin, she’s 12.”
       “Hi Aunt Ellie it’s nice to finally meet-” she cut me off.
       “Thats great, now will one of you give me a tour of this place!” she spread her arms out wide, like she was trying to give our house a hug. She must have forgotten that we were there.
       “Erin, would you mind giving Aunt Ellie a tour of the house? I was going to get something for lunch, I’m starving.” Alex said as he turned around and walked down the hallway towards the kitchen with Carly, Luke and Macie trailing
behind him leaving Aunt Ellie and me alone.
“Oh, and while you’re doing that, go put my bags in my room.” AuntEllie called after Alex. He turned around again as she tossed two large suitcases at him, he barely caught them they were so heavy. This was going to be a long three weeks.
   “Um, okay.” said Alex as continued his way to the kitchen.It took Aunt Ellie and I about half an hour to get through our whole house. We went everywhere, all five floors, the pool room, the game room, the craft room, and many, many other rooms. We even rode our elevator a few times.
         “Wow! You children are so blessed to have this big of a house! I bet anyone would do anything to have this much money.” said Aunt Ellie stunned by the house.
        “Yeah, it is pretty big.” I said back. I didn’t feel lucky though, our parents just bought us whatever we wanted to make us happy, to make up for all of the time that they’re gone.
        “So, what do you want to do later today?” I asked desperately trying to get a conversation going.
       “I was hoping to have some relaxing pool time by myself.” she responded, not even bothering to look at me.
       “What I meant was what do you want to do with us later?”
       “Ha! You actually want me to spend time with you! That’s a good one Erica.”
       “It’s Erin.”
       “Whatever.”
       “Fine! I don’t even want to spend time with you, so go ahead do whatever you'd like.”
        “Fine with me!” she responded bitterly.
        “Why are you being so rude to us?” I was yelling now. I felt my fists clench and my face get hot. I stomped my foot down on the ground.
       “You listen to me Erin, while I’m here, you listen to my rules. Got it?”
I didn’t even respond, I just turned around and stormed down two flights of stairs like a tornado until I got to the kitchen where I found my siblings.
       “What's wrong?” asked Macie as I took a seat next to Luke.
       “Aunt Ellie is such a jerk.”
       “We figured that out already.” Alex said.
       “Anyways, I just asked her what we wanted to do today, you know trying to make conversation, and she just laughed and said she was planning to have some pool time by herself. So, then I asked her what she wanted to do with us today she said that she didn’t want to spend time with us!”
       “Wow, I knew she could be rude, but I didn’t know she could be that much of a jerk.” said Alex.
       ”I don’t really like her either.” admitted Luke.
       “Yeah, and I already miss mom and dad.” added Carly.
       “I say we try and get rid of her.” I said as I thought of all of the things we could do to Aunt Ellie and all of the pranks we could pull.
       “Yeah! Great idea Erin!” cheered my brother Luke.
       “That is a pretty good idea.” agreed Alex.
       “And mom and dad could get home sooner!” added Carly. Macie just started smiling and giving us high-five, even though she didn’t really get what was going on.
       We started by planning our first trick first, and then started thinking about the other pranks we could do to Aunt Ellie to get her to leave, forcing our mom and dad to come home early. It took us about 20 minutes to figure out our first trick and about 30 more minutes to talk about the other pranks. Later that day, after spying on our Aunt for a while, we decided it was time to pull our first prank.
       “Quick! Everyone go get your suits on and we’ll meet back here in the game room! Be careful not to be too loud, we don’t want Aunt Ellie to get suspicious.” I whispered.
We all split up sprinting to our bedrooms to get our suits on. I was so excited, I didn’t even bother to make sure my suit matched.
We were all back in the game room not even two minutes later.
       “Okay, here’s the gameplan. Erin, go turn all of the pool heaters off, Carly go help Macie put her floaties on, but be super careful not to be too loud. Luke, you and I are going to get the water balloons and squirt guns ready. Then, when were all done with our jobs, we’ll meet back here again. Everyone got it?”
       “Yep!” we all said at the same time.
       “This is going to be so funny!” Luke added, excitement in his voice.
As soon as we finished our tasks, we met in the game room. Then the fun started. We tiptoed into the pool room, very carefully. Luckly, Aunt Ellie was still in the middle of the pool on our pink floating mat. We exchanged smiles.       Then Alex counted us down. “One, two, three!”
       We darted towards the pool, water guns and water balloons in our hands. I did a cannon ball right in front of Aunt Ellie. I felt a shiver come up my spine as I did a cannonball There were water balloons, and streams of water shooting past my head as I swam towards Aunt Ellie. I tipped her floating mat over as a water balloon went right into her head. It was like a battle scene. “Ahhhhh! Why is it so cold! screamed Aunt Ellie as she struggled to get out of the pool.
Luke threw our last water balloon at her. That was it. She exploded.
       “What were you thinking! Making the water cold, and then dumping me in!” We tried to keep straight faces, but failed and laughed at her.
       “Stop it! she screamed angrily as she walked out of the pool room.
We just continued to laugh at her.
       That night at dinner, Aunt Ellie was in a really bad mood. But, instead of feeling bad for her we only made it worse. Since Aunt Ellie was in such a bad mood from our prank earlier, she made us make dinner. It wasn’t that bad, but we still wanted her to regret it.
       “I’ll get the milk, you get the soap!” I yelled to my younger sister Carly.
Alex was almost done with the spaghetti and meatballs, Luke was setting the table and Macie was in the craft room probably coloring a rainbow or something. 
       “Dinners ready!” Alex called to Aunt Ellie.
       “It’s about time!” she said back as she took at seat at the table.
       “Okay, let’s eat!” The rest of us sat down at the table.
       “Oh, Aunt Ellie, I almost forgot!  Heres your drink.” I handed her the soapy milk.
       “Thank you.” She took a giant sip of her drink, and before she could swallow it, she jumped up from her seat, ran to the sink, and spit it out.
       “Gross!” she screamed. “What did you devils do to my drink!” she got out a cup, filled it with water, and chugged it trying to get the soapy taste out of her mouth.
This was so entertaining! We couldn't help it, so we just laughed.
      “Soap.” responded Carly in a small voice.
      “Ahhhh! Everyone in your rooms now! This is unacceptable.”
We giggled and smiled as we ran up to our rooms together. We usually use the elevator to get to our rooms, but we had so much energy the stair seemed like a better choice.
        “Come on into my room guys!” We all ran into Alex’s room and found a seat.
Macie and Carly were on the bed, Luke and I were on the floor, and Alex sat in his beanbag chair.
        “Okay, were almost there. I think that if we pull one more really good prank Aunt Ellie will want to leave.
       “What do you think we should do?” asked Luke curiously.
       “I’m not sure, but whatever it is, it has to be big.” I responded.
After discussing what kind of prank we should do for almost half and hour we finally decided.
       The next day Aunt Ellie decided to go on a couple of errands. It was the perfect time to pull our final prank.
       “Bye Aunt Ellie!” Carly called down the hallway.
       “I’ll be back around dinner time to make the stew.” responded Aunt Ellie as she stepped out the door. 
       “Okay, see you then.”
Once we heard the door shut Carly and Luke ran into the kitchen, and Alex, Macie and I ran to the elevator. We let Macie press the little ‘4’ icon button and got off at the fourth floor. I was so excited, I could hardly wait. We ran to Aunt Ellies room because we didn’t have the patience for walking, and opened her closet door.
       “Alex, you grab everything that's in her suitcase, and Carly and I will get everything that's in her closet.”
       “Got it.”
While we were grabbing all of Aunt Ellie ‘s clothes, Carly and Luke were in the kitchen making a bowl of honey, which was the key to our trick. As soon as were were done Alex, Macie and I rushed down three flights of steps to meet Carly and Luke in the backyard by the clothesline like we had planned. Together, we hung up all of Aunt Ellie's clothes on the clothesline.
       “Heres the best part.” Alex said as he dripped the honey on all of Aunt Ellie's clothes.
We all laughed together as he put the honey on the last of her clothes.
       “This is going to be great!” said Carly.
       “Yeah! Our best prank yet!” I agreed as I stepped back to admire our work.
       Later that day, around dinner as Aunt Ellie had said, she came back from her errands. She dropped the bags off in the kitchen table and took her time unloading them. All of the sudden she froze. She ran to the back door screaming.
       “No! No! Noooo! What have you done to my clothes!”
The five of us slowly followed her to the back door. She ran outside, but it was too late. The honey had already sunk into her clothes, and there were bees and flies everywhere.
       “Come here this instinct!” she screamed at us.
We just stood at the door for a few moments, and when she started walking towards the door we locked it. Her face was priceless!
       “Wait! What are you doing!” There was panic in her voice.
       “Unlock the door right now!” We just ignored her.
       “Quick! Go and lock all of the doors and windows!” I shouted.
We scrambled around the first floor of our mansion locking everything, but of course we forgot to lock the front door.
      “Done!” Carly yelled.
      “Good job guys! That went well!”
But I spoke too soon. Just then Aunt Ellie rushed through the front door. Maybe we did go to far. She didn’t even say anything to us she just went right into the kitchen where the phone was. She dialed our mom's cell phone and talked to her for a few minutes. We couldn't hear what they were saying, but we were pretty sure that our parents would be home soon. A rush of joy filled me as I gave Carly and Macie high-fives. Once we heard Aunt Ellie hang up the phone, we quietly walked into the kitchen, where Aunt Ellie was.
       “So, children,” started Aunt Ellie. “because of your behavior, your parents have decided to come home early.”
       “Yes!” Luke said a little too loudly. We all smiled at each other because we knew that we wouldn’t have to deal with this ever again. Our parents would finally understand why we miss behave, and they would never be gone this much again.