Angels of Luck

“This is a bit juvenile, even for us.”

“Shut up Marcus! Just light the bag and let’s get out of here,” Sarah tried to scream in a loud whisper.

“I’m coming! Keep it down!” he whisper-shouted back to her. He finished crossing the narrow neighborhood street and lightly stepped onto the front doorstep of the sky-blue house. Marcus set the paper bag down in front of the door, pulled out his lighter and lit the top. When Sarah saw the bag light, she ducked back into the bushes across the street. Marcus hurriedly put his lighter away, rang the doorbell, and then sprinted toward Sarah and the bushes.

Marcus dove into the bushes and landed with a thud beside Sarah. He composed himself and squatted next to his sister in the bushes and watched the flaming bag across the street. After what seemed like hours, Sarah was growing impatient.

“Is he even at home? I don’t see a car in the driveway,” Sarah commented.

“I don’t exactly know. Where else would he be? Everyone is supposed to be on lockdown…..” Marcus answered, offering little in the way of reassurance.

“You rang the doorbell, right?” Sarah asked.

“Of course I did,” Marcus answered sharply.

“I am just asking………because you know……….no one is coming to the door.”

“I rang it. Just give it a minute. It’s dinner time. Maybe he was in the middle of a bite and we startled him. I definitely smelled something when I was by the door.”

Sarah stopped and looked at Marcus. “Smelled something? What did it smell like?”

Just as Marcus was about to answer, the house exploded. The siblings were knocked over from the force of the blast but were shielded from much of the debris by the bushes. As they recovered from the sudden turn of events, they both slowly stood and watched the inferno raging across the street. Alarms from cars were echoing into the late afternoon air as the plumes of smoke billowed out of the husk of what had intended to be the Sterling siblings’ latest prank.

“Oh fuck….,” they both uttered simultaneously.

As the fear overwhelmed them, a car drove up and parked directly in front of the house. A man stepped out of the car and stood in front of the burning building for a moment. Sarah recognized that man as the man on their list. “Oh, double fuck….,” she said, pointing out the man to her brother.

Suddenly the man burst into uproarious laughter. Confusion and fear gripped the siblings as they observed what they believed to be a man losing his mind right in front of their eyes. This man was laughing so hard it was difficult for him to breathe. After a few moments of laughter, the man finally shouted out, but towards no one in particular.

“Well, this is the perfect end to this FUCKING day of the practical joke which is my life!”

Sarah slowly spoke to her brother after a few minutes, “I am going to go out on a limb and say that smell was some sort of gas leak.”

Marcus simply replied, “Good call.”

The next morning the Sterling brother and sister duo tried to go about their normal routine. They woke up in their motel, took turns showering and getting themselves ready for the day, packed up their suitcases and checked out. Sarah took especially long this morning. It seemed the events of the previous day were weighing heavily on her. Marcus, while not completely unfazed, was taking it more in stride.

“You want some doughnuts before we check the locker?” he asked Sarah once they were in their car driving towards the airport.

Clearly exasperated, Sarah replied, “How can you even THINK about food right now? Do you not remember what we did?”

“Obviously,” replied Marcus. “But me starving myself isn’t going to help that dude rebuild his house.”

“Ha! ‘Starving yourself’,” Sarah responded while making air quotes with her fingers, “You just had like three bags of chips from the vending machine. “

“Well, yeah, but those were fun size bags. They are not very filling. I saw a doughnut shop around here somewh-“

Sarah cut him off, shouting, “NO! I do not want any food! I want to get our money, get our book, and get the hell out of here.”

“Okay okay! Jesus. I want to leave too………. those doughnuts looked really good though,” Marcus answered.

Sarah shot daggers at Marcus with her eyes as she frustratingly said, “God……………. dammit.”

The bickering kept up the entire way to the airport. As the two parked and walked into the terminal, they hushed their tones but kept at it the entire way towards the lockers. They reached the lockers and Sarah took off the backpack she was wearing, unzipping the main compartment.

“……. I am just saying Marcus. We RUINED that man’s life yesterday. It was not just some harmless prank this time,” Sarah continued her argument as Marcus was unlocking their locker. “While I am sure his insurance will cover a lot of it, that does not help him right now. He’s got no place to live!’

Marcus was about to respond as he opened the door to the locker and three bundles of money spilled out and onto the ground. Stunned, the siblings stood silent for a moment. The looked at the bundles on the ground and inside the locker, stacked on top of their little black notebook.

“Um…. what the hell is going on?” Marcus asked Sarah.

“How would I know? We’ve never gotten this much money before,” she responded. “Best we ever got was from the cellophane toilet prank on that lady in Arizona.” Even then, we got maybe $1000 from that. This is……. a lot more.”

Marcus picked up the money from the ground and started counting the money, telling his sister, “I don’t even know how that Arizona one counted. Woman never even pissed on the cellophane. All it did was keep that snake in her pipes from biting her ass.”

Sarah was half listening as she took out the black notebook, turned it to a page about one third the way through, and crossed off the name on the list before closing the book. She answered Marcus, “How do you know that?”

“I heard a news story about her the next morning when I was checking us out of the hotel,” he answered. “You know, I think enough time has gone by that we can think about going back to-“

“We can never go back to Arizona!” Sarah snapped, cutting him off.

“Okay! Jesus, calm down,” Marcus meekly replied. He finished totaling the money and told Sarah how much, “It looks to be about $20,000. I just don’t understand….” His voice trailed off as he examined the money, looking for any signs of being counterfeit.

“We need to go, now!” Sarah spoke up to break the silence. They packed the backpack, took the black notebook, and walked back to their car as quickly as possible.

Marcus drove the two of them to a parking lot of a closed down department store, and they sat quietly in their car. Marcus could not stop handling the money. He would run his fingers along the bundled bills, wondering if he was dreaming.

“How could this happen?” Sarah spoke suddenly, breaking the silence again. “Why did we get this much money this time?”

Marcus made some flustered noise in response and said, “How would I know? I understand the rules just as you do. Find the person next on the list. Prank them somehow. Money appears with the book.”

“But this much?!” Sarah shouted back as she grabbed some bundles and randomly tossed them in the air. “How is what we did last night a prank?”

“I don’t know!” Marcus shouted even louder, prompting him to recognize things were escalating. He stopped, took a breath, allowed them both to calm for a few beats, and then continued. “You heard what he said though. He said his whole life was a practical joke. You think that had something to do with it?”

Sarah was puzzled at the question. “That does not make sense.”

“Or does it?” asked a voice in the back seat that terrified both Marcus and Sarah. They screamed and turned to see a sweet old woman sitting in their back seat. After catching their breath, Marcus spoke up, “You are the weird woman who gave us this book! How did you get in my car? Are you the one giving us this money?!" After taking a few breaths, he continued, "I don't suppose you have any doughnuts?”

Sarah stared daggers at her brother once again as she smacked him on the shoulder and said, “Fucking doughnuts? Really?”

“Dude I am hungry, and you wouldn’t let us stop before the airport…”

“NO!” Sarah cut him off before he could ramble further. “Big picture man! Not the time!” Sarah turned to the woman and spoke to her, “What is going on here? How is blowing up the man’s house a prank worth $20,000?”

The old woman looked confused by the question. “Pranks?”

Growing more frustrated, Sarah shouted back to the woman, “YES! Pranks! You gave us this book and since then, we have pranked every single person in this book.” Sarah held the notebook in her hand and shook it angrily as she spoke. “We stow the book somewhere, prank the person, and when we get back to the book, there is money.”

“Oh dear,” the old woman chuckled as she responded, “Don’t you see? You are saving them.” The old woman laughed heartily and smiled big as she held up a doughnut.