It is midnight . . . early by most prank standards . . . but this is an in-house caper, where security is more lax and the chance of being caught is less likely.
The three of them . . . Natalie, Sandy, and Laurie . . . make their way down the stairs and on into the cafeteria. They come to the door that leads into the kitchen. It is locked, of course, but the girls have the key . . . of course. Once inside, they waste no time and go straight to work. Sandy is holding a clip board and is wearing one of those headbands that has a little flashlight attached to it. She turns the flashlight on. Natalie is holding a traditional flashlight as she and Laurie rummage through the food trays that are stacked right there.
Laurie: OK. A flock of geese one.
Sandy: Check.
Laurie: A deer in the forest one.
Sandy: Check.
Natalie: Here’s a . . . skiing one. Does anybody want one of those?
Sandy: (pause) Nope.
And they go on like this until twenty-five trays . . . meeting the design orders of twenty-five seniors . . . have been “sequestered” from the rest of the food trays. They do a double check, just to be sure, and then, with each girl carrying a stack of eight or nine trays, they sneak back up to the dorm floor.
The next afternoon there is the following announcement over the school speaker system.
Mr. Hendersen: Excuse me girls, but there seems to be some food trays missing from the school kitchen. We took a count, and the number of missing trays is exactly . . . twenty-five. I don’t understand it. The trays are kept behind a locked door. But the funny thing is . . . the same thing happened last year . . . and the year before that. And I am completely baffled by it. If you have any ideas, please let me know. OK. That’s all.