He figured that forbidding them entirely would only encourage more outrageous stints; at least if he allowed them to go wild, he could set ground rules that could be followed. Absolutely no one was to get hurt as a result of the pranks, and whatever pranks they came up with would not result in thousands of dollars' worth of property damage to the Institute. That his leniency seemed to spare him and the rest of the staff from the school-wide pranks was a perk they were all relieved to enjoy.
Alas, that no longer seemed to be the case. Charles shook his head in wry amusement at his open wardrobe. It wasn't enough that he woke to find that, in place of his regular wheelchair, he found a special, customized one fashioned after the captain's chair on the S.S. Enterprise. (He wasn't sure if he wanted to know how they managed this.) To add insult to injury, his collection of coats, sweater vests, tweed and other respectable attire had been replaced with a set of black tights and a smart-looking shirt of maroon and black, one with a familiar insignia stitched over the left breast. Taped to the door of his closet was a note written in Klingon that he knew read "April Fool's, Professor!" without having to consult the enclosed translation key.
He sighed. He only hoped that the other teachers would be as forgiving.
Now, to determine how best to go about putting on this uniform...
Three Aprils ago, Ororo and the rest of the mansion woke to several shrieks - quite a few of the girls (and some of the boys) found their shampoo spiked with varying degrees of food coloring, and poor Kurt had refused to emerge from his room for the rest of the day. Since then, Ororo made a practice of buying a new set of bath essentials on the eve of the holiday, kept it from prying hands and took to the skies for a morning shower. (If she was vain about one thing, it was her hair.) Unorthodox and quite extensive, but it wasn't as if she was new to the practice. After all, it had been a daily occurrence back in her teen years on the Serengeti, and she did still sometimes have the urge to bathe in a raincloud of her own making every once in a while.
Ororo rose from bed, slipping out of her nightgown and into a comfortable terrycloth robe. She took a small bag of the simplest bathroom essentials, and headed towards the glass doors that opened into her modest balcony. It was early - not even dawn yet - but she had to shower at this hour if she didn't want to risk being seen by impressionable young minds. As she summoned a wind and took to the sky, she didn't hear the lock on her door turn.
About an hour later found Ororo fresh from her shower and alighting onto her balcony, only to find that her doors refused to open. Suspicion began to creep up her spine, but before she could even wonder why, loud music (Was that High School Musical...?) began to blare out of the window one room over - Logan's room.
Half a second later, when the music abruptly died, the balcony doors were flung open, followed by several alarm clocks that had seen the business end of Wolverine's claws.
She was still blinking when he finally turned to her, all tousled hair and rumpled sleepwear, snarling somewhat.
She threw him a sympathetic smile. "Good morning to you, too, Logan."
"Nothin' good about it, 'Ro." He rumbled, scowling down at the bushes where the clocks had landed.
She leaned onto the railing that separated her balcony from his, folding her arms. "Yes, well. At least you haven't been locked out of your own room. I loathe to think of what they've done in there."
"Yeah? They got you, too?" He frowned.
"Apparently." She tried the doors again, and sighed when they refused to budge. While certainly capable of it, she really didn't relish the idea of breaking into her own room... She turned back to Logan, a question in her eyes, and he nodded before she could ask.
"Come on, then. Let's see if they haven't locked your other door." She smiled gratefully, effortlessly floating over to his balcony and followed him into his room.
"It's strange; they don't normally target specific people, much less us teachers."
"I really wouldn't put it past them to start now, darlin'. If anything, it was only a matter of time before they'd-..." His voice trailed off, and Ororo looked up from where she had stepped inside.
"Logan?"
When she got a snikt in reply, she hurried over to where he was standing and glaring menacingly at his bed. "Logan, what's... ah."
Lying on the rumpled, unkept sheets was a very familiar pair of lacy black panties. She quirked an eyebrow, and sent Logan a curious look as she picked up her wayward piece of underwear.
The claws were retracted as he hastily held his hands up. "That wasn't there when I got up, 'Ro, I swear."
"I believe you, Logan." Her voice was cool and her face an expression of practiced calm, but he heard the faint rumble of thunder in the distance. "It was on my bed when I left my room earlier - what I'd like to know, however, is how it got here."
He took a careful sniff of his room and caught the faint scent of peppermint and cayenne spice. "Stripes," he growled. "I am gonna kill that kid."
Ororo smiled wryly as she walked out and towards her own room. "I'm sure you will, Logan. Before that, it might be smart to find out who her co-conspirators are, yes?"
Sure enough, the door to her room was left ajar. She was absolutely certain she'd locked it before she took her bath, and there was only one other person in the mansion who could and would pick a locked door. Logan was growling again by the time they both carefully stepped inside.
She took inventory of her room - nothing seemed out of place, but she knew better. After inspecting her bed, she opened her closet doors and expected the worst.
This time, Storm didn't bother masking her annoyance. She glared at Logan's appreciative wolf whistle, and lightning flashed in the clear, lightening sky outside.
Her closet was completely bare, save for a few choice pieces of lingerie, each more risqué than the last. Tacked to one of the doors was a red rose, and a note that reeked of familiar cologne.
'For you, Stormy~'
Hank sighed. It was long, drawn-out and tired, but a smile stubbornly played at his lips anyway.
He was trying to be angry at the fact that the morning coffee was frozen within the confines of the carafe. And that the sugar was salty, that the toilet overflowed with frothy pink bubbles when he'd flushed it this morning, that his computers' language settings had been set to a language he didn't understand a word of (Korean), and that his beloved Twinkies had been phased out of their wrappers and replaced with rolled up pieces of foam. He was justifiably irked that they'd somehow put bright pink highlights into his fur… but truthfully, he was far more curious as to how they snuck into his room last night to manage it. He suspected Jean's telepathy may have been in play, but surely she was surely above such trickery... wasn't she?
But, he liked to think he got off easy.
He grinned openly at Charles as he wheeled past in his Picard costume. There was a lingering scent of sulfur and brimstone on the upholstery of the cleverly customized chair, and he thought Kurt lucky that Charles was humoring him.
Gambit would probably suffer a far worse fate, he mused as Ororo bustled around the kitchen in, if there was any truth to what Logan had muttered to him earlier, nothing but a short terrycloth robe. She spared the coffee maker a thoughtful frown before she took down some packets of instant coffee from the cupboards, her motions swift and no-nonsense.
"I wonder, Charles, how they would feel," she was murmuring in low tones that Hank and Logan had no trouble hearing from across the kitchen, "If they learned that I spent quite a few years in a society without your culture's silly taboos on nudity..."
Hank chuckled and Logan let out a sudden bark of laughter. "If you'll be streaking through the mansion, 'Ro, you better let me know 'cause I've got dibs on front-row seats."
"There will be no streaking in this house, Logan." Charles said, voice sharp but eyes dancing with amusement.
"Cryin' shame, that." He stalked over to fridge and took a bottle of beer. "Dunno about you, Chuck, but if those kids think fer one minute they're gettin' away with all this..." He paused for dramatic effect to take a swig of his drink -
- only to spit it all out in a fine spray of... pink?
"What the flying fu-"
"Logan!"
Hank, who had finally put down the morning paper, leaned over to examine the mystery drink once the initial shock had worn off. "It appears that our young friends have replaced Logan's alcohol with," A careful sniff, and a laughing smile. "Kool-Aid."
Oh yes, Hank thought with a grin as Wolverine let out a string of colorful curses that had Storm swatting him with the kitchen towel she was using to clean up his mess. April Fool's wasn't so bad if it meant watching this unfold.
End Notes: Gambit is the only one brave enough to prank Storm, much less handle her underwear like that. I imagine he'd think he'd get away with it with his charming personality and way with the ladies… Of course, Storm is no ordinary lady.
Logan doesn't know it, but Laura helped plant the alarm clocks and Ro's unmentionables in his room. She's the only one stealthy enough for it. Rogue probably bribed her with something. Or convinced her that it was tradition of some sort.
Kurt persuaded Forge in the customization of the Prof's chair.
The kids went 'easy' on Hank because he's awesome. And probably doesn't have reactions as funny as Wolverine's.
And lastly, Kitty phased the bottlecaps out of Wolverine's stash of beer so they could replace it with Kool-Aid. No one would admit as to what happened to the actual beer. This idea was pretty much the entire reason this chapter exists.
