I'm a Fool For You

Chapter 3

The next few items were easier. After hitting a party store, I had confetti, streamers, squirting flowers, and party poppers. A hardware store provided a net and some tape. I brought them home to drop them off with the balloons (I ended up not floating away after all, but I'm sure I was quite a sight stumbling down the street trying to hold a hundred balloons and with balloon animals stuffed into my clothes everywhere they would fit. It took me three trips, too). Mister J was out by then, no doubt pulling a genius prank of his own. I'd have to be careful to stay away from newsstands and such so he could tell me about it himself.

Then came the setting up. First I tied a balloon dog to the doorknob and attached a party popper to the other end of the string. Then I went inside and masterfully taped the net to the ceiling just in front of the door. I attached another string to the net and wound the other end around the door. That way when Puddin' opened the door the net would come down and shower him with balloons.

Balloons… Oh.

It would probably work better if there were balloons in the net. I tugged the rope in frustration to get the net down and it fell right on top of me. Immediately I got so tangled I could only thrash around of the floor trying to get out. I tried to grab the door to haul myself up and ended up grabbing the balloon dog, which set off the party popper, which exploded right in my face. And to top it all off, the explosion popped the balloon dog.

Perfect.

After I finally wiggled out of the net, I found another balloon dog, attached it to the door, rigged another party popper, retied the net string, and reattached the net to the ceiling, filling it with balloon animals this time. I carefully opened the door a crack to see if it would work. The string pulled taut and a corner of the net started to give away, so everything looked good.

I turned to the squirting flowers. I was quite pleased with myself for finding those, since Mister J is so fond of his squirting flower. For these flowers, I had something extra special in mind. With great patience and frustration, I forced each one full of confetti. Then I arranged them in vases along with some real flowers so they looked completely innocent.

As I looked at the rest of the party poppers, I noticed that they were a little lackluster. I was hoping for something more along the lines of a party cannon.

I went through my options. It was going to be pretty hard for me to get my hands on a real cannon in the time I had before Mister J got home. Ivy would probably help me out, but I didn't really have time to go find her either. I was on my own. And the only place I could think to find all the things I would need to rig up a cannon was the Gotham dump.

I strode purposefully across the room and reached for the doorknob. At the last second I jerked back with a gasp.

"Oh no, you old door. You're not fooling me twice!" I crowed. Then I very carefully nudged the door until the string was tight and squeezed out. It wasn't easy- I'm a rather biggirl in some areas- but I managed to squeak through. I would have gone out a window, but we live underground and all, so we don't have any windows. I checked, just to be sure.

Then it was off to the dump. My Puddin' deserves nothing less.