Pranksters by Sam KW
Warning: Adding this after a comment I received for the story on AO3.
Please DO NOT read this story if you--
(1) dislike any sort of prank
(2) dislike any sort of prank played on Hutch
(3) dislike Starsky
(4) dislike Starsky's humor
**************************************************
Many Thanks to Hilly for Beta reading.
**************************************************
Saturday, March 31st, 11 am
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Starsky asked not looking up from the newspaper he was pretending to be interested in.
"Why not-- Don't you change the oil in your car?" Hutch asked, while chopping vegetables for a soup he was preparing for lunch.
"That's the thing, Hutch." Starsky chuckled inwardly. This was just too easy. "Mine is a car, but yours is… you know…" Starsky purposely avoided looking at Hutch as the sound of the knife hitting the cutting board ceased.
"Why don’t you do something useful, huh?"
Starsky jumped on his feet, dumping the paper on the coffee stand. "Waddy'a want me to do?" he asked, ignoring the burn of Hutch's glare that engulfed him from head to toes.
"Nothing," replied Hutch annoyingly. "Just keep your big mouth shut and mind your own business."
"Whatever you say, partner," said Starsky, returning immediately to the couch and the newspaper. "But… because I don't want to be yelled at for not warning ya… you better make sure all valves'd be tightened well because a clunker like yours with all that rust would've all its threads worn-off. And since this oil change'd be like, what, five years after the last one…?"
"Starsky!"
"Okay, already. I'm gonna shut my mouth and—"
"You're still talking!"
Starsky made a gesture of zipping his mouth and opened the newspaper. He held it in front of his face, grinning from ear to ear.
****
Sunday April 1st, 10 am.
The phone started to ring just as Hutch was leaving his apartment. He had a lot to do today including getting groceries. Grudgingly he went back and answered the phone.
"If you think you're going to fool me on April 1st, Starsk, you can forget it," Hutch yelled at the phone.
"Hutch?" the voice from the other end wasn't of Starsky.
"Molly?"
"This is Pete. Not Molly. How many times have I told you that my name is Pete? Why can't you pay attention like Starsky does? Anyway… we need your help."
"Why? What's wrong, Pete?"
"Starsky's stuck on that redwood tree that's in our backyard."
"Starsky's, what?"
"He's stuck."
"Is this some kind of a joke?"
"No—No. No, Hutch. I swear. This's not an April fools' day prank. He's really stuck."
Hutch sighed deeply. "Okay. I'll be there in ten minutes. Just ask him to stay put." There goes his Sunday. "Did he get there by paying good attention, Pete?" he said with a sneer before hanging up. Stuck in a tree! Why on earth Starsky climbed a tree was out of the question for the moment.
****
Sunday April 1st, 10.45am
Starsky was on his third cup of coffee when the phone started to ring.
"I was right—wasn't I? Your heap-o-junk is outt'a oil, right? All of it leaked overnight, huh?" Starsky said into the phone, smiling.
"Starsky?" The voice from the other end was not of Hutch.
"Kiko-- Is that you?"
"Yes. We need your help, Starsky. Hutch is stuck in our redwood tree."
"Hutch is what? "
"Stuck."
"What the hell's he doin' on a tree? Did he lose his way while joggin'?"
"It's all our fault, Starsky. We should've called you right away without asking him to help. Can you come here, as soon as possible?"
Starsky sighed deeply. He wasn't even completely awake, yet. "Gimme a couple of minutes, okay?"
***
Starsky got out of his Torino and looked around but didn’t see Hutch's LTD parked anywhere near Kiko's house. He wondered whether Kiko and Molly, aka, Pete, were pulling a prank on him.
Starsky knocked on the door, and Pete opened it.
"What took you so long?" she asked annoyingly. "Come quickly. He's in the backyard."
The kids weren't joking. Hutch really was on the tree, and it seemed like one of his legs was caught between two branches.
"What's the matter with you, huh? Can't you stay outt'a trouble?" asked Starsky. Now he'd have to climb all the way up to rescue his partner. "What're you doing up there, anyway? You wanna build a tree house or somethin' for the kids?"
"I was rescuing YOU!" Hutch yelled.
"Me?" asked Starsky, bewildered. What in the world was Hutch talking about? "Why did you climb a tree to rescue me when I was sleeping at home?"
"Hutch was trying to save this one," said Pete, picking up their cat and showing it to Starsky. The Starsky that Hutch had been rescuing apparently was the cat named Starsky that was given to Pete by Starsky for her birthday.
"But—but… the cat is down here. So why the hell did you climb the tree?" asked Starsky.
"She was all the way up here earlier… pretending to be scared and helpless, pretending--- just like you'd…"
"But I was at home," said Starsky. "How could I…?
"Starsky!" Hutch cut him off effectively. "If you don’t get me out of here, by God, I will kill you."
"More reason for me to leave you where you are."
Starsky climbed up to where Hutch was stuck. "So how did you manage this?" he asked, checking how one of Hutch's legs were tangled between two branches.
"That stupid cat was sitting at the end of this branch screaming bloody murder. She was too afraid to move, or that's what I thought. And as soon as I tried to get to her, she just turned around, jumped over me and ran down the tree."
"He."
"What?"
"Starsky cat is a he, not a she. Just so that you know."
"Oh, excuse me for the gender misidentification."
"Just sayin'. Now wait until I pull these branches apart. And as soon as I say go, pull your leg out. Got it?"
"Got it!" said Hutch, indignantly.
****
"So what happened to your car?" asked Starsky while driving Hutch back to his apartment.
"Why do you think something has happened to it?" Hutch asked annoyingly.
"If there was nothing wrong with it, you would've driven it to Kiko's place now, wouldn't ya? And if you did that, I wouldn’t be driving you back to—"
"Will you just shut up?" Hutch was still in the very bad mood as he was when Starsky found him around the tree branches, all tangled and mussed up at Kiko's place.
"Sure! So what happened?" It wasn't Starsky's fault that Starsky, the black and white cat, fooled everyone into believing that he was in trouble, when he clearly wasn't. That's his cat living up to his name all right.
Hutch sighed exasperatedly and looked out of the window. "Damn oil," he mumbled as his hair danced with the wind.
"What did you say?" asked Starsky
"The oil— all gone, just like you said, yesterday," Hutch said loudly.
"How do you know?"
Hutch turned his head around and glared at Starsky. "Because there's a big fat leak mark under the car."
"Ah!"
"What's that supposed to mean, huh? You think I'm lying? You think I don't know how to detect an oil leak?"
"No, no!" Starsky sad hurriedly. "Just wonderin' whether it's really an oil leak and not somethin' else."
"Something else?" Hutch shot back. "How the hell could it be something else? And what exactly could this something else be under the car?"
"Well- I dunno, Hutch, 'tis your car—it can be anything." Starsky tried to sound rational and reasonable. "I mean—who knows. What if a raccoon or a dog or somethin' took a leak under the car."
"Why would something go under my car to pee?"
"I don’t know, Hutch, It wasn't me- I mean I'd never even go near that thing, especially to pee, jeez, I would’ve had to get another tetanus shot right on my—"
"Can you just shut the hell up?"
It seemed like all what Hutch would do these days was to yell at Starsky to shut up, which was still very ineffective. "So did you try to get it to start?" Starsky pretended to give his undivided attention to the road ahead.
"Why would I do that when it was clear to me that everything had drained out?"
"Considering the condition of your car, maybe it didn’t even need any oil—"
"Starsky!"
"Okay, okay. Shutting up."
In another few minutes Starsky parked the Torino behind Hutch's LTD at Venice place.
Hutch got out of the car and walked over to his beloved vehicle. "See," he said, pointing to the ground under the car.
Starsky walked around the LTD and dropped into a squat beside it. He craned his neck to see under the car. Then he got up and walked to the front, standing facing the LTD. "Ah!" he exclaimed.
"I told you it's all gone," said Hutch, and rolled his eyes. "Actually it was you who told me this would happen."
"I did, didn’t I?" Starsky accepted the fact proudly. "But the thing is, Hutch, is this oil really from the car or of somethin' else?"
"What do you mean?" Hutch asked, kneeling in front of his car.
"I mean, it is clear that this's some kinda' oil and that it goes all the way up to the sidewalk slabs, but…"
"What're you trying to say?" asked Hutch, getting up off the ground.
"Just making an observation, Hutch. The stain starts from the front of the driver's side wheel. Now… is that where the drain valve outlet is in this thing?" Starsky asked tapping on Hutch's car.
Hutch was silent for a couple of seconds, his eyes moving back and forth from Starsky to where the patch of the oil seem to originate.
"You did this," Hutch said angrily, pointing his finger at Starsky. "You poured some oil under the car to fool me in to think that I lost all of it."
Sighing deeply, Starsky leaned against the LTD. "Be reasonable, will ya? I didn't even know when you were going to change the oil. You just told me you were going to do it. Besides, do you think I would pour the oil in front of a tire, huh?" Starsky tried to rationalize. "If it were me, I'd know exactly where to pour that oil, because I would've thought that you'd spot a prank when you see where the oil spill started. I'd never—" Starsky said in an exaggerated tone with a hint of sarcasm. "Never in a million years think that you wouldn’t know where the drain valve is."
Hutch was red in the face. He turned around without uttering another word, and walked away from Starsky.
"So, Hutch," Starsky called out, trying his best to maintain a straight face. "Who really did the oil change in this?"
Hutch answered by slamming shut his apartment entrance door behind him.
Waiting for a minute to make sure Hutch wasn't going to come back pointing that Hutchinson finger at him, Starsky walked into Chez Helene, the restaurant under Hutch's apartment. He walked passed the reception in search of Jimmy, Chez Helene's chef's helper-kid in the kitchen.
Jimmy had followed Starsky's instructions to the letter, doing just as he was told; waiting until the end of his night-shift at the restaurant, saving a cup of used oil that was to be dumped into the waste drum, and then pouring it in front of the driver side tire, right on the spot Starsky had asked him to.
Starsky drove back home all happy and content about a well spend twenty-five dollars, even if he had to wake up early in the morning and rescue Hutch from a tree top.
***
Warning: Adding this after a comment I received for the story on AO3.
Please DO NOT read this story if you--
(1) dislike any sort of prank
(2) dislike any sort of prank played on Hutch
(3) dislike Starsky
(4) dislike Starsky's humor
**************************************************
Many Thanks to Hilly for Beta reading.
**************************************************
Saturday, March 31st, 11 am
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Starsky asked not looking up from the newspaper he was pretending to be interested in.
"Why not-- Don't you change the oil in your car?" Hutch asked, while chopping vegetables for a soup he was preparing for lunch.
"That's the thing, Hutch." Starsky chuckled inwardly. This was just too easy. "Mine is a car, but yours is… you know…" Starsky purposely avoided looking at Hutch as the sound of the knife hitting the cutting board ceased.
"Why don’t you do something useful, huh?"
Starsky jumped on his feet, dumping the paper on the coffee stand. "Waddy'a want me to do?" he asked, ignoring the burn of Hutch's glare that engulfed him from head to toes.
"Nothing," replied Hutch annoyingly. "Just keep your big mouth shut and mind your own business."
"Whatever you say, partner," said Starsky, returning immediately to the couch and the newspaper. "But… because I don't want to be yelled at for not warning ya… you better make sure all valves'd be tightened well because a clunker like yours with all that rust would've all its threads worn-off. And since this oil change'd be like, what, five years after the last one…?"
"Starsky!"
"Okay, already. I'm gonna shut my mouth and—"
"You're still talking!"
Starsky made a gesture of zipping his mouth and opened the newspaper. He held it in front of his face, grinning from ear to ear.
****
Sunday April 1st, 10 am.
The phone started to ring just as Hutch was leaving his apartment. He had a lot to do today including getting groceries. Grudgingly he went back and answered the phone.
"If you think you're going to fool me on April 1st, Starsk, you can forget it," Hutch yelled at the phone.
"Hutch?" the voice from the other end wasn't of Starsky.
"Molly?"
"This is Pete. Not Molly. How many times have I told you that my name is Pete? Why can't you pay attention like Starsky does? Anyway… we need your help."
"Why? What's wrong, Pete?"
"Starsky's stuck on that redwood tree that's in our backyard."
"Starsky's, what?"
"He's stuck."
"Is this some kind of a joke?"
"No—No. No, Hutch. I swear. This's not an April fools' day prank. He's really stuck."
Hutch sighed deeply. "Okay. I'll be there in ten minutes. Just ask him to stay put." There goes his Sunday. "Did he get there by paying good attention, Pete?" he said with a sneer before hanging up. Stuck in a tree! Why on earth Starsky climbed a tree was out of the question for the moment.
****
Sunday April 1st, 10.45am
Starsky was on his third cup of coffee when the phone started to ring.
"I was right—wasn't I? Your heap-o-junk is outt'a oil, right? All of it leaked overnight, huh?" Starsky said into the phone, smiling.
"Starsky?" The voice from the other end was not of Hutch.
"Kiko-- Is that you?"
"Yes. We need your help, Starsky. Hutch is stuck in our redwood tree."
"Hutch is what? "
"Stuck."
"What the hell's he doin' on a tree? Did he lose his way while joggin'?"
"It's all our fault, Starsky. We should've called you right away without asking him to help. Can you come here, as soon as possible?"
Starsky sighed deeply. He wasn't even completely awake, yet. "Gimme a couple of minutes, okay?"
***
Starsky got out of his Torino and looked around but didn’t see Hutch's LTD parked anywhere near Kiko's house. He wondered whether Kiko and Molly, aka, Pete, were pulling a prank on him.
Starsky knocked on the door, and Pete opened it.
"What took you so long?" she asked annoyingly. "Come quickly. He's in the backyard."
The kids weren't joking. Hutch really was on the tree, and it seemed like one of his legs was caught between two branches.
"What's the matter with you, huh? Can't you stay outt'a trouble?" asked Starsky. Now he'd have to climb all the way up to rescue his partner. "What're you doing up there, anyway? You wanna build a tree house or somethin' for the kids?"
"I was rescuing YOU!" Hutch yelled.
"Me?" asked Starsky, bewildered. What in the world was Hutch talking about? "Why did you climb a tree to rescue me when I was sleeping at home?"
"Hutch was trying to save this one," said Pete, picking up their cat and showing it to Starsky. The Starsky that Hutch had been rescuing apparently was the cat named Starsky that was given to Pete by Starsky for her birthday.
"But—but… the cat is down here. So why the hell did you climb the tree?" asked Starsky.
"She was all the way up here earlier… pretending to be scared and helpless, pretending--- just like you'd…"
"But I was at home," said Starsky. "How could I…?
"Starsky!" Hutch cut him off effectively. "If you don’t get me out of here, by God, I will kill you."
"More reason for me to leave you where you are."
Starsky climbed up to where Hutch was stuck. "So how did you manage this?" he asked, checking how one of Hutch's legs were tangled between two branches.
"That stupid cat was sitting at the end of this branch screaming bloody murder. She was too afraid to move, or that's what I thought. And as soon as I tried to get to her, she just turned around, jumped over me and ran down the tree."
"He."
"What?"
"Starsky cat is a he, not a she. Just so that you know."
"Oh, excuse me for the gender misidentification."
"Just sayin'. Now wait until I pull these branches apart. And as soon as I say go, pull your leg out. Got it?"
"Got it!" said Hutch, indignantly.
****
"So what happened to your car?" asked Starsky while driving Hutch back to his apartment.
"Why do you think something has happened to it?" Hutch asked annoyingly.
"If there was nothing wrong with it, you would've driven it to Kiko's place now, wouldn't ya? And if you did that, I wouldn’t be driving you back to—"
"Will you just shut up?" Hutch was still in the very bad mood as he was when Starsky found him around the tree branches, all tangled and mussed up at Kiko's place.
"Sure! So what happened?" It wasn't Starsky's fault that Starsky, the black and white cat, fooled everyone into believing that he was in trouble, when he clearly wasn't. That's his cat living up to his name all right.
Hutch sighed exasperatedly and looked out of the window. "Damn oil," he mumbled as his hair danced with the wind.
"What did you say?" asked Starsky
"The oil— all gone, just like you said, yesterday," Hutch said loudly.
"How do you know?"
Hutch turned his head around and glared at Starsky. "Because there's a big fat leak mark under the car."
"Ah!"
"What's that supposed to mean, huh? You think I'm lying? You think I don't know how to detect an oil leak?"
"No, no!" Starsky sad hurriedly. "Just wonderin' whether it's really an oil leak and not somethin' else."
"Something else?" Hutch shot back. "How the hell could it be something else? And what exactly could this something else be under the car?"
"Well- I dunno, Hutch, 'tis your car—it can be anything." Starsky tried to sound rational and reasonable. "I mean—who knows. What if a raccoon or a dog or somethin' took a leak under the car."
"Why would something go under my car to pee?"
"I don’t know, Hutch, It wasn't me- I mean I'd never even go near that thing, especially to pee, jeez, I would’ve had to get another tetanus shot right on my—"
"Can you just shut the hell up?"
It seemed like all what Hutch would do these days was to yell at Starsky to shut up, which was still very ineffective. "So did you try to get it to start?" Starsky pretended to give his undivided attention to the road ahead.
"Why would I do that when it was clear to me that everything had drained out?"
"Considering the condition of your car, maybe it didn’t even need any oil—"
"Starsky!"
"Okay, okay. Shutting up."
In another few minutes Starsky parked the Torino behind Hutch's LTD at Venice place.
Hutch got out of the car and walked over to his beloved vehicle. "See," he said, pointing to the ground under the car.
Starsky walked around the LTD and dropped into a squat beside it. He craned his neck to see under the car. Then he got up and walked to the front, standing facing the LTD. "Ah!" he exclaimed.
"I told you it's all gone," said Hutch, and rolled his eyes. "Actually it was you who told me this would happen."
"I did, didn’t I?" Starsky accepted the fact proudly. "But the thing is, Hutch, is this oil really from the car or of somethin' else?"
"What do you mean?" Hutch asked, kneeling in front of his car.
"I mean, it is clear that this's some kinda' oil and that it goes all the way up to the sidewalk slabs, but…"
"What're you trying to say?" asked Hutch, getting up off the ground.
"Just making an observation, Hutch. The stain starts from the front of the driver's side wheel. Now… is that where the drain valve outlet is in this thing?" Starsky asked tapping on Hutch's car.
Hutch was silent for a couple of seconds, his eyes moving back and forth from Starsky to where the patch of the oil seem to originate.
"You did this," Hutch said angrily, pointing his finger at Starsky. "You poured some oil under the car to fool me in to think that I lost all of it."
Sighing deeply, Starsky leaned against the LTD. "Be reasonable, will ya? I didn't even know when you were going to change the oil. You just told me you were going to do it. Besides, do you think I would pour the oil in front of a tire, huh?" Starsky tried to rationalize. "If it were me, I'd know exactly where to pour that oil, because I would've thought that you'd spot a prank when you see where the oil spill started. I'd never—" Starsky said in an exaggerated tone with a hint of sarcasm. "Never in a million years think that you wouldn’t know where the drain valve is."
Hutch was red in the face. He turned around without uttering another word, and walked away from Starsky.
"So, Hutch," Starsky called out, trying his best to maintain a straight face. "Who really did the oil change in this?"
Hutch answered by slamming shut his apartment entrance door behind him.
Waiting for a minute to make sure Hutch wasn't going to come back pointing that Hutchinson finger at him, Starsky walked into Chez Helene, the restaurant under Hutch's apartment. He walked passed the reception in search of Jimmy, Chez Helene's chef's helper-kid in the kitchen.
Jimmy had followed Starsky's instructions to the letter, doing just as he was told; waiting until the end of his night-shift at the restaurant, saving a cup of used oil that was to be dumped into the waste drum, and then pouring it in front of the driver side tire, right on the spot Starsky had asked him to.
Starsky drove back home all happy and content about a well spend twenty-five dollars, even if he had to wake up early in the morning and rescue Hutch from a tree top.
***