The friends looked at each other.

“Jay?” Cole raised his bushy, black eyebrows.

Lloyd, Kai and Cole hurried to the kitchen door, where Jay was standing in his blue pyjamas, cursing under his breath.

He was dripping wet.

The kitchen door stood slightly ajar. An empty water bucket was lying on the floor inside the gap.

Cole held his stomach with both hands and laughed heartily. “What happened to you, man?”

Jay glowered at him, his eyes shimmering in the dark. “This isn’t funny, Cole!”

“Yes, it is,” Kai snickered, putting his arm on Cole’s shoulder.

“Now I’m glad that I didn’t get to the kitchen first,” Lloyd murmured.

“Aha! I knew it,” Kai winked. “Can’t resist the sweets, can you?”

“Guys, come on,” Cole interrupted their bickering. “Let’s go about this in a civilised manner.” He grinned. “We’re going in there,” he pointed at the kitchen door, “we pick just one piece of candy each, return to our rooms and munch them like gentlemen.”

Kai patted his friend’s shoulder. “Excellent idea, Cole. Let’s do that, right now.”

Jay put his hand on the door. “I’ll go first! Since I took the shower for all of you oafs, I think I’m entitled to first pick.”

He wrung his shirt, then pushed the door open all the way.

The friends marched in, but stopped dead in their tracks when the room was suddenly flooded with light. Momentarily blinded, the ninja groaned and tried to shield their eyes from the sudden brightness.

Nya leaned against the kitchen table, where the huge candy basket stood, the colourful candy gleaming invitingly in the lamplight.

She had her arms crossed, raised a critical eyebrow and tapped her foot in a reproachful manner.

Jay chuckled nervously and gulped down his gasp. “Oh, hi Nya,” he tried.

Kai cleared his throat. “Hey sis… We were just checking if the candy was still here,” he said, with as much confidence as he could muster.

“Yeah”, Cole came to his aid, “to make sure nobody stole it or anything.”

“Really now,” Nya said, dragging the vowels. The friends could tell she wasn’t buying it.

Lloyd’s eyes darted nervously between Nya and his partners in crime. “Well,” he finally said, “you seem to have everything under control, Nya.”

He regarded his friends with a meaningful wiggle of his eyebrows. “We should go back to our rooms and get some rest. After all, we have a performance tomorrow,” he added.

Kai, Jay and Cole readily agreed and nodded their heads.
“Good night, Nya,” Jay said sweetly, his soaked pyjamas leaving behind a wet trail on the floor boards as he walked back the way they had come.

Nya waved. “Good night, guys. And don’t wake Zane. You know he hates it when his backup gets interrupted.”

She smirked. “Sweet dreams.”