Chapter Text
“Alright, familia, ” Mirabel said, standing up in front of her family. Earlier, she’d asked them all to meet her in the living room after dinner for something ‘top-secret’, refusing to elaborate. “You probably have no idea why I gathered you all here today-”
Antonio looked around the room and frowned. “Where’s Camilo?” He interrupted, just realizing that everyone but his brother was present.
Mirabel grinned. “Camilo can’t know what we’re talking about, because this is about his-” She paused, realizing that her shapeshifting primo could be in this room right now . She can’t have him listening to her entire plan , that would ruin everything! “...None of you are Camilo, right?”
Dolores tilted her head to zero in on the sound of her brother. “He’s still doing that fool's errand you asked him to do, he’s not here.”
“Oh okay, good,” Mirabel sighed with relief, which quickly went away as fast as it came. “Wait a second, you’re not Camilo shapeshifted as Dolores, are you?”
“If I was him, I’d be halfway done with that basket of Tía’s buñuelos you put right in front of me.” Dolores answered in a matter-of-fact way.
Mirabel shrugged. “Fair enough.”
“Uh, Miraboo?” Agustín asked. “What did you call us for again?”
“Huh? Oh right, yes!” Mirabel fumbled with the papers in her hands before stacking them in a neat pile on the living room table. “As we all know, in about a week, it’s going to be Dia de los Inocentes , also known as…”
“Camilo’s birthday.” Julieta finished with a small smile. Despite all the times Pepa said ‘no’ to Julieta adopting him, her sobrino was practically like a son to her.
“The day Jared Bush answers the questions he was asked on Twitter- I mean, um… Camilo’s birthday?” Dolores squeaked.
Mirabel felt the temperature rise with Pepa’s growing smile. “Just a few days left… our Camilito has grown up so fast, Félix.”
“You say that every year, amor .” Felix chuckled, kissing her on the hand.
“Yeesh, get a room- Ow! ” Bruno yelped, holding the shin that Pepa kicked.
“Ay, dios…” Abuela laughed, shaking her head fondly. Her children never grow up.
“What’s this about Camilo’s birthday?” Luisa asked her little sister.
“Yeah, get on with it sis,” Isabela complained, messing around with a hibiscus flower she grew in her hand. “I have things to do.”
“Alright, alright,” Mirabel said. She turned her gaze to the floor. “Casita! A little help, please?”
The house clacked its tiles together in response and threw a large photo album on the table. As Mirabel flipped through the pages, the family leaned in to see. The photos showed Camilo over the years; his first steps, his gift ceremony, and all of his birthdays, including the pranks.
“Here,” Mirabel took out a picture taken during his gift ceremony. “Me and mamá wanted to prank him by giving him spicy polvorosas, but he switched ours when I wasn’t looking and um…yeah.” She blushed as she revealed the picture to the family.
The picture showed the Madrigal Twins at five years old sitting on a table at the party. Poor little Mirabel was sweating profusely, her face red from the spice. Little Camilo was giggling while offering her a glass of milk.
Isabela cackled. “I remember that! I helped mamá make that batch of polvorosas for him.”
Pepa had a rainbow over her head as Julieta rambled about ‘how cute they were’.
“He got me good,” Mirabel admitted. “So that prank was a fail, but it was only the beginning of us trying to get him.”
She took out another picture and showed it to the others. This was a photo taken on Camilo’s tenth birthday. Agustín was standing in an open doorway, covered head-to-toe in water with a defeated expression. Little Camilo was by his side, smugly holding out a towel for him.
Dolores smiled sheepishly. “Me, mamá and pa's prank… lo siento, Tío .”
Agustín chuckled. “No worries, sobrina , it was a great prank! Your hermano was the one who tricked me into opening the door, after all.” He grinned as he looked at his clever sobrino .
Dolores and her parents made sure to warn everyone, except Camilo, of course, that they put a bucket of water on top of that specific door, yet he somehow found out about it. Agustín assumed that the shapeshifter figured it out by turning into one of them, and his family accidentally warned him about the door. As the two chatted, the man didn’t notice that Camilo led him straight to that very door. Agustín tried to avoid it, asking him if he wanted to go somewhere else, but Camilo was a good actor. He’d played the innocent act and patiently waited for his Tío to open the door for him, and unfortunately for Agustín, it ended with him soaked in water and his sobrino perfectly dry, a towel already in his little hand.
“He didn’t fall for that one either,” Mirabel put the pictures back in their place and closed the photo album. “You all remember last year, right?” The family collectively grimaced. How could they forget?
In Colombia, they had a tradition where they throw water, eggs, and flour at the person on their birthday. They thought this would be the perfect prank, that they’d finally get Camilo after all these years, but boy they were wrong. Camilo had many tricks up his sleeves, but getting the house to help was definitely unexpected. Once he opened the door to the entrance, the family started throwing the ingredients at him, but Casita shielded him from the attacks with a protective wall of tiles. It also retaliated and started throwing eggs and flour at the family instead, helping them rinse off with water and leaving them drenched.
Mirabel shuddered, being reminded of the feeling of raw egg traveling down her spine. She had flour stuck in her curls for weeks , and she wanted revenge. Casita took the photo album away as Mirabel started pacing back and forth.
“We’ve thrown multiple pranks on Camilo for each and every Holy Innocents’ Day, but how many of them has he fallen for?” Mirabel threw her arms up in defeat. “None of them! But this year, I have an idea on how to change our losing streak.” She slid her hand against the stack of papers on the table, splaying out the pages of her plan for the family to see.
A small cloud began to form over Pepa as she read the steps to her niece’s plan. “Mirabel , um… isn’t this a little too much?”
“Why would you say that?” The teen asked, genuinely curious.
“ Hijita, you know just how important this is to Camilo, right?” Julieta said, her forehead creased with worry. “I don’t know if he’s going to like this.”
“ Sobrina, as organized and well-planned this idea of yours is,” Bruno stated. “I, um, I have a bad feeling about this. What if- what if he hates us for it?”
Mirabel smiled, rolling her eyes affectionately. “He’s not gonna ‘hate us’ for it, Tío, this is Camilo we’re talking about. Just imagine how surprised he’d be! As long as we work together, we could finally prank him successfully this year.”
“I don’t know sis… isn’t this a little too far?” Isabela asked warily.
“This is big, ” Mirabel said, gesturing with her arms. “Which is exactly why we have to do it for him!”
“I don’t understand why you want to do something this big though, when did that matter to him?” Dolores questioned.
“Lola’s right,” Luisa agreed. “He always looks forward to whatever we have in store for him, big or small.”
“So why do you wanna do something so big for him now? ” Antonio asked her.
Mirabel’s expression softened. She remembered her past birthdays, her memories ranging from her failed gift ceremony to her quinceañera. In all these memories, her primo Camilo was always there with his lopsided grin. Telling her that everything would be okay, that she was just as special as everyone else, and that she was a part of this family because they are the Madrigal Twins, and twins stick together through thick and thin. Besides, birthdays were never the same amount of fun without Camilo, it was a known fact. He always makes the day special for whoever’s birthday it is, able to bring a smile to their face and light up the room in mere seconds.
“Mira?” Antonio called out, tugging on her dress.
“Hm? Oh sorry, heh, kinda… spaced out there,” Mirabel laughed awkwardly. “It’s just that…despite the whole thing with, you know, being able to replace us at any given second , Camilo has a way of making us all feel special, right? Especially when it’s one of our birthdays,” She couldn’t help but think of her gift ceremony again. That night, she felt anything but special the moment that door faded away, but Camilo was there to tell her otherwise. And even for just a moment, little Mirabel really felt special that night, and it was all because she had an amazing primo . “He always goes out of his way to make us feel special, so how about we make him feel that way for a change? I owe Camilo for a lot more than he knows, and maybe… maybe this big, grand gesture that we’ll get out of our way to do will show him just how special he is to us! So what do you say?” Mirabel turned to face her family, flinching when she finally noticed her Tía Pepa’s rain cloud. “ Lo siento, Tía .”
“It’s alright, sobrina, ” Pepa smiled, wiping away a tear. She really couldn’t help it, sometimes her sobrina and hijo’s closeness would just get her emotional. “I know how you feel, my hijo is very special to me, too. I’d love to help.”
Once the raincloud dissolved, Félix retracted the umbrella he held over his wife’s head. “If Pepi’s in, I’m in.” He added, giving Mirabel a supportive thumbs up.
“My hijo - I mean, uh, my sobrino won’t even know what to expect. I’m helping as well.” Julieta insisted.
“I want revenge for last year. I did not have to get soaked twice .” Agustín pouted, making his wife laugh.
“I want revenge, too.” Isabela sneered, crushing the hibiscus in her hand. She was a common victim of Camilo's pranks, so she was down for being able to finally get him back, especially on Dia de los Inocentes .
“This could be fun,” Dolores smiled. “I’ve always wanted to get mi hermano back on Inocentes.”
“I agree, I’m willing to give this a try.” Luisa grinned.
“I wanna help, too!” Antonio chirped.
Mirabel hesitantly turned to the matriarch of the family. “Abuela?...”
Abuela smiled. “I think what you are trying to do for Camilo is wonderful. I’m not sure if it will work but… what is that thing he says again?” She frowned.
“Worth a shot!” Mirabel grinned. She felt a surge of confidence now that she has almost everyone's support, even Abuela’s! She just needed the approval of one more person… “What do you say, Tío Bruno?”
Bruno shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He couldn’t get rid of the bad feeling he had about this plan. He had good intuition, presumably because of his gift of foresight, and when his gut instinct told him that something bad might happen, it was almost always right. But… this means a lot to his sobrina, and Camilo looks forward to their pranks every year, and he never got to actually prank the kid on his birthday before, so… maybe this is worth a shot. And if something does go wrong, he’ll be there to fix it! Hopefully…
“Alright, let’s do this.” He answered reluctantly.
“Yes!” Mirabel exclaimed, hugging him tightly. She pulled away and gave him an assuring grin. “I promise, Tío, nothing can go wrong!”
Bruno gave her a strained smile in return. “...Yeah, yeah, of course, kid!”
As Mirabel explained the plan in better detail to the family, Bruno still couldn’t shake off that familiar bad feeling of his. If anything, he felt even worse, knowing what he just agreed to. He didn’t want to accidentally hurt his oldest sobrino, especially not on his birthday of all days, but Mirabel seemed very confident about this. The whole family is helping too, so he really didn’t have a choice. Besides, it’s just a harmless prank, right?
What’s the worst that could happen?