To the outer world, Chris Karas is a shy and handsome A student, the son of a hard-working Greek contractor. To his closest confidants, however, he is none other than the celebrated Prince of Pranksters, a secret society dedicated to combating the inequities of high school through masterful acts of subterfuge.With graduation looming ahead, Chris longs for more from life. He dreams of getting into a top college and wooing Mariah Rivera, the radiantly beautiful editor of the school paper. Standing squarely in Chris's way are the expectations of his fellow Pranksters, Mariah's all-world boyfriend, and Chris's old-world father, who can't understand his son's collegiate ambitions.How Chris navigates the treacherous waters of adolescence is the story of The Prankster. Guided by the homespun wisdom of his delightfully eccentric Uncle Nick, Chris embarks on a challenging path of self-discovery, a path fraught with peril as well as laughter.Chris's first step is his clandestine application for the Outstanding Teenagers of America Scholarship, an award that his Prankster peers openly deride. To have any chance of winning, Chris must try out for graduation speaker, vying with an insidious class suck-up, preppie student body president Brad Burris. Meanwhile, fate presents Chris with an opportunity to get to know Mariah. She catches him planting an article in the school paper but doesn't turn him in. Rather, she is surprised and intrigued by this young man, whom she had once pigeonholed as a non-entity.When catty blonde cheerleader Tiffany Fowler discovers Chris and Mariah's budding friendship, she makes sure both of them become social outcasts. To make matters worse, Chris's prankster cohort, Larry, is given a brutal swirlie by a humongous jock named Blotto, while the boorish school dean looks the other way. Such abuse keeps Chris committed to the Pranksters' mission. They get vengeance by sabotaging the Senior Follies, humiliating the dean in the process.The pressure mounts as the dean vows to discover and punish the Pranksters. After Chris beats out Brad Burris for graduation speaker in a nerve-wracking competition, the dean finally catches one of the Pranksters. In support of their fallen comrade, Chris and his fellow Pranksters turn themselves in. The shocked Dean has no choice but to allow Chris to make his graduation speech but warns him he won't graduate if he tries any funny stuff. Chris must now make the most difficult choice of his young life--to continue being a Prankster, to become a suck-up, or something far more difficult--to step up and be himself. It's a dilemma faced by other characters, too, one that is resolved in a climax that is as moving as it is hilarious.