curated by the students themselves, had been paused when Master Declan made the assembly announcement, and was now forgotten). Despite this, everyone in the room felt their heartbeats pounding in their ears, building up to what was sure to be a boiling point. Marisa held her ground. Not that she had much of a choice.
Finally, from the back of the crowd, Guillem Kim shouted what everyone in the foyer was thinking. “Why today?” There was such hurt in his voice, Marisa couldn’t help but picture him as a child who’d lost a precious toy.
“Because it would hurt you,” Marisa said.
“I’m not a sadist or anything,” she followed up, before the shock would make her lose their attention. “I did this because your pain might make you listen. Because I’ve been wanting to shout about this for a very long time, because others have been shouting for even longer, and it seems that no one is listening. This is the loudest I could be.” She shrugged, which further infuriated half the crowd.
The gesture, coupled with her speech, caused two others to completely lose their rage. Instead, they were filled with warmth when they looked on at Marisa, an admiration so deeply rooted that it was hard not to think of it as love.
How had they not known before? How had they ever looked upon her with even a hint of distaste? This girl wasn’t just hypothetically going to change the world. Here she was in front of them, actually doing it. She would make no excuses for it, wouldn’t lie about the fact that it was disrupting others’ joy. She was here standing up for what she believed in, what she loved. There was no doubt in their minds that if she ever came to love them, this is how she would act on their behalf. She would chain herself to protect them. Even if they would never be worthy of her love, they knew all of a sudden there was no one more deserving of whatever love they had to give.
Both newcomers to love, Lou Chaminowitz and Lydia Chang maneuvered their way up to the front of the crowd. They could feel the anger growing in the rest of her audience, and could imagine a situation in which they might need to protect Marisa.
“We don’t give a shit,” Jordi yelled. He stepped forward, too, a violent step if there ever was one. Those angry people in the crowd uncomfortable with their imaginations’ violent impulses tensed, not sure what to do.
“Well, then, soon you will,” Marisa said. A couple of people oohed and aahed, as if she had delivered some biting trash talk.
“That’s not what I meant. You can scream and shout all you want. But if you keep doing it in my face you’ll be sorry.”
“What are you going to do, beat the shit out of me?” Marisa said, the calm in her voice astounding to everyone listening. “That won’t open these doors.”
Jordi growled. He thought of his father again, thought of a truck plowing through people on a highway.
Three more people fell in love with Marisa and stepped toward Jordi, willing to restrain him if they had to. “You want to help yourself get lock-in night back?” She motioned with her head at the poster behind her. “Here are your instructions.”
* * *
Kenji’s eyes went straight for number seventeen. Cancellation of construction project on Lokoloko Island. He gulped, though he wasn’t sure if he did it as a joke. The name of the island wasn’t familiar to all at CIS, but Kenji had heard his father talking about it countless times. With Kenji’s mom over dinner, over the phone constantly during the past two years or so, with who knows how many business people or government officials. Kenji had never given the name much thought, except that it was a little silly, and whenever his father talked about it, he tended to go on long, righteous rants about how he was bringing joy and tourism to the people in the area.
* * *
“Diesel boats?” someone muttered from the crowd. It was one of the freshmen who’d gone in to the showcase to see Ludo and had heard Peejay deliver his tirade against Malik. Speaking of which, here was Peejay now; he’d just left the basement to try to negotiate a little more with Marisa.
“Why should we help?” Peejay said. “Why wouldn’t we just sit here and bide our time until you shit out a key?” A few people in