the crowd who’d missed the dramatic key swallow raised their eyebrows. “Or until we run out of food and you have to let us out?” Then, the possibility just now occurring to him, he said, “Why wouldn’t we just let this night get canceled and wait for the school to reschedule another one?”
The audience murmured. Why hadn’t they thought of that already? When Marisa smiled, though, Peejay knew he’d fallen for a trap. “I’m glad you asked,” Marisa said.
* * *
The majority of the crowd did not seem to be paying much attention. Marisa was explaining future scheduling conflicts and the likelihood, based on previous CIS scandals (the shampoo bottle booze incident on the ski trip, the dozen broken bones during the human bowling event only three years ago) that lock-in night wouldn’t happen again in the month or so remaining in the school year, possibly ever again. The longer they stayed in there, the less likely it was that the administration would be able or willing to find a new date to make it work.
This fanned the crowd’s rage all over again. They didn’t want to hear the logistics spelled out for them. Those still paying attention were the ones who had thought at some point, like Peejay, that they could sit back and wait for this to blow over and then wait for a second chance. They only got angrier.
Marisa had known there was no way CIS could reschedule the night, had known her actions might lead the school board to scratch the whole thing for good, and still she’d done it? A handful of students began to cry—frustrated, angry tears of the kind they hadn’t cried since true childhood, when a sibling’s senseless destruction of a toy awoke within them the great sense of injustice they couldn’t put into words and therefore put into tears.
Again, from the back, near the almost-bonfire pile of chairs, Guillem Kim, the question still not satisfactorily answered, like a lump still stuck in his throat, shouted, “Why?”
Marisa didn’t bother answering him this time.
Jordi Marcos clenched and unclenched his fist again. He thought, Protestor.
* * *
From Kenji and Celeste’s vantage point spot in the back of the foyer, they could see a number of people shuffling toward the front of the crowd, moving away from the chairs and toward Marisa. Kenji assumed that Marisa, as she packed away her presentation materials, was saying something else, but too quietly, and others were just trying to hear her. Celeste, on the other hand, worried for Marisa, because she was a girl and on a platform and, at least at this particular door, was on her own. Without thinking, she reached out and tugged on Kenji’s sleeve, a gesture she’d soon be examining in her mind over and over again, fascinated that such a casual touch was within her realm of capabilities.
Like a couple of concert-goers, she moved them toward the front entrance, not knowing what might happen, or what she would do if anything were to happen. But the mood in the air propelled Celeste forward, and it was only when she and Kenji were at the very front of the crowd, practically separating one from the other, that she let go of Kenji’s shirt, suddenly aware of her boldness and retreating from it.
Kenji had barely noticed her fingers there, used to the way friends reached out to one another. He merely assumed that Celeste knew something he did not, had finally known where they were supposed to be, and he was happy she’d thought to bring him along.
* * *
As soon as Marisa packed away her presentation materials and faced the crowd again, the first item came hurling toward her. She couldn’t tell who had thrown it, only that it was a shoe, and it was poorly aimed. The crowd had been shuffling about throughout her explanation; she had sensed their restlessness, sensed that though some were deflating hopelessly, she was only fanning others’ flames. The flames had already been burning before they gathered.
So it wasn’t a surprise to see the shoe sail a few feet past her head and strike a nearby column. She’d expected to come to some harm and had ice packs, gauze and painkillers in her bag. Plus, she knew the nurse was in the building (had made sure of it before the doors closed), so whatever danger came her way could be dealt with. What she didn’t expect was that, as others followed suit—throwing shoes, pens leftover in pockets