“I guess not.” Amira looked back into Marisa’s eyes a moment longer, this time only pretending to examine her pupils. In that moment, she decided she wouldn’t leave Marisa for the rest of the night. The crowd had officially turned into a mob, and mobs were dangerous. Marisa could handle a backpack to the head and more, and Amira knew Marisa was willing to suffer for her cause. Those chains alone must already have chafed and pressed painfully on her body. With Amira at her side, though, Marisa would suffer less. Amira was a neutral party in this, somewhat revered for her athletic abilities (the lore of her dunk, though unappreciated in the moment, was now growing, whispered about by those around school waiting for lock-in to resume). CIS had nothing against her. So she stayed put.
“You should be rock climbing by now.” Marisa groaned. “Are you pissed at me yet?”
Amira blushed, as if Marisa was somehow privy to her daydreams. She shook her head.
* * *
Kenji wasn’t sure what he was doing facing down the audience. He was mimicking Celeste and Peejay and some of the others. He thought, Just pretend this is a scene, find the humor. Then his mind went blank and his mouth dried up. He was so skinny, and no match for fury. Even though the faces staring back at him were people he knew, people who only a few hours earlier he’d approached with a smile and a flyer for the showcase, people who didn’t mean him harm, only the girl behind him, he was still terrified.
Kenji prided himself on his quick thinking, his ability to fall into any situation his friends presented him with and not get stuck on what might happen next. Those hundreds of prior situations, though, were imaginary. Not one bit of this felt like playing pretend.
He stood frozen with his arms out and shaking, his legs quivering, wishing, for once, there was a script for him to follow. All the while, he thought of his father, and the fact that he would be the one to decide whether the construction site on Marisa’s list of demands would be canceled. He was thinking of how often his father said no, and how it didn’t seem like Marisa would take no for an answer.
10
12:01AM
It was midnight when those stuck outside the high school began to lose faith they would ever be allowed in.
Not all of them. Some would linger by the door and on the soccer field until the whole ordeal was over. They would have food delivered to them by increasingly worried parents, who’d beg them to come home. These lingering students would shower when the automatic sprinklers came on, or when it rained, making a little home for themselves out of tarps found in the sports equipment room between the soccer field and the elementary school. These were the children made famous by helicopter news footage, lingering on the field, using an arm to shield their eyes from the sun as they looked up to the helicopter. But that would come later.
At midnight on the first night, some who were outside simply couldn’t feel the lock-in magic any longer, and they decided there was nothing worth sticking around for. The food trucks had already left, as had the laser tag organizers in the parking garage. Those with cars simply walked away, offering rides to anyone who lived near them. Some stopped at a popular street food stand not too far away, as if they were merely returning home from a late night out.
Others called their parents, who answered their phones breathlessly, as if seeing their child’s name showing up like that on their screens had frightened them to the core. Among the parents, lock-in night had its own lore, and it was well known that no CIS parent had ever received a phone call from their child on lock-in night before (there were no illnesses on lock-in nights, there was no homesickness, no heartbreak painful enough lock-in night itself couldn’t cure). The school hadn’t reached out, either, figuring the parents weren’t expecting their kids back anytime soon, and they still had a few hours to resolve this thing. A few people would lose their jobs over that decision.
The parents became certain mayhem was breaking out, that their child was hidden under a desk or in some closet, and they begged to whatever gods they believed in that the shooters or kidnappers or terrorists would not spot