connect them to a computer, get an amateur DJ to provide the music. Peejay had been married to the idea of having the old DJ perform, since he was a borderline celebrity, and a former CISer. Peejay himself had had a few classes with him, when the DJ was a senior just starting to play the local clubs. Now he was on billboards. But he wasn’t in the building, so who cared. Peejay had wanted to one-up Hamish by including more people. Well, here was how he could include more people.
“And the booze?” Peejay whispered, hope rising in his throat like acid reflux.
“Well, the drinking fountains, of course.”
“The drinking fountains,” Peejay repeated.
Kenji realized that Peejay was saying “yes” quite a bit but not adding much “and” to it. A little frustrating, but not surprising for a first-timer. “Sure, my lord. The water source is outside the building.”
“I’m not following.” Celeste wasn’t, either, but she was enthralled watching Kenji become someone else, speaking as if he were Peejay, as if he knew exactly what Peejay would say. Better than Peejay, it seemed, whose mouth dropped every time Kenji spoke.
Kenji threw an arm around Peejay, a move so emblematic of the other boy that several kids around them pointed and smiled at his mimicry. “Then let me lead you, Your fabulous, slow-witted Highness. The cistern, right behind this very building. It feeds the water fountains, mostly with rainwater. The teachers never drink from the fountains because they don’t trust the filters, so they’ll never suspect a thing. Plus, it’s dry season, so there’s not much in there, anyway. All we have to do is get my man on the outside to drain whatever’s left in there and pour the booze inside. Then we start drinking from the fountains.”
Peejay blinked. It could work. Hamish would be laughing that gleeful guffaw of his if he were here. He always loved when people surprised you like that, offered help as if it were the easiest thing in the world. It was, Hamish said, often. We just don’t ask often enough, don’t allow others to help.
“How do we keep from getting caught? If we get caught the party’s no use, and we all get expe—” He paused. “If I get caught feeding booze to a bunch of foreign children, it’ll create an international debacle.”
“Ah, you sweet, royal bumpkin. The teachers will see we’re desperate for water, sensible after this much time, after all. But they’ll run to the teacher’s lounge for their fill, since Ms. Duli herself sees to the filter’s periodic replacement. The booze is in the building, they are none the wiser. The party goes on.”
Peejay wanted to kiss Kenji. He settled for mussing his hair and saying, “Scene.”
A moment later, Diego, his meal done, returned Peejay’s call.
* * *
Marisa had started to sense the hunger building around her. Small friend groups snapping at each other and forgetting to glare at her. People getting up to go rummage through their lockers for hidden granola bars and forgotten apples, perhaps not yet moldy. One boy, a senior, came up to petition Marisa to add a vending machine to her list of demands.
“And how, exactly, would that benefit the oceans?”
The boy blinked a few times, as if he’d just now heard this was her cause. Then he muttered a “Whatever” and sulked away, a hand on his belly as if at any moment his stomach would shoot out in search of food.
When Peejay got up, at first Marisa assumed he was seeking food, too. Soon, the school board would send Mr. Gigs to ask how she intended to feed people, and only then would she reveal that of course she’d already thought of that, too. Until then, they could suffer a little.
A minute or so later, though, Kenji stood up, too, giving Marisa a tight-lipped smile that must have meant I’m sorry. She didn’t know what he had to be sorry about. Then she noticed Celeste—a girl whose voice she’d never heard, a girl who slinked the hallways on her own, ate lunch on her own, longingly looking at different cliques—making her way through the crowd, approaching others to whisper a question, and she knew something was up. Her first thought was that Peejay was trying to organize a breakout. The champagne had made her head light and loosened her hold on her emotions, coming close to tears every time she looked at the human barricade around her; nearing rage when she saw the angry crowd