beyond them, how little they cared for what she cared about. When she looked at Amira beside her, though, she got a flood of joy that she felt like she could literally swim in.
So the thought of everyone getting away from her, all these bargaining chips she’d planned so hard to gather scurrying away due to some oversight she may have made, shortened her breath. No, no, no, she thought. I haven’t done enough for the reefs yet. I haven’t saved the island.
Behind her she could hear the parental crowd getting larger, could sense their restlessness as time went on. She hoped they were calling the most important people they knew, heads of corporations and ambassadors, reading the list of demands and begging, “What can you do to help?” Now it was pride flooding into her, and she tilted the last of the champagne to her lips. She forgot about Peejay.
A moment later Zaira Jacobson appeared before her. “Sea Cuke Gazette,” she said, brandishing a phone tuned to a recording app, her thumb hovering over the screen, impatient to get on the record. “Can I ask you a few questions?”
* * *
It was on her third shoulder tap that Celeste realized she was making the rounds successfully. She was talking to people like it was easy. Like she used to. She wasn’t opening up, wasn’t making new friends with the ease she’d imagined before lock-in night began, before her family moved here and she’d lost part of herself. But there was Kenji and there was Peejay now, and she could see doors opening. Not the doors, of course. But maybe some.
As she asked the next group if they knew anyone who was a good DJ, Celeste caught herself thinking something that would’ve never crossed her mind a few hours ago, something that had been thought over and over again on every other lock-in night, and on this one, too, before Marisa snapped her padlocks shut: I hope this night never ends.
* * *
Kenji wasn’t sure the improv had really helped. He didn’t have that feeling he normally had after playing, and Peejay hadn’t really seemed to get the true spirit of it all. Sure, Peejay had seemed really happy, and he was happy the party had been saved, but Kenji couldn’t imagine Peejay doing improv ever again. He’d certainly gotten his fill quickly, rushing out of character after that one scene. But this was kind of fun, he guessed, climbing the stairs to the second floor, toward the tech room, where surely at least one member of the AV club would be hanging out. He’d never tried to transpose a scene onto reality before, had never even considered it. Peejay had insisted, though, and maybe when they were done with this little plan Celeste would want a turn.
Reaching the tech room, Kenji knocked on the door, which was halfway open already, soft sounds filtering through computer speakers from within. He peered in and saw Sylvia Lin and Olaf Padilla each looking at a computer screen with video footage of what seemed to be the two of them looking at the computer screen. They were trying to test their editing skills to sync up their blinking on the footage. The sounds Kenji heard were background noises from lock-in night, the far-off parental chants that were only getting stronger. Compared to Sylvia and Olaf’s original plan to create a mockumentary-style movie based on lock-in night, this was considerably less fun.
When Kenji knocked they quickly swiveled around, hoping for good news, for Mr. Peterson to tell them to grab their cameras. “Hey,” Kenji said, and their hearts sank until he followed it up with: “You guys want to help Peejay with the party?”
* * *
This, at long last, was how Peejay managed to keep the lock-in party tradition going.
Celeste found their DJ: sophomore Nadia McIlveny, who was originally from Singapore but had spent the past three years at a music boarding school in Slovakia, learning musical theory and playing warehouse raves her classmates and the locals all attended. Music was Nadia’s obsession, leaving so little room for other pursuits that it wasn’t even fair to call music her passion: it was her whole life. So of course she had her computer with her, and the hard drive that contained her entire digital musical archive. Of course she wanted to DJ until sunrise, even if she lacked the proper equipment. Music didn’t need a turntable or an amp to have a heartbeat. “I’ll figure