it out,” she’d said.
Nadia had been sitting on the floor in front of the library, her headphones on, her computer plugged in. The only thing she would have to do differently was sit in the foyer to better read the crowd.
* * *
Meanwhile, outside the building, Diego sneaked around the sudden conference of parents to retrieve the booze. He’d left half the boxes stacked by the back staircase while everyone slept, the other half by the basement entrance. Then he found the cistern behind the building, a large, dark green tank with tubes coming out of it heading into the building. He was on the phone with Peejay, reporting his progress, following directions. It had been just as easy as Kenji had predicted. Peejay made a mental note to ask Kenji how the hell he’d known about the cistern. There had even been a little spout on the side to drain the cistern and not water down the massive cocktail.
Peejay had found a recipe and multiplied it, the description online promising it was sweet enough to hide the scent of alcohol and go down easily.
Anyone familiar with the careless leanings of teenage drinkers might be shaking their head in anticipation, but Peejay was confident this one other lock-in tradition might survive: no one had ever lost enough control of themselves during a lock-in party to get caught.
Half the fun was getting away with it, and everyone knew sloppiness was a surefire way to ruin everything. So people maintained their tipsiness without escalating it, and those whose drunk trains did not ever stop at Buzzed Station but took them express to Hammered Town, cut themselves off at the first sign of light-headedness, at the first slurred word or unbridled expression of love for their fellow man, at the first inappropriate dance move.
Every now and then someone would overdo it, of course, what with the amount of freshmen or sophomores who’d never had a drink before, or the amount of juniors or seniors swimming with fake confidence they could hold their liquor, but simply couldn’t hold their excitement. In those surprisingly rare cases, though, CIS had always rallied to keep the party safe by keeping the drunken culprit hidden. They’d take care of their drunken friends and hide them in the corner beneath a mound of blankets, or they’d sneak them off to the student-only showers and wash them sober. Once, famously, three incoherent sophomores had been taken to the classroom-size ball pit (another lock-in tradition), where their drunken frolicking looked exactly like sober frolicking. Faculty had been none the wiser, and the lock-in party tradition lived on.
* * *
Peejay went back to the basement, texting the group he’d recruited before this whole madness began. They were each from different social groups, people who’d be able to keep a secret, but who could spread the word to their respective friends, bring in the whole of CIS with them.
This tip he’d taken straight from Hamish without building upon. Without the advice, Peejay would’ve just found anyone willing to be at his beck and call (read: anyone). There were ways Hamish couldn’t be outdone. He wished he could tell him these things, now that the party was coming together. He wished he could tell him the story of the night.
“You’re back,” Lolo said.
He smiled. “Have I told you the universe has a strange and wonderful sense of humor?”
“That doesn’t sound like something you’d say. Have you been reading inspirational memes again?”
“As if I need them.” He returned to the boxes of earphones and started tearing through the wrappers, so the crinkling wouldn’t call attention to them as he handed them off to his minions.
Lolo eyed him, confused, before the meaning sank in. She could see the joy in his movements. “You’ve found a way, haven’t you?”
Peejay could only smirk in response.
Lolo made Peejay swear to never again mass-order something wrapped in so much plastic, and to make sure it all got recycled. He nodded solemnly.
After he’d divided up the earphones into manageable piles and handed them off to the half dozen CISers he’d chosen, he bid Lolo adieu and went over to the water fountain tucked away near the library, where teachers hadn’t been monitoring much.
Part of him hadn’t believed it would work, hadn’t believed the cistern would be there, hadn’t believed Kenji knew what he was talking about, not even a little bit. Once things were snatched away from you they weren’t given back.
He looked around for teachers, saw only bookworms splayed across