library furniture, one couple cuddled on the floor watching a movie on a phone. Peejay reached for the faucet, turning it a fraction of an inch. Nothing happened. Despite people’s rare ability to keep it together and refrain if they needed to, alcohol was necessary at the party. Without it, they wouldn’t be getting away with anything. A groan from the pipes behind the walls. Peejay turned the handle another fraction of an inch, and then it came, the gurgle he’d been waiting for. He leaned in and opened his mouth, and a few seconds later came the steady stream.
Even before it hit his lips, he could tell it wasn’t water, could smell the tropical juices he’d bought. He swallowed, celebrating the small success. When he returned to the foyer, he emptied his pockets into Kenji’s and Celeste’s waiting hands. The earphones slipped perfectly into most eardrums, clear to avoid detection. They only had to hand them out to the crowd without arousing suspicion, bringing a few people with them down to the basement to fill their pockets, too, and spread the earphones around.
Then Sylvia and Olaf used their AV expertise to sync them up with Nadia’s computer. Sylvia also managed to find the master list of school email addresses, and narrowed it down to all upper school students. From Peejay’s account, she sent the following email, which he’d dictated.
Good morning, ladies and gents and all other Sea Cucumbers. Sorry for the delay. Party’s on, drinks are served. Your discretion, of course, is appreciated. Kind regards, Your Partyer in Chief.
13
3:00AM
The students who’d left the CIS campus were in bed already, wondering why sleep hadn’t come for them when their phones buzzed. Happy for whatever it was that would pull them from the vicelike cycle of their thoughts, they reached to their nightstand or beneath their pillows and swiped their screens alive. They read the email in an instant, after which their stomachs began to ache, their sinuses pressed with the threat of tears. Even if they knew the lock-in night they’d been denied hadn’t been granted to the others, not the way it should have been, the email confirmed something they’d been fearing this whole time: they were missing out. Some tossed their phones across the room and buried their faces into their pillows to stifle a sob or a scream. Others brought their phones over their hearts and closed their eyes, waiting for the hurt to pass or sleep to come erase this wasted night from existence.
Lindsay, who’d resisted her parents’ attempts to coax her from the bleachers by simply not saying much, looked up from her phone and to the building. She almost expected to see it drastically alter before her eyes: to see the lighting change somehow, shift from mere fluorescence to the hypnotic pulsing of strobe lights and laser-like green beams shooting out of the windows. She waited to hear music thumping and voices carrying through the walls and over the field, the way parties her neighbors threw always did.
Obviously this wasn’t going to happen. The only change was the feeling Lindsay had. The ominous aura that seemed to surround CIS now faded away, though Lindsay guessed her parents and all the others gathered on the field couldn’t sense a thing. Good, she thought. She was glad for Kenji, glad for her other friends still inside.
“Honey, this is ridiculous,” her mom said for the eighth or ninth time. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go home.” Lindsay was briefly tempted. Why gaze on at a party she couldn’t attend? Why witness—kind of—joy that didn’t include her? She couldn’t answer, only shook her head again.
Then Diego Cuevas came by, and dropped some earphones in her lap.
* * *
Amira saw Peejay approach Marisa, and somehow sensed this was a conversation not for her. As she stepped away, Peejay pressed something into her hand, the movement so seamless she hadn’t even noticed him reaching for her hand. Earphones? she thought, looking at her hand, which she kept cupped. She hadn’t yet checked her email.
Peejay did the same with Marisa, slipping the earphones imperceptibly into her hand like a magic trick. Marisa had read the email, and understood right away what the earphones were meant for. “I’m sorry we’re going to have some fun,” Peejay said. “I hope that doesn’t kill your hostage situation vibe.” Marisa laughed. “You won’t tell anyone?”
Marisa thought for a moment. She made eye contact with Amira, who was just a few steps out of earshot,