Special topics in calamity physics - By Marisha Pessl Page 0,72

agree on a group costume, so Charles was Jack the Ripper (for blood, Leulah and I doused him with A.1. Steak Sauce), Leulah was a French maid (helping herself to the array of Hermès silk scarves in various equestrian motifs, folded into neat squares in Jefferson's bureau), Milton, refusing to dress up, was Plan B (the ambiguous sense of humor that bubbled up whenever he smoked pot), Nigel was Antonio Banderas as Zorro (he used Jeff's toenail scissors to cut small holes around the rhinestone zzzzzs of her black sleeping mask), Jade was Anita Ekberg of La Dolce Vita replete with stuffed kitten (she duct-taped it to a headband). I was one very unlikely Pussy Galore in shrublike red wig and baggy, teal nylon bodysuit (see "Martian 14," Profiling Little Green Men: Sketches of Aliens from EyewitnessAccounts, Diller, 1989, p. 115).

We were drunk. Outside, the air was supple and warm as a dance hall girl after her opening number; and in our costumes, we sprinted sloppily across the nighted lawn, laughing at nothing.

Jade, in her giant conch-shell gown, crunchy with crinolines, ruffles and ribbons, screamed and threw herself against the grass, rolling down the hill. "Where are you going?" shouted Charles. "It started at eight! It's nine-thirty!"

"Come on, Retch!" shouted Jade.

I crossed my arms over my chest and hurled myself forward.

"Where are you?"

I rolled. Grass needled me and my wig ripped off. Stars catapulted between dull pauses of ground, and at the bottom, the quiet hit me. Jade was lying a few feet away, her face serious and blue. Staring at the stars naturally encouraged one's face to appear serious and blue, and Dad had a variety of theories explaining this phenomenon, the majority of which centered on human insecurity and sobering realizations of absolute smallness when measured against such unfathomable things as the Spiral, the Barred Spiral, the Elliptical and the Irregular Galaxy.

But I remember, I couldn't recall a single one of Dad's theories at that moment. The black sky, pinpricked with light, couldn't help but show off like Mozart at five. Voices scratched the air, words wobbly and unsure of themselves, and soon Milton was hurtling through the darkness, and Nigel's loafers rocketed past my head, and Leulah fell right next to me with a teacup sound ("Ahh!"). The silk scarf escaped her hair and settled over my neck and chin. When I breathed, it bubbled like a pond when something drowns in it.

"You bastards!" screamed Charles. "By the time we get there, it'll be over! We need to leave now!"

"Shut up, Nazi," Jade said.

"Think Hannah will be mad?" asked Leulah.

"Probably."

"She'll kill us," said Milton. He was only a few feet away. When he breathed it was dragon breaths. "Hannah shmanna," Jade said. Somehow, we peeled ourselves off the ground and trekked up the hill to

the Mercedes, where Charles was waiting in a bad mood wearing Jade's eighth-grade clear plastic raincoat so he didn't get A.1. Steak Sauce all over the driver's seat. I was the smallest, and Jade said it was necessary to take one car, so I acted as the human seat belt across Nigel, Jade and Leulah, who was making babies' feet with her fist in the fogged window. I concentrated on the car light, my big white high heels touching the door handle, the cloud of smoke loitering around Milton's head in the front seat where he smoked one of his joints thick as lipstick.

"Gonna be messy," he said, "showin' up there unannounced. Not too late to change the plan, friends." "Stop being mind-numbing," Jade said, plucking the joint from his fingers. "We see Evita, we hide. Make like rugs. It'll be fun."

"Peron won't be there," said Nigel.

"Why not?"

"Hannah didn't really invite her. She was lying. She said it just to have a valid reason why we couldn't come." "You're paranoid." Nigel shrugged. "She showed the classic signs of lying. I'd bet my life

Eva Brewster will not be at the party. And if anyone asks her about it on Monday, she wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about." "You are the spawn of Satan," Jade pronounced, then accidentally bumped her head against the window. "Ow."

"Want some?" asked Leulah, handing me the joint.

"Thanks," I said.

At the risk of protesting too much, I'd become well acquainted with the crafty behavior of both ceilings and floors under the influence of nip, tipple, hooch, booze, jet fuel, grog, zip, ex, pippin, poison and snifter (the Tremble, the Swoop Out of Nowhere, the Apparently Sinking Ship, the Fraudulent