From the outside, the Mess didn’t look much different than it had when the last bell had rung. It remained stately and undecorated, blocking out most of the sunset with its looming buildings and shadowy front gate. There were people in costumes everywhere, clustered together in tight groups. I was sure anyone driving past was wondering how the genius kids had managed to get the date of Halloween wrong by almost a month. Or maybe everyone was used to us being superweird all the time.
Meg’s high heels sounded like coconut shells clattering together against the pavement. It was like being followed by a Monty Python sketch. She and Harper clung to one another as we passed through the gate and hit a long line. We stood behind two sophomore girls I didn’t recognize, both of them dressed in blatantly store-bought witch costumes.
Meg was bouncing slightly in place, although whether it was from anticipation or the rapidly cooling evening air, I wasn’t entirely sure.
“Stop it,” Harper hissed at her. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Sorry,” Meg squeaked. “It’s just, you know, this is our last harvest festival.”
“We still have seven and a half months of school left,” I said, taking a step as the line inched forward. “Don’t get all nostalgic about it yet.”
Mary-Anne France was sitting behind the admission table. She wore a short blond wig and a long pink satin dress. Her matching elbow-length gloves were holding possessively onto the sides of a gray metal cash box. There were freshmen on either side of her, tearing tickets.
“Ten dollars,” she said to me with a bored sigh.
I surrendered my cash.
“How did you get roped into working the cash box?” I asked.
She brushed her wig with the back of her hand, showing off a fake diamond bracelet. At least I hoped it was fake.
“It was either this or get stuck for an hour in the haunted house,” she said, wrinkling the little painted mole over her lip. “And there is nothing scary about Marilyn Monroe.”
“Unless you’re afraid of drug addicts,” I said archly.
“And presidential conspiracy theories,” Harper added.
“Or the smell of Chanel,” said Meg.
As usual, all attempts to be clever bounced off Mary-Anne’s zit-free face. She grunted a vague “uh-huh” and gestured for the three of us to take a ticket from the nearest frosh.
The entrance hall was decked out in fake spiderwebs and cardboard skeletons with hinged joints. Someone had taped a sheet of paper over the ranking’s case. In dripping red paint it read: SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. I laughed at it as we walked out into the quad.
There were lanterns strewn in the branches of the trees, casting a hazy orange glow on the festival. There were booths set up everywhere, mostly run by lowerclassmen. Dr. Mendoza, the principal, was sitting in a wet suit at a dunk tank that had a line that wrapped around the library building. There was a booth devoted to painting tiny pumpkins where a dozen people were slopping glitter onto squash. A cheery red cart popped and sizzled with an abundance of kettle corn. There was a booth of massive beverage containers that poured steaming hot cider into paper cups.
You could say a lot against the ridiculous tuition we paid to attend the Mess, but, sometimes, we used it for awesome things.
“Oh look,” Meg squealed, pointing up ahead. “There are the boys.”
I started to ask who “the boys” were, but glancing in the general direction of Meg’s finger, I saw Cornell and Peter sitting at a table near the haunted house. Cornell was wearing what had to be Peter’s old basketball uniform, with a hairy sweater underneath and a headband with pointy ears attached. Peter was decked out in a full Buzz Lightyear ensemble, his giant forehead jutting out from under a purple felt hood.
Harper staggered a little, her hand flying to the giant S emblazoned on her chest. I caught her by the arm, dragging her forward before she could start making excuses or trying to redirect us to the spooky bingo booth. She gave a cluck of protest, swatting at my hand until I released her. Straightening up, she led us to the boys.
As we got closer, I noticed that their table was covered in a variety of containers. There were vases and mugs and beakers, all filled with food-coloring-stained water. I glanced up at the banner over their heads and read the words dime toss.
Cornell all but jumped out of his chair as we approached, a twitchy smile exposing his blindingly white teeth.
“Hey,” he breathed. “You made it.”
“Yeah,” said Harper.
She seemed to be struggling to think of something else to say, but failed repeatedly. Peter was kind enough to bail her out, waving but remaining seated.
“Excellent costumes,” he said.
Meg bobbed a curtsy, her face dimpling around the tiny heart she’d painted on her cheek in eyeliner.
“So, Mr. Lightyear,” I said, sweeping a hand toward the assortment of bottles and glasses. “What do I win if I get a dime into that tiny vial in the back?”
Peter turned and laughed, spotting a vial barely large enough to count as a full dram, sparkling with silver glittery water.
“A Nobel Prize in physics,” he said, chuckling.
“Damn.” I tried to snap my fingers, but my gloves impeded the sound. “And here I am without any change.”
Peter leaned down and retrieved a cash box that looked identical to the one at the front gate. He patted it lightly.
“Oh, we have change,” he said.
I dug into the pocket of my cloak, finding a dollar and handing it over. Peter counted ten dimes into the palm of my glove and I handed half of them to Meg. The dimes flew every which way, pinging off containers but refusing to make it in.
“We’re waiting for our replacements to show up,” Cornell said to Harper. “The lower-classmen will run the booth for the rest of the night.”
“Oh,” she said brightly. “Okay. Cool.”
One of Meg’s dimes landed with a hearty splash in the middle of a vase. She clapped her hands triumphantly. We laughed as Peter held out a wicker basket full of dollar store toys. Meg picked out a plastic kendama, brandishing it regally.
A crowd of people poured out of the farthest chem lab and wandered over to the table, edging the girls and me out of the way and thrusting money into Peter’s hand. Dimes went flying again. This crowd seemed to be having about as much luck as Meg and I had.
“You guys should check out the haunted house,” Peter said to us, leaning back in his chair. “It’s pretty cool this year.”
Meg made a face, undoubtedly trying to figure the odds of there being a clown inside the haunted house. Her coulrophobia was downright pathological.
“Is there still dancing in the cafeteria?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Cornell nodded, his wolf ears sliding forward.
Meg turned to me and Harper, her hands clasped innocently behind her back.
“No,” I said. “I will definitely choose the haunted house over dancing.”
“But I can’t go in alone,” Meg said in an incredibly loud whisper. “It’s pathetic.”
“Why? It’s not like you care who you go in with,” I said. “You just want some bozo to buy you a kettle corn.”
Peter frowned and glanced around the group at the table. He spotted Brad Hertz at the next booth and flagged him over. It was odd to see Brad without Jack Donnelly and Nick Conrad. Generally, they operated in the same sort of trio that Meg, Harper, and I had, except with more grunting. Brad was dressed as a generic cowboy, his curly brown hair stuffed under a Stetson.
“What’s up?” he asked Peter. “I’m not tossing any dimes tonight.”
“Brad, do you know Meg?” Peter asked, gesturing to Meg.
“Since the third grade,” Brad said, raising an eyebrow at Meg. “How’s it going?”
She twirled her kendama awkwardly. “Fine, thanks.”
“Meg was heading over to the caf,” Peter explained, not looking as he picked up the toy basket and extended it to the newest winner of the dime toss.
“Oh,” said Brad. He looked back at Meg. “You want me to go with?”
“You don’t have to,” Meg said, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the pavement with excellently feigned coquettishness.
Harper shot me a look of horror. I flicked my eyebrows at her to say, Well, at least it’s working.
“We’ll catch up with you, Meg,” Harper said, uncertainly. “After the haunted house.”
“Uh-huh,” Meg said, too busy batting her eyelashes at Brad to bother with the rest of us. She glanced up at him shyly. “Have you had any kettle corn yet?”
“Uh, no,” he said. “We could grab some?”
They wandered off, leaving the rest of us to watch in stunned silence. I swung my horns to look down at Peter.
“That was impressive,” I said.
He tipped back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “It’s good to be king. Or president, I guess.”
“Or space commander,” I said.
Harper nudged me with her shoulder. “Okay, we’ll go through the haunted house and then—”
“I’ll catch up with you,” Cornell said.
“Great,” Harper said.
“Great,” Cornell agreed.
Peter coughed into his fist. It sounded a lot like the word great. He was saved from having to cop to it by a new group of people shoving forward to throw dimes. In the split second that Cornell was distracted making change for a dollar, I shoved Harper toward the haunted house. I’d never been a huge fan of haunted houses—or typically frightening things as a whole—but I was prepared to do anything to avoid having to stand around and watch her and Cornell make monosyllabic conversation. There wasn’t even a closet for me to shove them into.
* * *
I led Harper to the math and sciences building. The door was being watched by a girl dressed in medical scrubs, splattered with fake blood.
“Don’t,” she whispered as we passed. “Don’t.”
I frowned as the door slammed closed behind us. I could hear the girl whispering the same thing to the next group of suckers and immediately remembered why I hated haunted houses. The hallway that led to the computer lab and chemistry labs was almost entirely black. There were opaque tarps covering all the doorways and windows, with bloody hands stretching against the plastic. Unseen speakers piped in the sound of heavy breathing and a rapid pulse.
One of the hands concealed in the tarp brushed against my arm and I sucked in a breath, refusing to scream, even though I could hear other people screaming all around me. Harper reached out and locked her elbow with mine. Cape and cloak swishing, we moved forward.
A spotlight turned on with a thump, blinding us for a moment as a massive shape in a doctor’s coat stood in our way.
“You can’t,” Mike Shepherd said, his eyes wild and rimmed in purple bruise makeup. He looked like a young Uncle Fester from The Addams Family as he waved a rubber butcher knife at us. “The infected. They’re—oh, cool costume, Harper.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Harper said.
He nodded approvingly and then seemed to remember that he was supposed to be in character. He rocked forward again, cleared his throat, and said, “No, the infected. Don’t go any farther.”
We moved around the first corner. I saw spots as my eyes tried to adjust to the sudden darkness. That insistent heartbeat pulsed through the speakers, seemingly louder here. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could hear whimpering and wailing. Something reached out and brushed my leg. I tightened my grip on Harper.
It’s just a frosh, I told myself sharply. Just the fingernails of a frosh trapped in the dark. Nothing scary about a frosh. They’re tiny and haven’t mastered chemistry yet.
Harper screamed and I nearly leapt out of my boots, my heart slamming against my ribs in time with the faked pulse coming through the stereo.
“What the what?” I panted, clutching my chest.
“Sorry,” whispered a familiar voice. “It’s Cornell.”
“Oh, hi,” whispered Harper.
“I’ll give you guys a minute,” I said. “I’ll be over in this creepy stretch of utter darkness.”
I shuffled to the side, accidentally kicking something on the floor that whacked my leg in protest. I muttered an apology and leaned against the wall. I could hear other people padding down the hallway, screeching and running as the unseen hands reached for them. My pulse refused to slow down, even as I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.
“Trix?” said Harper somewhere to the left of me.
“I’m right here.”
Shoes scrambled against the linoleum. There was a collective intake of breath before the sound of thuds and screams as a crowd of people collided to the ground. I couldn’t discern Harper’s voice in the mass. A hand grabbed my skirt. I shook it off, stumbling farther away.
“Harper?” I asked in a loud whisper. “Cornell?”
“Ow,” squeaked a girl’s voice. “Someone is standing on my hair.”
“Who is sitting on me?”
“Someone turn on the lights.”
“I don’t know where any of the switches are. They left us here!”
“Where’s my wig? My sister will kill me.”
The fallen people continued to argue with one another, grunting as they got to their feet. Someone shoved past me and I tripped over the hem of my cloak. I couldn’t continue to hang out in the dark. It was too dangerous and the thudding pulse and labored breathing soundtrack was starting to get under my skin.
I moved forward, my gloved fingertips skimming the wall until I went through a doorway. Turning a corner, I found a dimly lit room full of cardboard boxes and littered with stuffed animals. A group of people were slipping through the door on the opposite end. I paused, taking in the stacks of cardboard boxes and the collection of thrift store toys sprawled on the floor. There was a giant panda in the corner. They hadn’t even bothered to throw blood on it. If the rest of the haunted house was this lazy, I’d be fine.
I walked straight through toward the open door, my eyes on the panda’s stitched smile. Which is exactly why I did not notice that the teddy bear on the other side of me had a person inside. It reared forward, arms outstretched, a dozen other smaller stuffed animals moving with it in a wave. I yelped and hopped out of the way, cold sweat starting to pool under my hood. I raced through the next door.
I stood alone in what I knew was actually one of the chemistry labs. The rational part of my brain took the time to dissect the room, peeling away the wash coming in from the red lightbulbs, the chain-link fence, the black sheets of plastic and hunks of cardboard streaked with fake blood. I tried to tune out the sounds of people screaming and the static screeching of the music being pumped in. A group of gleefully scared freshman girls—all dressed like farm animals in very tiny shorts—barreled past me, holding hands. My breath caught in the back of my throat as a masked Freddy Krueger popped out from behind a stack of cardboard boxes and grabbed the frosh dressed as a mouse. She wriggled and yowled until he released her, stepping back into the shadows.
I pushed myself forward, adjusting my horns as an excuse to face forward. It would have been helpful if the haunted house crew weren’t all decked out in masks. One face that I clearly recognized would have been useful in calming myself down. I couldn’t be afraid of my own classmates. But dozens of rubber-faced strangers leaping out and shouting unintelligibly couldn’t be reasoned with. I supposed that was kind of the point.
My intestines twisted into a terrified knot as I stepped on the foot of a boy dressed in a nylon Joker costume. He passed me, laughing with his friends as he gave a trite, “Why so serious?” And then he immediately screamed as a guy in a hockey mask stepped in front of him, brandishing a long plastic knife.
Where had Harper and Cornell left me? The hall of child murderers? What kind of messed-up crap was that?
As more people swarmed around me, pushing past as they made their merry way through this nightmare, I tucked my chin to my chest. My horns were heavy and I could feel the stupid amount of makeup I was wearing weighing down my skin. I bit back the fit of hyperventilation I knew was right around the corner, but my lungs burned. The heavy velvet of my dress trapped the panicked sweat that was sliding down my back. I flexed my hands, trying to recall what I’d learned in the Chemistry of Emotions class the year before. My sensory cortex was processing the fake blood incorrectly and viewing the masked people as attackers. My hippocampus was reminding me how much I hated scary movies. I’d hidden under a blanket when the girls and I had tried to watch The Cabin in the Woods. I couldn’t even watch The X-Files with my parents. My hypothalamus was begging me to scream and run in any direction, alerting my evolutionarily similar classmates to respond to my circumstances.
Knowing this didn’t help. It just meant that the purveyors of the haunted house had the same information and had found a way to cut out any loopholes. Ms. Jensen, the Emotional Chem teacher, offered them extra credit for creating a truly terrifying experience.
Why had I thought that this would be better than doing the monster mash in the cafeteria?
I turned to the closest member of the haunted house crew, who was perched on top of a table in a ripped suit and a hobo-style top hat, his face hidden under a grotesque clown mask. There was a large rubber axe in his hand. Thankfully, I didn’t share Meg’s fear of clowns. The misshapen downward curve of the mask’s mouth and the mottled blue paint over the eyes just looked like what would happen if someone stuck Mary-Anne France in a rainstorm. Which I found comforting rather than scary.
“Pardon me, homicidal clown.” My voice was shaky as I forced myself to look up at him. “Any chance you could get me out of here before I have a nervous breakdown? You look like an upstanding gentleman. Not that your gender matters to me. I just require assistance.”
The clown looked at me and tugged his lumpy top hat farther down, the mask puckering at the forehead. In one graceful leap, he was standing in front of me. The mask’s chin wobbled, but the sealed mouth garbled any sound.
“I didn’t catch that,” I said. There seemed to be too much spit in my mouth and yet I felt dehydrated and dizzy. I touched a glove to my forehead. It came away slick and green tinged. “Sorry. My friends ditched me here and, well, maybe you wouldn’t understand, being a murderous children’s entertainer, but haunted houses really aren’t fun by yourself. And I’d like to avoid being known as the evil queen who fainted in the chem lab. See”—I pushed my glove down, revealing the smear of homework notes—“I forgot to add ‘don’t have a panic attack’ to my to-do list. A grave oversight.”
The clown seemed to consider this for a second before offering me the tattered brown sleeve of his non-axe-wielding arm. I took it, too thankful to be led out to worry about cutting off his circulation. He was warm and didn’t smell like fake blood.
“If it’s all the same to you,” I said, squeezing my eyes closed as Freddy Krueger jumped out in front of us, “I’m going to ramble until we’re free. It’ll help stave off the screaming and fainting thing, I think.”
The clown shrugged as if to say, By all means, Maleficent, go ahead.
He was fairly tall for a clown. I wasn’t sure why I tended to think of clowns as a shorter bunch. It would help them all pile into those tiny cars if they were small. But my axe murderer escort was nearly as tall as my horns, much too big to be a frosh. If I hadn’t known that Peter was running around in a Disney sweatshirt, I would have assumed it was him. Regardless, the clown being tall and armed—even with a wobbly axe—was reassuring.
“I’m Trixie Watson, by the way,” I said.
The clown saluted me with his axe. I wet my lips, coating my tongue in sweat and slimy, sweet makeup.
“First, I’d like to point out that I’m down with the consumer part of this shindig. Costumes and candy? I’m totally on board. But being trapped on campus after hours while my classmates work through their sexual frustration by making people pee themselves? Not so much. Of course, some people are working through their sexual frustration in the normal run-off-and-find-a-private-corner kind of way—did you see Teen Wolf and Supergirl come through here?”
The clown nodded while also brandishing his axe to push us through the traffic jam of giggling farm animals. They scattered, revealing the second chem lab, which was full of zombies. Groaning, drooling, claw-your-eyes-out Walking Dead zombies. The room stank from the solid carbon dioxide being used to roll out waves of fake fog. The music was different here, a discordant warble of distorted roaring and screaming layered under a violin being violated. My veins tightened with another flush of adrenaline. I dug my fingernails into the clown’s sleeve as the zombies started approaching us. With a sweep of his axe, they staggered backward, a few of them glaring at him for ruining their fun.
“Supergirl is my best friend Harper,” I continued loudly, jerking to keep one of the zombies from touching me. “And she’s been all kinds of in love with Cornell Aaron for years. And it’s about time those crazy kids went ahead and stuffed their tongues in each other’s faces and all, but, you know, they could have waited until I was safely through the haunted house.”
Stopping short, the clown’s shoulders seized with a laugh that I couldn’t hear. He lifted his axe and reached over himself to poke me in the stomach. The blade folded in on itself above my belly button. Laughing despite myself, I batted it away and gave him a grazing shove with my shoulder.
“Yeah, I know. It’s stupid to get freaked out. But the rest of the crew isn’t as facetious as you are. The mountain of stuffed animals that’s really a person? Not a fan. I will have nightmares for weeks.”
The clown wiggled his head and patted his chest proudly with his axe.
“That was your idea?” I asked.
He bobbed his head enthusiastically, the mask flapping around his neck. I was surprised at how well I could translate mime. Yet another useless skill I could put on my résumé.
“That is utterly demented,” I said. “But I would expect no less from a hobo clown. Or do you prefer displaced circus entertainment professional?”
The clown held up two fingers with the hand holding the axe, indicating the latter option.
There were more zombies trapped behind a piece of chain-link fence, growling and spitting. One grabbed at the tail of a girl dressed as a cat and pulled her against the fence with a clatter.
I blurted out a curse and cringed into the clown’s shoulder. He pulled me closer, the brim of his hat resting against my horns. We stood still for a moment. I could feel his breath rising and falling against my cheek. My arm was pinned to his side, my gloves buried deep into the fibers of his sleeve. There was an arm under that sleeve. Biceps brachii, coracobrachialis and brachialis connecting to a humerus bone. A real human arm, attached to a real human boy.
My pulse fluttered up into my throat again.
The zombies whispered “Ooo,” like a studio audience. The clown and I took a step forward in tandem.
“Anyway,” I said, staring firmly at my feet, “Harper and Cornell are going to be all happily ever after and the rest of us will have to deal. Which is going to be fairly sucky for me considering Cornell is now super best friends with Ben West. Do you know Ben West, homicidal clown?”
He glanced down at me, the axe going limp in his hand. From the shadowy recesses of his mask, I could barely make out confused brown eyes.
“Ben West?” I repeated. “Skinny, handlebar mustache, really lazy insults?”
The clown cocked his head and shook it side to side.
“Lucky you,” I said, shivering closer to him. “You must be new. He’s less of a class clown—no offense—and more of our token idiot savant. I don’t know how Cornell and Peter are putting up with his jackassery. Two minutes with West is like one really obnoxious lifetime. They’ll realize it eventually. Everyone does. I mean, what kind of loser do you have to be to get kicked out of the role-playing club?”
The clown yanked the elbow I was holding onto, steering me around a group heading into the next room and toward the opposite wall. He drew back a black sheet of plastic—which looked no different from the rest of the black plastic—to reveal a door that opened onto the quad. There were people prancing around with bags of kettle corn and candied apples.
“Oh, sweet merciful freedom,” I said, ducking my horns under the plastic. I turned around with my hand on the doorknob. “Thank you, homicidal clown. You’ve been a lovely companion. If you’ve given up your murderous tendencies on Monday, find me in the caf. I owe you a soda for your trouble.”
He tipped his top hat to me and turned on his heel, striding back through the zombies as I stepped outside. I was almost sorry to see him go, but the fresh air was such a relief that I couldn’t be too troubled.
I immediately fished money out of my cloak and bought a spiced cider, drinking deep as I sat myself on a bench. With the adrenaline seeping out of my bloodstream, it was easier to focus on being happy for Harper and Cornell, as much as I would need to have a chat with them about the appropriate times to disappear together.
I sipped my cider, watching the parade of princesses and superheroes dashing over to the apple bobbing booth. I had absolutely no will to shove my face into a bucket of water after being trapped in the haunted house. I was going to keep my butt firmly planted until Meg or Harper reappeared.
I dug through the pockets of my cloak until my fingers found the worn copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I’d stashed inside. I pulled it out and read a few chapters, nursing my cider until it went cold and became really spicy juice.
“There’s something you don’t see every day.”
I looked up and saw Peter standing in front of me, his hair poking out of the front of his purple hood. I adjusted my cloak to make room and he sat down heavily next to me, holding out a mostly empty bag of kettle corn.
I folded the book over my knee so that I could take some kettle corn. Like my cider, it was no longer fresh, but I ate a fistful anyway. The sugar stuck to my gloves.
“Where’s your posse?” I asked in between crunching.
“Scattered.”
“Same here,” I said. “It looks like we’re the only ones not using the costumes as an excuse to be more adventurous.”
“Hey, I have been to infinity and beyond,” he said, proudly displaying his costume before shaking some kettle corn into his palm. “But my knee hurts and I don’t feel like dancing.”
I grimaced. “Is that where everyone is?”
“Looks like it,” he said. “I guess we’re the only people left not paired off. Well, you, me, and Ben.”
“Yikes,” I said. Even with getting trapped in the haunted house, I’d been having a lovely West-free evening. “Don’t lump us in with Ben West. We can’t be that pathetic, right?”
Peter laughed and nudged me with his shoulder. “I guess not. I mean, we could always…”
He turned in slow motion, his big blue eyes asking a really stupid question. It hung in the air between us like the dry ice fog in the zombie room. It would have made sense—if I were someone else—for us to pair off because the rest of our group had. That’s how things worked on TV. If there was an even number of girls and boys, you coupled up. I watched sitcoms. I got the formula. I snorted at the idea.
Peter shrank back, scalded. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. It was just absurd. The Donnellys had been running the Mess’s student government since the school opened. Except for Jack. But I was much more suited to the sociopath than to the student council president.
“Sorry,” I said, clasping my hands together in my lap. “Absolutely no offense intended. But I am so not First Lady material. I’d destroy you without even meaning to. Because I’m, you know, me. And you’re—”
“A gimpy member of leadership?”
I threw up my hands. “See? You’re too nice to deal with me all the time. I’m the evil queen and you save the day.” I paused to consider him. He had chosen his costume well. He hadn’t even needed to draw in Buzz’s chin dimple. He came with one already in place. “It’s not that you aren’t crazy good-looking. You are. You know that. You need to find a nice Jackie Onassis.”
He gave me a bemused shake of his head. “That was a lot of references in one compliment.”
I cringed, thinking of West, who had said something similar about my insulting him on the first day of school. “Yeah, well. I’m off my game. I got trapped in the haunted house when Harper and Cornell went frolicking off together and I’m still a little woozy. I had to ask some dude dressed like a clown to help me escape.”
Peter raised his eyebrows at me. “You asked—”
I held my hand up. “I do not want to talk about it. Apparently, I have problems with zombies up close and personal, okay?”
“Don’t feel too bad about it. The drama club spent all week training them. Even Jack said they were pretty intense.” He stood, peering inside the nearly empty bag of kettle corn. “Do you want another cider?”
“Please,” I said. “And then can we track down our stupid newly-in-love friends? I want to get this gunk off my face.”
To: Messina Academy Students
From: Administrative Services
Subject: Harvest Festival
… infractions against the school code will be met with the same repercussions set in place during school hours.