music’s volume went up. She wished Kristen were home. She’d know what to do, how to handle this situation without pissing anyone off or getting herself in deep trouble.
As Emily started to make her way to the others so she could lay down ground rules, the doorbell rang. She groaned. When she answered it, she saw the blond boy Trix had hooked up with at Jason Bleak’s party. He had four or five guys with him and held a bottle of gin. It wasn’t until Ben Mason showed up, someone Trix had gone out with for a few weeks and really liked, but who’d dumped her, that Emily realized what Trix was doing. Not only was she using Emily to throw Cannon High School’s biggest off-the-hook party of the year, but she was trying to play guys off each other to get attention.
“Trix!” Emily called, looking through the rooms. But there were so many people by then that finding her was impossible.
Above all the other heads Emily spotted Sam standing by the gas fireplace with Jason Bleak, drinking from a small, brown jug. How’d he sneak in?
She scrambled around the house, moving fragile lamps and vases to higher ground, hiding Melissa’s laptop, and locking doors. At one point she grabbed duct tape from the garage and wrapped some around the front of the refrigerator to keep people out.
Her stomach had knotted into an anxious, tumor-like mass.
When it all became too much, she realized she needed air, to get away from the music and smell of alcohol. She burst outside, where clusters of kids stood smoking. The rain had stopped, but a healthy wind still whipped everyone’s hair around their heads, and jackets around their hips. Emily held her skull, frantic. “Crap,” she muttered to herself. “Crap, crap, crap.”
She folded her long body so she was sitting on the curb and wondered how soon before a neighbor called the cops. She sat like that for a long time, vaguely aware of the music thumping from inside, intermittent laughter, and the smell of cigarettes.
Then she heard, “Doesn’t look to me like you’re studying so hard.”
She saw a pair of sneakers. She raised her eyes. Jeans. Gray hoodie. Face. Ryan’s. “It’s all Trix,” Emily said. “And I’m so completely screwed.”
He lowered himself next to her. She noticed he didn’t carry a six-pack or a fifth and was grateful. “I’m such a cliché,” she said. “Such a pathetic cliché. It’s like a bad high school movie. Teenage girl gets bullied into throwing a giant party. People have sex in the bedrooms,” she felt her face flush as she said this, “and trash the house and girl has to work for decades to earn back her parents’ trust. Not to mention send them her first gazillion paychecks after she graduates to pay for the damage.”
“Just call the police,” Ryan said.
“What?”
“Yeah. The party will get busted up, everyone’ll leave and you still come off as having hosted a kick-ass shindig.”
Someone, somewhere, started smoking weed–its pungent, sweaty smell riding the night air.
“But then it’s on, like, our permanent record or something. I mean, will I get a ticket? Will my dad find out about it?”
Ryan’s bent head was close to Emily. She inhaled the scent of him: washed cotton and something faintly evergreen. “It’s better,” he said, “than your dad finding out because the house is a smoldering pile of ashes in the middle of the lot.”
She felt overwhelmed. Totally out of her league.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said, looking back at the house. “But this party is getting huge. And Bleak’s house was so completely thrashed by his throwdown that his parents took his car keys for the rest of the year.”
Emily didn’t have her license yet, but she knew her dad would think up an equally stunting punishment.
At that moment, she saw April, Kennedy, and Vanessa standing in her driveway, holding beer cans, other kids weaving around them.
“The Farkettes,” she said and stood. She stepped on and off
As Emily started to make her way to the others so she could lay down ground rules, the doorbell rang. She groaned. When she answered it, she saw the blond boy Trix had hooked up with at Jason Bleak’s party. He had four or five guys with him and held a bottle of gin. It wasn’t until Ben Mason showed up, someone Trix had gone out with for a few weeks and really liked, but who’d dumped her, that Emily realized what Trix was doing. Not only was she using Emily to throw Cannon High School’s biggest off-the-hook party of the year, but she was trying to play guys off each other to get attention.
“Trix!” Emily called, looking through the rooms. But there were so many people by then that finding her was impossible.
Above all the other heads Emily spotted Sam standing by the gas fireplace with Jason Bleak, drinking from a small, brown jug. How’d he sneak in?
She scrambled around the house, moving fragile lamps and vases to higher ground, hiding Melissa’s laptop, and locking doors. At one point she grabbed duct tape from the garage and wrapped some around the front of the refrigerator to keep people out.
Her stomach had knotted into an anxious, tumor-like mass.
When it all became too much, she realized she needed air, to get away from the music and smell of alcohol. She burst outside, where clusters of kids stood smoking. The rain had stopped, but a healthy wind still whipped everyone’s hair around their heads, and jackets around their hips. Emily held her skull, frantic. “Crap,” she muttered to herself. “Crap, crap, crap.”
She folded her long body so she was sitting on the curb and wondered how soon before a neighbor called the cops. She sat like that for a long time, vaguely aware of the music thumping from inside, intermittent laughter, and the smell of cigarettes.
Then she heard, “Doesn’t look to me like you’re studying so hard.”
She saw a pair of sneakers. She raised her eyes. Jeans. Gray hoodie. Face. Ryan’s. “It’s all Trix,” Emily said. “And I’m so completely screwed.”
He lowered himself next to her. She noticed he didn’t carry a six-pack or a fifth and was grateful. “I’m such a cliché,” she said. “Such a pathetic cliché. It’s like a bad high school movie. Teenage girl gets bullied into throwing a giant party. People have sex in the bedrooms,” she felt her face flush as she said this, “and trash the house and girl has to work for decades to earn back her parents’ trust. Not to mention send them her first gazillion paychecks after she graduates to pay for the damage.”
“Just call the police,” Ryan said.
“What?”
“Yeah. The party will get busted up, everyone’ll leave and you still come off as having hosted a kick-ass shindig.”
Someone, somewhere, started smoking weed–its pungent, sweaty smell riding the night air.
“But then it’s on, like, our permanent record or something. I mean, will I get a ticket? Will my dad find out about it?”
Ryan’s bent head was close to Emily. She inhaled the scent of him: washed cotton and something faintly evergreen. “It’s better,” he said, “than your dad finding out because the house is a smoldering pile of ashes in the middle of the lot.”
She felt overwhelmed. Totally out of her league.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said, looking back at the house. “But this party is getting huge. And Bleak’s house was so completely thrashed by his throwdown that his parents took his car keys for the rest of the year.”
Emily didn’t have her license yet, but she knew her dad would think up an equally stunting punishment.
At that moment, she saw April, Kennedy, and Vanessa standing in her driveway, holding beer cans, other kids weaving around them.
“The Farkettes,” she said and stood. She stepped on and off
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