Wildefire by Karsten Knight Page B

Ash asked, half-intrigued.
    Jackie let her spectacles slide down to the tip of her nose. “Would I drag you into the middle of the woods to party with freshmen?”
    “Good point.”
    “Besides,” Jackie continued, “I figured for the finale to the evening we could clip out that picture of Bobby from last week’s newspaper, soak it in kerosene, and then see what the hot plate has to say about Blackwood’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year.”
    Ash squinted at Jackie. “I can only envision that ending with one of us getting our eyebrows singed off, and possibly burning down the national park. I’d rather not give Bobby Jones that much credit.”
    Jackie shrugged and took a swig of chocolate milk.
    Ash wasn’t sure how the girl could drink a gallon of it a day yet still remain so twiggy. “We’ll bring a fire extinguisher,” Jackie cajoled her. “I’m sure the guys will get a kick out of it too. According to Darren’s senior friends, Bobby tries to act like their best friend, but they all think he’s just a thickheaded douche.”
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    “If it walks like a duck . . . ,” Ash said.
    Darren came wandering back from the next table with a broad grin on his face.
    “What’s got into you?” Ash asked. “You look like Jackie at a handbag sale. Did some lucky guy just ask you to next week’s ball?”
    “Even better,” he said without missing a beat. “You know how we always suspected that Monsieur Chevalier was an alcoholic?”
    “He smells like a liquor store,” Ash replied. “I don’t think ‘suspected’ is really the accurate term.”
    His grin intensified; any wider, and Ash figured it would split his cheeks open all the way to his earlobes.
    “Well, for Brad Archer’s community service he had to repaint some of the rooms in the faculty lodge . . . and he finagled his way into Chevalier’s apartment.”
    “He used his detention sentence as an opportunity for breaking and entering?” Jackie asked.
    “Who cares?” Darren said. “Brad Archer’s a moron.”
    He grabbed a fork from Jackie’s tray and without consult-ing Ash attacked her macaroni cheese.
    “Help yourself,” Ash muttered.
    “Thanks.” He pulled the bowl of pasta across the table, shoveling the food into his mouth. “Point is,” he said between mouthfuls, “Brad Archer found a rack in the monsieur’s room stacked with bottles of brandy. So he took one.”
    Ash rolled her eyes. In the prep school scene it wasn’t enough just to make trouble—it was about continuing to 107

    push boundaries. When the thrill of underage drinking waned, what did you do? Steal liquor from teachers.
    “Won’t he notice that one of his darling children has gone missing?” Jackie asked.
    Darren glanced at her as if this were the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “This is a dry campus, for students and faculty. What’s he going to do? Tell Headmistress Riley that he’s not sure but he thinks one of the students raided his easily accessible liquor stash? False. ”
    “It’s all a moot point.” Jackie sighed. “I get the distinct impression that Ash is going to say no to our little s’mores-making excursion.”
    On cue Darren and Jackie turned and gave her identical puppy dog faces, complete with the hopeful eyes and drooping frowns.
    Ash huffed. “Okay, okay. I’ll come to your little faux bonfire on one condition: you let me take a nap until ten and don’t wake me one minute earlier.”
    “Yes!” Darren thumped his fist on the table. “We’re getting started in Jackie’s room around eight when Brad comes by with the contraband, but we’ll stop by and kidnap you around ten-ish.”
    Ash shuddered at the word “kidnap.” That was her cue to return to the womb she called a bed. She mumbled something about getting her rest and ten o’clock to Darren and Jackie and slipped away before they could protest.
    When she reached her bedroom, she took a running 108

    stumble across the floor and sprawled onto her bed. She was out nearly as