“How could I have drawn a short straw when I wasn’t there to pull a straw to begin with?” This is bullshit!
I stare around at my friends; they can barely look me in theeye.
My throat is dry. “Are you fucking with me right now?” I feel myself blinking rapidly. “You three want me to pull the senior prank?”
“We don’t want you to do it—youhaveto do it.” Marcus sets down his water bottle and holds his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot the messengers. We did you a favor!”
A favor? HOW?
Everyoneknows I have a full ride to college for hockey. Getting caught doing something like the senior prank could blow the entire opportunity, same as drinking, smoking, or stealing.
Illegal pranks.
I live like a choirboy most of the year, not by choice but by necessity—and here they are telling me I have to ask out the girl of my dreams…or pull the senior class prank?
“Hear us out.” Gabe busies himself by pushing his pizza around on his lunch tray with the tip of his finger. “Last night at the class officer meeting we started talking about the senior prank, ya know, before Mr.Cotter came back into the room. We had to put everyone’s names into a spreadsheet so it would befair.”
“Yeah, but not everyone wants to be involved in that crap,” I point out.
“I know, dude, but this is the senior prank. Everyone has to be involved.”
I beg to differ, but before I can argue my next point, he goeson.
“Anyway, Tompkins drew Beth Reinhardt for the recon and your name to”—he lowers his voice, leaning in closer so I can hear him—“take the mascot.”
I groan, pulling a hand down my face. “No way, dude. No.”
Marcus fiddles with his bottle again. “Listen, man, literally the only way Tompkins was willing to let you off the hook was for you to win your way out of it.”
“Oh. Tompkins iswilling to let me off the hook,” I grind out sarcastically. “Who made him Lord of Everything?”
Fucking Aiden Tompkins.
I hate that guy.
The little dweeb is senior class president and a major blowhard because his dad owns the local grocery store, pharmacy, and several chain restaurants in town. Mr.Tompkins thinks he’s hot shit, and so does his weaselly turd of a son.
“When were you going to tell me about this meeting?”
“You’re not a class officer,” Gabe, class treasurer, points out somewhat boastfully, and I have no choice but to roll my eyes back at him.
“So they justpicked my name?” I use air quotes, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “How convenient.”
“No, they didn’t justpick your name. I already told you, we put all the seniors’ names into a random draw and picked ten. Then from those, we chose you.” His large palm claps down on my shoulder. “Dude, I’m sorry. I tried to talk them into choosing someone else, but Tompkins said it wouldn’t be fair to throw your name out. The computer picked it. The best I could do was have him agree to this dare instead. You do the dare and you’re off the hook.”
Fine, I believe him. The computer picked it.
I believe him because no one in this school is dumb enough to volunteer as tribute. Not for the prank—it’s too risky. I know it’s risky because they pull the same prank every single year, since it coincides with culmination of basketball season.
I throw the rest of my sandwich onto my tray, appetite gone.
“This is so jacked up.” I shake my head. “I’m not doing it. My parents would kill me.” And if they caught wind that the class officers were organizing the entire thing, my parents are the kind of parents who would call the principal and rat Aiden Tompkins out—but thenIlook like a whiny, dickhead snitch.
Marcus snorts. “Same.”
“Yeah,” Gabe intones. “Any one of us would be in deep shit if we got caught, so maybe you shouldn’t be crying about it. You’re not special.”
Yeah, I kind of am.
