FIREWORKS AND SPECIAL SURPRISE SHOW
MIDNIGHT:
CARRIAGES
6:44P.M.—THE HAMPTONS,TITANIAYACHT
The night had only just begun, and it was already shaping up to be the worst night of Bilal Button’s life.
Okay, maybe not theworst, but definitely a contender in the top five.
It had all started an hour ago, when the Button siblings had arrived in the Hamptons, and the first of what would be a short series of very,veryunfortunate events occurred.
His imminent peril should have been obvious the moment he’d stepped out of the car and felt both the rain and hailstones pelting down on them all. The weather reports had not prepared them for it. Though when was the weather reporting in New York ever reliable?
It was like a sort of bad omen—the weather’s way of warning him about the shitstorm to come.
The rain meant that the red-carpeted path leading to their father’s ostentatiously large yacht had been unusually wet and thus very slippery. The walk to the boat was not helped by the fact that his cast was made from plastic, which made the already-slick walkway even more slippery.
This of course resulted in Bilal’s rather dramatic tumble from the harbor and right into the Atlantic Ocean.
Many guests had already arrived at that point, shielded under umbrellas as they waited in line to pass through the security checks at the yacht’s doors. Meaning there were plenty of witnesses to Bilal’s ocean dive.
Unfortunately for Bilal, he hadn’t been spared from his public humiliation by drowning, and had instead been instantly rescued by one of their securityteam before the sea could take him (which he would have much preferred). He was instead forced to face the crowd of pitying bystanders head-on, drenched in seawater and looking very much like a Brooklyn sewer rat.
This was a first for Bilal. He’d never missed a step in his life. After all, missing a step was not something a fencer could ever afford to do; a misstep was the difference between hitting your opponent and winning the match or losing control of your blade altogether and losing your title.
Bilal had tried his best to ignore the stares, the amused chatter, and the not-so-subtle snickers (the latter had mostly been from his siblings) as security escorted him, dripping wet, on board the boat.
Afterocean-gate, as his siblings were now calling it—who all, by the way, thought his accidental dive into the sea was the funniest thing ever—Henry had taken Bilal down to one of the yacht’s many cabins on the lower deck. Of the four decks, the lower deck was thankfully the one that was restricted from public access, meaning Bilal could hide for a little while from the guests who’d seen his embarrassing fall. Honestly, he’d prefer to hide away down here for the rest of the night, but he knew his father would never allow it.
Though Bilal had stayed on his father’s yacht for holidays and celebrations, it still remained a maze to him. It was, in Bilal’s opinion, larger than any boat ever needed to be, and was predominately filled with unnecessary rooms—an indoor theater, an indoor pool, countless gaming suites, including a foosball room. But then again, his father loved extravagant displays of his wealth. Much like the Prodigy Ball itself.
Bilal finally found his way through the cabins to an extended dressing room that seemed to have everything from diving equipment to formal attire, though not, it appeared, any spare suits that would fit a boy of six five. Henry handed Bilal a towel and then presented him with a vintage Christmas sweater and a pair of raggy old pants. He had to wear this abomination while they waited for someone to deliver a new suit to the yacht, which wouldn’t be until midway through the night, it seemed.
Despite the change in clothes into what was available in the yacht’s lost and found, Bilal still resembled (and probably smelled like) a human-sized sewer rat. He couldn’t, at this point, imagine the night getting even worse than that. But of course, misfortune was the universe’s kryptonite. The second bout of ill fate came only five minutes later.
The Prodigy Ball had finally begun, the guests all accounted for and spread out across the main deck as the large boat cruised away from the shore. Everyone from world-leading experts and reporters to genius teenagers joined by their guardians was mingling on the deck, while waiters seamlessly wove between both the guests and the garish ice sculptures of Greek gods his father had installed onto the main deck for who knew what reason. The real gods were the waiters who managed to carry colorful drinks and groaning trays of appetizers in their white-gloved hands without bumping into the ridiculous carved ice statuettes.
Having made his way back into the throng, Bilal had just found a comfortable spot away from the action on a slightly raised platform that overlooked the cold, dark sea, when he saw the thing that would unquestionably ruin his entire evening in a way the ocean hadn’t yet.
Across the main deck he could see two painfully familiar figures.
A dark-skinned girl with long braided hair was laughing and chatting it up with the perfect, smiling brown-skinned boy whose face still haunted Bilal’s dreams and,occasionally, his nightmares.
