And They Were Roommates(79)

We go still in the doorway.

Blaze slams into my back. He starts to readjust his ghost sheet to see through the eyeholes. “Wherefore did we stop walking—?”

“NO,” Xavier shouts, and Robby lunges to cover Blaze’s eyes.

I lean closer to Delilah’s ear. “Don’t let Blaze see the spiders.”

Delilah nods despite her confusion.

The ballroom’s décor can’t compete with the strange behavior of our classmates. They huddle on either side, boys on one and girls on the other, pointedly—and irritably—avoiding eye contact. It feels dramatic until I remember the brother academy never received responses to their letters, and the sister academy believes they were never invited. On the best night of the year, everyone feels rejected.

Even more, failed by STRIP.

Without the support of the student body standing before us, this hundred-year tradition ceases to exist. Just like that. It’s happening right before our eyes.

We have to save this tonight.

Xavier frowns. “They don’t know what to do after relying on us for so long, huh?”

“Both sides must be angry and confused,” Robby surmises like I did, surveying the ballroom. “Xavier, you’ll distract Ms. Nallos on the left. P.M. has a few occupied too.”

“He’s here?” Jasper looks every which way for him.

I do too. He’s easy to spot, even among the crowd of instructors laughing with him. His suit may be black, but the slim stripe pattern and light pink tie are almost as bold as Jasper’s suit.

“Jasper should talk to his aunt,” Robby says. “She’s already herded tons of other instructors. Charlie and I will cover Mr. Stern—”

We turn to look at him; he’s standing at one of the cocktail tables bordering the walls. He hands a stuffed gnome to Ms. Lyney, whose face matches her red gown in color. William Stern is etched on the gnome’s belly.

Robby pinches the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. They’re gone. We’ll stand guard in the back to monitor any suspicious activity.”

Everyone splits off.

As Robby and I claim a table by the plastic cup spider and speakers to keep an eye on the operation, the bass of “Thriller” booms. I watch Delilah and London from a distance as they whisper a direction to Blaze. He zooms off and rams into three other girls, then hands one a wrapped candy letter. Once she opens it, her eyes light up. She searches the ballroom for her date.

Maybe this will work.

“How’re you holding up?” Robby says loudly enough to be heard over the electric guitar and synthesizers. He’s picking out pumpkin and triangular candy corns from a bowl and dividing them on the table.

“We have the easier task tonight,” I say, popping a few of the candy corns in my mouth. “So, not too nervous.”

“I mean still being roommates with Jasper. Isn’t he what started your incurable illness?”

“Wha—” I choke on my candy corn and spit it out on the table.

Robby stares at the orange-and-yellow goop. “Not trying to pry. I just wanted to check up on you. As a friend.”

In a desperate attempt to stay totally calm and cool, I join Robby in dividing up candy corn. “D-did someone say that? Who said that?”

“No one.”

“Then how did you know—? Er.” Butcher me.

“It’s always something new with you two. Burning hatred, total obsession, utter indifference. Anyone with a brain can see something’s up. Unfortunately for you, as top ranks, we have those.”

“We?”

“Xavier and me.”

The embarrassment hits hard. “I’m still surprised you figured it out. I thought Jasper was straight.”

Robby giggles and peeks up from the candy corn. Once he notices I haven’t joined in, he presses his lips firmly together. “That wasn’t a joke?”

“No? Jasper only realized himself a few weeks ago.”

His brow lifts incredulously. “The jewelry-wearing, more-dramatic-than-a-whining-baby-pony, long-haired poet?”

“I mean, a straight guy could act that way too.”

“Technically, but I also think the odds were in your favor.”

I search for Jasper across the ballroom. He stands by his aunt, as commanded by Robby, gesticulating and blabbering in a way that almost comes off heated, like they’re having an intense heart-to-heart conversation. Knowing him, though, he must just be speaking passionately about ancient Sumerian poetry’s lack of syllabo-tonic versification to distract her. He claims they aren’t close.

Still, Principal Grimes nods like she’s paying attention. Like she cares.

It pulls a question to the forefront of my mind. “Do you know if Jasper has the same”—I pause, unsure how to phrase this—“values as his aunt?”

“What do you mean?” Robby asks.

“She’s the principal. Of this academy.”

“Ah. Well, two years ago she took over after the previous principal.”

“Jasper’s aunt is new?”

“Yup. Before, she was at some private LA school.”

Principal Grimes’s name likely wouldn’t have come up as a camper, but it makes even more sense now why I’d never heard of her. “She’s not as strict?”