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again, like you’ve ripped it in half all over again and all over again I said nothing. You probably think this is from the night we went to the Ball, but it isn’t. You probably think it got ripped in half by accident, for no reason, just the way things happen with all the posters for all the events that end up pulped by rain or untaped by the janitors to make room for the next one, like the Holiday Formal posters that areeverywhere up now, with Jean Sabinger’s careful drawing of one of those glass ornaments which, if you look real close, has people dancing all funhouse-curved in a reflection, replacing the skulls and bats and jack-o’-lanterns on this poster, but you did it, bastard. You did it and made a scene.
    Al had the posters in a huge orange stack on his lap on the right-hand benches when I arrived at school with my hair ridiculous damp and my Advanced Bio homework not done in my backpack. Jordan and Lauren were there, too, each holding—it took me a sec to get it—a roll of tape.
    “Oh no,” I said.
    “Morning, Min,” Al said.
    “Oh no. Oh no. Al, I forgot.”
    “Told you,” Jordan said to him.
    “I totally forgot, and I need to find Nancie Blumineck and
beg
to copy her bio. I can’t! I can’t do it. Plus, I don’t have any tape.”
    Al took out a roll of tape, he’d known all along. “Min, you swore.”
    “I know.”
    “You swore it to me three weeks ago over a coffee
I bought
you
at Federico’s, and Jordan and Lauren were witnesses.”
    “True,” Jordan said. “We are. We were.”
    “I notarized a statement,” Lauren said solemnly.
    “But I
can’t
, Al.”
    “You swore,” Al said, “on Theodora Sire’s gesture when she throws her cigarette into what’s-his-name’s bathwater.”
    “Tom Burbank. Al—”
    “You swore to help me. When I was informed that it was mandatory that I join the planning committee for the All-City All Hallows’ Ball, you didn’t have to swear to attend all the meetings like Jordan did.”
    “So
boring
,” Jordan said, “my eyes are still rolled into the back of my head. These are glass replicas, Min, placed in the gaping bored holes in my skull.”
    “Nor did you have to swear, as Lauren did, to hold Jean Sabinger’s hand through six drafts of the poster as each of the decorations subcommittee submitted their comments, two of which made her cry, because Jean and I still can’t talk after the Freshman Dance Incident.”
    “It’s true, the crying,” Lauren said. “I have personally wiped her nose.”
    “Not true,” I said.
    “Well, it’s true she cried. And Jean Sabinger is a
crier
. It’s these artistic temperaments, Min.”
    “All you swore to do,” Al said, “in order to get your free tickets by being a listed member of my subcommittee, was to spend one morning taping up posters.
This
morning, actually.”
    “Al—”
    “And don’t tell me it’s stupid,” Al said. “I am HellmanHigh junior treasurer. I work in my dad’s store on weekends. My entire life is stupid. The All-City All Hallows’ Ball is stupid. Being on the planning committee for
anything
is the height of stupidity, even when, especially when, it’s mandatory. But stupidity is no excuse. Although I myself have no opinion—”
    “Uh-oh,” Jordan said.
    “—some would argue, for instance, that a certain amount of stupidity is exhibited by anyone who finds it necessary to chase after Ed Slaterton, and yet I abused my power just yesterday, as a member of the student council, and looked up his phone number in the attendance office at your request, Min.”
    Lauren pretended to faint dead away. “
Al!
” she said, in her mother’s voice. “That is a violation of the student council honor code! It will be a very long time before I trust you ever, ever—OK, I trust you again.”
    They all looked at me now. Ed, you never cared for a sec about any of them. “OK, OK, I’ll tape up posters.”
    “I knew you would,” Al said, handing me his tape. “I never doubted