Chapter 1
I slam the door behind me as my mom tries to follow me into my room. "Why don't you leave me alone for once, ok mom?" I yell. "Raina, I'm not going to leave you alone. You are not going to that party and that is final! You have a big test coming up on Tuesday in math and if you don't get your grade up in that class you will be grounded for the rest of the school year! You won't get to go to any parties then, now will you?" She replies. I sigh loudly. I yell into the door, "Why can't you see that I don't care about it? I am going to do fine on that test and if I don't, then you can ground me! I need to go to that party!" I yell. If I don't go, then I will be ridiculed. It's an ongoing thing with the parties at our high school; if you are invited and don't go, everyone at the party has permission to talk about you badly and make fun of you in whatever way they want to. If you do go, you are free of ridicule. There are no exceptions to this rule, and since this is the first party I've been invited to all year, I need to go to keep my reputation. I can't be seen as the newbie who skipped out on her first party. I quickly dress into my party clothes which I've had laid out for a week and text my friend Sallie to pick me up. She says she's on her way and I walk downstairs quickly. "Mom," I say as calmly as possible. "I am very prepared for my math test and I swear that I will get a good grade on it. If I don't, you can ground me for the rest of the school year. Deal?" I ask pleadingly. "I usually don't like making deals with you Raina, but since you are old enough to make responsible decisions I am trusting you just this once to raise your math grade and go to this party," she says. I jump up and down and squeal in happiness. "OMG thank you so much mom! You won't regret trusting me!" I say, hugging her. "Now call me if you see alcohol or drugs, or if you feel uncomfortable there, ok? I don't know this kid's parents so I'm once again trusting you to be responsible," she says warningly. I know there might be alcohol there, but I won't drink any. "Yes mom," I say behind me as I run out the door. "Bye, love you!" Mom says as I close the door behind me. I open it back up. "Love you too! I'll be home by 11!" I say. I jump into Sallie's old jeep and quickly close the door behind me. "Hey Raina," a voice in the back seat says. "Hi Michael," I say, then break out into a smile. I reach back to hug him and give him a quick peck on the cheek. He's been my boyfriend for 2 weeks now, and he's great. Sallie turns up the music and we drive a few neighborhoods over to Zack Tyler's house. I've never been there before, and it's huge. As soon as I walk into the house, I'm surrounded by loud music, colorful lights, and the smell of chocolate. I look to my left to see a giant chocolate fountain glistening in the sparkly bowl it's in. I point it out to Sallie and Michael and we run over to it. We pick up strawberries, marshmallows, and pineapple bits on toothpicks and dip it in the best by far chocolate I have ever had. The party drones on, with laughter, food, and plenty of dancing, and then it's time for the ridicule. They call role like in school to check who came and who didn't. It turns out only one girl, Mariah Jones, couldn't make it because her grandmother died. There was a long debate on whether or not we should ridicule her given the circumstances, but in the end we decided to anyway. I didn't enjoy hearing about the time that Mariah fell down or farted during class, and I started to feel really guilty for even going to this party. I head to the bathroom to freshen up and hopefully sneak out early and that's when I heard it. It was a tiny noise, and I wouldn't have heard it if the music was still playing, but they had turned it off for the ridicule. It sounded like it was coming from behind the shower curtain. I slowly crept up toward it, suddenly afraid of its pretty pink and orange dots. In one quick motion I pulled the shower curtain back, only to find a small cylinder box. It was definitely the thing that was beeping so I leaned down to get a closer look at it. With closer examination, I realized that the beeping sound was a timer counting down on the cylinder. It said it had 2 minutes and 39 seconds left. The only thing I could think of at that moment was bomb, somebody's put a bomb in the bathroom and it's going to explode in two minutes.