Time for another recap. (:

Silena really wants Luke, but he's with Thalia now. She and Clarisse came up with a plan to manipulate Chris into getting Luke for Silena. Yeah, good luck.
Percy is a really good swimmer, and he hopes the swim team will be his ticket to popularity. He also might be getting close with Grover, and he had a deep moment with Annabeth. Weird.
Nico is bi, and he and Grover are bonding over their mutual interests.
And there might have been a narc at the party at the di Angelo house. Uh oh.

Chapter Eleven
Blame It On The Alcohol

The admissions board at UMass Boston had better be pretty damn impressed by the fact that I was in jazz choir all through high school.

The opening notes of the Star Spangled Banner made me want to strangle someone. Having Carrie wailing off-key next to me didn't exactly help. She was only in jazz choir because she had a helpless crush on Josh, who had joined because he wanted to impress Kasey.

It was unfortunately impossible to ignore people who gossiped at volumes loud enough to wake the dead.

Mr. Sol waved his hand, cutting us off. "Do we suck that bad?" Carrie asked.

Not us. You.

He shrugged. "Less soprano, more bass. Smile; you're singing, not getting a root canal. Tenors sounded good, though."

Surprise, surprise. Grover Underwood was actually surprisingly good. He was quiet, but had a voice that projected well. The judges at music festival would love that and send us to state, and UMass would be even more impressed.

And my brother apparently had a thing with Grover now. He was in middle school and had a boyfriend – something I'd never managed to get in four years of high school. Whatever. Everything was easier for him; he didn't have to worry about holding a family together.

"One more time, and then we can be done for the day," Mr. Sol promised.

Silena groaned. "We sound find. We should be done now." People were quick to back her up.

"Is it true there was a narc at the party this weekend?" Josh asked. "Is the whole school gonna be suspended?"

Every single person was staring at Mr. Sol expectantly. They'd all been at my party, obviously. Everyone had. It wasn't my fault someone had had too big of a mouth and somehow a narc had gotten involved.

Mr. Sol sighed and walked to his office. He came out holding a piece of paper. "Staff," he recited. "It was come to our attention that many Shallow Lake students attended a party this past Halloween and participated in many illicit activities. Due to the impracticability of finding and punishing every last person in attendance, we shall be having an assembly in the new gym during first hour. Please take attendance and send your students there. We are unsure of how long the assembly will last."

"So we're not in trouble?" Kasey Forester asked. She'd already gone on about how she'd only showed up to be a designated driver for her sister. Save it for someone who cared.

He shrugged. "Beats me." The expression on his face said otherwise. "You guys should probably get to your first hour class."

We still had twenty minutes.

Apparently no one else cared; they all grabbed their backpacks and left.

That left me alone with Mr. Sol, and he was giving me this sympathetic look that made me want to slap him. "You know you're gonna be in pretty deep shit for this, right?"

I'd been trying not to think about it. "Sure."

"My advice? Start playing the blame game. Fast."

I glared at him. "How?"

"Say you invited a few friends, then some jocks showed up with a keg of beer. Pretty soon the whole school was at your house, and you couldn't do anything about it. You didn't want to get anyone in trouble, so you kept quiet about it."

"You really think that'll work?"

"You don't really have any other choices, Bianca. Oh, and blame Luke Castellan. He's getting suspended, anyway."

I knew he'd known more than he told the whole jazz choir. "Why are you helping me?"

He seemed kind of uncomfortable, or maybe I was imagining it. "You're a good kid. I don't want to see you lose your whole future over one dumb mistake."

Okay, this had taken a turn for the weird. "Yeah. Well, thanks."

I had twenty minutes to get to the principal's office and lie through my teeth until I somewhat resembled an innocent and naïve girl who was guilty only by association.

It was only 8:15, and so far my day had sucked ass.

Silena had made me get up at 6:00 so she could do my hair. She insisted that her fruity styling products had made a difference, but I think it looked the same as it always did – like a big mop of curls that hadn't ever seen a brush.

Then she'd made me wear this girly pink Hollister shirt my dad had sent for Christmas, along with a pair of jeans. For a girl who normally wore old basketball camp shirts and sweatpants, it felt like being a fish out of water.

Next I'd found out that instead of my first hour gym class, I had to go to some stupid assembly. Apparently the entire school was in trouble because of the party last weekend. As long as we didn't have to forfeit games because of all the idiots who'd been drinking, I could care less.

The gym wasn't meant to hold this many people, and our school was too cheap to turn the air conditioning on. My cute little Hollister shirt probably had multiple sweat stains by now. I really hated Silena sometimes.

Chris Rodriguez was sitting ten feet away. I could just stand up and walk over to him, and from the looks Silena was shooting me, that's exactly what she wanted me to do. I wish I'd never told her I liked him.

Mr. Aguila, our short little principal who thought he was king of the world, stepped up to his makeshift podium in the middle of the court. "Students, listen up," he said in a tone so pompous you'd think he was the president giving his inaugural speech.

"I'm sure you all know by now why you're here. The school has been informed of a party that took place this weekend, and which many of you made poor choices and chose to do things that violated the our school's drugs and alcohol policy."

A piece of paper hit me in the back of the head. Guess who.

Go sit next to him! It looked like she'd written it with lip liner. I rolled my eyes and crumpled it up, hoping she'd get the message.

"Now, it's impossible to know exactly who was or wasn't at the party, so our school board has decided to try something different. No one, save a few select individuals, will be punished for what went on this past weekend. However, our zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol will now be stricter than ever. Anyone caught using illicit substances for the remainder of this year will be suspended. No questions asked."

I bet he wished he had a gavel so he could bang it down. It would have added a nice touch.

"Those of you who participate in athletics are lucky there are no upcoming games." Well, obviously. Fall sports had just ended, and practice for winter sports wouldn't start for another two weeks. "We would have forfeited any scheduled events." Good thing the football team had sucked this year. They could still have been playing playoff games.

"Luke got suspended," some loud-mouthed girl sitting behind me said. "Three weeks. He got blamed for like…everything."

"That's just not right." I recognized Silena's voice. "I mean, if anyone's getting slapped on the wrist, it should be Bianca."

Three weeks. That was intense, but honestly, he had it coming. I don't know what Silena saw in him – he was just trouble waiting to happen.

And usually, you didn't have to wait long.

"Now, for the remainder of the hour, we have some people from the clinic who have so graciously decided to come in to talk about the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol," Mr. Aguila went on, though most people weren't listening at this point.

Yup. This day sucked ass. Majorly.