Fireball (22 page)

It was a girl. I didn't recognise her voice, but it stopped me from crying. Like I said, I don't cry in front of girls, even if I've been maced. Especially if I've been maced, actually.

‘Here,' I said.

I guided her to the tap and cupped handfuls of water over her face. She made a little sound – like a whimper at the back of her throat.

‘It hurts.'

‘Yeah. Goddamned pigs.'

‘Let me do it.'

We took turns splashing water into our eyes. Outside, people were kicking and punching and screaming and swearing, and we'd found this peaceful little hiding place. Secretly, I was kind of hoping to make out with her. Not in a sleazy way, but in a super romantic way. You know – I'd kiss her on the forehead and then maybe stroke her hair if she'd let me. It didn't happen, obviously. But it would have been awesome if it did.

‘Are there any towels?' she asked.

‘They're around here somewhere.'

Then I remembered – Jules kept them on the shower door. I handed one to her and used another to pat at my face. The skin surrounding my eyes was all puffy and tender, almost blistered. I could see a little better, though. The first thing I saw was this blue, blurry shape standing in front of me. For a second I thought that she was just a girl who really liked the colour blue. You know, blue jeans and blue shirts and stuff. Then I saw the little gold badge glittering on her chest. I started laughing. I mean, it was impossible not to laugh.

‘What?'

‘You're a cop!'

‘Yeah.'

She sounded almost embarrassed. Of all the cops I've ever met, she had the best personality by a mile. Also, she was the best looking. Seriously. Her face looked funny because she was squinting and grimacing at the same time, but you could tell that on a good day – like on a day when she hadn't been hit right in the eyes with pepper spray – she would have been a fox. A cop fox.

‘I've always wanted to be maced,' I said.

She laughed, a little nervously. Neither of us really knew how the hell to act. We just stood there blinking over and over at each other, as if we were trying to communicate with our eyes. No matter how many times we blinked, the tears kept streaming down our cheeks.

Eventually I said, ‘Guess we should go back out there, huh?'

‘I suppose so.'

We turned to face the door. Neither of us wanted to open it. I mean, we could hear what was happening outside. The sounds of the riot came through all muted and subdued, like a violent action movie playing on low volume. But we couldn't stay in there all night.

‘See you on the other side,' I said.

And I opened the door into chaos.

Jules decided to throw this toga party. Don't ask me why. I think he'd watched too many of those stupid college comedies. You know – the kind where the frat guys throw a huge toga party and everybody gets laid, instantly. That's what Jules imagined, I'm pretty sure. Somebody forgot to tell him that high school toga parties are the lamest thing ever, next to turtlenecks and breath-holding competitions. But summer vacation was almost over and his parents were away at a sports conference and Jules wanted to have his party.

I was a little dubious, right from the start.

It's not like I'm completely against toga parties, either. I love a good toga party under the right circumstances. But a toga party has to be casual. It's impossible to act casual in Julian's house. The walls are stark and white, the ceilings are way too high, and the rooms are filled with pricey artefacts – like a museum. There's boomerangs and oil paintings and tribal masks and ebony carvings and all kinds of cultured shit. Super trendy. His house would be perfect for, say, a yuppie dinner party. But a toga party? Not even.

On top of that, I look harsh butt in a toga. To wear a toga, you need a body like Chris. He reminded me of Julius Caesar. I'm serious. Even Jules, with his puffy pecs and inflated biceps, looked better than me. The problem is my muscle tone. I've got no definition. I also have a few wispy hairs sprouting around my nipples. Really lame hairs, like an old man's beard growing out of my chest. That's why I didn't even wear a toga. I just draped a sheet over my head and cut out two holes for eyes. On the front of the sheet I wrote in permanent marker: This is my first ghost party. Everybody loved it. Everybody but Jules.

‘It's a toga party, man – a toga party!'

Jules took his party seriously. His toga wasn't just a sheet. He'd gone to the trouble of renting an entire toga costume. He even had a crown of laurels around his head. I felt a little sorry for him, actually. He'd been acting pretty neurotic, lately. He pretended he didn't know about Chris and Karen, but he knew. He had to know. When it came down to it, that's what his toga party was really about: him and Chris and Karen. It was his attempt at a coup.

Jules wanted to be Caesar.

Hero's Party Turns Nasty
.
That was the headline in the
North Shore News
. The others were just as bad. The way they wrote it, you'd think Chris started the riot single-handedly. Technically I guess he did start it. I mean, he was the one who slammed the door in their face. Also, he threw the most punches and ended up in jail. I ended up in jail, too – even though I didn't really do anything. But whatever. All I'm saying is that a riot can't just be started by one person, like a fire. Everybody played a part. Jules and Karen and Bates and the party mannequins and all those cops. Everybody. Even Julian's parents helped out. They were the ones who supplied the booze and left the house empty. They pretended they didn't know about what was going on, but it was pretty obvious that they were in it up to their eyeballs.

At that toga party, nobody was innocent.

Jules wasn't. Not even close. The thing about Jules is that he doesn't know when to stop. When he decided to eat protein powder, he didn't stop until his muscles were all huge and doughy. And when he decided to have a party, he didn't stop filling the house until it was so cramped you could hardly move. He invited people from all over the North Shore, and they came. They came from the Cove and they came from Blueridge. They came from Lynn Valley and from West Van and they even came from Horseshoe Bay. Jules welcomed them all in, smiling and handing out punch.

He asked me, ‘What do you think of the party, man?'

‘It's cool, Jules.'

I was lying, for his sake. I hated it, actually. The four of us had created our own little world for most of the summer. Now there were these people everywhere, laughing and shouting and dancing and swearing and wrestling in their togas.

‘I'll be right back,' I told him.

I fought my way through the heaving, sweaty mass, looking for familiar faces. I couldn't find any. Who the hell were these people? They were just another exhibit in the museum of Julian's house. He'd called in about eight hundred mannequins to impress Karen. It was like they'd come straight from the beach, with their fake tans and fake muscles and fake girlfriends. It was even worse than that party in West Van. Since they'd all worn togas, it was impossible to tell them apart. There were mannequins splashing in the pool and lounging around the jacuzzi. There were mannequins drinking at the kitchen table and making out on the sofas. Everywhere I looked I saw dozens and dozens of mannequins.

They'd overrun the place. For mannequins, they were getting pretty aggressive, too.

‘Hey – watch yourself, bitch.'

I'd bumped into some guy near the toilet. It was hard to see in that ghost costume.

‘Whatever, man,' I said.

I brushed past before he did anything. It was typical bullshit. I mean, I don't know what Jules expected. Cramming that many drunken assholes into one space is like building a homemade bomb.

He provided the gunpowder, too.

A giant punchbowl dominated one corner of the living room. The punch was neon orange and tasted like Kool-Aid mixed with gasoline. Jules must have dumped at least five litres of vodka in there. I wouldn't be surprised if his parents had gone out and bought all that booze specifically for the party. I mean, who keeps that much Smirnoff in their liquor closet? Nobody – that's who. Except maybe Chris's mom.

Beside the bowl stood stacks of cheap plastic cups. Most people drank from those. Not me. I needed something that would get the job done. In Julian's cupboard I found his dad's beer stein – this classy pewter mug he'd brought back from Prague. It was worth a dozen plastic cups. I grabbed it and jostled my way to the punchbowl.

‘Hey – check out this fag.'

‘Nice costume, buddy.'

There were a bunch of clowns standing around the table, making stupid comments like that. I ignored them. I filled up the stein and went to sit by myself in a corner, huddling under my ghost sheet. It was like being in a super tiny tent for one person. I peered out at the world, at all the mannequins, sucking back as much vodka as I could as quickly as I could. When I ran out I went back for more. Those guys could laugh at me and make fun of me all they wanted. I didn't care. I felt pretty superior, actually. None of them knew what I'd guessed as soon as I walked in the door: that this party was destined for disaster.

Bates was as guilty as any of us.

The first time he came to the door, I happened to answer. I wasn't even that surprised to see him. It was like that lame old saying – the one about somebody being a bad penny. Bates was our bad penny. Since he always hassled us, it seemed natural that he'd be the one to show up at our party. This time he had another cop with him – a big Asian guy with smooth cheeks and a chin that went right into his neck.

‘What's going on here?'

That was Bates. He seemed a little put off by my ghost costume.

‘We're having a toga party.'

‘That's not a toga.'

I pointed at my chest. ‘I thought it was a ghost party.'

The Asian guy laughed. He seemed okay, actually. He had nice, straight teeth.

Bates said, ‘Take that goddamn thing off when you're talking to me.'

I started trying to get out of my sheet. It was a bit of an ordeal.

‘Wait a minute,' Bates said. ‘Is this your house?'

‘No.'

‘Forget the sheet. Get me the owner.'

I turned around. Jules was standing with a bunch of mannequins.

‘Jules,' I shouted, ‘it's the cops!'

That got his attention, and everybody else's, too. Somebody had the sense to turn down the music, and Jules came over. Bates hadn't recognised me because of my sheet but he recognised Julian, all right. ‘What do you know?' he said. ‘It's my hero.' He snorted and turned to his partner. ‘This is one of the guys who got kicked off the Crazy Dan show.'

‘Oh yeah?'

‘Yeah. These kids are trouble.'

That cracked me up. He said it like we weren't even there.

Jules asked, ‘Is there a problem, Officer Bates?'

‘We've had a couple of noise complaints.' Bates waved a hand in the direction of the party, as if he was fanning away a bad odour. ‘You keep it down, or we'll shut it down.'

I'd bet five hundred bucks he rehearsed lines like that in his mirror.

‘I understand, officer.'

‘This is a verbal warning.'

‘Okay, officer.'

Bates still didn't seem satisfied. He lingered on the porch but couldn't think of anything else to say. It was obvious how badly he wanted to shut the party down. But he had nothing to stand on. Not yet. The two of them turned and went back to their squad car. Jules closed the door. We watched through the window, waiting for them to drive away.

Then Jules shouted, ‘Let's party!'

Karen wasn't innocent, either. It's impossible to be innocent when you look like Karen. She knew exactly how to wear her toga. She had it looped low across her chest, so you could see tons of cleavage. That was bad enough. But she also had it parted around her left thigh, like one of those classy dresses that have a long slit up the side. She didn't even look like a normal human being any more. She'd transformed into this Roman goddess.

‘How's my ghost with the most?'

She sidled up to me and sat right on my lap, draping a sweaty arm around my neck for balance. She had a cup in each hand and some of the punch slopped onto my ghost costume. I didn't care. She was sitting right on my lap. It was awesome. It was better than awesome.

‘There's a lot of cute girls here, huh?' she asked.

‘Yeah. I guess.'

She took a swig of punch. ‘You don't think so?'

‘None as cute as you.'

I wasn't lying, either. She made all those Barbie doll clones look harsh skanky.

‘Thanks, babe.'

She turned her head and kissed me, right on the mouth. My costume completely covered my face so it wasn't like our lips touched or anything, but it was the next best thing.