House Party (5 page)

“This is your house, right?”

I nodded.

“Good. What's the address here?”

“Um…Forty Calico Court.”

“Thanks.”

He turned around and put a phone to his ear. Over the music I heard him yell out my address.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just telling a few friends where the party is. Giving them the address.”

“But there are too many people here already!” I yelled.

“There can never be too many people! You know how to throw one great party!”

He darted off through the crowd before I could say another word.

Just then the front door opened and more people came in. There were four, five—no, six of them. I didn't recognize any of them.

This was getting really crazy. There was a couple upstairs in one of the bedrooms, and some kid I didn't know was inviting other kids I didn't know to come over, and
more and more strangers were just walking into my house. I had to do something. I had to find Jen, and together we had to do something.

I pushed my way into the kitchen, looking for Jen. My eyes widened in shock. There was a girl standing over the punch bowl. She had a bottle of vodka in her hand, and she was pouring it into the punch!

I ran across the room. “What are you doing?” I screamed as I grabbed her arm.

She glared at me. “Careful!” she yelled. “You almost made me spill it!”

“You can't do that!”

“I'm just adding some punch to the punch,” she said. “It was pretty weak until we started adding some muscle.”

“We? Have other people added things before?” I questioned.

“All night. I noticed you've been enjoying it.”

All night. That explained why Jen was acting the way she was. She
was
drunk.

But I'd had five or six glasses myself…My stomach didn't feel the best. I had just thought it was the party and the excitement and everything.

She emptied the rest of the bottle into the punch. Then she took the ladle and mixed it all up. I had to find Jen.

I squeezed out of the room. She wasn't in the dining room on the dance floor, but there had to be ten couples out there now. I threaded my way between the people standing around in the hall—who were these people and how could there be so many of them? I hardly recognized anybody. Then I saw Ashley.

“Ashley, have you seen Jen?”

“Yeah, she's downstairs in the washroom. She wasn't looking so good.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think she had too much to drink. She looked like she was going to upchuck.”

The punch! She'd been drinking more of it than me.

I went downstairs. There were dozens of people in the room. The TV was on and
a music video was blaring. People were talking, laughing, drinking and eating pizza. There was a piece of pizza lying upside down on the carpet. I picked it up, putting it down on the table.

The door to the bathroom was slightly open. I peeked inside.

Jen was on her knees on the floor in front of the toilet. There was a girl standing over her, holding back her hair.

“Jen, I need you to help me!” I yelled. “Things are getting out of control and—”

She bent forward, her whole body convulsed and she threw up into the toilet.

The girl leaned away but kept her hold on Jen's hair, keeping it out of the vomit.

Jen coughed and spit into the toilet. Then she looked up at me.

“It must be the flu. I didn't have anything to drink…just the punch…honest,” she said.

“The punch has been spiked! It's almost pure alcohol!”

“That would explain it.” She turned back to the toilet and threw up again. It was
nothing but liquid, the same color as the punch.

She turned back around. “That feels better,” she said, her voice quivering.

“There are too many people in the house,” I practically screamed. “And there's going to be more. There was a guy who called his friends and invited them to come over too!”

“Is this your house?” the girl holding Jen's hair asked.

“Yes, it's my place.”

“I didn't know who lived here. I got a text message telling me it was an open house with no parents. My friend Bailey told me she read about it in a chat room.”

“I didn't tell anybody in a chat room,” Jen said.

“Probably somebody you told went into the chat room and told everybody else,” the girl said. “There's no telling how many people know about it. It's still early.”

“No more people can come!” I screamed. “We have to stop people from coming in!”

Jen unsteadily rose to her feet.

“You lock the back door,” Jen said. “I'll go to the front door and stop people from coming in.”

“Do you think you can do that?”

“I'm okay, and if anybody bothers me, I'll puke on them.” She gave a weak smile. “Meet me at the front when you're done with the back.”

I raced upstairs. The key to the back door was hanging in the hall cupboard. It was a dead bolt, and once it was locked there was no way anybody could get in or out without the key. I ripped the key off the hook and ran to the door. It was wide open, and people were going in and out.

“Excuse me,” I said as I pushed my way past some people. “I have to lock up the door and—hey, that's my father's camera!”

A boy I didn't know had my father's camera in his hands. Without even thinking, I grabbed it from him. He didn't fight me. He hardly reacted at all.

“Get out and don't come back!”

“Screw you!” he yelled, but then he walked out the door.

I slammed it shut and locked the door. Nobody was going to be coming in this way at least. Now we just had to control the front door, stop anybody else from walking in, and as soon as somebody left, not let them back inside.

Jen was standing at the front door. Along with her were Mike and Mo.

“They're going to work the door for us,” Jen said.

“Thank you so much!” I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around both of them.

“They'll make sure the door is kept locked and that nobody else gets in,” Jen said. “By the way, why do you have a camera with you? Are you taking pictures?”

I looked down at the camera. I'd forgotten I was even carrying it.

“No, no…I caught somebody trying to steal it. I took it away from some guy!”

“That's awful.”

Mike put a hand on my shoulder. “We'll try to make sure nobody takes anything out that isn't theirs.”

This time I did wrap my arms around him. I felt like I was going to cry, but I forced myself to hold back.

“It's okay. We'll help,” Mike said. “Is there anything else we can do?”

“There are people upstairs in the bedrooms. They shouldn't be there.”

“I'll go with you and we can take care of that,” Jen said.

We started up the stairs. Jen looked a little unsteady. She couldn't have been feeling very well, but she was being a trooper.

She flung open the door to my bedroom and flipped on the light. There were those two kids lying on my bed. The girl screamed and they jumped to their feet.

“What do you think you're doing?” the guy demanded.

“What do you think
you're
doing?” Jen yelled back. “This isn't your house, and you were told not to come up here, so now you have to get out!”

“You can't tell me—”

“Get out now or we call the police!”

He looked like he was going to say something, but he didn't.

“Come on, let's get out of this place!” the girl huffed. She grabbed her shoes from the floor and stomped out of the room, straightening her clothes as she walked.

“Thanks a lot,” the guy said. He started out of the room, and then he turned around, grabbed the lamp off my dresser and tossed it against the wall. It shattered into a thousand pieces.

I stood there, speechless. I didn't know what to say.

“I'll check out your parents' room and kick out anybody who's there. Then we'll make sure that nobody else comes upstairs.”

“Maybe we should make everybody leave.”

Jen shook her head. “I don't think we could do that even if we tried. It might just make things worse. It's almost midnight. People are going to start leaving on their own soon anyway.”

She smiled. “Still, it is a pretty good party, don't you think?”

I wandered from room to room. I was trying to get a count of how many people there were in the house. There had to be close to a hundred kids. Thank goodness nobody else was going to get inside. Mike and Mo were working the door like a couple of bouncers, letting people out but not letting anybody else in.

There were, of course, some people that I knew, and some who went to our
school—but most of them were complete strangers. Even worse, some of them were a lot older than me. They were adults—or at least no longer in high school.

I sidled around the dance floor. It was still crowded, and the music was still so loud that I could hardly hear myself think. Every seat in the living room was taken, and people were standing around talking, laughing. They did look like they were having a good time. I wished I could have been laughing or dancing or talking instead of worrying, cleaning and hoping that it would all end without anything more happening.

There were drinks everywhere. Bottles of beer and little wine coolers, glasses filled with punch or whatever. Along with them were plates—our good plates—lying here and there with crusts of pizza. Somebody had taken down the plates when the pizza had arrived. I kept on gathering up the plates, putting them safely in the laundry room sink, as well as picking up the empty bottles and cups. I was quickly becoming the cleaning staff at my own party.

The most bizarre thought kept rolling around in my head. Despite it all, it really did look like a good party. There was going to be a lot of cleaning up to do, and I hoped my parents wouldn't find out about it, but it just might all work out. Jen and I were throwing a grade-A, top-of-the-line party.

There was the sound of squealing tires and I glanced out the front window. I was stunned by what I saw. I knew people were outside, but I'd had no idea how many. There had to be two hundred kids on our front lawn and the street! Everywhere I looked there were people! I stared, unable to believe the scene. They were standing around in groups, sitting on the curb, lying on my lawn, or sitting on the hoods or trunks of cars. There seemed to be as many cars as there were people. It was like a parking lot, with cars clogging the entire street.

Another car tore away, leaving behind a patch of rubber, and the crowd cheered its approval. I felt like cheering too. At
least one more car and one person were leaving.

Lots of people out there held bottles of beer or plastic cups—the cups we had put out. Obviously some of these kids—
many
of them—had been inside the house at one time. Thank goodness for Mike and Mo. They were keeping the crowd under some control. If all of those people had tried to come in, the house would have imploded or collapsed under the crush.

I'd been so busy and worried about what had been happening inside that I hadn't thought about looking outside. What were the neighbors thinking? They couldn't miss this. They had to be standing in their houses looking out their windows.

This wasn't good. My parents didn't really know any of the neighbors, but they did talk to them sometimes. Somebody was bound to mention this to them. Unless I mentioned it first. I could tell them there was some sort of big gathering on the street, some sort of party, but I didn't know where it had been held. It had to be at one
of the neighbors' houses. Sometimes the best defense was a good offense.

Regardless, I couldn't hope to control what was happening out there, and at least it was happening out there instead of in here.

As I watched, a fight broke out between two guys. They started pushing and shoving. a punch was thrown and the crowd surged forward, surrounding and then separating them.

Then a second fight broke out and somebody smashed a bottle against the sidewalk. A car alarm went on, the car's horn honking and its lights flashing.

The whole thing was like a scene from a movie. I was glad to be inside.

“It's getting crazy out there,” Jen said.

“Totally, but there's nothing we can do about it…is there?”

Jen shook her head. “Those people out there aren't at the party. We have no responsibility for them.”

“But they wouldn't be out there if it wasn't for us having a party in here.”

“
In
is the key word. What happens out there has nothing to do with us.”

I thought she was wrong, but I really, really wanted to believe her.

“I guess you're right.”

“Let's just keep taking care of things inside,” she said.

“Of course. Why aren't you on the stairs?”

“Don't worry. I asked a couple of the guys to watch the stairs. They're taking care of it. Nobody is going to go upstairs. And more people are leaving all the time. Look.”

Mike had the front door open and was letting out a couple of people. Two more down and another hundred to go. It was all starting to look like it just might work. Suddenly four guys pushed themselves in the door. Mike tried to stop them, but they were bigger and outnumbered him and Mo. Behind them came two girls and another guy.

Jen and I rushed to the door, getting there in time to help Mo slam the door shut and stop the flood.

Somebody started pounding on the door, and there was yelling and screaming from the people who had been kept out. They were angry, but I didn't care—they were outside and they weren't coming in no matter how hard they pounded.

That is, they weren't coming in until we tried to let somebody else out. What would happen then? We just had to hope that those people on the outside would get tired and go away before that happened.