Roll the Dice

thirty-one. guys and dolls (reprise)

"You know, as great as it is to be back," said Cara as we neatly dodged a freshman whose eyes were glued to his phone, "I really can't wait to be out of here."

Dacey clucked. "You've spent exactly five minutes in this school. How can you possibly decide already that senior year isn't going to be one of the best years of your life?"

From the way Dacey was talking about our senior year, I would have thought that she was still a freshman—if I didn't know her better. All of that hope (which would promptly be destroyed by the end of sophomore year, if not earlier) practically lit up her face. She could be a skincare model at this rate.

After a pause, the two of them turned to me, raising their eyebrows. I squirmed. It was one thing to fend off Dacey's blue eyes, but it was another to do that while trying to to crumble like dust under Cara's glare. "What?"

"Aren't you going to back me up?" Dacey crossed her arms across her chest. "You know I'm right." She wiggled her eyebrows. "Come on. Admit it."

Cara rolled her eyes. "Your eyebrows look like two incompetent caterpillars trying to hop off your face." Dacey's mouth dropped open. Cara didn't let her respond, pushing on. "But Lottie, after last year in physics, I don't know what can make Excelsior seem appealing. That's PR trash."

All three of us suppressed a shiver at the mention of AP Physics last year, but that didn't stop Dacey from bursting out before Cara even finished her last word. "But come on! Can you imagine going to any other school? You can't trash talk the Eagles when you're one of them!" Dacey met a stony silence from Cara and mostly confusion from me. "You guys are hopeless. But you can't lie to me and say that you aren't hyped for homecoming."

At the mention of homecoming, I felt a corner of my lips lift. "Yeah, homecoming's going to be fun."

"But the theme this year"—Cara groaned—"is so lame. Journey through History? Really?"

My smirk grew into a grin now. "But Cara..." I clapped my hands, bouncing on my heels a little (not easy to do while walking). "The seniors ended up with the best theme ever. Aren't you at least a little excited about Hollywood's Golden Age?"

Dacey spluttered so violently that I thought she was choking. "Wait, wait," she gasped after Cara smacked her back a couple of times, "I thought they were kidding when they announced that. Did class council actually pick Hollywood's Golden Age?"

Cara let out a sigh that made her seem like a 14-year-old basset hound who had seen too much of the world. I rolled my eyes at the two of them. "Don't be dumb, you guys. Of course it'll be fun! Now you"—I gave Dacey a pointed stare—"have an excuse to wear your favorite little black dress à la Aubrey Hepburn to the pep rallies, and you"—I turned my gaze to Cara—"can wear your weird-ass lion cape because it's related to Sam Goldwyn."

There was a pause. They were seeing the light. Finally. I resisted the urge to fist bump because that would have been pushing it. Instead, I just surged on ahead of the two, leaving them to jog lightly to keep up with me.

"But Lottie, every single time we've elected you onto class council, the homecoming theme was all shades of wacky!" protested Cara. "Last year, it was musicals. Sophomore year, it was—"

I shook a finger at her. "Homecoming for all of those years was lit though, wasn't it? I'm a genius; admit it."

We finally stopped at a classroom. Even though school hadn't technically started yet, people were already starting to stream into the classes. Through one of the windows (however, I didn't understand why anyone would want to put windows looking out to a hallway and not outdoors), I caught sight of the teachers speaking with some people already. I shook my head. Freshmen. They always tried so hard.