Starry Eyed

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Dinners at Huntley were always kind of Harry Potter-ish, and tonight was no exception. Maybe the whole idea of boarding school meals just belongs to J.K Rowling and her incredibly clever mind. But the dining room here is more like a high school cafeteria, just filled with better food. There's not only one cook either; there's, like, a mini army of lunch ladies. They don't make amazing stuff, but it's better than slush by a long shot.

Star is, as always, in the cafeteria before me for dinner. She's already gotten her tray of food. Tonight's meal is a plate of sloppy nachos, with a good dolloping of sour cream slapped on top. She daintily picks up her nacho chips as I sit down, and when she looks at me from the right, I see she's been crying. Either that, or she's had a mascara failure. She's tried to fix it as best as she can, but there's that smudgy look around her eyes, less Vogue than you would think.

"Hey," I say. A faint smile creeps onto her lips, but I can see she's lost in thought. "What's up? Why wouldn't you let me inside?"

"I told you. I was writing," she replies weakly, her gaze fixed on another table ahead. I follow her stare, but there's nobody important around from what I can see.

"What were you writing?"

"Stuff," she answers. I can tell I'm not going to squeeze any answers out of her any time soon, so I just sit down and dig in to the plateful of nachos she's already gotten me. I want to tell her about the special room I found, and ask if she might know any other urban explorers that got to it before me, but something inside makes me hold it in. It's nice to have that burning secret feeling inside. Plus, Star seems to be happy enough in her own room.

The nachos taste good, although the mince is a little burnt. I let it slide. "Your dad's pissed off with me."

That catches her attention. Star's head snaps up, her blonde ponytail whipping across her face as she turns. "What? Why?"

"He caught me with a bottle of beer."

At first, Star clearly doesn't know how to react. I can understand, of course. If I heard that Luca Jones had been caught with beer in the hallways, I wouldn't believe it either. I can practically see all the question marks dancing around in her mind. She doesn't know which one to find an answer to first. Finally, she speaks, looking like she's just seen a monster creeping up behind me. "Why the hell did you have a bottle of beer?"

And then I realize I may have slipped up telling her. When Finn gets in the shit, and Kim is sent to detention, Star's going to have all the jigsaw pieces to the puzzle. She's smart. There's no way she won't be able to click them all together. Mentally, I facepalm, not believing my own stupidity. But there's no way out now.

"I was going to get Kim back," I say sheepishly. The prank I planned only this morning just seems to get dumber and dumber every time I think of it.

"How were you supposed to do that? Were you gonna dump it in her dorm and let my dad find it, so he could chuck her in teen jail?" Blushing, I shrug.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"And this is why you need my help!" She exclaims, throwing her arms in the air for dramatic effect. "Can you not see all the flaws in that oh-so-perfect plan? I'll spell them out for you, seeing as you're too blind to notice. First of all, it's pretty obvious that if you're caught with beer, you're going to be punished. Second of all, where'd you get it? Finn? Did he not suspect something was up? Thirdly, if Kim was to find out that you pranked, or were going to prank her, she's going to come up with a much better plan that'll probably result in her face tattoed on your left butt cheek. And last, but absolutely not least, in fact most importantly- I cannot stress this enough- I would have been a suspect if you'd planted that bottle in our dorm."