One Night

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

We eventually stopped right outside of the drama closet.

"What are we doing here?" Jay asked, looking over at Mindy P.

She grumbled something I couldn't hear and then left us without another word.

Almost right after she left, Jay's phone beeped with a text message. He pulled it out of his pocket, then read it aloud.

Seniors: Task 7 starts right now. You have 20 minutes to find the shirt, pants, and shoes of the senior in your closet. They are hidden in 3 different places. Bring them back to the senior once you find them all. Greet your senior now and he/she will give you the first clue.

But there's one catch. One of your teammates must stay with the senior until the rest of the team is back. Good luck

Jay glanced at the two of us before swinging open the door to the drama closet. There, smugly standing in only his boxers, was Ethan Wesley.

"So who's gonna stay with me for 20 minutes in heaven?"

****

Nalia was the obvious choice and she willingly agreed to stay with Ethan for the allotted 20 minutes.

When Ethan gave us the first clue, we all three immediately knew it was talking about the library. Jay and I said our goodbyes to Nalia then began running to the library. However, we encountered a small problem on the way.

Rose and her team froze in their tracks. They were about to leave the library with a bundle of shirts tucked in the arms of one of the guys on the team.

"Our shirt!" I yelled without thinking.

That seemed to jerk them out of their surprise and they began running. However, lucky for us, Jay had played enough football to know how to execute a good tackle. The boy with the shirts only made it a few steps out of the library before Jay had him pinned to the floor.

However, before we knew it, he threw the shirt down the hall and right into the hands of Rose.

"NO!" I shouted, plowing past Jay and the kid on the floor and chasing after the girl with our shirt.

Rose and her other teammates kept running despite my screams to give us our shirt. I could even hear one of the kids laughing as they threw Ethan's shirt between one another.

Finally Rose stopped running with Ethan's shirt gripped in her fist. The rest of her team kept running so I was sure they had the next clue for their other article of clothing.

"Give me...the shirt," I huffed, putting a hand on my side as I tried to catch my breath.

"You're a nice girl Mac, but you gotta understand I can't let you have this shirt. I just can't let Jay win," she shrugged, swinging the shirt around in the air.

"Well sorry to disappoint, but we're going to win," I shot back, allowing a smirk to creep onto my face as Jay walked up behind her and plucked the shirt out of her hand.

"Vamos!" Jay yelled as he grabbed my wrist and started running away from a shocked Rose.

We laughed as we heard Rose's frustrated groan, but kept running until we were far enough away.

Jay sent a quick picture of the shirt to Ethan and then we only had to wait a couple of seconds before our next clue came.

Ethan: This a tight race being run. Find me to continue the fun.

"Race? Like the track?" Jay asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

"It's worth a shot," I shrugged as we began running again.

I was really getting more of a workout through the Sevenger than I had pretty much the whole year.

As we ran towards the double doors, we saw a team just outside of them running as well in the direction of the track.

"We have to catch up to them," Jay hurriedly said, picking up his speed.

I nodded my head, but my legs were already pumping as quick as they could go. I motioned for him to go ahead and I kept my steady turtle running speed.

When I made it to the track, Jay and the other group looked lost.

"What's happening?" I asked Jay as I too looked around the track.

Everything looked normal, which I soon realized was the problem.

"We can't find the clothes," he said, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

Where could they hide the clothes? I mean what else signified a race?

I took the temporary break to tilt my head up and let the breeze run through my hair and hit my red face. I opened my eyes and let them drift across the blue sky until they hit something peculiar. I took a double take then hit Jay in the arm.

"What is it?"

"Are those pants flying on the flagpole?"

It seemed I wasn't the only one that noticed because one second later I heard a shout and then a mob was sprinting for it. I stumbled a bit before gaining my footing and following Jay over. It didn't take long for them to get the pants lowered. Unfortunately, that's also when things went wild. Another team saw the pants coming down and ran over so then there were three teams fighting over the pants that had been tied up.

Jay and I elbowed our way to the string the pants were tied to and tried to sort through it all. I let him take charge since all the yelling and pushing was making my head go fuzzy.

"I got them," I finally heard Jay yell.

That was all the motivation I needed to break away from the crowd.

"How much time do we have?" He asked as he sent a text to Ethan for the next clue.

I hurriedly pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the timer I had set.

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw our fate.

"Five minutes!"

"Alright. Follow me!" Jay responded and began running again.

"Wait! We don't even have the next clue yet," I objected even as I followed him.

"I know, but I think I know where the shoes are."

It took us another two minutes to get back to the drama closet.

"Jay-"

"Trust me Mac," he nodded at me then took a breath and opened the door.

We were met with the same nearly naked Ethan and then Nalia, who conveniently had their lips locked together. They quickly broke apart when they heard Jay's cough.

"Nice to see things are working out," he smiled, leaning up against the doorframe.

If it would have been anyone else, they probably would have been embarrassed and had red faces, but not these two. My best friend was confident as ever and only rolled her eyes and Ethan had a cocky grin on his face.

"Sorry man. Do you need the next clue?" Ethan asked, grabbing his phone from the shelf beside him.

"I think we got it," Jay confidently remarked, reaching past the two in the closet and grabbing the pair of shoes that were snugly tucked into the corner of the shelf.

"I never even saw those," Nalia gawked, earning a laugh from me.

"That's because you were focused on other things," Ethan winked.

"Here are your clothes," I responded, tossing his shirt and pants to him.

"Yeah. I don't really need these, but you might want to make a run for the gym now," was Ethan's reply.

We all looked at each other then ran.

I could hear other footsteps echoing in the hallway and I wasn't sure if they were ours or not so I pumped my legs faster.

Jay was the first to burst through the gym doors.

And subsequently the first one to plunge into the pool full of Jello.