Wildfire

“What are we going to do about this?” I fumed, slamming my fist down on the table. A couple of other students glanced up from their respective books, vaguely annoyed, but I ignored them. Opposite me, Dante shrugged, fiddling with one of the countless number of rings he wore on his long, dark fingers. I sighed in frustration. I’d just endured my third detention that week for writing “Will give blowjobs in exchange for Class President votes” on Marilyn’s locker in permanent marker.

“I have no idea who it could be,” Dante replied casually, his voice deep. His brown eyes met mine and he smiled slightly. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”

But I was far from reassured. “It has to be someone from their team,” I hissed, leaning forward across the table so no one could hear me. “That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Why else would I be the only person in the entire school who’s getting punished?”

Dante watched me thoughtfully. “Even if it was, there’s no way you could find out. Nobody’s going to ‘fess up and risk being cast out and severely pranked.”

I looked around the library. “I wouldn’t put it past them,” I mumbled miserably, “since they clearly encourage ratting people out.” Dante hummed a sympathetic response and thumbed through the book he’d been reading for English. I put my head down on my arms.

Ratting on people was strictly forbidden in both my team and Marilyn’s, because everybody knew how much it sucked to be stuck in detention with creepy old Mr Webber or experience a phone call home to your folks. So there was a mutual agreement that even if somebody knew who was responsible for a prank or rumour, they wouldn’t tell a teacher. (This excluded trying to drop someone else in it if you got caught because by that point it was already too late. The teachers showed little interest in what you had to say and rarely bothered with alternative suspects.)

But recently, this rule had been broken. Every prank that I’d committed or rumour that I’d sparked was always traced back to me, and I was consequently scolded by the principal or one of his lackies. That or thrown in detention with Webber, which in itself was hell. And the only plausible explanation was that there was a rat, and that they belonged to Marilyn’s team. I wanted to find out who that rat was.

Presently, someone pulled up a chair next to me and sat down. I looked up to see Andrea, another of my close friends, throwing her bag on to the table. She pulled out two flasks and pushed one towards me.

“Coffee,” she explained as I stared at it. “You look like you need it.”

I smiled gratefully and took a sip; it was scalding but delicious. “This is why we’re friends.” Andrea dismissed me with a wave of her hand but I could tell that she was pleased. Dante looked up from his book with mild interest.

“She’s just out of another detention,” he told Andrea. She made a pained face.

“Ay! Webber?” I nodded morosely and she reached over to rub my back. “Girl, you gotta figure out who this rat is. You know, get your game on. I bet you anything it’s that puta Marilyn.”

Dante chuckled darkly and I smiled, grateful for Andrea’s passionate hatred for Marilyn. The rest of us – for the most part – took the warfare in jest, but Andrea felt so strongly towards Marilyn and her team that it was difficult to stay pissed about things. Maybe that was partly personal, seeing as a rumour started by Jackson Wright, who was aligned with Marilyn, was instrumental in Andrea’s breakup with her boyfriend.

“You know, you should think about invoking parley,” Dante said. Andrea and I twisted our faces into similar expressions, as if he’d just suggested that we all jump into a pit of acid for fun.

“No, no, no,” Andrea replied immediately. “You are not invoking parley, I refuse to truce with those pendejos! You need to go in hard, show them that they can’t get away with it. Prank the shit out those motherfuckers.”

Invoking parley was the act of calling together both teams in order to arrange a truce that would have a set of rules and span an agreed length of time. It was usually reserved for special instances such as a family death or the exam period, but never had it been called because of a betrayal of the rules, and to do so now would be akin to surrender.

“That would make us look weak,” I told Dante, mulling it over. “I think I’d rather do a little investigating first.” He raised an eyebrow questioningly, lowering his book.

“Snooping around Marilyn’s team is dangerous territory,” he warned. I shook my head because he hadn’t understood what I meant.

“No, the unaligned,” I corrected. When I’d first decided that I was going to get Marilyn back for ambushing me with her friends and soaking me through to the skin with water guns, my best friends swore to help. Over time, Marilyn and I had gathered a small group of people (or ‘teams’) that wreaked havoc on the opposition using pranks and rumours. The vast majority of Francis High, however, was completely disinterested in petty play-fighting between hormonal teenagers, and so had vowed to stay out of our business. But that didn’t mean they didn’t see things. In fact, the unaligned were more likely than anyone else to know who was turning me in at every opportunity. Getting them to reveal that information was a whole different ball game, though.

Because the unaligned chose not to get involved in our mischief, they rarely suffered at our hands. It had been known to happen though. It wasn’t completely unheard of for rumours to have been spread about a certain person who belonged to neither my team nor Marilyn’s, or for someone to have been pranked despite having no allegiance to either of us. But that only happened when – on the odd occasion – an unaligned ratted someone out.

So it was indeed risky for me to go asking around after whoever was getting me into trouble, because it would increase the chances of somebody innocent being pranked. But it was far less risky than going into the snake pit itself and putting myself at the mercy of Marilyn and her crew.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Andrea said, glancing at Dante who nodded in agreement. “Of course, it’s not ideal. But it’ll have to do for now. Anything’s better than parley, anyway. What can we do?”

I looked from Andrea to Dante, who watched me. Awaiting orders.

“Start making people talk. I’m going to speak to Punk Pauline.”