Cindy and the Prom King by Carol Culver

coming up the next week.
    With a nervous side glance at the new headmaster, the president told the students that there were new rules in place for the mixer, such as no student who’d been caught imbibing alcohol or wearing improper clothing or engaging in immoral behavior on the dance floor would be allowed to participate in the dance.
    There was a moment of shocked silence before the kids started booing. The president quickly left the stage. The noise level skyrocketed as the students poured into the halls on their way back to class.
    “What did you think?” Cindy’s friend Scott asked when she saw him in the hall.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never met a headmaster before.” She raised her eyebrows. “You look worried.”
    “Worried? The guy is psycho. Did you hear what he said? Do you know what it means? Calisthenics? A ranking system? What rank do you think you’d get?”
    Cindy shook her head. “Private first class?”
    “You wish. Because you’re new you’d be a buck private. Nope, life at Manderley will never be the same. I’m calling a special meeting of the Gay-Lesbian Alliance today. This guy has got to be stopped. Care to join us?”
    “But I’m not…”
    “I know you’re not gay. You don’t have to be.”
    “I’m not a rebel either.”
    He squeezed her arm. “I know, but I like you anyway.”

eighteen
    The worse you are at thinking the better you are at drinking.
—Terry Goodkind
    Toby met Richard in the school parking lot on the night of the Welcome Dance. If it weren’t for Richard’s boring econo-Nissan Sentra his uptight parents (who’d surprisingly been friends of Toby’s not-so-uptight parents since forever) thought was appropriate for an uptight kid his age, the parking lot could have doubled for a Lexus dealership. Most of Toby’s friends were driving the most expensive cars on the market.
    And why shouldn’t they? Their fathers were CEOs or venture capitalists or entrepreneurs who courted venture capitalists. Some may have failed at their first attempt to become Silicon Valley millionaires, and were left with a portfolio of worthless stock options. But if they had any balls, they’d just picked up the pieces and started again. Until they’d finally succeeded.
    Some were retired professional athletes whose kids were on the Manderley teams. If any of these parents couldn’t afford a luxury car for their sons or daughters, well, the kids didn’t have any business going to Manderley. At least that’s what Toby thought.
    Clearly nervous, Richard looked around the parking lot. “Where’re Steve and Jared?” he asked. You’d think he’d never had a drink before a dance before. Maybe he hadn’t. Come to think of it, he didn’t remember seeing Richard at the dances last year. So why now? Why this year? Why tonight when the new rules were supposedly in effect?
    “Relax, dude,” Toby said, leaning back against the passenger seat of the Sentra, “they’ll be here.”
    “They’re bringing the beer? You’re sure?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.”
    “They better not bring Colt 45 or Schlitz or something.”
    “Why, what do you drink, Cristal?”
    “No, it’s just… never mind.”
    “The point is to get hammered before we go in there. My advice is to have a few drinks at home first. That’s what I do. Otherwise who could face it? I’m asking you. The music, the lame decorations and the weak punch and cookies. It’s a joke. The jocks, the nerds, the goths all hanging in their own little ghettos. It can be brutal. But I don’t have to tell you that. You’ve been to these things before, right?” Toby asked.
    Maybe Toby had been so involved with his former girlfriend, the one with the tattoos and the piercings, he hadn’t noticed if Rich was there or not. It was time Toby found some new guy friends. Rich was just too dorky, Jared was too pushy and Steve was too full of himself.
    “Not really,” Rich said. “Not a mixer. But I thought… I mean