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hundred watts of sound electrified the air; love interest: the Sapersteins,
dressed as they were every year, as teeth (she an incisor, he a molar), cooing
at each other in a foggy corner; conflict: Nikki, trying to break up the fight
between her two best friends, Marilyn and Carita, who had independently come
up with identical black cat costumes, each one positive that the other had
stolen her idea; humor: the Boeing 747 and their boyfriends, the horse,
finding dancing extremely difficult; political statement: Howard kneeling on
the dance floor, inviting all others to "hoof the windmill in the behind";
machismo: Steve Semenski, arriving fashionably late in a suit of gleaming
armor (sleeveless, of course).
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"Look at him!" muttered Raymond in disgust. "Cementhead!"
This time Sean didn't even snap at his partner. He was not at all pleased that
he kept seeing Ashley glancing in Steve's direction as she danced. "I didn't
know there was such a thing as sleeveless armor."
"There isn't," Raymond scowled. "He probably spent all afternoon cutting the
sleeves off with a can opener. But you'll notice he's wearing the gauntlets.
That's to make it easier to scratch away any weeds that grow up through cracks
in the cement!"
As the song that was playing ended, an oppressive silence fell, and Raymond
and Sean looked at the deejay's booth to find Mindy O'Toole standing at the
microphone, with Danny Eckerman right behind her.
"Attention, everybody. Before we go back to the dancing and the fun, let's
have a warm round of
applause for the person who made this party possible, our student body
president, Danny Eckerman!"
Sean looked to see Raymond's reaction, but Raymond was no longer beside him.
What the students then saw happened so fast that many of them weren't sure
what to make of it. As Danny stepped up to the microphone to speak, a gangster
carrying a violin case snatched a helium balloon from midair and fiddled with
the knot. Then he put down his case and, with his free hand, grabbed the
president's head, shoved the balloon in his mouth, and pressed hard, forcing
all the helium inside. Danny staggered backward, then spat out the empty
balloon and shouted, "What did you do that for?" in a high-pitched munchkin
voice somewhere in the range of D above high C.
All at once, the shocked students broke into laughter, and the music started
up again.
Raymond reappeared at Sean's side. "Anything happen while I was away?"
Sean had to laugh. "It was the best speech Danny ever made."
It was a great party. Even Sean Delancey, who thought school social events
were boring, was forced to admit that he would have been having a good time
had he not had so many things on his mind, like who Raymond might offend next,
Nikki's costume, and Ashley's burning looks in Steve's direction.
The dancing continued steadily until ten-thirty, when the spotlight shone on
the trampoline in the gym corner, and it was time for the contest to begin.
Zeke Decibel put on some "funky Halloweenin'
Careenin' Trampolinin' " music as background, the four safety spotters moved
into place, and the contestants lined up to take their turns. Raymond and Sean
were the judges, and Ashley stood with them, radiant with the success of her
efforts.
"This is an awesome party!" she said reverently. "Look at Steve's costume!
Isn't it the cutest?" She got no reply.
There were thirty-three entrants, each one of whom was allotted ninety seconds
in which to strut his/her stuff while Zeke convulsed the audience with his
hilarious patter. There was cheering, laughing, screaming, and chanting as the
contestants, most of them hampered by bulky costumes, bounced comically
through their routines. By this time, even the staff was paying attention and
joining in the goings-on, having totally ravaged the buffet tables. Some of
the jumpers put on great shows; others spent their ninety seconds scrambling
not to fall off the trampoline; still others couldn't even manage that. Steve
Semenski in particular took a spill that would have flattened a rhinoceros,
only to leap athletically back onto the trampoline to finish his routine in
spectacular fashion. The ball of string attempted the same maneuver, but he
was starting to unravel, and had to withdraw. Marie Antoinette was another
scratch, as she was unable to see the trampoline beneath her enormous skirt.
The contest was such an unparalleled success that, by the time the last entry
came up, there were only twenty minutes left before school rules were to close
the whole business down at midnight.
A bit of a dispute was in progress over whether
the Boeing 747 would be able to enter, since that would be placing two people
on the trampoline at once. However, the front end of the aircraft complained
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she couldn't bounce without the back end, and vice versa, and soon both girls
were in a spirited argument with Raymond, who figured if they killed
themselves while he was judge, this could jeopardize his chances of going to
Theamelpos. Zeke Decibel put an end to it all by declaring, "Boeing 747, this
is the control tower! You are cleared for take-off!"
As the airplane began to bounce gingerly on the trampoline, there came a
strange flickering from Zeke Decibel's two giant arcs of lights. The music
slowed, and sped up again, warbling in time with the waxing and waning of the
lights. Everyone looked around.
"It's me!" screamed Howard. "The windmill! I'm lousy! I don't work! I'm
screwing up again!"
The flickering was much worse now, and the room went from complete darkness to
blinding light in erratic intervals, as the lights were fed pulses of three
times as much power as they were meant to handle. Zeke Decibel ripped his
stereo needle from the record it was chewing, but the lack of music only
revealed another sound - a loud grinding throughout the school that the
students all recognized as SACGEN's little way of saying, "I Quit." The big
spotlight sparked, sizzled, and began smoking. Zeke pulled and twisted madly
at his control panel, but to no avail.
"Do something!" he shouted to the student standing nearest him. With a free
hand, he pushed his ladder out from the deejay's booth toward the
boy. "Get up to the light bars and pull the plug!" The boy scrambled up the
ladder and stood illuminated like an angel in a halo of sparks as SACGEN spat
out one final gigantic power surge. Then both light bars went up in smoke and
the gym went dark. Unfortunately, the school's fire alarm was not hooked up to
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