The Party by Christopher Pike

the assembly that afternoon. The whole country was in love with phonies, she felt. The bamboos on sitcoms, the rock dopers on MTV, the rich liars in D.C. It made her sick just going into the supermarket and having to look at all those fakes on the covers of People magazine. One day she’d like to start a magazine of her own where she could interview people like herself, people who knew it was all a big joke.
    Sara had a bad thirst. But when she put her quarters in the soda machine and punched the Up button, nothing happened. She tried the other buttons, then the coin return, and still nothing happened. Her good mood went right out the window. Those were the only two quarters she had! What did this stupid machine expect her to do, drink water? She pounded it with her fists, kicked it with her feet. Her quarters must be stuck.
    The administration’s probably behind this. Trying to weasel extra money out of us kids to buy themselves magazines for their goddamn lounge.
    She remembered a move a guy had done on one of the soda machines at lunch. He had grabbed ahold of it with both hands and tilted it slightly on edge, coughing up not only his money but a couple of free cans as well. Setting down her books, she stretched out her arms, trying to get a grip on it. She was not a big girl, nor was she particularly strong. Nevertheless, when she tilted the machine to the right, she was surprised to see it rock right out of her hands. It hit the asphalt with an incredible bang, causing her to jump. Taking a quick look around to make sure no one had seen her, she collected her books and hurried toward the front of the campus. At Mesa High she’d never once had a soda machine fall over on her. This was a stupid school.
    Sara was supposed to meet Polly and Jessica in the parking lot directly across from campus. They had been forced to put their cars there; Tabb’s lot was filled. Sara was temporarily without wheels. Her dad had taken them away when she had received her third ticket in a month for running a red light. It was a real drag—and totally unfair. She had only gone through the lights after stopping and looking both ways. Why, she thought, should she have to sit and wait on a mechanism that didn’t care if she crossed the road or not?
    Her dad didn’t know she had picked up Jessica and her folks at three in the morning. She’d run half a dozen red lights driving to the airport.
    A row of bushes separated the school from the sidewalk that ran along its west side. They were tall, thick shrubs, and putting one foot onto the sidewalk, Sara couldn’t see more than a few yards in either direction. She didn’t even hear Russ Desmond coming.
    When he hit her, she hardly felt a thing. One second she was walking, the next, flying. She must have closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was sitting in the bushes with a branch running up her pant leg and a flower stuck in her ear.
    “Oh, wow,” she breathed. A guy with the greatest set of legs she had ever seen was standing over her breathing hard.
    “You all right?” he asked.
    “What happened?”
    “You got in my way.”
    “Really?” Did this guy throw every chick that got in his way into the bushes? She sat up with effort, a muscle in her lower back protesting. The guy grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the sidewalk as if she were light as a feather. The second he let go of her, she reeled backward. The sidewalk wobbled under her feet.
    “Thanks a whole bunch,” she muttered, blinking. “Who the hell are you?”
    “Russ Desmond.” He wiped his sweaty face on his arm, still panting like a dog. “You’ve got leaves in your hair.”
    “I didn’t grow them, believe me.” She tried to brush them away and poked herself in the ear. Her hands were trembling. Maybe she had a concussion or something. The guy looked pretty farout, like a biker in a track uniform. “I’m Sara Cantrell. You must have seen me at lunch.”
    “Huh?”
    Just then a multicolored herd of