House Party Read Free Page B

reassuring?”
    â€œNo, just a reality check. Would they be any madder if you had a few more people?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œEven if you didn’t have a party, they’d be just as mad because you didn’t stay at my house.”
    â€œWe could still stay at your house tonight,” I said.
    â€œNo, we can’t. How would I explain that to my mother?”
    I didn’t have an answer. “I guess thateither way, party or no party, if they found out I’d be just as dead.”
    â€œThen what you’re saying is you have nothing to lose,” Jen said. “So why not go for it?”

Chapter Four
    I wrapped up the last figurine with toilet paper and carefully put it in the box beside the others. I was taking Jen’s advice to heart. I was going to make sure there wasn’t much left for anybody to break. It was starting to look like we’d just moved in.
    Actually, I was putting things back in the same boxes we’d used to move with. The boxes had been unpacked and putinto the crawl space under the stairs. Now they’d been repacked and put back down there. I just wanted to be safe. Better safe than sorry. Then again, if I really wanted safe, we wouldn’t be throwing this party to begin with.
    I knew part of the reason I wanted to have the party. I was fifteen—which meant I was almost sixteen—and I wasn’t a baby anymore. They didn’t trust me to be home alone for a night by myself. How fair was that? By next year I could live on my own if I wanted. I could sleep alone—at least with Jen here—have a party, a small gathering, and take care of everything including myself. This wasn’t just a party. This was a declaration of independence.
    With Jen upstairs, I’d had a lot of time to think about things like that. Maybe more time than was wise.
    I’d also thought things through and was thinking that maybe we shouldn’t have the party. The problem was that now that we’d invited people, I didn’t know how to
un-throw
it. Besides, I couldn’t let my parentsbe right, even if they’d never know they were wrong.
    â€œWow.”
    I turned around. Jen was standing behind me.
    â€œYou’ve really cleaned the place out,” she said.
    â€œI’ve tried.”
    It wasn’t just the figures, but vases and ornaments. I’d even moved two glass-topped coffee tables into the basement and removed the lights that sat on them.
    â€œI figure if it isn’t out, it can’t be broken.” I paused. “Do you think anything will get broken?”
    â€œI’m not with the psychic hotline, but what’s left to get broken?”
    I looked around. There was still lots of stuff in the room but nothing that could really be broken. It wasn’t like somebody was going to break the piano.
    â€œI guess you’re right. How did things go for you?” I asked.
    â€œI invited a few more people.”
    â€œJust a few, right?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œYou were up there a long time,” I said suspiciously.
    â€œMostly I was just lurking around on msn, trying to see if I could figure out if anybody was talking about coming here tonight.”
    â€œAnd?”
    She shook her head. “Not a word.”
    Instantly I went from thinking that we shouldn’t throw a party and worrying about there being too many people, to feeling worried that there wouldn’t be enough people.
    I looked around the room. It was a big, semi-empty room in a big house. It could hold a whole lot of people. And the more I cleared away, the more people it
could
hold.
    â€œWe could invite a few more,” I said.
    â€œThat would be smar t,” Jen said. “Nothing says loser more than throwing a party and having nobody come. That would be awful for you.”
    â€œFor
me
? Don’t you mean for
us
?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be good for me, but it’s not like it’s
my
house.”
    I