Eureka was amazed he hadn’t chuckled. They couldn’t even joke now?
“You know, if you miss two more Latin Club meetings,” Brooks said, “they won’t put your name in the yearbook on the club page, and then you won’t be able to put it on your college applications.”
Eureka shook her head as if she’d misheard him. “Uhhh … what?”
“Sorry.” He sighed, and his face relaxed, and for a moment nothing was weird. “Who cares about Latin Club, right?” Then a glimmer came into his eye, a smugness that was new. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a Ziploc bag of cookies. “My mom is on a mad baking spree recently. Want one?” He opened the bag and held it out to her. The smell of oatmeal and butter made her stomach turn. She wondered what had kept Aileen up baking the night before.
“I’m not hungry.” Eureka glanced at her watch. Four minutes until the bell. When she reached into her locker for her English book, an orange flyer fluttered to the ground. Someone must have slipped it through the slats.
SHOW YOUR FACE.
TREJEAN’S FIFTH ANNUAL MAZE DAZE.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, AT 7 P.M.
DRESS TO SCARE THE CROWS.
Brad Trejean had been the most popular senior at Evangeline the year before. He was loud and wild, redheaded, flirtatious. Most girls, including Eureka, had crushed on him at some point. It was like a job they worked in shifts, though Eureka had quit the first time Brad, who knew about LSU football and nothing else, actually spoke to her.
Every October, Brad’s parents went to California and he threw the best party of the year. His friends constructed a maze out of haystacks and spray-painted poster board and set it up in the Trejeans’ sprawling backyard on the bayou. People swam and, as the party went on, skinny-dipped. Brad mixed his signature drink, the Trejean Colada, which was horrible and strong enough to guarantee an epic party. Late in the night, there was always a seniors-only game of Never-Ever, exaggerated details of which were slowly leaked to the rest of the school.
Eureka realized Brad’s younger sister Laura was carrying on the tradition. She was a sophomore, less notorious than Brad. But she was nice and not a label-whore, unlike most of the other sophomores. She started on the volleyball team, so she and Eureka used to see each other in the locker room after school.
For the past three years, Eureka had heard about this party on Facebook a month in advance. She and Cat would go shopping for their outfits the weekend before. She hadn’t logged in to Facebook in forever, and now that she thought about it, she remembered a text from Cat that proposed shopping last Sunday after church. Eureka had been too preoccupied with her fight with Brooks to consider fashion.
She held up the flyer and tried a smile. Last year she and Brooks had had one of their most fun nights at that party. He’d brought black sheets from home, and they’d turned invisible to haunt what was known as the Maze. They’d terrified some seniors in some compromising positions.
“I’m the ghost of your father’s eyesight,” Brooks had warbled heavily to a girl in a half-unbuttoned blouse. “Tomorrow you’re off to the convent.”
“Not cool!” her companion had shouted, but he’d sounded scared. It was a miracle no one ever figured out who was behind the Maze haunting.
“Shall the spiritus interruptus return again this year?” Eureka waved the flyer.
He took it from her hand. He didn’t look at it. It was like being slapped.
“You’re too cavalier,” he said. “That psycho wants to hurt you.”
Eureka groaned, then inhaled a whiff of patchouli, which only meant one thing:
Maya Cayce was approaching. Her hair was woven in a long, intricate fishtail that draped down her side, and her eyes were lined with heavy kohl. She’d pierced her nasal septum since the last time Eureka saw her. A tiny black ring looped through her nose.