(Roughly translated: “Why are you just looking at me, asshole? Think!”)
“There’s nothing to think about,” I said. “We have to let him go, obviously.”
I didn’t think that would be such a revolutionary thought, but the way the rest of the girls stopped and stared, it was like I’d just announced that I hated The Ruperts’ last album. I mean, yeah, I helped tie him up when Apple dragged him into the room, but really, what else was I supposed to do? What if he woke up and got scared? He could’ve lashed out at us. It was so Rupert P.’s style to start swinging before he even opened his eyes. Plus, when everyone grabbed a pair of tights to tie around his arms and legs, I wasn’t about to be left out. Tying him up may have been a tad cray, but even I knew that keeping him crossed the line into all-out locodom. I thought of what Rupert K. would say if he were here to see this mess. I shut my eyes, and he was standing right next to me. “Not cool, love,” he said in his deep, vanilla-milk-shake voice. “You can’t very well keep him.”
I seriously don’t want to.
“Then you’ve got to let him go,” Imaginary Rupert K. said.
A noise a lot like a grunt penetrated the wall and knocked me out of my reverie. It was as if Rupert P. had heard my thoughts.
“We can’t let him go,” Erin said. Firm. Steady. She was so calm, she even found time to check her cherry-red manicure real quick. “If we do he’ll tell. And we don’t want that.”
It should’ve worried me right then that Erin was the only one among us who wasn’t totally tripping. But I chalked it up to that just being Erin: calm, cool, and creamily complexioned. Usually Erin’s levelheadedness in crazed situations was a relief for me, but more and more she was starting to freak me out. Who stayed calm when the biggest flop in the world’s greatest boy band was threatening to end you?
“We should hold someone hostage because otherwise he’ll tell on us?” I said. “Are we back in grade school? What kind of logic?”
“Let’s listen to Erin,” Apple said. “Right now we have him. If we let him go, we’ll lose him. I’m not sure I like those odds.”
“That’s not how odds work, and I really didn’t say any of that,” Erin said.
“We should vote on what to do,” Isabel said. She stopped pacing. “Anonymous vote.”
“Why anonymous?” I asked.
“So that you don’t embarrass yourself.”
“Fine. Whatever. Anyone have a pen and paper?”
There was a moment of stillness as the four of us looked around, totally clueless. The only things any of us ever wrote with were our phones. And there was no way this was going to be a vote via group text.
“I see a pen,” Isabel said, going to the bedside table. “No paper, though.”
“Check the drawer,” I told her.
“There’s only a book in here.” She took it out anyway and flipped through it. “No blank pages.”
“Just rip one out,” Erin said. “We’ll write in the margins.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t r—”
But my words were cut short by the sound of pages being torn off the spine. Isabel handed a page to each of us and let the rest drift onto the bed like snowflakes. There was very little margin space, but I wrote around the heading (something about a Job). We all shared the pen. When we were done writing we crumpled all the papers and dumped them into Apple’s orange ski cap.
“Okay, so this is the vote for what to do with Rupert P.” It was put on me to read the votes, and the first piece of paper I pulled out was my own. “We let him go immediately,” I read.
The second paper only had one word on it. “Sex.”
We all turned to Apple. “Good suggestion,” she said.
The third piece of paper said, “We keep him until we figure out what to do with him.” I couldn’t help my own incredulous reaction creeping through my voice as I read. I didn’t like the way “what to do with him” sounded at all, but I kept reading.
The last vote was scrawled so severely I could barely make out Isabel’s handwriting, but eventually I got it. “Whatever Erin says.” I rolled my eyes. So much for the anonymity portion of the anonymous vote.
“It looks like we have a consensus,” Erin said.