“You have all been patient enough! We will celebrate Halloween this Sunday by hosting a costume ball in this very hall!”
The teenagers titter with delight, and even though more than two centuries have passed, William still feels a twinge of the old thrill at hearing the wordball.
“Where will we get the costumes?” a student calls out.
“An excellent question!” says Director Minaro, and the noise tamps down. “Costume materials will be provided starting tomorrow evening in the grand hall. You will spend the weekend designing your looks, and the ball-plus-dinner will be held at sixPMon Sunday.”
“I wonder what kind of fabrics we’ll have to work with,” muses Salma as talking breaks out at every table.
“We can’t pull up any references,” complains Tiffany.
“Oh, one more thing!” says Minaro, and the room quiets again. “We challenge you and your date to come in coordinated costumes—but fear not, you will not be graded!”
Nobody laughs, and Zach leans in to the table, frowning. “We have a lot of work to do on the paper this weekend—”
“Heads up, my dynamic duo!” says a student with blue hair who approaches Zach and Tiffany. “We won’t be working on the paper this weekend—which means we’ll be meeting after class every day next week to make up the time.”
“Sounds good to me, Fran!” says Tiffany, but Zach looks crestfallen. “What could we dress up as?” she asks Salma.
“You could be Wednesday,” Trevor says to Salma.
“And that would be a costume how?” she asks.
Trevor smirks. “Barbie then?”
“Ooh, yes!” says Tiffany. “I’ll be Reporter Barbie and you—”
“Goth Barbie?” interjects Trevor, then he ducks to dodge a barrage of fries from Salma.
A few hours later, William meets them at the LUB as usual. They have not made any new discoveries in here since the invisible timeline. By now, Lorena and the others have finished going through all the books, and just as he anticipated, they found no ink on any pages. They use the place only as a hangout for getting their homework done—and to come up with ideas for history club.
Yet tonight, they are all still talking about the ball.
“What if we’re each a different Avenger?” asks Zach.
William has no idea what that means.
“I believe William is a hard pass on Marvel,” says Salma, grinning at whatever she sees in his expression. “Are you a DC guy?”
“I am a… Boston guy.”
Salma frowns, and Trevor snorts with laughter. “What the hell is that? Superheroes with Boston accents?”
“What aboutOne Piececharacters?” asks Zach.
“I want something less obvious,” says Tiffany.
“And Minaro made it sound like the challenge was to come in pairs, not groups,” adds Salma. She glances at Trevor, then looks away.
William cannot stand this banal ball chatter and would much rather discuss his and Lorena’s plans for tomorrow. “We should get some reading done for Shakespeare club,” he says to her, and they head to the other end of the room, far from the others.
As they sit down by the wall, she retrieves her copy ofTwelfth Nightfrom her bag. They finishedRomeo and Julietlong ago and decided to just keep reading and discussing other plays. “Should we… talk about it?” she asks softly, sounding embarrassed.
“About what?”
“The dance,” she says, like it should be obvious.
“Please, no—”
