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North was surprised to hear himself screaming along with everybody else as Jem got to his feet, grinning. Tean collided with him, and Jem staggered as the two of them moved out of the circle. Auggie was laughing as Theo whispered in his ear, and then he slipped out onto the dance floor. He looked so serious for a moment that North had to fight the giggles. Then the beat dropped, and Auggie started to move.
It was pop-and-lock, and maybe it was the beer, and maybe it was the long night of surprises, and maybe it was the fact that Auggie was just such a wiener, but North actually couldn’t believe how good the kid was. Maybe, a distant part of his brain suggested, it was all that fucking TikTok. Auggie started with forearm hits, then added in the isolations. A body roll. And, of course, locking. But when the beat changed, and the song accelerated toward its end, Auggie turned everything up. All of a sudden, he was shirtless, and he chest-popped his way over to Theo and, with apparently zero inhibitions, stuck his tongue down Theo’s throat. And Gramps—well, North could say one thing for Gramps, and it was that he was clearly a hell of a kisser. Auggie broke the kiss, grinning goofily, and as the song ended, did a standing backflip.
And then, because he was a little shit, he did another.
More cheers went up. Jem lurched out onto the dance floor, crashed into Auggie, and for a moment, the two of them looked like they’d go down. But they steadied each other, laughing, as the crowd roared.
North remembered apologizing to John-Henry, the words pouring out of him as John-Henry patted his back and told him it was ok. But he definitely didn’t remember getting loaded into the minivan.
“We’re not going to Waffle House,” John-Henry was saying, and he had the tone of someone who was sick of repeating himself, so maybe this had already come up before. “North, seat belt. Shaw, seat belt. Auggie, don’t you dare puke in my minivan.”
“It’s my minivan,” Emery said from the passenger seat. “I drive a fucking minivan!” And then he whooped drunkenly.
“Good Lord,” John-Henry said.
“We can’t go home,” Jem was saying in the back seat. “Guys, we can’t go home. Guys, we can’t—did you see Auggie do a backflip?”
“Auggie can do anything,” Theo said. And then, his tone darkening, “If you think Auggie can’t do anything, I will fight you!”
“Nobody’s fighting anyone,” John-Henry said. “Theo, cool it.”
“Jem’s right,” Emery said, “we can’t go home.”
“We should go to the moon,” Shaw said with jittery energy. “I designed a rocket that’s powered by Coke, and by my calculations, we could get to the moon in—North, where are my napkins?”
“We should go camping,” Tean said. “You guys are my best friends, and I want to go camping with you.”
“Camping is dope,” Emery said.
“Dope,” John-Henry muttered. “Does anyone have a camera?”
It turned out everyone did, and they all told John-Henry about it until he was shouting, “Stop talking! Everybody stop talking! Bunch of lousy drunks, that’s what you all are!”
That was when Jem shouted, “Think fast!”
He hurled a football toward the front of the minivan. North blinked blearily. He was vaguely aware that the football had to have come from somewhere, and he thought tracking that down might be a good thing for a detective to do. He was also vaguely aware of John-Henry laughing and swearing, the van lurching, everyone swaying around him.
“Did you see that?” Jem asked. “Tean, did you see that? Guys, did you see me throw that football? I’ve got a fucking rocket on this arm!”
“Theo can—” Auggie tried to say, but then he made a dangerous noise and leaned against the glass.
“That was nothing,” Emery was saying in the front seat. “That was nothing! You should see John throw. John has a trophy!”
“Oh my God,” Tean said. “We’ve got to see the trophy.”
“We’re not going to see—” John-Henry began.
“Trophy!” Shaw shouted.
“Tro-phy,” Theo said, and he split the word. “Tro-phy!”
North picked it up. “Tro-phy! Tro-phy!”
Emery joined in. “Tro-phy! Tro-phy!”
The chant grew. Jem, then Tean. Even poor Auggie, who was definitely looking greenish.
“Oh my God,” John-Henry said, laughing. “Fine, fine.” Shaw was trying to do some sort of spider-monkey hold on John-Henry from behind, and John-Henry laughed harder as he said, “You’re going to make me drive off the road!”
