15

See, this is the kind of thing I can't stand about boys my age. When it comes down to it, they're just a bunch of wild animals. When George started chasing people around, I excused myself to go to the bathroom so I could brush my teeth. The bathroom is in the back of the auditorium, and the lights were off, so it was really dark back there. I heard this weird noise, and I got a little freaked out for a second, because our school has a problem with rodents. But it turned out to just be Fregley playing by himself in the ball pit.

Around midnight Mr. Palmero, the school guidance counselor, told everyone to get into their sleeping bags and settle down. Then he said there was no talking for the rest of the night and he didn't want to hear a peep out of anyone. Every once in a while, somebody would cut the cheese, and that made Mr. Palmero really mad because he couldn't figure out who was doing it. After what happened earlier with the pictures, I think the grown-ups were just really sensitive about anything having to do with butts.

Mr. Palmero said that if anyone needed to "pass gas," they had to go behind the curtain on the stage to do it. So then a lot of the boys started taking turns telling Mr. Palmero they needed to go behind the curtain, and then they'd make the most obnoxious noises you can imagine.

That went on for a while, and it kind of reached its peak when David Rosenburg went down to the music room and brought back a tuba. I don't know if it was a coincidence or not, but right about that time the heat went off in the auditorium. In fact, I think someone turned the air conditioner on. All I know is that everyone stayed in their sleeping bags after that.

After a while Mr. Palmero fell asleep, but all the boys were still awake. Some guys were saying this was like prison, and people were talking about busting out of there and going home. The problem was that all the exits were padlocked. I guess we should've known what we were getting into when they called this thing a "Lock-In." Albert Sandy said he'd seen a movie where some guy busted out of prison with a spoon, and a lot of people got pretty excited about that idea.

But it turns out that was just a bunch of Hollywood baloney, because we got some spoons from the kitchen and we couldn't even make a DENT in the linoleum floor. At about 1:30 in the morning, someone noticed flashing lights coming from outside, so we all went to the back of the auditorium to see what was going on. There was a guy from the tow truck company, and he was walking around Mr. Palmero's car, which was parked in a handicapped spot.