Summerlight

Fairy Dust

Fairy Dust was the drug of choice at Emerson Smythe High School the year I was set to graduate. Rumor was the high was perfect: gentle enough not to show any side effects when you slouched home to your parents, but it made you feel like you were floating. We all called it Tinkerbell to keep teachers off the trail.

"Party at my place this weekend," someone like Nate Wethersby or Michael Gershom would say.

"Will Tink be there?" someone would ask.

"Of course," Nate or Michael would reply, and that's how you knew it was going to be a good time.

A good time I, naturally, never participated in. Drugs and the Sommerses didn't mix according to my mother. I could hear her now: "I didn't raise you to melt your own brain." And it's true, she didn't, but here I was, eighteen and about to be a real, full-fledged adult, and I felt like I'd spent no time at all being a carefree kid. The party at Whit Danson's house this weekend was my last chance.

Cameron leaned her chair back on two legs and snapped her bubblegum. "So we're all going to Whit's place this weekend, right?" She looked at the rest of us expectantly, as if she even had to. What Cameron wanted, Cameron usually got.

"Can't. My abuela will be in town for graduation, so I have to stay and help around the house." Serafine did sad little jazz hands. "Lucky me."

Cameron rolled her eyes. "Uh, does your abuela know graduation is next weekend?"

Serafine only shrugged.

I placed my hand on Cameron's knee and bore down, forcing all the chair legs onto the floor. "Well, I, for one, am going," I said even as Cam popped her gum at me. "I've gotten straight As all year, passed all my finals, got into all my top colleges. My mom can't possibly say no."

Rebellious, Cameron scooched her chair in closer to mine with a terrible screeching slide that made my teeth ache. She knew I hated that. "Your mom," another pop of the gum, "is a hard-ass who most definitely can say no. You'll be sneaking out, mamacita."

"True that." This from Riley, the only member of our small posse that had been to possibly every single party held that year and a known Fairy Dust distributor. I suspected that was the only reason Cam let him into the group. Up until this year, she'd had a strict no-boys-allowed policy.

Riley offered her a lazy smile. "Obviously, you can count me in."

My protest was pointless but inevitable. "My mom is not a hard-ass." She was strict, but only because it made me better. Only because she cared. It was more than could be said about my birth parents, whoever they were.

Cameron shook her head as if I were a lost cause. "Whatever. As long as you're there. And you," she snapped her fingers at Serafine. "Make an excuse. You'll help out twice as much next week or something, just get your ass to Whit's. We're all flying with Tink. Right, Riley?"

One wink and he was putty in her hands. "Yes, ma'am."