Today Tonight Tomorrow

Even confronted with this emergency, it’s impossible to picture McNair in any role except capital-R Rival.

“But he’s still playing, right?” I ask.

“Oh yeah.” Sean flicks black hair out of his eyes. It’s doing this swoopy thing I’ve always found cute. McNair’s hair could never achieve that kind of effortless swoop. “He said he wouldn’t miss this.”

That helps me relax. The emergency can’t have been that serious. I won’t let it distract me from my new goal, the one that fills me with a familiar rush of confidence.

I’m going to destroy McNair one last time.

Maybe then I’ll feel like myself again.

HOWL: Official Game Rules

Property of the junior class of Westview High School

TOP SECRET

DO NOT SHARE.

DO NOT DUPLICATE.

DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED ON THE COMPUTER WHILE YOU GET A CHEESY PRETZEL FROM THE STUDENT STORE EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE “PRE

TTY SURE” YOU SAVED IT. (THAT MEANS YOU, JEFF.)

HOWL is a citywide scavenger hunt with a twist: you’re being hunted by your classmates.

OBJECTIVES

Find and photograph 15 scavenger-hunt clues located around the city.

Send to the junior class for verification.

Don’t die.

At the beginning of the game, you will be given the name of your first target. You can only eliminate your target by removing their blue armband. Once you eliminate your target, you will assume their target.

Anyone using real weapons will be immediately disqualified and reported to the police.

Once you’ve found all 15 clues, you must be the first person back at the Westview gym to win.

GRAND PRIZE: $5,000

GOOD LUCK… YOU’LL NEED IT.

11:52 a.m.

BY THE TIME we reach the football field, nearly the entire senior class is here. Kirby and Mara drift toward their dance friends for selfies and yearbook swaps. It’s finally starting to warm up, so I slip off my cardigan and fold it into my backpack. I feel much better now that I have a plan. Destroy McNair. Regain confidence. Meet Delilah and hope she loves me.

Just as his friends assured me, McNair’s here, standing by the bleachers and rummaging through his backpack. The sun on his fiery hair is nothing short of an ocular hazard. If I look directly at it, it’ll probably fry my corneas. Total eclipse of McNair. I hold a hand to my forehead and wrench my gaze downward. He’s changed into a black T-shirt with a Latin phrase scribbled across it, and his dark jeans have a hole in one knee. Below them: scuffed Adidas, the laces chewed and frayed at the ends. I wonder if he has a dog. For once, he looks like a teenage boy, not a tax attorney or middle school assistant principal.

The T-shirt is the real mystery. Usually he wears sweaters or button-downs, the occasional grandpa cardigan with elbow patches. For all I know, this is his summer uniform; we’re only ever around each other the nine gloomy months school is in session. Freckles up and down his pale arms disappear into his sleeves, and I think he has biceps. In sophomore-year gym class, he was a scrawny little thing, twig arms poking out of the boxy Westview gym shirt that fit exactly no one. This T-shirt, though—it definitely fits him.

“Are you okay, Artoo?”

I blink. He’s turned to face me, eyebrows lifted, a half-smile on his lips.

“What?”