“Well…” Camille starts, throwing her arms out wide in a dramatic gesture. “Hey, wait a minute.” She stops midstride. “You’re just fishing for ideas.” She wags a finger at me and starts walking again. “I know how you operate, kid. None of that. They all have to be your idea. Otherwise it makes it less special.”

“Less special? Oh, come on, Camille,” I say. “You know this isn’t my thing. You gotta help me out!”

“Loosen up,” she says, shaking my shoulder while we walk. “It’s supposed to be fun. You remember fun, don’t you? It’s that thing you used to have in elementary school? Before this happened?” She gestures around me with her hands like a mosquito is buzzing nearby.

“What? Before what happened?”

“This,” she says, gesturing again. “This Mr. Study Until We Die stuff. This Mr. No Fun Until the Work Is Done stuff. Before that.”

“Oh, you mean before I realized there’s a great big world outside of Meridien?” I ask sarcastically. “Before I decided I wanted to be a part of it? Before I knew that the only way to make that happen is to work my ass off and maybe get a scholarship? Before all that?”

Camille rolls her eyes. “Oh, calm down, Juls. I’m just saying—this prank thing isn’t supposed to be some anxiety-inducing mess. It’s just a laugh. Stop worrying about it! Something will come to you.” Her grin turns mischievous. “But it better come to you quick.”

I set my jaw, and we walk all the way to the corner of Rudy Street without talking. Camille is always on my case about loosening up. But I didn’t get to be the captain of the football team by loosening up. Or into four AP classes.

Most of the kids from my side of the county end up in one of three places:

1. Stuck in some dead-end job in Meridien working for crap money.

2. Locked up or on probation for doing something they thought was going to be fun but was actually just stupid.

3. Out of here with a scholarship and a gold-lined path to bigger and better things.

As much as I love Meridien, I’m going for option three. And I’m too close to my gold-lined path to throw it all away for some stupid town tradition.

“Birdie had someone over for dinner tonight,” I say after we walk a few yards in silence. I know neither Camille nor I will let the tension from earlier turn into anything major. We’ve been friends too long and are both pretty good about letting stuff like that go.

“Oh yeah? Pastor Ernie and Figg again?”

“No, I don’t think so. She kind of acted like it was supposed to be a surprise?”

“Ooh, maybe it was Mr. Cooper.” She giggles. “I’ve seen him giving Birdie the eye in church on Sundays.”