Dan tried to look past the stage lights. Was any of this registering with the tribunal? Was Oglesby nodding in assent or dissent? He wasn’t sure. All he could see and hear was Sticky gasping and gulping for air. This annoyed Dan, who thought it was still a put-on by Stick, but he had to keep rolling.

“And that includes democracy. In Freedonia, like all democratic states, there is injustice, there is unfairness, there is inequality. But . . . and it’s a big but . . .”

And as Dan began his peroration, Steve O’Donnell doubled over and puked into his Wolfe Nurseries bag. The sophomores started bawling with laughter. Then Sticky fell out of his chair onto the hard slab of the stage. His face was purple.

“Oh Lord.” Oglesby bolted from his seat.

By the time the paramedics arrived, it was well confirmed that caladiums were quite toxic. Sticky had broken out in hives, and his mouth and tongue were covered in canker sores. Father Dallanach huddled with Mr. Oglesby, explaining with an eerie calm how the school’s underlying insurance policy did not cover incidents where the assignment from the faculty encouraged the student to poison himself. The tired, impatient Jesuit then sulked out of the auditorium back to his cave of afternoon scotch. The rest of them stood in a stony, disappointed silence until a freshman cub reporter from The Roundup snuck in the back and, sensing a scoop, started whispering questions to the sophomores. Oglesby glared at Dan, who, as editor, sent the freshman to explore the freedom of the press elsewhere. Sticky was stabilized with an epinephrine shot and loaded onto a gurney.

A couple of minutes after Father Dallanach left, Mr. Taliaferro said quietly: “Well, point taken about the powers of the Blaireric. Mr. O’Donnell has proven it to be a fake. I vote for Proleteria.”

As Sticky was wheeled out, receiving sympathy high fives along the steps out of the auditorium, the jury of sophomores voted for communist revolution. On his way to Medical City, Chairman O’Donnell had won the Game.

Anne was still picking at her tuna sub with uncertainty when the foreman abruptly decided the lunch break was over and it was time to resume the debate. Dr. Ferris cleared his throat with a gulp of Diet Dr Pepper and addressed his fellow jurors.

“I can sum up this case in one line: Show me the evidence.”

Ferris placed his palm on a written reminder of the jury instructions. Caruthers was nodding like a parakeet. Anne had noticed that the two of them had taken their bathroom break together. Definitely in cahoots now.

“I agree with a lot that Mrs. Malone is saying. This doesn’t look good. Doesn’t sit right.”

Ferris kept oozing this serene Arnold Palmer sincerity. A couple of the female jurors turned to Anne, who warily gnawed on the heel of her sub.