“We’d be so, so good at throwing an underground burlesque revue,” Taylor says reverently, as Nevaeh sets me back on my feet.

“It would be beautiful,” Katherine says.

“So why the hell not?” Nevaeh says.

All three of them are grinning. But Nevaeh’s words stop me. Why the hell not? There’s got to be a why not.

The idea still fizzes and pops and sparkles in my head with a what if? and a wouldn’t it be amazing? But the sounds of the normal world—the kids crunching along the paths to class, the distant bong of the clock tower, the chattering and the wind—it’s all so normal and ordinary and safe, the music of our days. We could get caught, and then we would risk losing it all.

It’s an idea that’s tricky at best and just plain ridiculous at worst. I can’t let myself get worked up about fantasies, get sidetracked from doing something real, concrete. Workable. And not against school rules.

“Addie,” Katherine says. “What is it?” I shake my head at her.

“It’ll work,” Taylor says.

“It wouldn’t be a problem,” Nevaeh says. She sounds so reasonable.

I love the idea. But why am I the only one of us who notices how absurd it is? I mean, Nevaeh is usually the practical, levelheaded one, but if she were the kind of person who bounced around, she’d be bouncing right now.

“Okay,” I say after a moment. I square my shoulders. “Pretend it’s the best idea ever.”

“Which it is,” Taylor says.

“Fine, yes, it’s pretty great. But how do we pull it off?”

“It’s not like I haven’t snuck around extensively after curfew,” Taylor points out.

“The rest is just logistics,” Nevaeh says, sounding reasonable. “I’m good at that.”

“What if we get caught?” I say. “This is more than sneaking out. We’d get suspended. They’d take our pieces out of the showcases. Our parents would freak. We’d be totally screwed.”

Katherine says simply, “So we won’t get caught.”

“You don’t know that,” I say.

Nevaeh starts ticking off points on her mitten. “One, it turns out you do have a genius, marketable skill. Two, you have us.”

“Three, it is senior year, and we must do something wonderful,” Katherine breaks in.

“Four, and here’s the thing, for real: I guarantee you that we will regret it all our days if we don’t even try,” Taylor says.

“I am going right here on record to say I’m all in, because it’s going to be legendary, no matter what happens,” Nevaeh says. She’s got her winner-takes-all smile on, and I have a shimmering rush of make-me-high confidence. When Nevaeh believes in something, it becomes absolutely, 100 percent real.

“Six, you will make so much money, Addie,” Taylor says, dropping his hands on my shoulders and putting his forehead against mine.