You couldn’t taste it.

The punch was in a big plastic bowl, and it was impossible to tell what was happening until it was too late. And by then it was too late for a whole lot of kids. Seniors. Juniors. Even freshmen.

I remember a skinny freshman throwing up in the flower bed outside, right next to the front of the house. His whole body convulsing, trying to expel the poison.

Just before the sky opened up.

And then the poor kid was there, throwing his guts up in the bushes, in the pouring rain. His white T-shirt stuck to his back, hunched over. An awful trick. This poor guy. I felt for him.

And then it got worse. More rain, now in buckets.

All the kids inside, not knowing what to do. Baffled, trying to make sense of their weaving feet and water coming down from the sky, water everywhere.

Some people, and there are always these people, were having a good old time with it. Hey, this is crazy! Dancing in the middle of the floor, hands in the air like they just don’t care. A DJ keeping the dance floor full, a makeshift dance floor in what appeared to be a family room. A rather large family room, with trophies of deer on the wall, and even a bull head, a giant stone fireplace, and plenty of space to shove the sofas out of the way to make room.

Zander was trying to make the best of it. Standing with me, next to the dance floor, weaving a little, he gestures to the dance floor, now piled with people, arms in the air. He shrugs and leads me to the middle of the dance floor, still tipsy. The two of us, now in the middle of the sea of hands.

Outside, there was a flash of lightning and, soon after, thunder. BOOM! The kids on the dance floor shout out, and the lightning and thunder become part of the fun, part of the insanity. Each bolt followed by a wave of hoots and hollers.

And what did it matter if it was storming outside if we were all in there and the party was shaking the animal trophies on the wall? What did it matter with all that bass shaking the floor and all of us singing along to the treble? What could go wrong?

No, it was the best night, the fun, silly night, the decadent night, and we were the kids and the kids were alright.

Nothing could hurt us then. Nothing could get in the way. Nothing could make us do anything other than be kids being kids with our arms up in the air and our bodies sweat-soaked and a few kids even had glow-stick necklaces they were putting on everybody. This was how we would do it. This was how it was done.

And now, standing here on the third floor of this cold, dark house, peeking out the window to make sure the workers, all the workers, are good and gone for the night, I would do anything to transport myself back to that time. Back to that moment with the thunder shaking the makeshift dance floor and the hooting and hollering and the bass shaking the walls of the house, the framed pictures barely able to stay put on the walls.