Piles Fork High School was famous for one thing: its theater program. It specialized in musical theater and was, in a word, phenomenal. The best in the state. Arguably, the nation. This was multi–award-winning shit we’re talking about: the Dazzles, the Freddies, the Halos, the Teenies. It sounds like I’m using made-up words, but I swear to god, these were all real things! I knew this because Principal Durden gushed about them like they were her own greatest achievements. Every year, Principal Durden poured more and more of the school budget into the theater program. At this point, the theater budget outweighed all the core subjects combined.

If that sounds insane, that’s because it is.

Theater was taught exclusively by Ms. Cicily Chaucer—rumored to be the great (times seventeen) granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer. Which I was pretty sure was bullshit. But she had been a cast member of the Broadway revival of the musical Cats. She claimed to have left because of “creative differences.” No one really questioned her on that.

In fact, no one really questioned her on anything. When she claimed she needed a more “theatrical environment” for her classroom, Principal Durden allowed her to scout out off-campus locations. Ms. Chaucer finally settled on the Amityvale Theater, located in the very center of downtown. The Amityvale Theater was a historic venue for performing arts, though today was used more commonly for music, modern entertainment, community events, etc.

The school district rented out a time slot in a year-to-year contract.

As for Ms. Chaucer’s handpicked students, they were the most snobbish, despotic group of theater kids ever to roam the stage. Imagine Sharpay and Ryan Evans from High School Musical, and multiply them by nine, and that’s what we were dealing with here. They walked together, ate together, and, more often than not, made whoopee together. They were cliquish, bordering on cultish. Whenever graduation neared, they usually had their collective sights set on select individuals—a new generation of Sharpays and Ryans—whom they deemed worthy to enter their fold. All they needed was a proper blood initiation, maybe a pagan animal sacrifice for good measure, and they were no longer human. They were a superior species. They were the newest members of Ms. Chaucer’s theater class.

At least, that was the case until a couple weeks ago.

That’s when the drug bust happened.

You see, there was a reason why Piles Fork’s theater program was the best. Why they were able to memorize lines like machines and kill it like the fucking Terminator. Why they sang and danced and performed like genetically advanced superhumans.

They were all on prescription drugs—namely medication for ADHD and narcolepsy.