• Sebastian O’Hara—an urban legend. Most of it was speculation and hearsay, but the “story” was that he was in a relationship with a boy named Oscar who went to Trinity Christian Academy. When it came out among Oscar’s peers that he was dating a boy, he became the target of a vicious—sometimes even violent—bullying campaign. One incident left Oscar hospitalized with a broken wrist, fractured rib, and a concussion. The headmaster dismissed it as “falling down the stairs”—but thank actual God for the three boys who “witnessed the accident” and reported it immediately! What followed was something out of a slasher film. For the next several weeks, Sebastian stalked those three boys—reportedly wearing an antique rubber Captain Kirk mask that he ordered online. If you’re familiar with the fun facts of the 1978 horror classic, Halloween, that’s exactly what Michael Myers wore—only spray-painted white. Sebastian didn’t bother spray-painting his; it was scary enough on its own. Sebastian cornered those boys individually—in dark neighborhoods, hallways, isolated public restrooms, etc. Of course, these were only rumors, but in no variation of this story did those three boys walk out of the situation without serious psychological trauma.

• Patrick Durfee—Willow’s ex-boyfriend. I actually liked Patrick. I mean, he was kind of a wiener—gawky, skinny to the point of resembling a fragile baby bird—but he was always nice and polite. And he was a freshman. He earned major points for being Willow’s age. And for the fact that, ever since Willow broke up with him, I kept discovering unfamiliar cars in my driveway. God, why couldn’t we revert to a matchmaking society where older brothers chose suitors for their littler sisters?

Ziggy hoisted himself onto the lip of the stage and sat facing us, suede Supra Stacks dangling. Meanwhile we, his theater class—allegedly all detention kids, here by coercion or threat—were scattered across the red theater seating like the last survivors of a grueling game of checkers. Ziggy had us go around the room—top to bottom, left to right—stating our name, what we wanted to be when we grew up, and our favorite Shakespeare play. (What a loaded question.) Some people took this very seriously. Imogen, for example, wanted to be an obstetrician—whatever the hell that was—and her favorite Shakespeare was Much Ado about Nothing. Then there were others, such as Tucker Cook, who wanted to be a wizard, and his favorite Shakespeare was The Lord of the Rings.

“Lord of the Rings isn’t Shakespeare,” said Ziggy.

“What?” said Tucker. “Yeah, it is.”

Willow was the last person in the circle. She wanted to be “happy” when she grew up—how very emo of her—and her favorite Shakespeare was “Romeo and Juliet, the DiCaprio version.”