The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

HUNT.
    I shot back: AND DRINKING?
    Grace shot back: LIKE YOU DON’T?
    I looked up. Chaos everywhere. My sister had finally spotted me, and she raised her beer can, as if to toast, and then took a hearty swing. She put her beer down on the hood of a car, typed again, and the text came though: AND ANYWAY, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO…TELL MOM?
    She sure told me. Because she knew that if I got caught lying about tonight, caught doing the hunt, my parents would ground me for much longer than a week.
    Patrick was fast, good thing, and skinny, and he seemed to slip right up to the papers fluttering around Leticia and then, superhero-fast, he was running back toward me, multiple copies of the list actually shoved into his suspenders. He was shouting, “Get in! Get in!”
    Winter and Dez and I headed for the car—I called shotgun—and when Patrick got in and started the engine, he said, “And
you
didn’t like my suspenders!”
    I laughed and grabbed a list from under one of his rainbowsand handed copies to Winter and Dez, answering their cries of “Gimme! Gimme!”
    Patrick put the car in gear and tore out of The Pines while all the other teams wasted time doing K-turns and U-turns so we were first out of the lot, first out of the gate. I couldn’t resist the urge to stick my head out my window and shout out, “Suckahs!”
    Patrick rolled his eyes and said, “Focus,” and I held the list up to my face and tried to read what was there, but it was suddenly like my brain couldn’t function at all. All I saw was a blur of black ink on orange, like melting chocolate candy corn, because of a lump of something gooey that was forming in my throat and working its way up.
    It was senior week.
    I was on the Senior Week Scavenger Hunt.
    Everything was ending.
    Everything was beginning.
    An open, mostly drank beer can flew through my window then and landed in my lap.
    “What the…?” I said as Barbone’s car blew past us, tires screeching. Chrissie Arrington’s moon-white ass cheeks hung out the window.
    “You’re going
down
!” Dez yelled to them from the backseat.
    But as I wiped beer off my shorts and felt the cold liquid seep through to skin, I suddenly wasn’t so sure. Picking my phone up off my lap, I sent a quick text to Grace that said, JUST BE CAREFUL, OKAY?
    “Guys,” Patrick said firmly, “you need to tell me where to go.”
    “Home Depot!” Dez shouted, and Winter and I both looked at him and said, “What? Why?”

“AFTERNOON DELIGHT”
     
•    A snow globe—20
•    A slice of pizza in a Ray’s Pizza box—10
•    A beer coaster from the Slaughtered Pig—5
•    Silly Bandz—1 per
•    A Burger King crown—30
•    Photo of your team with an alien—30
•    Take your high-tops to the skytop—50
•    Origami sheep—10 per
•    A two-by-four—5 per every 6 inches
•    A cardboard witch Halloween decoration—15
•    Any sort of music box but double points for “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”—40/80
•    A dustpan—10
•    A cupcake—5 per
•    A Dixie-cup icosahedron—65
•    A brick—5
•    A toilet seat—10
•    A paper coffee cup (extra points if there is coffee in it and it is hot)—2
•    A stapler—2
•    A silver bangle—10
•    Jar of fireflies—3 per
•    A flag—25
•    A small plastic toy ambulance that goes
squee
when you poke it right—50
•    A maple-leaf-shaped bottle of syrup—75
•    An ice-cream scoop—10
•    A French spatula—10
•    Any likeness of Tigger—20
•    A loon—75
•    An ice-tea spoon—10
•    An M&M’s wrapper/bag—5
•    A #1 foam finger—35
•    A grass skirt—30
•    A Boba Fett action figure—35
•    A fettling knife—10
•    Bottle of Vick’s VapoRub—10
•    A remote—10
•    What is the Yeti’s favorite band?—100