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man. Put the fork down and step away from the surprise. Nothing good ever came from an Italian surprise,” she warned, gesturing at his warmed-over lunch. He had to admit, it looked pretty unappetizing. “Surprise” was a wildly euphemistic term generally assigned to otherwise unidentifiable lunches. He and Liz were new to the Village School but not to high school life. Cafeteria food was a universalconstant. “Friends don’t let friends eat cafeteria food,” Liz pronounced with solemnity.
    â€œSister, not friend,” Chris corrected.
    â€œJeez, and after saving you from a fate worse than—or at least equal to—food poisoning,” Liz griped teasingly, sliding into the seat next to him at his lunch table. “I’m feeling the love.” She peeled off the lid to a container of yogurt and waved it in front of Chris’s nose. “Tamper proof,” she bragged.
    He shrugged. “I like to live dangerously; what can I say? Besides, yogurt’s, what—cultures? What the heck is a culture, and why on earth would you voluntarily ingest it?”
    â€œI also live dangerously,” Liz replied. “Actually, I’ve had my fill of the fast lane for today. I came ten minutes late to chem this morning. That’s enough dangerous living for me.”
    It was true—Liz wasn’t the type to miss class. “What happened?” Chris asked, genuinely curious.
    â€œNothing big. I got held up on my way to school.”
    â€œLong line at Starbucks?” Chris teased. Liz liked her caffeine even if, as a general rule, she had a shred more original thought process than the girls who headed there daily in gaggles.
    She frowned. “Yeah, actually. But that’s not what it was. I went through the park this morning on my way to school, just for a change, ‘cause it was nice out.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t go through the park early in themorning,” Chris admonished. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. “It’s—”
    â€œYeah, yeah, not safe for a little girlie-girl like me. See above reliving dangerously. Anyway, it was fine and totally populated. More populated than usual, in fact. That was the weirdness. There were, like, a million cops around, sort of investigating. You know, no stone unturned and all that.”
    Chris stiffened slightly, but his sister didn’t notice. “Did they say what they were looking for?” he asked, his tone flat.
    â€œI think they’re trying to get to the bottom of the Invince business. You know, figure out who God is. They were saying that people in the park are really strung out lately—I mean, more strung out than usual. That this Invince drug is worse than anything they’ve ever seen because it really makes people feel immortal. So I guess they’re looking for the one who’s selling it.”
    â€œGod,” Chris echoed thoughtfully.
    â€œYeah.” She nodded energetically, spooning up a bite of yogurt. “And there have to be people around who have seen him, who know what he looks like. You know, ‘cause there are obviously a lot of people in the park who’ve done Invince or who know where to get it. But no one’s talking.”
    â€œWhat did you tell them when they asked you about it?”
    â€œWhat do you think I told them?” Liz asked her brother pointedly, turning her sky blue eyes on him full force.
    â€œI told them I had no idea who they were looking for.”

Social pariah
    Life itself was plenty absurd on its own.

Bad Vibes
    IF THE GOD OF TEEN RELATIONSHIPS was smiling down on Gaia, then the delicate balance of high school karma dictated that the god of calculus, of course, was not.
    Her little scene with Jake, directly following her meltdown outside Hëagen-Dazs the night before, had left her in no state of mind to worry about such trivialities as homework, but this was hardly something that she could explain to