Diving Into The Wreck

Butterfly

I spent prom night at Tanner's house, playing Dungeons and Dragons. Most of the people who had played with us the first time I had played D&D were there, and they chatted amongst themselves, debating on how the game was going to go. Tanner was busy getting snacks for the group, until all of a sudden, the doorbell rang.

Sean walked into the room, and as we soon discovered, he was even worse at D&D than I was. It took him forever to create a character, although Tanner was far more patient with him than he had been with me, and on his very first roll of the game, he rolled a critical failure.

"You can re-roll that," Tanner said.

Everyone else groaned, but Sean picked up the die again and re-rolled. Throughout the game, it was blatantly obvious that our Dungeon Master was playing favorites, but unlike some of the other party members, I didn't mind too much. Tanner and Sean were a cute couple, and they seemed to be having fun with the game.

Just as we were about to confront a huge group of orcs, Tanner's cell phone rang. "Wait a second," he said as he took out his phone. "I need to reply to this text." He laughed and then added, "It was from Ashley. She and her girlfriend are at prom right now, and apparently somebody pulled the fire alarm in the gym in the middle of the dance. They had to evacuate everybody."

"They're just having prom in the high school gym?" Sean said. When Tanner nodded, he exclaimed, "I'm glad we didn't go!"

"Me too," Tanner said. "D&D is way more fun. Now, why don't we get back to the game? It was Dani's turn, right?"

We returned to the game, and we played well into the night. I was exhausted but content when I finally got home, carrying my character sheet with me as I headed into my bedroom. Just as I was about to go to bed, I got a text from Tanner. "Don't forget about Quiz Bowl practice on Monday!" he wrote. "The state tournament is this week."

"I'll be there," I replied. Given how well we had done at conference and regionals, I didn't see why we couldn't succeed in the state tournament. We just had to keep practicing, and we could beat even the best Quiz Bowl teams in the state.

Devon quickly replied to say that he'd be there too, but Madeline didn't respond. I didn't think too much of it at the time. I assumed that she was busy having a good time at prom, too distracted to think of small things like our upcoming tournament. I turned off the light and went to sleep, assuming that everything would come together if we gave it a little bit of time.

That Monday, everyone was talking about the fire alarm at prom. A boy in my English class complained about how hot he was in his suit when he had to go outside, and a girl in my history class speculated on who had pulled the alarm. It seemed like everyone except for me had a story to share from that night.

When I left my history class, I spotted Madeline. "Hey Madeline!" I exclaimed, but she walked in the opposite direction, toward the orchestra room. She didn't acknowledge my presence at all. I shrugged and headed into the cafeteria, and after I had bought some dubious-looking macaroni and cheese, I sat in between Tanner and Devon. Neither of them seemed to notice that Madeline was missing.

Tanner read Quiz Bowl questions to us, and Devon and I eagerly answered as many as we could. He asked us about everything from classical composers to European geography to American history, and we did our best to give him the right answers, or at least guess if we couldn't figure it out. When the bell rang, Tanner reminded us one last time about practice, and we again assured him that we would be there.

Tanner, Devon, and I met in Mrs. Welch's classroom after school, but Madeline didn't come. We waited around for her, playing games on our phones, doing homework, and drawing on the board, but after fifteen minutes, Tanner asked, "Does anyone know where Madeline is?" Both Devon and I shook our heads. "It's not like her to ditch us like this."