Scout Calhoun looked around the room, and wondered briefly why Will Krudski looked so distorted. He shrugged his shoulders to himself, and took another swig of the tequila that Hamilton Fleming had snuck into the boys dorm.

“Al’ right, boys. It’s time for some major dirt!”

The boys looked a little nervous, but were obviously too drunk and too curious to protest, so they all nodded their consent. Scout gave a goofy grin, and searched the room for his first victim.

His eyes landed on the sandy-haired townie that he roomed with, and smiled slyly. “Will...”

Will rolled his eyes, not quite as drunk as the rest of them, but loosened up enough to play the stupid game, he decided. He briefly wondered why he had consented, but it was too late to back out now, so he decided it was pointless wondering.

He pulled his knees into his chest, and fixed his somewhat blurry vision on Scout. “Truth. Fire away. I’m at your mercy.”

Scout grinned. “All right. Who was your first? And I want details, here.”

Will groaned. It didn’t get much worse than this, did it? he wondered. And Scout was clearly hoping he’d broadcast his virginity around the room, to be teased about for weeks. If anyone remembered. But he was about to surprise his best friend, and tell the truth for the first time ever.

“All right.” The room fell silent, everyone surprised. When Hamilton had been asked the same question earlier, he’d taken the dare. But then, no one had been surprised, because Ham hadn’t exactly made a secret of his limited sexual experiences.

Will took a deep breath. “Listen, this goes no further than this room, okay? I promised her I’d never tell anyone, so you can’t spread it around, all right?”

Everyone nodded drunkenly, even Ryder, whom Will wouldn’t have trusted had he not been completely smashed. Will knew that Ryder’s memories would be vague, at best, when he awoke in the morning.

“Her name was Andrea McPhee, and she’s the most beautiful girl on the planet. She’s a year older than us, and she lives in Capeside, where I lived until third grade. I was back there to visit an old friend about six months ago, and she was just...radiant.”

He paused, gulped down a swig of tequila that he had a feeling he was going to regret, knowing how much his stomach appreciated alcohol, then continued. “She was my friend’s ex-girlfriend, and so she seemed off-limits for a while, but eventually, she made it really clear that we were...okay. Even Pacey gave his blessings, so I started hanging out with her a lot.

“We played around a lot, but we never did more than make out a lot. Then, one night, she was really upset, and she needed comforting. Her dad was out of town, and she didn’t want her brother’s help, so she asked me to spend the night.

“At first, she meant it platonically. But lying in a bed, even fully clothed, with a girl that beautiful was really turning me on, and she noticed.” He paused long enough to take another swig of the alcohol.

“I’ll never forget. She rolled over, so that she was facing me, and she asked me if I was ready to lose my virginity. I was so mortified, I’d never told her anything about being a virgin, we’d never talked about it, we’d never been that serious, but she just trailed her hands over my cheeks, and told me it was painfully obvious, and then she just kissed all my rational thoughts away.

“I didn’t want to, but I made her stop long enough to lecture her about not using sex for comfort. She said, and I quote, “To hell with not using sex for comfort. It’s one of the best comforters I know of.”

“So, that was that, I guess. And I finished staying the night...not so platonically. But when I woke up in the morning, she was gone, and there was note saying that she’d loved the night before, but that it couldn’t have happened. I saw her a couple more times, and she was just as sweet and wonderful and fun, but as far as she was concerned, it never happened. She’s a great actress, and every time I brought it up, she pretended like she didn’t know what I was talking about. Eventually, I forgot about it, she was so adamant.”

He sighed a little, and looked around the dorm room. They were in the room he shared with Scout, having a little impromptu party with Hamilton’s father’s liquor and playing truth or dare. Ryder had dozed off in the middle of his tale, and Hamilton was looking seriously ill. Scout was high, apparently the affect the alcohol had on him, and Will was feeling subdued.

He didn’t drink often, he wasn’t a ‘bad kid’, but every once in a while, things with his father got so bad... well, that was why he had found out about drinking. And mostly he drank the strong stuff, because he hated any kind of alcohol, and it took less tequila to get drunk than it took, say, beer. After all, as far as Will was concerned, getting drunk was the only purpose of drinking.

He was wondering about ever seeing Andie again, and suddenly he felt very tired. Dropping his head to the floor, he remembered no more until the morning.

It was six a.m., and Finn was really wondering where half of his crew team was. Jake was there, and a few others, but Hamilton, Will, Scout, Ryder, and several more were no-shows.

After waiting twenty minutes, he shook his head and sighed. “All right guys. Practice is cancelled. Get your butts here this afternoon, 3:30, and I’ll make sure the rest of the team shows.”

Grumbling about getting up so early for no reason, the team spread apart, and dispersed. Jake seemed concerned, and he headed for the boys dorms. Finn wondered if Jake knew something he didn’t, and cornered the slight boy before he reached the door.

“’Morning, Jake.”

Jake nodded, the concern on his face rapidly masked, but not gone. “’Morning, Finn.”

“Where are you on your way to?” Finn asked casually.

Jake started a little. “Oh...I was on my way to check up on the guys who didn’t come to practice. I was wondering if they were sick.”

Finn was skeptical. “All of them at once? Probably not.” He stopped in Jake’s path, and the smaller boy’s eyes avoided his. “I’ll go check on them.” He stated. Jake looked disappointed, but didn’t argue.

“Don’t worry. They’ll be at practice this afternoon.”

Jake nodded, and tried to look like his worries had been resolved. “Sure. Thanks, Finn.”

Finn nodded, and flashed a quick smile at the boy. When Jake was gone, his smile faded into a look of concentration, though. There was something odd about that boy. But he shook his head, and continued into the boy’s dorms. Jake would have to be dealt with later. Right now, he had to figure out why half his team hadn’t made practice.

Finn was frowning by now. No one was home at Hamilton’s house, Ryder’s roommate answered his door, and said, bleary-eyed, that he hadn’t seen Ryder. The rest of the boy’s roommate’s answered the same way.

The last place to check was Will and Scout’s room. Since they were both on the team, Finn didn’t expect to get an answer, since the rest of the team was apparently missing in action, but he knocked anyway.

Finn was surprised when his firm knock pushed the door open, and he drew in a sharp breath at the scene that greeted him.

Will Krudski lay curled up on the floor next to his bed, an empty tequila flask in his hand. Scout was stirring in the chair where he was crashed, and Hamilton was sprawled out on Will’s bed on his back. Ryder was on his stomach, on Scout’s bed, his face buried in the pillow.

There were empty and half-empty tequila flasks strewn all over the room, and two more boys were crashed on the floor, Will-style.

Finn shook his head. Well, now he knew what had happened to his team. But where had the liquor come from? He decided to answer his questions.

He cupped his hands around his mouth, stood in the doorway, and shouted “Up and at ‘em, Junior Varsity Team!” at the top of his lungs.

Will stirred, and Hamilton’s eyes opened. The boys on the floor just kept on sleeping, and Will reached up and shook Scout without moving anything but his arm, a nauseous look on his face. Ryder turned over, opened his eyes, muttered a “Hi, Finn.” and went back to sleep.

As Will, Hamilton, and Scout regained consciousness, Finn stood over them, glaring. “Hello, boys.”

Hamilton groaned, but made no other acknowledgement. Will jumped to his feet, and ran for the bathroom. Scout gave no such finesse, and simply leaned over the side of his chair and threw up. Finn wrinkled his nose, but made no comment.

“Hamilton Fleming!” He boomed, seeing Ham drift off into his dreams again. Hamilton looked up at his teacher, and opened bleary eyes. “Yeah, Finn?”

Finn took advantage of Hamilton’s semi-lucid state to ask the question he really wanted an answer to. “Where did all this...stuff” He wrinkled his nose, and picked up an empty flask, “come from?”

“My dad...” Hamilton trailed off, then jumped up and headed in the same direction as Will had. Finn let him go, and pondered his statement. Dean Fleming surely wouldn’t have given his son alcohol, so that mean that not only was half his crew team stinking drunk, they were drunk on both stolen and forbidden alcohol. He shook his head in disgust, and started to shake Scout. “Mr. Calhoun!”

Scout turned his head towards his teacher, and slowly opened his eyes, surprise evident in them. “Finn? What’re you doing here?”

Finn pointed to the empty containers of alcohol all over the room, and gave Scout a stern look. “More importantly, what were you doing last night? You’re underage, you’re irresponsible, and this liquor was stolen, if I understand your friend Hamilton correctly.”

Scout took one look around the room, and groaned. “Oh, God.” He muttered under his breath. Then he let out a long string of curses that Finn couldn’t catch, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Will returned to the room, his eyes lowered, and moving very slowly. He had circles under his eyes, his hair was messy and unkempt, and he smelled slightly like puke. Finn wrinkled his nose, making no attempt to hide his disgust, and pointed a chair. Will sat in it obediently, but still hadn’t raised his eyes to his teacher once.

Finn crossed his arms over his chest, and tapped his foot, waiting for Hamilton to return. Meanwhile, Ryder stirred, and then sat up, apparently far more used to the alcohol than the rest of the impromptu ‘study session’ guests. He took one look around the room, and unsteadily tottered to his feet.

“Shit, Krudski, what did you get us into this time?” He said, his voice even thicker than usual from the hangover and the lack of sleep.

Will looked blankly at the annoying foreign student, and shrugged. “It was your idea, Ryder.”

Ryder grew steadier as his anger fueled him. “The hell it was, Krudski!” He headed in the direction of Will’s chair, and Finn stepped between them.

“All right, that’s enough. I’m sure both of you have been on the receiving end of enough punches that you know you don’t want to repeat the experience.”

Ryder pushed past his teacher with a string of curses and a loud “Get the hell out of my way, old man!”

Before Ryder knew what had happened, he was lying on the floor, rubbing his head, and Will and Scout were clapping. Hamilton appeared unsteadily in the doorway, and joined the applause, not quite sure what was going on, but absolutely certain that anything that had Ryder down was good.

“Now,” Finn’s voice had no emotion in it, “do you want to try that again, Ryder?”

Ryder scrambled to his feet. “Shit, man! I’m gonna sue you!” He threatened as he tried to back away towards the door.

Finn once again blocked his path, and pointed to the bed with an unmistakable signal. Ryder reluctantly sat, muttering under his breath the whole time.

Hamilton collapsed on the other bed once again, and Will, who still hadn’t managed to look Finn in the eye, tapped one of the boys still crashed out on the floor. “Chris! Chris!” Chris looked up, saw the scene, and scrambled to his feet, grabbing his half-awake companion.

“Christ, let’s get out of here!” He hissed at his companion, and Finn let them out the door, nodding as they went.

“Why’d you let them go?” Ryder whined. “They were the ones who started it.”

Finn, his voice level, nodded. “Five minutes ago, Mr. Krudski started it, young man. And five minutes from now, I’m sure Scout or Hamilton will get their turn. But, I don’t actually care who started it.”

“Then why are we here, Finn?”

“Because you are all my students, and I’m going to do my best by you. This little party of yours has significantly lowered your status in my eyes, though.”

Will’s eyes, still downcast, sank even lower. Scout shifted around. Hamilton just groaned, and Ryder, of course, took the chance to complain some more. “This sucks. We were just having fun! We didn’t hurt anyone.”

“On the contrary. You’re whole crew team was waiting for you for half an hour in the freezing cold, early morning, and then, when you didn’t show up, we cancelled it anyway! Real thoughtful of you.”

Ryder nearly sputtered, and a small smile crossed Will’s lips. Scout just grinned, and Hamilton still looked incredibly sick. Finn decided this was as good a time as any.

“You will all be getting punished. As your ‘core’ teacher, I have authority in making these decisions, so, here they are.” He paused, looking around the room.

“Mr. Calhoun, your grade in my English class will be a D, if you work very hard, and if you slack off, it will be an F, so I suggest you plan a lot of time for homework.”

“Mr. Ryder, your grade will be an F, since you have been doing so little work already. If you do all the extra credit projects, you can probably bring it back up.”

Ryder started to protest again, but Finn continued, ignoring his voice in the background. “Mr. Krudski, I will try very hard to keep this off your records, since you need to keep the scholarship...on the condition that you, like Mr. Ryder, do all the extra credit projects, and write a fifteen page paper on responsibility, which is due two weeks from today.” Will gulped, but nodded. At least he’d be able to keep the scholarship.

“Mr. Fleming,...” Hamilton sat up, but barely. He nodded to Finn, signaling that he could hear and understand, and then closed his eyes again.

“Get prepared to do a lot of homework, young man. You’re one of the brightest students in my classes, but your grade is currently a C. Why is this?”

Hamilton opened his eyes, and shrugged. “I don’ know.”

“Well, for whatever reason, I suggest you learn to work around it. Because you have a fifteen page paper and all of the extra credit projects due to keep your C. The paper is due in two weeks.”

He glanced around the room. “And all of your parents will be notified.” He pretended to tip his hat to the boys, and headed for the door. Then he turned, and glanced over them all once more.

“ I almost forgot, boys. Practice. This afternoon, 3:30. Be on time.” He backed out the door, and smiled a little. He was going to enjoy watching those boys sweat for a while.