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I made my way to Classroom 4 right after my last class — forty minutes early, just to be safe. I sat in the hall with my back against the wall and read my American history textbook (kind of remedial reading for me, to be honest) until Alaska showed up and sat down next to me. She was chewing on her bottom lip, and I asked whether she was nervous.

"Well, yeah. Listen, just sit tight and don't talk," she told me.

"You don't need to be nervous. But this is the seventh time I've been caught smoking. I just don't want — whatever.

I don't want to upset my dad."

"Does your mom smoke or something?" I asked.

"Not anymore," Alaska said. "It's fine. You'll be fine."

I didn't start to worry until it got to be 4:50 and the Colonel and Takumi were still unaccounted for. The members of the Jury filed in one by one, walking past us without any eye contact, which made me feel worse. I counted all twelve by 4:56, plus the Eagle.

At 4:58, the Colonel and Takumi rounded the corner toward the classrooms.

I never saw anything like it. Takumi wore a starched white shirt with a red tie with a black paisley print; the Colonel wore his wrinkled pink button-down and flamingo tie. They walked in step, heads up and shoulders back, like some kind of action-movie heroes.

I heard Alaska sigh. "The Colonel's doing his Napoleon walk."

"It's all good," the Colonel told me. "Just don't say anything."

We walked in— two of us wearing ties, and two of us wearing ratty T-shirts — and the Eagle banged an honest-to-God gavel against the podium in front of him. The Jury sat in a line behind a rectangular table. At the front of the room, by the blackboard, were four chairs. We sat down, and the Colonel explained exactly what happened.

"Alaska and I were smoking down by the lake. We usually go off campus, but we forgot. We're sorry. It won't happen again."

I didn't know what was going on. But I knew my job: sit tight and shut up. One of the kids looked at Takumi and asked, "What about you and Halter?"

"We were keeping them company," Takumi said calmly.

The kid turned to the Eagle then and asked, "Did you see anyone smoking?"

"I only saw Alaska, but Chip ran away, which struck me as cowardly, as does Miles and Takumi's aw-shucks routine," the Eagle said, giving me the Look of Doom. I didn't want to look guilty, but I couldn't hold his stare, so I just looked down at my hands.

The Colonel gritted his teeth, like it pained him to lie. "It is the truth, sir."

The Eagle asked if any of us wanted to say anything, and then asked if there were any more questions, and then sent us outside.

"What the hell was that?" I asked Takumi when we got outside.

"Just sit tight, Pudge."

Why have Alaska confess when she'd already been in trouble so many times? Why the Colonel, who literally couldn't afford to get in serious trouble? Why not me? I'd never been busted for anything. I had the least to lose.

After a couple minutes, the Eagle came out and motioned for us to come back inside.

"Alaska and Chip," a member of the Jury said, "you get ten work hours — doing dishes in the cafeteria — and you're both officially one problem away from a phone call home. Takumi and Miles, there's nothing in the rules about watching someone smoke, but the Jury will remember your story if you break the rules again. Fair?"

"Fair," Alaska said quickly, obviously relieved. On my way out, the Eagle spun me around. "Don't abuse your privileges at this school, young man, or you will regret it." I nodded.

"We found you a girlfriend," Alaska said to me. Still, no one had explained to me what happened the week before with the Jury. It didn't seem to have affected Alaska, though, who was 1.in our room after dark with the door closed, and 2.smoking a cigarette as she sat on the mostly foam couch. She had stuffed a towel into the bottom of our door and insisted it was safe, but I worried — about the cigarette and the "girlfriend."

"All I have to do now," she said, "is convince you to like her and convince her to like you."

"Monumental tasks," the Colonel pointed out. He lay on the top bunk, reading for his English class. Moby-Dick.

"How can you read and talk at the same time?" I asked.

"Well, I usually can't, but neither the book nor the conversation is particularly intellectually challenging."

"I like that book," Alaska said.

"Yes." The Colonel smiled and leaned over to look at her from his top bunk. "You would. Big white whale is a metaphor for everything. You live for pretentious metaphors."

Alaska was unfazed. "So, Pudge, what's your feeling on the former Soviet bloc?"

"Urn. I'm in favor of it?"

She flicked the ashes of her cigarette into my pencil holder. I almost protested, but why bother. "You know that girl in our precalc class," Alaska said, "soft voice, says thees,not this.Know that girl?"

"Yeah. Lara. She sat on my lap on the way to McDonald's."

"Right. I know. And she liked you. You thought she was quietly discussing precalc, when she was clearly talking about having hot sex with you. Which is why you need me."

"She has great breasts," the Colonel said without looking up from the whale.

"DO NOT OBJECTIFY WOMEN'S BODIES!" Alaska shouted.

Now he looked up. "Sorry. Perky breasts."

"That's not any better!"

"Sure it is," he said. "Greatis a judgment on a woman's body. Perkyis merely an observation. They areperky. I mean, Christ."

"You're hopeless," she said. "So she thinks you're cute, Pudge."

"Nice."