“Let’s play spin the bottle!” Lori said, pointing at the water bottle that Lindsey
was fingering.
Kim started cracking up. Courtney glared at Lori. “No!”
Lori laughed. “I was just kidding!”
Taylor sighed in relief. Shannon heard him and smiled.
“How about Killer?” Steve suggested from the footstool.
“Yeah,” Lindsey agreed. Both children loved the game. No one but the Saladens and Warrens knew how to play it, so the others looked at them in curiousity.
Courtney considered the idea. A grin crept across her face. Being in a small space with a lot of people including Hanson in the dark. It was too good to be true. “I think it could work.” Shannon made eye contact with Courtney, thinking the exact same thing. Courtney ripped out a few sheet of paper from Shannon’s notebook. Tearing them into eleven small pieces, she wrote a K on two of them, D on another two, and H on the remaining 7. “OK, you’ll each get a sheet of paper. If you get a K, you’re the killer. You have to touch someone and clap TWICE,” she glanced pointedly at Steve and Lindsey. They tended to get a little wild during the game and clap too many times. “to kill them. If you get a D, you’re the detective. You have to try to keep away from the killers. When the killer claps, you turn on the lights and try to determine who clapped. If you get an H, you’re the hider. All you do is hide.”
“OK,” Nicole said slowly. The whole instructions had gone right over her head. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s OK,” Kim said, “you can go by me. I didn’t get it either.”
“It’s pretty easy. You’ll understand once we start to play. Courtney threw the cards up into the air. The people who had played the game before dove at the fluttering slips of paper. Kim took the closest piece and opened it up. D. What did D mean again? She handed it back to Courtney to put on the bar. Courtney hurried to the other side of the room to turn off the lights. She held her breath when she stepped over Taylor, praying she wouldn’t fall and crush him.
When the lights went out, the room turned chaotic. Kim clung to whoever was next to her, hoping it was Nicole. “Nicole?” she whispered loudly.
“Yep,” Nicole answered out loud.
“Courtney!” shouted a voice. “Stop rubbing my leg!” Kim giggled.
“Ew,” another voice said. Immediately, Kim recognized it as Zac’s. Kim felt someone’s hand on her knee and screamed. Two claps sounded. She had been killed. Jamie flipped on the lights.
“Pretend you’re dead,” commanded Lindsey. Kim looked around to see everyone spawled all over the ground. At her feet lay Isaac. Her socked foot resting on a chunk of his hair. Kim quickly removed her foot in embarrassment.
“Jamie,” Courtney scolded, “you were supposed to wait until you heard the other killer clap, too.”
“I didn’t know there were two killers!” she whined. Usually, they played with only one killer and one detective.
“That’s OK. Alright, who are the two detectives?” Kim and Jamie raised their hands.
“Who do you think the killers were?” asked Shannon.
Jamie and Kim glanced at each other. “Ike,” Kim said, “cause he killed me.”
“Then you’re dead,” Steve said. “Ike won because he killed the detective.”
“Cool!” exclaimed Isaac, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“I was the other killer,” admitted Lori.
“That game didn’t work too well,” Shannon said.
“Since we know how to play it now, let’s try one more time,” suggested Zac.
“OK, but no rubbing people!” Lindsey told Courtney. Blushing, Courtney took the cards off of the bar. Last time they played Killer, Courtney had been really hyper and was rubbing people’s legs to tick them off. It was funny at the time.
Taylor saw that his card said K on it. Lori also saw it and grabbed at his card. “I want that one.” Taylor smiled, ready for the challenge. With his left hand, he held the paper while his right hand clasped Lori’s and tightened. A thrill when through Lori. Taylor was practically holding her hand! Her glasses slid down on her nose and her grin widened as she tried to pull her hand out of Taylor’s strong grip--not that she really wanted to.
“Lori, quit flirting,” Nicole reprimanded. Taylor waited until Amanda’s guard was down, and separated her hand from the paper.
