Ian placed a bookmark into his book as I slid my tray on the lunch table and sat down. As usual, he'd been the first one there.

"Feels good to be at the top, doesn't it?" he greeted, closing the book and placing it aside. Saturday's challenge had bumped us out of the three-way tie and back into first. It had only been two days since then, but it felt like I'd checked the scoreboard a million times just to make sure we were still at the top.

"It does," I agreed, taking a bite of my burger. "Maybe a little intense, but still good."

"I've been meaning to ask," Ian started, leaning forward and taking a chip from the bag in front of him, "What'll you do with the money if we win? Splitting it five ways puts us at a grand each, so I figure I'll probably save it."

I pondered as I chewed, realizing that I didn't really have any ideas for the money. "Yeah, I guess I haven't really thought about it too much. I'd probably spend some on myself in celebration, and then put most of it away."

"What're we talking about?" Roy asked, sliding into the seat next to Ian, lunch in hand.

"What we'll do with the cash if we win," Ian explained, taking a swig of his drink. "You got any plans?"

"Yeah, I'll probably use it to help my mom out. Although on second thought, she'd probably be pissed if she found out how I got it." He laughed.

Jade showed up then, taking the seat between me and Roy, and Daniel followed soon after, the two of them joining the conversation. As Daniel was saying how he'd put the money towards college,my phone vibrated on the table, causing my gaze to wander to the screen. My eyes widened as they read the notification.

"New message," I interrupted, tapping in my password, the others all reaching for their phones at my words.

The message was typical-- another poem.

Unlike the previous times, the warning wasn't a limitation of forty-eight hours.

If school isn't let out by 1:30 PM tomorrow, your group will be disqualified.

"That's like, half of the normal time they've been giving us," Jade complained.

Ian took out a notebook, opening up to a clean page. "Okay, just off the top of our heads, what could get school let out?"

"Gas leak," Roy said immediately, snapping his fingers.

Ian gave him a look somewhere between amusement and exasperation. "We're trying to get school canceled, not kill everyone in it."

"We could fake it," Roy elaborated. "Fake the smell somehow and complain about it. One of us could pretend to pass out from the fumes. They'd evacuate for sure, even if it wasn't confirmed."

Ian nodded, writing it down. "Okay, good point."

"We could flood the place Donnie Darko style," Jade suggested, seemingly only half-serious.

"Nothing illegal, please," Daniel said. "I think we've damaged enough of the school's property."

Ian smirked as he jotted it down on the page. "Just an idea, no harm in that."

"For the senior prank at my cousin's school, he set off smoke bombs in the halls," I remembered. "They let everyone go home because there was so much smoke-- they didn't think it was safe for everyone to be breathing it in all day."

Daniel looked at me dubiously, sighing as Ian wrote it down. "You said your cousin got in serious trouble for that."

"Yeah, but he got caught. We know better than that, we'd take precautions."

"The Seven said it themselves. Security-- and the security cameras-- are everywhere. There's no way we can avoid them both."

"We can cut the power," Jade said, sitting up straighter. "Remember last year, when that snowstorm caused a power outage during school? The generator doesn't kick on for like, five minutes, give or take. We could do what we need in that time frame-- the cameras would be off, and we'd be less likely to get caught in the dark."

"So what, we're supposed to make a blizzard?" Daniel argued.

"Hey, Jade's right. A power outage is perfect," Ian countered. "There's a breaker in the basement we could use. I've had to go down there before to kick on the lights for the locker room-- they run on occupancy sensors and are supposed to turn on whenever someone's inside, but sometimes they just don't work. Not to mention, if we pull the power switch, the generator won't even kick on at all because we're manually turning off the power. We'd just have to get things done before a custodian came down to check it."

"Well who knows how long that would be?"

"Okay, we don't know," Ian admitted, stopping for a minute. He pursed his lips, clearly in deep thought-- one look around the table showed the same look on everyone else's face as well.

After about thirty seconds, he put a finger up, signaling his idea before announcing it. "We can jam the door from the inside. There's a window in the basement-- it's small, but a person could squeeze through if they were skinny enough. Someone could wait outside to help pull them through."

"Escape through the window," Daniel repeated as if it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard.

I faced Jade. "You'd be our best hope, you're the slimmest one here."

Roy grinned at her. "Plus, you've already had practice sneaking out of windows."

I raised my eyebrows, at the obvious inside joke. Jade laughed slightly before pressing her lips together, appearing to think it over for a few seconds before nodding.

"I can do it. But I've never even seen a breaker box before." She looked to Ian. "Will I know what to do?"

"The main power switch is a big red lever on the side of the box," Ian explained. "All you do is pull that down, and everything'll go dark."

He flipped to a clean page and started writing again. "So Jade will take care of the power. Roy, you can pull her through the window, and then the two of you can head to your car, where you'll wait for Maddie, Daniel and I, who can set off the bombs around the school."

I knew Daniel would have a problem with that before he even started talking.

"I don't think so." He shook his head. "The risk of getting caught is too big."

Ian sighed, hesitating for a moment as he tapped his pen against the edge of the table. "Okay. You're the inside man. You any good of an actor?"

"I guess, why?"

"We'll tie it into Roy's plan. You can pretend to have some sort of reaction to the smoke-- you know, coughing fit, trouble breathing, maybe get a little lightheaded. Really ham it up and they'll be even more likely to send everyone home."

There was a bit of silence as Daniel considered it. "Fine. Sure, I can do that."

"The rest of us won't come to school until it's time-- then we can use one of the side entrances. They're never locked."

"And Jade will need to enter wearing some sort of mask, since the cameras won't be off yet," Roy said. "And I don't think I should drive my car to the school. If I'm missing from attendance but someone sees my car, it might give me away."

"We can have some sort of a meeting point," Jade proposed. "Maybe you can park in the woods, like you did for the first challenge-- it's away from the school, but not too far."

"That's good." Ian nodded, looking over the paper before restating the plan out loud. "First, Jade enters the building, goes to the basement, blocks the door, and cuts the power. Roy helps her escape through the window while Maddie and I enter the building and start setting off the smoke bombs, getting out before the power comes back on and before they start to evacuate. Daniel feigns illness, and if the school has any sense at all, they'll end the day early."

"So what about the smoke bombs?" Roy asked. "I figure we can just look up how to make them, but unless someone has really unobservant parents, I don't know where we'll be able to do actually do that."

Jade reached for her phone again, checking the time. "My dad doesn't get home until four-thirty, and my mom get's home a little after five. If we leave now and buy everything we need, that gives us somewhere around four hours. I'm sure we can make enough before then."

"Alright!" Roy enthused, packing up his lunch. When no one seemed to follow, he gestured for us all to hurry up, moving his hands wildly. "C'mon, people, let's go! You can eat on the way, we've got things to do!"