Skippy Dies

The morning after the Hallowe’en Hop, Acting Principal Greg Costigan receives multiple calls from parents complaining that their children came home covered in vomit. He demands an explanation from Howard.

The novel flashes back to the moment when Howard and Aurelie realize that something is wrong at the mixer. They rush out of Aurelie’s classroom and are terrified to discover that the Hop has turned into an orgy. They fail to restore order to the mixer when Greg returns, manually cutting the power to the hall. Greg forces all remaining students to line up before warning them of the repercussions. He gives instructions to dismiss them, but then a girl starts vomiting, which prompts everyone else to do the same.

Back in the present, Greg deduces that the punch was spiked with sleeping pills. He gets Howard to admit that he and Aurelie left the hall, but Howard and Aurelie lie and say that they were confiscating alcohol from the students.

Greg suspects that Skippy is responsible because of his vomiting incident the week before. He adds that Skippy was absent at the end of the Hop, which supports his theory that he escaped after spiking the punch. Howard offers Carl as an alternate suspect, giving his observations about the boy’s sketchy behavior.