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The day of the party was cool and overcast with strong gusts of wind. Elliot prayed there would be no rain. He got there two hours early to sound check with his band. They were all excited about their first gig. Each of them had played live before, but not at an event like this. The local news would be there. Elliot decided he wasn’t going to talk to them. He had stayed off tv so far because he didn’t want the scandal to define him as a person. He hadn’t even dropped out of school, he’d been attending since the first day of the new year. He wanted his music to speak about who he truly was.

“Sounds great,” his dad shouted from the field.

“He does this on purpose,” Elliot said to his fellow band members. “He thinks it’s funny to embarrass me.”

His dad started dancing like, well, like a dad.

“Will you please stop?”

He shook his head. “Too much fun.”

“Okay, you know what.” he slung the guitar off his shoulders and walked off stage.

“Your dad’s hysterical,” the bassist yelled after him.

The band was scheduled to play about an hour after the party started. Elliot decided not to show his face until then. He wanted to play his music before anyone got the chance to accost him and tell him how horrible he was for leading a movement against the education of minors. Hopefully the music would show them who he was at heart. When the party began he was inside the gymnasium sitting in the stands and quietly praying.

Stephen and Olivia had showed up to the event even though they didn’t have children of their own. They were there to do research for the their own festival, to see if the school had any good ideas. Also Stephen was curious about all the droppers and anti-droppers being in the same place. Would a civil war break out? The principal had ample security in place but with that many people you never knew.

The hour had passed and it was time for Elliot to take the stage. Boos and jeers greeted him the second he walked out, along with loud cheers from the younger crowd.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen. We are Down to the Wire, and we have come to rock you.”

“You ruined our kids,” one lady shouted.

“I haven’t ruined anything. Your kids are merely taking a break from school. They will return and catch up just as I did. Please consult your school’s administration for information about homework, tests, and any materials necessary to bring your children up to speed. Oh and children…” the young people hissed and booed sarcastically. Oh, chilldrennnn… ARE WE CHILDREN?” he screamed. “One, two, three, go!” With that the band erupted into their first song and the crowd went insane dancing and screaming. The anti-droppers made their way to the exits but everyone who was left proceeded to have the time of their lives.

“This is what the festival needs to be like,” said Stephen as he twirled Olivia around and around.

People felt free, totally uninhibited, moving to the music like they were alone with nobody there to see them. This was due in part to the fact that the crowd was mostly comprised of teenagers, which gave the adults permission to cut loose. There was a powerful youthful energy throughout the crowd.

The music was electric, distorted upbeat grunge rock, urging the dancers to bounce, spin, and nod their heads to the beat. After forty-five minutes or so Elliot took a break and had some guest musicians from other schools come up on stage.

He was over at the concession stand when it began to happen. Everyone’s feet disconnected with the ground and in an instant they were floating in the air, rising higher and higher until a giant cloud of people hung over the athletic fields. Even with all the miraculous dreams taking place Elliot still couldn’t believe it, no one could. This was actually happening. They could control the direction they went but they couldn’t outright fly. They simply floated around, some dancing in midair, waving to and hugging each other, crying.

“No one’s going to forget this,” said Elliot from a hundred feet above the concession stand.

The party continued for another two hours, when everyone gradually started to descend back down to the ground. This had been one of the happiest experiences of many people’s lives. Elliot thanked God for blessing his party and helping put the dropout scandal to rest. All of the students who dropped out agreed to go back to school now that one of the most fun experiences of their lives had taken place there.

Elliot’s mom knocked on his door before he fell asleep that night.

“You won,” she said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t know how you were going to get out of this mess but somehow you did it.”

“With help from the man upstairs.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

They both laughed.

“Now I just need that to happen at all my shows.”

His mom had a serious look on her face all of a sudden. “Your father and I have stopped doing a lot of things for you since you’ve grown into your teenage years. One of those things is telling you how much we love you. If this whole world were going to crash into the sun, and the only way to save it were to let you go, I would say, “Goodbye, world, my son is far more important.” She kissed him on the forehead. “We love you, boy.”