He Took Jude's Money, Ken Won His Heart novel · Chapter 33 of 40
Chapter 33: Balloons
The prom committee met in a basement room of the student union that smelled of glue and old pizza.
There were five of them around a table covered in streamers, and they went silent when Jude walked in.
"I'd like to volunteer," Jude said.
A girl with a clipboard looked at his coat, and at his shoes.
"The Parkers already offered to pay for the hall."
"I know. I'm asking you to say no."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't want to buy anything. I want to blow up balloons." Jude took off his coat. "And I want five minutes at the microphone before the last dance."
The silence lasted a long time.
The boy at the end of the table was Ken's roommate, a stocky guy with a sweatshirt that read ENGINEERING, and he had not looked up from the streamers.
"Five minutes," the girl with the clipboard said slowly. "For what?"
"To say something I should have said at a party."
"To Ken?"
"To everyone who laughed at him on the lawn." Jude's voice was steady. "He's going to be there. I'm going to ask him something else, and I want the people who heard the other thing to hear this."
The clipboard girl looked around the table.
Nobody objected.
"Balloons are by the door," she said. "Pump's broken. Use your lungs."
Jude blew up balloons for two hours.
He got dizzy twice, and a freshman took the pump away from him and got dizzy instead.
At nine, the others drifted out, and the roommate stayed behind, folding streamers into a neat stack with great care.
"You know he doesn't sleep," he said finally.
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