Rafferty stood on the roof. The wind picked up, playing with her hair. The sky was a gray-green soup. The squall they'd predicted would be here in an hour, maybe less.

Most of the girls were working to shore up the Abbey, or bring things inside. The storm would be bad, and this was only the edge of it. Out in the Breaks, it would be much worse.

But apparently time off really meant time off, because B Hall and J Hall hadn't been asked to help. When the first little hail stones landed at her feet, Rafferty went back inside, and made her way to the Common Room, where the rest of her friends were lounging, with some reluctance.

There were no arguments, no tension. It was just stale. When Rafferty entered the room, hardly anyone even looked up. She sat down a few feet from Blaspheme, and got a half-hearted grunt from the gunslinger.

Rafferty wondered how long she had to sit here before she could head back to her room, without seeming rude. She thought everyone else was probably wondering the same thing.

"All right, since we're not supposed to work, and we can't go outside, I have a solution."

Everyone looked up this time. Cody was standing in the doorway holding a game in a box.

"No kissing. No drinking. No stripping. No losers getting punched in the face. Just this game. My room. Five minutes," she said sternly, and then turned and walked out of the room like she'd just solved all of the world's problems.

It was a moment before anyone spoke.

"Sounds boring as hell, but why not?" said Seth, standing up. "There's nothing else to do."

Five minutes later they were all crammed into Cody's room. She had set up two different boards, so that everyone would be able to play. Rafferty was surprised that Cody had two copies of the game, but supposed that she shouldn't be. Cody had piles of stuff from Before. Mostly, Colin dug it up for her.

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"DeCarlo, this is that weird game," whined Blaspheme.

"It's not weird," Cody protested.

"I know I don't always pay attention in Church, but I don't remember the part of history where dogs that were bigger than houses battled gigantic shoes for economic supremacy," said Blaspheme.

"I'm always the dog," said Cody.

"Why, because you're such a bi-" started Blaspheme.

Sheridan glared at Blaspheme, and made a little hissing noise to get her to stop. Blaspheme glared back, theatrically, but she sat down to play.

It was slow at first, mostly because hardly anyone actually knew how to play. Rafferty was pretty sure she wasn't winning, but she was having fun trying to match her hair to the color of whatever space she landed on.

Steadily, though, people loosened up, particularly as they tried to work through the parts of the game that didn't make any sense.

No one could figure out what a bank error was, or how it could or could not be in your favor.

"I sold something called stock," said Brianna. "I guess that's good, because I get money, but i have no idea what I just did."

"Good rifle stock is hard to find. Maybe you had some of that. People would want it," said Blaspheme.

Almost everyone nodded.

"Second place in a beauty contest?" howled Blaspheme. "Second place? What's wrong with these fools. Have they looked at this?"

"You should have worn the other top," said Lena with a straight face. It was a rare joke from Sheridan's stoic Jack.

Blaspheme pretended to be scandalized, but she laughed just as hard as everyone else, and suddenly they all wanted to be stuck in Cody's room, playing this beat up game from Before.

It drew other people too. Burke, who was friendly with Seth, came in and sat next to her while Seth explained the rules. Seth didn't seem to trust the "monocle guy" who was "in everyone's business."

Beckett from H Hall wandered by, her hair soaked from the storm. Beckett was as competitive as anybody, and, after watching for a few minutes, she stood behind Trevor and offered a long list of tips. This thrilled Trevor, and amused Rafferty quite a lot.

There was an extended discussion about Free Parking. They simply couldn't imagine a world in which parking wasn't free. Eventually, Cody decided that if parking wasn't free, then maybe sitting shouldn't be free either.

"You've been on my floor for hours. Everyone owes me a rooster," she declared with a wide grin.

Some things were predictable. Katrin was a sore loser. Blaspheme was a rotten winner. Trevor and Sheridan both loved rules.

Other things were not. Katrin and Blaspheme briefly teaming up to achieve "left side domination." Trevor letting Cody roll the dice for him, and not even complaining when they went off the board. Lena working up the courage to ask Brianna if she would like go pheasant hunting with her sometime.

Brianna seemed confused by the suggestion, but agreed, which caused Lena to beam in a way that Lena simply didn't beam. Rafferty even noticed a surreptitious little hand slap with Sheridan as Lena sat down.

Eventually, Sheridan landed on one of Oscar's blue properties, ending the game on board number two. Blaspheme and Oscar were declared co-winners, and they declined to face each other to determine a champion. Instead, they announced their "economic supremacy" and strutted out of the room.

And so the uneasy truce between B Hall and J Hall, the one that had started when everyone got to chide Rafferty about kissing Vincent, was restored. It would probably always be uneasy, Rafferty knew, but she would enjoy it while it lasted.

During the cleanup, Katrin actually asked Cody if she had any other games, for the next storm day.

Cody lit up.

"There's one about a murder," she said excitedly.

"Well why the hell didn't we start with that one?" complained Seth.