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\f0\fs24 While her parents are out, Emma sneaks into their bedroom to phone Susanna, Mai Lin, Hannah, and two others, methodically building a vetted fifteen-name boys list for her party through a series of negotiations that cut Tyler Marsh and added Daniel Park and Harrison Webb; she ends the session unresolved and silently resistant after realizing her mother's rule about counting the boy cousins within the boys total could force three cuts she refuses to pre-emptively accept, and she formulates a logical counter-argument\u8212?cousins as family versus guests as a distinct category\u8212?to deploy when her mother returns.
}