The Lock-In was an event at Larry Mack Junior Middle School where kids could spend the night in the auditorium and have "fun". It appears in The Ugly Truth.
Shown as a "fun" event, it was proven to be boring and risky for Greg Heffley and many other kids. Though it was technically coed, only about 10% of the students who showed up to the event were girls—also, Greg observes that were too many adults claiming that there was at least one adult for every kid that was there (most of the chaperones were parents while the rest were teachers who Greg figures were forced to be there).
While there were activities and games set up for the students to do, they weren't really all that fun and weren't very appropriate for middle school students:
- There was a ball pit and a drawing table, the former of which was only used by Fregley.
- Most of the games that were done were "ice-breakers," which are supposed to help the students get to know each other, never mind the fact that Greg thinks most of the other students already know each other pretty well (since they've all been going to school together since at least Kindergarten).
Most of the kids who came brought personal electronics with them to keep themselves entertained, but those were eventually confiscated by the chaperones, who forced the kids to be more "social" with each other at the party. Some of the kids also brought snacks and drinks for themselves, but those were ultimately confiscated by the chaperones as well.
One of the games that the students played was "I Never Told Anyone This Before," which Mrs. Carr claimed would help the kids bond with one another, but most kids told bad confessions about themselves. Greg realized that the purpose of the game was to let the chaperones know who the troublemakers were. His suspicions were confirmed when an adult trailed Teddy Caldwell who had graffitied a slur on the school.
There was a game of Guess-Who? which involved a camera, making the students excited to use an electronic again, despite the cameras being the old-film type, which disappointed the students. During a game of "Guess-Who?", in which the purpose is to take a close up picture of a body part of someone in their team and then the other teams have to guess who is in the picture, Greg's team took a picture of Tyson Sanders's bent arm. They had the best picture of the teams but they got into near trouble when a chaperone confuses it for someone's buttocks. When Greg's team members make a run for it, they are all eventually caught, except for Christopher Brownfield. However, they were able to get the teachers to believe it was a bent arm and were let off the hook.
During the night, the boys made fart noises and were still awake. Mr. Palmero told them to just toot behind the curtain after he started getting irritated by it. The boys kept being annoying, and after it reached a point, the auditorium's heat went down and the AC was turned on. Everyone tried everything to get out, like using a spoon (which turned out to be a made-up tale), and calling a tow truck towing Mr. Palmero's car away. At 3 in the morning, a group of angry parents came to the door to get the kids. The parents were trying to call the kids on the phones, but the kids didn't respond because the chaperones had taken their phones. They made their kids leave the Lock-In early.
As Greg and Rowley were the only kids at the Lock-In who didn't have their own cellphones, they were the only ones left once the group of angry parents took their kids home. Greg later thinks that the whole reason the Lock-In existed was to turn kids off from boy-girl parties. However, this does not entirely change his view, as he was later seen excited over Jordan Jury hosting a boy-girl party. What also factors in the main difference is that there's no adult supervision like the Lock-In.
Trivia[]
- The illustration on the Lock-In poster bears a resemblance to characters in Poptropica, a game Jeff Kinney made.
- The chaperones locking the door shut would likely be a massive fire code violation, if not unlawful imprisonment.
Known Participants[]
Students[]
- Greg Heffley
- Rowley Jefferson
- George Fleer
- Nicky Wood
- Christopher Brownfield
- Tyson Sanders
- Albert Sandy
- Fregley
- Jennifer Houseman
- Teddy Caldwell
- Justin Spitzer
- Jeffrey Chang
- David Rosenburg
Chaperones[]
Gallery[]
