Double Dog Dare

  “You okay?” Francine whispered to her when they were lying on their backs next to each other on their yoga mats, feet up in the air, in the “double leg raise” position.

  Ginny frowned. “I’m trying to think of a good trick,” she whispered back.

  Francine scrunched up her eyebrows.

  “Like in The Parent Trap,” Ginny explained. “A trick to get my dad to come back. I bet the twins in that movie would come up with something real good. I just need to think.”

  “Girls?” Lulu called from the front. “Let’s focus on our breathing, okay?”

  It wasn’t until class was over and Francine was out in the hallway chomping on her granola bar that she realized what she should have told Ginny—that when it came to figuring out the right thing to do to solve problems, Francine was the absolute wrong person to ask. She never knew exactly what to say, or exactly what to do. Maybe the person Ginny should really be asking for help was that great older brother of hers.

  But … where was Ginny? She wasn’t in the bathroom, because Francine had just come from there. And she wasn’t by the front door with the parents. No, there was Mrs. Muñoz, with her coat on, waiting for her. So where could she …

  That’s when Francine spotted it—a figure in the now-empty yoga room. She could see it through the glass wall. Ginny. Lying on the floor. At first Francine thought she was practicing her yoga cool-down, the one Lulu had taught them just that morning. But she wasn’t. Because her eyes were closed, and she was shaking.

  And she was holding an open granola bar.

  “Ginny!” Francine screamed.

  Everything was a blur after that. Really, Francine didn’t remember much at all. But what they told her—her mother and Lulu, after it was over—was that Francine had raced like a freight train to get the grown-ups’ attention. And they told her that Mrs. Muñoz had jabbed something into Ginny’s leg, some sort of medicine she carried in her purse. And then they told her that while Mrs. Muñoz was giving Ginny the medicine, Francine—all on her own, without waiting for anyone—had dug through her mother’s yoga bag and found her cell phone and dialed 911. That’s what they told her.

  What Francine really remembered was afterward, when the paramedics had loaded Ginny into the ambulance and the sirens had faded off into the distance, wailing their way to the hospital. That’s when Francine began to cry, right on the floor of the yoga room, her shoulders heaving in giant sobs.

  Her mother came and sat beside her, folding her legs to squeeze right up next to her. “Shhh,” she said, cradling Francine into her arms and patting her head. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s all going to be okay.” She rocked her softly as she spoke, and Francine let the words melt over her, like butter on toast. “They said she’d be just fine, Francine. The paramedics said she’d be okay. You did exactly the right thing. You knew exactly what to do.”

  24.

  A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

  Kansas was sitting in the padded chair next to Ginny’s hospital bed when she finally woke up. He wasn’t sure at first if she had actually woken up, because it was hard to tell if a person was awake if you weren’t looking at them, and Kansas definitely didn’t want to look at Ginny. She seemed so tiny huddled up under that blue blanket, her face red and patchy and those cords sunk into her arm. He’d pretty much rather look at anything else.

  “Kansas?”

  He finally lifted his head.

  “You’re awake,” he said. He tried to smile, but it was hard. She’d fallen asleep a while ago, about four hours after they got to the hospital, and the doctors said she was perfectly fine, all better, that she just needed to rest, but it wasn’t until Kansas saw her open her eyes again that he realized he’d spent all that time holding his breath, waiting.

  “Where’s Mom?” Ginny asked.

  “Getting coffee. She’ll be back in a sec. Or”—Kansas set his video game on the ground—“I could go get her. Want me to get her?”

  Ginny shook her head. “S’okay.”

  Kansas leaned back in his chair. “You feel all right?” Ginny gave him a lying-down shrug. “I could get you water or something.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, tell me if you want some later.”

  “Hey, Kansas?” Ginny asked. “When’s Dad gonna be here?”

  Kansas turned his video game on, then immediately off again. “What?”

  “Dad.” She was looking at Kansas like he was a moron. “When’s he gonna be here?”

  And all of a sudden, Kansas understood. He understood, and he wished he didn’t. “Ginny,” he said, in his softest, most older-brother voice, “Dad’s not coming.”

  Ginny frowned, and five deep wrinkles appeared on her forehead. “Didn’t Mom call him?” she asked.

  Kansas nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “She called him.” Kansas had been sitting right in that chair when their mom had called from her cell phone. She’d gone in the hallway so Kansas wouldn’t hear the conversation, but he heard it anyway. It was a lot of “but you need to be here” and “your business can wait!” and “she’s your daughter, for Christ’s sake, Nick.” And when she’d finally come back in the room, she’d just looked at Kansas, her lips tight together, and shook her head slowly.

  “But …,” Ginny started. But she didn’t finish her sentence. Even Kansas knew there was nothing that came after that “but.”

  “That’s why you did it, huh?” Kansas asked.

  “What?” Ginny said.

  “The granola bar. That’s why you took a bite. So Dad would come back, like last time.”

  Ginny scrunched her knees up under the covers, two blue lumps, and hugged them close to her chest. But she didn’t say anything, just began to sniffle.

  Kansas set his video game on the floor again and crawled into the bed next to Ginny, on top of the covers. He snuggled in close, resting her tiny rat’s nest of a head on top of his shoulder.

  “That was pretty stupid, you know,” he told her, patting down her hair.

  Ginny sniffled.

  “You’re pretty much the world’s biggest moron.” He smoothed her hair as best he could, and Ginny snuggled back into him and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, Kansas?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s never gonna come back for real, is he?”

  “No,” he told her. “I don’t think he is.”

  Ginny wiped her nose. “Good,” she said.

  Kansas pulled away to look at her.

  “We don’t need him,” she said. “Do we, Kansas? We don’t need anybody.”

  “Yeah,” Kansas replied. He went back to petting her hair. “We’re going to be just fine.”

  They were still sitting like that, snuggled in close, when Ginny suddenly bolted up in bed and shouted, “Hey, she came!”

  “What?” Kansas asked. He followed Ginny’s gaze to the hallway, but he didn’t see anything. “Who came? What are you talking about?”

  “Franny,” Ginny said. “My friend from yoga class. I saw her hair, just now in the hallway.”

  “Franny?”

  “Yeah. You know her, from the announcements. She’s the girl who saved my life.”

  Ginny was talking gibberish. Kansas was just standing up, to go find their mom or a nurse or anyone, when he saw her. Stepping into the room, holding a bouquet of flowers, her green hair as bright as a traffic light.

  “Francine?”

  “Kansas?”

  Ginny clapped her hands together. “Oh, good!” she said. “You’re friends already!”

  Francine dropped her flowers on the floor.

  25.

  A unicycle

  It wasn’t like Francine became insta-friends with Kansas or anything. Being able to stand someone was not the same as liking them. But the fact was that Francine was able to stand Kansas after that. Partly it was because she knew that Ginny was his little sister, and it was hard to hate someone with a sister that cute. But it was also because they shared something—even if K
ansas didn’t know they shared it. His parents were getting a divorce, just like Francine’s were. Somehow that one little fact changed everything.

  The weirdest thing, though, was that suddenly it seemed like Kansas was able to stand her too. Because before school on Monday morning, when Francine saw Kansas in front of the main steps, and she shuffled her feet and said, “Hey, um, good morning,” he didn’t ignore her or shout at her or do any of the things she thought he might. He just said, “Yeah. I mean, hi.” And then at lunch, when Luis insisted they have an emergency meeting of the Media Club, Francine managed to sit right across the table from Kansas without even rolling her eyes once. It took a lot of effort, but she didn’t. She thought for a second that Kansas maybe even sort of grinned at her. But he might have just had to burp.

  “All right,” Luis said, his elbows bent at sharp angles on the lunch table. “We need a plan.”

  Natalie peeled the aluminum foil off a chocolate pudding cup and slid it across the table to Alicia, along with a plastic spoon. Francine ignored them as she dug into her leftover spinach-wrapped flounder with lentils, smiling like mushy fish was her favorite food in the world. “A plan for what?” she asked.

  “To buy a new camera,” Luis told them. “Media Club is canceled until we get one, right? And Miss Sparks says the club doesn’t have any funds. So we need to figure out how to raise the money ourselves. I did research, and the cheapest one that will work costs a hundred and seventy-nine dollars.”

  “A hundred and seventy-nine dollars? How are we supposed to get that?” Emma said. “It sure is a cucumber.”

  “Huh?” Francine asked.

  “You mean a pickle,” Alicia said to Emma. “It sure is a pickle.”

  “Yeah,” Emma replied. “A pickle.”

  It had been strange not meeting for Media Club that morning. Francine had arrived at school at 8:05, just like everyone else. She’d walked through the crowded hallways, just like everyone else, and she’d sat down in her regular seat, just like everyone else. And just like everyone else, she’d listened to Mrs. Weinmore drone out the announcements over the intercom. Francine had missed sitting behind that camera more than she’d thought she would.

  “What about a bake sale?” she asked. “Or a car wash?”

  Natalie shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “My sisters are always having to do bake sales and car washes for cheerleading, and it’s tons of work, and they barely even make any money.”

  “Oh.” Francine’s face dropped.

  Brendan crushed his empty soda can with his fist, then tossed it over all their heads, toward the trash can at the far end. It bounced off the rim of the trash can and across the cafeteria floor. “I think Francine and Kansas should have to pay for the camera,” he said, not moving a muscle to pick up his can. “They were the ones who did the dares, and it was a dare that made the camera break.”

  “Yeah,” Andre agreed. “Francine and Kansas should pay for it.”

  “No way!” Francine said. “I don’t have a hundred and seventy-nine dollars.”

  “Me, neither,” Kansas replied. “I don’t even have a hundred and seventy-nine cents.”

  “Anyway, Brendan,” Alicia sneered, “it’s not their fault it broke. Emma was the one who barfed on it.”

  “Hey!” Emma cried. “I couldn’t help it. I got sick. And anyway,” she said to Alicia, “if you hadn’t gone to the dentist, then none of this would’ve happened in the first place.”

  Natalie reached across the table and patted Emma’s arm. Alicia’s, too. “It’s neither of you guys’ fault,” she said. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Brendan’s. It was his dares that got everyone barfing. And he gave them those dares without even letting us vote on them first.”

  “Yeah,” Emma said. “We were supposed to vote. You totally cheated, Brendan.”

  “You’re just mad because you broke the camera,” Brendan shot back.

  “Did not!”

  “Did too!”

  And just like that they were grumbling and growling, every single one of them, pointing fingers at each other and being, Francine felt, utterly unproductive.

  “Look,” she finally cut in, “it’s no one’s fault. We all just have to work together to fix it. Right?” Everyone reluctantly mumbled in agreement. “We need to think of something really good, that’s all. Some way that can definitely earn money.”

  They all became silent, thinking.

  Suddenly, Luis slapped a hand on the table. “I’ve got it!” he said. “The talent show!”

  Francine’s head snapped up. “What?”

  “The prize,” Luis said. “For winning the talent show. It’s two hundred dollars.”

  Emma clapped her hands together. “That would be enough to buy a new camera!”

  “Yeah,” Francine said slowly. “It would. But only if we win. Some of the kids who compete are amazing.”

  “That’s true,” Natalie said with a frown. “Remember last year, that kid who played the piano with his feet?”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Emma put in, “or Tanya and Teresa’s gymnastics act? They did, like, ten one-handed cartwheels in a row.”

  “Yeah,” Francine agreed. “And ours would have to be better.”

  “Well, one of us has to be able to do something,” Alicia said. “Can anyone here do anything really cool? Like juggle fire or ride a unicycle? Mr. Paulsen has a unicycle in the drama room, I’ve seen it. Someone could ride that, all around the stage.”

  Around the table, there were slow shakes of heads. No one, it seemed, knew how to do anything cool. They were all quiet again, until …

  “Francine and Kansas should do it.”

  It was Brendan who said it. Francine snapped her head in his direction, and she saw it—that mischievous smile of his that was becoming all too familiar.

  “What?” she cried.

  “Huh?” Kansas spurted.

  “It’s perfect,” Brendan said as the other members of the Media Club turned his way. “I mean, right now you two are tied, right? Eight to eight. Because Kansas didn’t finish the last dare?” Kansas grumbled into the neck of his sweatshirt, but Brendan kept right on talking. “So, we should have one move dare. As, like, a tie-breaker. Whoever wins the talent show wins the war and gets to be the news anchor. What do you think?”

  All around the table, the members of the Media Club nodded.

  “Sounds fair to me,” Alicia said.

  “Good idea, Brendan,” Emma agreed.

  “I think it sounds brilliant,” Andre put in.

  “Let’s make it official,” Luis said. “All in favor?”

  Everybody except Kansas and Francine raised their hands. The dare was officially on.

  On the way home from school, Francine convinced her dad to swing by her mom’s house to pick up Samson. That guinea pig, Francine realized, was her ticket to winning the talent show on Friday. What judge wouldn’t vote for an adorable furry creature with big sappy brown eyes? Especially if he could do lots of great tricks, like leap over walls and crawl through mazelike tubes.

  Only … Samson hadn’t quite seemed to figure out that was what he needed to be doing.

  “Aw, come on, Samson!” she cried when Samson got lost in his tunnel for the fourth time. He’d been in there for five minutes, snuffling and snorting and generally doing everything but coming out the other end. “We’re never going to win if you keep that up.” So far the only thing Samson had done correctly every single time was walk in a straight line to get a guinea pig treat. And no judge was going to give her two hundred dollars for that.

  Francine stuffed her hand into the tube and coaxed Samson out. He snuggled his warm body against her palms, cute as ever, with his tufts of fur peeking out between her fingers. But Francine was still mad at him.

  “Maybe he’s just nervous,” Francine’s father piped up. He was sitting on the couch, drawing in his sketchbook. He’d been working on a new machine—Francine had taken a peek in the car. This one would be thirty
steps long, and end with a carton of milk tipping over into an empty glass. “It’s a lot of pressure on the little guy,” he said, “trying to win a talent show. Maybe Samson just has stage fright. Some of us were never meant to be in the spotlight.”

  Francine’s father grinned at her, like he thought he was being funny. But Francine didn’t grin back. She was still mad at him too.

  After dinner—pizza from Carlino’s, again—Francine walked across the street to Kansas’s house. Mainly, she wanted to see how Ginny was doing. Partially, she also wanted to try to wiggle some information out of Kansas and find out what he was planning to do for the talent show.

  When she rang the doorbell, a woman answered who must’ve been Kansas’s mom.

  “Um, hi,” Francine said. “I’m Francine, and—”

  But she wasn’t able to finish her sentence, because Kansas’s mother immediately wrapped her up in a bear hug.

  “Thank you, Francine,” she said when she’d finally let go. “For everything. I was so sorry I missed you at the hospital. I really wanted to meet you. Thank you for being such a good friend. To both Ginny and Kansas.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Francine said. “No problem. I—” But Kansas’s mother was back to hugging her again.

  After what felt like a century, Kansas’s mom finally stopped hugging Francine and led her through the house, past a beat-up corduroy couch and a tiny Christmas tree bursting with ornaments. “Ginny’s resting right now,” she told Francine as they walked. “But I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you.”

  “Franny!” Ginny shouted the second she laid eyes on Francine. She was in bed, tucked beneath her covers, but she looked a million times sunnier than she had the day before. Scraps of green construction paper were strewn across her bed, and she was wielding a pair of scissors, which Francine carefully avoided as she bustled across the room for a hug. “Your hair is starting to fade,” Ginny told Francine, squeezing her in tight.

  “Really?” Francine plucked a strand of green hair away from her face and examined it. “Huh. Maybe it is.”

  “You gonna dye it back?” Ginny said. “I really like it green.”