Double Dog Dare (14 page)

Miss Sparks looked up from her desk. “I’d think you’d be a colonel, at least,” she said, eyes resting on the sign at the top of the trash can.

“Huh?” Francine asked. Miss Sparks smiled and shook her head slightly. Francine shrugged, then erased the six on her corner of the board and changed it to a seven. Kansas had already written in his eight. At this rate, she’d never win.

There were over two hundred different kinds of mattresses at Mattress King—that’s what the sign said out front. Francine flopped down on one labeled “100% Memory
Foam” and called to her father four mattresses away, “I thought you said we could get sundaes!” They’d been furniture shopping for two hours already, and Francine was pooped.

Her father walked across the store and sat down on the mattress Francine was on. “Right after this,” he said, bobbing up and down on it a little to get a feel for it. “I promise.”

“Can’t we just go now?”

“I need to get a mattress first. Sleeping on the floor is rough at my age. And you need a real bed too.” He leaned back onto the mattress, his feet still flat on the floor and his hands folded over his stomach. “This one’s not bad, right?”

Francine looked straight up at the ceiling. When her voice came out, it was so ribbon-thin, Francine wondered for a moment if it was even hers. “Can’t you just come home?” she asked.

“Francine,” her father said. “Pea pod.” Francine turned to look at him, and he patted the mattress between them. “String cheese time,” he told her.

Francine bit her bottom lip. She did not want to laugh.

“Come on,” he said, coaxing. “String cheese!” He scooted up on the mattress until only his feet were hanging off. “I can’t do it by myself, you know.”

When Francine had been super little, four or five maybe, she used to come into the living room when her dad was stretched out on the couch watching TV, and she’d lie down flat right next to him, squeezed in tight so she wouldn’t fall off the side. It used to be one of her favorite things to do, squeeze next to her dad on the couch and stay like that, watching soccer or the news or stupid alien movies on TV. Her dad said they must look so silly, like one long stick of string cheese. It got so every time the TV came on, they’d both shout “string cheese!” and race to the couch to see who could get there first.

Her father raised an eyebrow at her, the right one.

Francine sniffled up the tears that had been threatening to come out, wiped her nose, and laughed. Then she scooted up parallel to her dad, her side squeezed up tight against his, and her arms straight at her sides just like his were. “String cheese,” she said.

“
String cheese!” they both shouted together. A couple at the end of the store looked over at them, and they both burst into giggles.

“Look,” her father said after a good minute of string cheesing. “I’m in my own place for good now. I am. And I think you know that.”

“But what if …?” Francine ran through all the
Parent Trap
scenarios in her head. What if her parents met up again on a yacht? What if they were forced to spend more time together? Then wouldn’t they fall back in love? Francine just needed to figure out exactly what to do to make it happen. “What if you change your mind?” she said at last.

Her father offered her a sad sort of smile. “I won’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, pea pod. I know that’s not what you want to hear. But your mother and I are getting a divorce.”

Suddenly Francine didn’t want to string cheese anymore. She sat up and pulled herself off the mattress, wandering over to another aisle.

“Francine!” Her father got up and followed her.

“You should get this one,” she told him, pointing to the
mattress in front of her. “I mean, it’s pink and everything, but you’d never know when you put the sheets on it.”

“Francine,” her father said again.

“And it’s on sale.”

“Francine.”

Why did he think that if he just said her name a whole bunch, everything would be okay? It wouldn’t be okay. They were shopping for mattresses, for goodness’ sake. Nothing would ever be okay again. She spun around on her heel and glared at him. “I want my ice cream sundae now,” she said.

“Francine, listen to me.”

“No.”

“Francine.”
He picked her up and set her—
plop!
—on top of the pink mattress, and he took hold of both of her hands. She wiggled free of him, but he grabbed her hands again and held on until she finally looked at him. “Francine,” he said. “You’re a smart girl. And I know that this is hard on you, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Francine. But I think, in the end, it really is the best thing we can do for you, to give you two happy parents, instead of two just sort-of-fine ones.”

“
But …” Francine sniffled. “We were happy.” She looked down at the stitching on the mattress, the way the lines crossed each other, breaking the surface up into perfect diamonds. “I thought we were happy before.”

Her father took a moment to think about that. He let go of her hands and sat down next to her, but he didn’t talk, not for a long time. Then, finally, he said, “We were, mostly.” He paused and smoothed his hand across the top of her hair then, the way he used to when she was little. “But I don’t think there’s just one kind of happiness. You and I and your mother, I think we need to find a different way to be happy.” He tucked a loose strand of green hair behind her ear. “Does that make sense, pea pod?”

Francine fingered the stitching on the mattress, letting the words sink in.
A different way to be happy.
Was it possible to be happy with two different houses, two different beds?

“Maybe,” she said. She puffed out her cheeks. “I guess.”

“You ready for ice cream?”

“But I thought …” Francine looked around at the hundreds of mattresses.

“
I can sleep on the floor a few more days before my back gives out, I think. What I
really
need right now is some rocky road. What do you say?”

At that, Francine gave him the tiniest smile. “With hot fudge,” she said.

18.

A BLUE SWIVELY CHAIR

Kansas was in for a surprise when he arrived at Media Club on Friday morning.

“Club members,” Miss Sparks announced, “Alicia won’t be here for the announcements today. Her father just called, and she has an early dentist’s appointment. So I’ve decided that this morning we will have both Kansas and Francine try out the news anchor’s desk.”

Kansas was so busy watching Brendan slap his desk that it took him a moment to register what Miss Sparks had just said. News anchor? Him?
Today?

Miss Sparks smiled at both Kansas and Francine in turn. “
It will be good practice for whichever one of you ends up with the job. So!” She clapped her hands. “We have a lot of work to do, don’t you think? Let’s get bustling!”

And what a lot of bustling there was. While everyone else went about their normal jobs, Kansas and Francine got set up behind the desk. Francine grabbed Miss Sparks’s big blue swively chair before Kansas even had a chance to say he wanted it, but Brendan and Andre helpfully offered to borrow one from Mr. Paulsen next door so that Kansas could have a nice, big, twirling one too. Once he was seated, he and Francine began splitting up the announcements.

“Do you want to read this one?” Kansas asked Francine, flipping through the papers. “About the talent show?” He wanted to give her all the ones with words he wasn’t sure how to pronounce.

But Francine wasn’t paying attention. “Emma!” she hollered, jumping out of her chair so quickly it toppled over. “That’s not how you turn on the camera! No, it’s not
that
button, it’s … Here, let me show you.”

While Francine taught Emma how to use the camera, Natalie came over to make Kansas “camera ready.” This
mostly consisted of pushing the hair on top of his head from one side to the other.

“You sure you don’t want any lip gloss?” she asked.

“Uh, no.”

“But it’ll make your lips shinier.”

Kansas told Natalie that he was perfectly happy with his unshiny lips, thank you.

After the bell rang and the other students in Miss Sparks’s class began to trickle in and take their seats, Francine finally came back to sit beside Kansas. But she didn’t stay long.

“Emma, no!” she hollered again. “I
told
you! That’s not how you zoom!”

Kansas shook his head and turned his focus to the papers in front of him, reading each one over carefully so he’d be sure to say everything correctly. His palms were itchy. He’d never been on camera before. What if he did something embarrassing?

“Two minutes!” Miss Sparks called.

Luis came back into the room and handed the last-minute announcements to Brendan, who looked at them
quickly, then began scribbling notes on top. Francine returned to the news desk so Natalie could prep her, but after squinting at her for ten seconds, Natalie announced that there was “nothing to do for green hair,” and wandered off. Francine scowled into her stack of papers. Kansas did his best to ignore her. He’d rather share a news desk with a warthog.

The bell rang.

“Places, everyone!” Emma shouted, clearly enjoying her new role behind the camera. Kansas ran his tongue over his teeth, checking to make sure he didn’t have any leftover oatmeal stuck there. Beside him, Francine sat up a little straighter. For someone who’d been trying to be news anchor so badly, Kansas thought, she looked downright petrified. Kansas smiled.

“Ten seconds!” Emma hollered.

That’s when Kansas noticed Andre, walking right toward him.

“Is something wrong?” Kansas asked. “Is there a problem with the lights?”

Andre placed the stack of last-minute announcement on
top of Kansas’s pile of papers. But he didn’t answer his question. He turned, instead, to Francine. “We double dog dare you …,” Andre began.

“And five!”
Emma screeched.

“… to pick your nose …”

“Four!”

“… on camera …”

“Three!”

“… and …”

“Two!”

“… eat it.”

“ROLLING!”

Andre turned and raced away. The light on the camera turned green.

Francine was speechless. She sat, staring at the camera, her mouth hanging open. It was hard to tell if she had stage fright or was still in shock about the dare. Maybe a little of both.

But Kansas, surprisingly, found that he felt cool as a cucumber.

“Good morning, Auden Elementary,” he said, smiling
into the camera. He turned his focus away from Francine and thought instead about what he was supposed to say. “Happy Friday. Alicia’s out sick, so Francine and I are going to be your co–news anchors for the day.” This wasn’t so bad. Nope, not at all. “I’m Kansas Bloom.” He turned to Francine.

“Um …,” Francine said slowly. Her hands were shaking on top of the desk, and her face, Kansas couldn’t help noticing, was almost as green as her hair. Was she going to do it? Would she really do the dare?

Slowly, Francine raised her hand to her face.

She
wouldn’t,
Kansas thought. Not in front of the whole school.

She reached one outstretched finger to her nose.

No
way
.

She took a deep breath …

And, just like that, Francine Halata picked her nose.

And ate it.

The room exploded with shouts and screams and laughter. The whole
school
exploded. You could hear it out the door, echoing down the hallway.

Wow,
Kansas thought. That had actually been sort of impressive.

At the far end of the room, Miss Sparks had her lips drawn into a tight line. It wasn’t a frown, but it definitely wasn’t a smile either. Kansas waited until the ruckus around him had died down to a low rumble, and then he looked at the stack of the papers in front of him, to start reading the announcements.

But what was on top of Kansas’s papers wasn’t an announcement.

It was a note, on a small scrap of paper, written in Brendan’s pointy, thin scrawl.

Kansas gulped. Spinning was the one thing he wasn’t good at.

But a dare was a dare.

Without a further second of hesitation, Kansas picked up his stack of announcements, tucked his toes to the ground, and spun himself around in his swively chair.

“
The PTA is having a bake sale!” he announced as he twirled. One twirl, two twirls, threefourfivesix … His brain was already a jumble of dizziness, but he wouldn’t stop. He
couldn’t
. “Next Friday, before the winter talent show.” Eleven twirls. Twelve. The dippy bird perched on the edge of the desk was a blur of red and blue. Thirteen. Fourteen … Kansas lost count. Every time his eyes whirled past Miss Sparks, he could see her shaking her head into her hands, but still Kansas kept spinning. “Fifty cents for cupcakes, a quarter for cookies. Francine, over to you.”

“Uh …” Even now that she was done with her dare, Francine’s voice sounded trembly. She looked down at her own stack of papers. “Congratulations to Dylan Kutner for winning the spelling bee last night. Dylan will be competing in the semifinals next month, so everybody wish him luck. Kansas, back to you.”

Was it Kansas’s turn to talk again already? He took a deep breath and, stomach beginning to churn like a dishwasher, he read from his sheet of paper.

“The school talent show is coming up next—”

Kansas’s stomach gave a threatening lurch. But still he kept spinning. Spinning and reading.

“
The talent show is next Fri—”

A sour tang crept into the back of his throat. But still he continued to spin.

“Friday. The show is next Friday. Come watch your schoolmates compete in all sorts of acts. The winning act will get two hundred—”

Kansas tried to stop it. He really did.

But there, in front of the camera …

… in front of the school …

… his vision shifted into sparks and darkness …

… and, still spinning …

… Kansas Bloom barfed up his breakfast. Bananas and oatmeal, and a glass of OJ. It all came out in a spin, spewed on the desk, on the ground, all around him in a perfect circle.