The Book of Dares for Lost Friends (19 page)

The soccer team wouldn't approve. They didn't want her doing anything extracurricular. But she did know some girls who might understand.

At lunchtime on Friday, she went to find the Poetry Club.

“Why, look. It's Val,” Helena said.

“Is it raining?” Olivia said.

“No. She has something to say. Her face is an open book,” Gillian said.

“Which page? Table of contents?” Tina said.

“Acknowledgments?” Gillian said.

“Copyright info?” Helena said.

“Don't torment her. Let her speak,” Olivia said.

Val took out her sandwich. Today there were no googly eyes to make her laugh. No cootie catcher to predict the future. Just a note from her mom.
Love you! Thanks for being you!
Val folded it up quickly and put it away.

“If a picture is worth one thousand words. Dot dot dot,” Helena said.

“Isn't it ten thousand?” Tina said.

“Inflation?” Gillian said.

“Deflation. Since now words can be initials. LOL,” Helena said.

“TTYL,” Olivia said.

“WWVS,” Gillian said.

“Q?” Tina said.

“What Would Val Say?” Gillian said.

They stared at Val, waiting, chins resting on their fists.

“I need to spend the night on Saturday,” Val said.

“We can be at my house,” Helena said.

“Your mom won't mind?” Val said.

“She's dead,” Helena said.

“I'm so sorry.” Val was shocked. This didn't seem like a very good omen.

“It's okay. My sister does the role-play. On one condition.” Helena leaned forward and whispered. “You have to tell me why.”

Val didn't know how to answer that.

“Let me guess. You are evicted,” Tina said.

“Homeless,” Gillian said.

“Orphaned,” Olivia said.

“No. I don't need to, I just need to
seem
to,” Val said.

“Ah. Romance.” They all nodded.

“It's nothing like that.” Val nervously picked the seeds off the crust of her whole-grain sandwich. Then she carefully put each one back in the plastic bag. Lying always made enough of a mess. “I need to go to the obelisk in Central Park at midnight on Saturday and perform a ritual from
The Book of Dares
.”

“Whoa,” Tina said.

“That is the best,” Gillian said.

“I'm writing it down,” Helena said.

“You can't use Val's image,” Olivia said.

“Why not? She'll never make a poem out of it,” Helena said.

“Who is the guy?” Olivia said.

“How did you meet?” Helena said.

“No one worth lying for goes to this school,” Gillian said.

“Maybe it's a girl,” Tina said.

“A girl? Way to go, Val,” Olivia said.

“No,” Val said. “I really am going to the obelisk to perform a ritual.”

The poets raised their eyebrows.

“Do you mean metaphorically?” Helena said.

Val shook her head.

“And the reason is?” Helena said.

“Please don't say it's for your science project,” Tina said.

Val shook her head.

“Then it really is a spell?” Olivia said.

The poets all clasped hands. “We are there.”

“But it's private,” Val said.

“Who cares?” Tina said.

“You've already told us where you're going to be,” Helena said.

*   *   *

Obviously lying was more complicated than Val thought. Before she spoke to her parents, she decided to prepare. She wrote some talking points on a piece of paper. She glanced at it under the table after her family all sat down to dinner.

Drew banged his spoon against all the dishes he could reach. “I have an announcement.”

“What?” Dad grabbed the hand with the spoon. Mom carefully took his fork, too.

“I decided what to be for Halloween.”

This was serious business. If you wore a costume every day of the year, what could you do for Halloween? Last year Drew had driven the whole family crazy with impossible plans. He wanted to be a dragon with actual fire-breathing capabilities. He wanted to be the Staten Island Ferry with cars that could drive off and on his ramp. He wanted to be the universe. No wonder Mom and Dad were worried.

“I considered the Mars Rover,” Drew said.

“Excellent choice. I think even I can make that,” Mom said.

“But I can't be the Mars Rover because some people have forgotten to do something extremely important.” Drew stared at Val.

“What people?” Dad said.

Drew straightened his cape. “Because those people have not kept their promises, I have to be The One Who Saves Lanora.”

“No, you don't,” Val said.

“I do. I'm going to have a special hat with feathers. And I'm going to have a shield and a harness with a big, sharp sword.”

“Why do you need a sharp sword?” Mom didn't like weapons.

“Because I have to punish Werd for doing this to Lanora.”

“Maybe you could let his guardians punish him?” Mom said.

“No. Justice must be done. It isn't fair that Lanora is suffering and nothing bad is happening to Werd.”

Val squeezed the paper with her talking points in her fist. Drew was right. It wasn't fair that the A Team just la-la-la-ed along. The worst that had happened to them was that her mom had scolded them for eating grapes.

“Do you know what karma is?” Dad said.

“Yes. Karma is when you're in a car with your ma. And something makes her mad. Like another car going too fast. And your dad says, ‘Don't worry. They won't get away with that.' And sure enough, you go around another hill and there they are in the ditch,” Drew said.

“Sort of,” Dad said.

“Except I don't get mad,” Mom said.

“Oh, no,” Dad said.

Mom made a face at him. “The point is that you don't have to punish anybody. Karma takes care of that.”

“What about saving? Who takes care of that?” Drew said.

Val moved some food around on her plate.

“Because I've been waiting a very, very, very long time for some saving to happen,” Drew said.

Val didn't like being scolded by her brother. She had been trying her best to get it done. “You won't have to wait much longer.”

“I won't? What are you going to do?” Drew said excitedly.

She obviously couldn't tell him about the ceremony, so she decided to make her other announcement. She glanced at the piece of paper. “On Saturday we're all sleeping over at Helena's so we can work on poetry about issues facing kids today. Kids like Lanora.”

“Poetry?” Mom said.

“Poetry?” Dad said.

“Poetry?” Drew said.

“What's wrong with poetry?” Val said.

“Nothing. It's just so unlike you,” Dad said.

“How do you know what I'm like? I'm in middle school now,” Val said.

“My super mind-reader can probe your secrets.” Drew grabbed the closest fork and spoon and stuck them out from his eyes. He swiveled his head and scanned the room.
“Beep, beep, beep.”
He faced his mom and said in a mechanical voice, “Do not get sauce on your yellow shirt.”

Mom laughed and tried to give him a fork that wasn't dripping.

Drew swiveled around and pointed at Dad. “
Beep, beep, beep.
I wish I had one of those devices.”

Dad laughed. “He's right. I do.”

Then he pointed at Val and said, “
Beep, beep, beep.
Lanora, Lanora, Lanora. Tasman.”

“Who is Tasman?” Mom said.

“Nobody.” Val took her plate into the kitchen and turned on the faucet to wash it.

She heard her parents quizzing Drew. Who was Tasman?

The water spiraled down the drain. Who
was
Tasman? Why had she believed him?

She had followed the instructions. She had gathered the things with fire and spirit. (Well, everything except the gift from her own heart.) But what would she do when she was at the obelisk? What really would happen when the spirit had been restored, when
Archandara, Photaza, Zabythix
?

Would the doors be thrown open? Would Lanora take her place among those who are whole? Or would something else come out from the depths? Something that Tasman feared?

 

Thirty-two

On Saturday morning, Lanora's mom tapped on the door.

“Wake up, sweetie,” Emma said.

Lanora had been awake for hours, trying to figure out what she should do on her last whole day in New York City.

“Time to get up, Lanora,” Emma said.

On Monday morning, Lanora wouldn't hear her mom's voice singing the syllables of her name. Something else would roust her out of bed. A clanging bell? A buzzing alarm? The blast of a bugle?

“You can't lie in bed all morning. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

That wasn't quite true. Today was the last day of her old life. Monday would be when her new life began. When she would put on her uniform and take her place among the other kids who had been sent away.

But today, she didn't have to wear the white button-down blouse or the pleated skirt. Today she could wear whatever she wanted.

She stood in front of her closet. She pulled out the gypsy skirt and the pirate shirt. She held them against her body, but she didn't put them on. Why dress up when she had no place to go? She put them in the large black trash bag that contained more clothes than her suitcase. She was being practical. There wasn't any point in keeping the things she could never wear again.

“Lanora?”

Her mom must have heard her moving about. Lanora put on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and came out of her room.

“There you are. I'm glad you slept late today. Tomorrow we'll have to get an early start.”

Lanora nodded. She went into the kitchen and got a bowl and a spoon.

“I have to go back to the store. The list says seven white blouses and I only bought five. You'd think you could wear something different on the weekend.”

Emma smiled. Lanora smiled.

“I'll be back soon. Can you find some breakfast?” Emma said.

“Sure, Mom.”

After her mom left, Lanora filled a bowl with a brown cereal that was supposed to help her lose weight and fight cholesterol, while supplying all the vitamins a girl needed. She dutifully ate what was good for her.

So what if other girls ate croissants with blackberry preserves as they anticipated a day of seizing whatever pleasures they wanted—provided the security guards weren't looking. Lanora didn't think about those girls whose names began with the letter A. She no longer wondered why they never got caught.

The cupboard door was open. She got up to shut it. Way at the back, in a forgotten zone, was a brightly colored box with a cheerful bird that didn't seem to mind at all that he was burdened by an enormous beak. Toucan Sam.

She reached into the box and took out a few pieces of cereal. She arranged the brightly colored circles into the order for a rainbow. Red orange yellow green blue violet. She ate an orange one. It tasted stale. That wasn't surprising. It had to be many years old. She decided she should preserve this artifact from a different era, from the period
B.D.
—before divorce. She carefully closed the box and carried it into her room. She put it in her suitcase. She would have to hide it somehow. But what if there were no private places? Not even under her bed?

The phone rang.

Her mom often called with a question. Could Lanora take something out of the freezer? Could Lanora see if they needed another roll of toilet paper? Could Lanora measure how much milk was left in the gallon? Could Lanora reassure her mom that she hadn't gotten into any more trouble?

“What, Mom?” Lanora said.

Only it was her father who said, “Lanora?”

“Mom isn't home,” Lanora said.

“I know. She called me from the store.”

Lanora switched ears as she thought about what that meant. “So why are you calling?”

“Do I need a reason?”

Well, okay, he didn't
need
one. But he usually treated her like she was his assistant who had to do certain things for him. Get good grades and exercise and send thank-you notes.

“You always have some kind of agenda,” she said.

“I guess that's why Val said…”

She switched ears again, this time glaring at the phone for a moment, as if it were Val. No, because it wasn't Val. Because Val didn't care that she was going away. Val was too busy with Tasman. “What does Val have to do with it?”

“Nothing. So. How are you?” he said.

How was she? Was there ever a more meaningless question? “Fine.” A firm answer. With a big fat period after it.

“That's good.” He sounded a little wistful.

Then there was silence. So she wondered, was there something else he was trying to say? If so, why didn't he just say it? He never had trouble telling her what to do before.

“Mom got everything on the list.”

“The list?” He sounded puzzled.

“The Greywacke list. I'll be all ready to go tomorrow.”

Suddenly she was eager to get out of there. Away from the tiny kitchen table always set for two. Away from the gap on the shelf where the mug she had decorated for him used to be. Away from the photographs Emma insisted on keeping on the refrigerator. All those little Lanoras. With no teeth. With rolls of fat. With peanut butter in her hair. Worst of all, the ones neatly cut in half. Emma couldn't bear to throw away the whole picture just because it made her sick to look at a certain someone's face.

“You might want to rent Mom a car with GPS. I can help her get to Greywacke, of course, but she'll need it for the return trip. She gets confused when she's upset.”

“I could take you. Unless…”