The Book of Dares for Lost Friends (3 page)

Mau's tail knocked over a small statue. The Captain stood it up again.

“I bet I can get more than ten thousand. It's in excellent condition. Considering that it's sixteen hundred years old.”

The man and the cat stared at each other. The cat won the contest.

“There aren't that many treasures left in the box. Why shouldn't I sell the bowl? His grandfather is dead.”

Mau looked toward the entrance. A moment later, the bolt rasped as it slid back. The hinges creaked. The door opened. A boy's voice said, “Captain?”

The Captain put the letter inside the pocket of his blue coat and carefully fastened as many of the brass buttons as he could. “Shhh,” he cautioned Mau.

Mau resumed her nap. No one needed to tell her to be silent.

 

Four

Lanora's silence continued all throughout Thursday. Behind the curtain of her sleek hair, she thought great thoughts. She refused to share any of them. Like a cat, she observed everything and said nothing. Not a “thank you” when the girl next to her picked up Lanora's pencil before it could roll completely out of range. Not a “hi” when she encountered someone that she knew. Not an “excuse me” when she stepped on the heel of a boy who wasn't walking as fast as Lanora. Few ever did.

Candidate 2 was disqualified when he wore a shirt branded with the name of a department store. Candidate 3 was disqualified for shrieking when she laughed. Candidate 1, whose name was Helena, was still possible. She hadn't embarrassed herself in math class. Candidates 4, 5, and 6 weren't in any of Lanora's classes, but she had learned that Alicia, Anna, and Ariel were called the A Team—and not just because all their names began with the letter A.

On Friday, Lanora's shirt was red, her apple was golden, and so her book had to be blue. The color wheel would wobble if it didn't balance. She sat at the edge of the third table on the left side of the cafeteria. She was glad this was the last day she would have to eat alone.

“Don't you love those poems? Everybody reads
Wuthering Heights,
but I like Emily's poetry better,” Helena said.

Lanora couldn't admit she had chosen the book for its cover. She smiled inscrutably at what she was supposed to have been reading. But she was really studying the group of girls. One had gone to Lanora's elementary school. Lanora had never known what to think of Gillian. But as she stood with these other girls, her clunky boots made sense. Another girl had short black hair with bangs angled severely across her forehead. The last girl had short dreads that almost prevented her from being pretty.

Helena took the book and turned the pages quickly until settling upon a poem. “‘No coward soul is mine/No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere/I see Heaven's glories shine/And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear.'”

“What does she mean by ‘heaven's glories'?” Gillian said.

“She means what people always mean. Shafts of light piercing the clouds,” said the girl with black bangs.

“Don't despise beauty,” said the girl with dreads.

“Who cares about that part? I'm more interested in anything that arms you from fear,” Helena said.

Lanora wondered what would arm her from fear? She remembered the butterfly dangle she had buried in the park. Was it a paradox that Val still carried hers, when Val had no need of a talisman?

“I'd rather be fearless,” said the girl with bangs.

“You are, Tina,” Helena said.

Lanora took a tiny bite of her golden apple. She wasn't going to make her choice until Monday. But she liked how bold Helena was. She seemed proud to be intelligent.

When the bell rang, Lanora tossed her apple into the large gray trash barrel and walked along with the girls.

“I think you're in my math class,” Helena said.

Lanora shrugged. “If you can call it a class.”

“More like an assemblage of primates,” Helena said.

“Don't be so insulting to the Bonobos,” said the girl with dreads.

“Olivia adores Bonobos,” Tina said.

“Just saying the name makes her happy,” Gillian said.

“It's a poem all by itself. You try it. Bo-no-bo,” Olivia said.

Lanora politely declined. She wasn't quite ready to join in their games—yet.

Then something totally unexpected happened. As they all left the cafeteria, Lanora was separated from their group by a triangle of three other girls with blonde hair as sleek as helmets. Perhaps that was what armed them from fear?

The A Team stared at Lanora. Their mouths smiled, but not their eyes.

“We wondered if you wanted to go shopping,” Alicia said.

“We think you might be good at it,” Ariel said.

Lanora braced herself for a wicked twist. What were they talking about? Was this an invitation? If so, to what? Shopping seemed far too mundane for them. Skydiving was more like it. Or tightrope walking. Or surfing on top of a subway car. Some feat of daring that would prove their power.

It seemed safest to dislike everything. Lanora tilted her head and let her hair fall in front of her left eye. “I hate shopping. It's boring.”

“Not this kind,” Anna said over her shoulder as the A Team walked on.

The girls in dark clothes had waited. Lanora was going to the aforementioned math class. She could have walked with Helena and resumed their conversation about shields and Bonobos and the storm-troubled world. Instead Lanora paused for a sip of water. The drinking fountain offered little more than a dribble. But she continued to walk alone for the remainder of the day.

*   *   *

School ended. Students spewed from the building as if from an agitated bottle of seltzer. Lanora lingered inside, where she knew Val wouldn't be. She didn't think Val would like the A Team. It was true that Val had blonde hair like theirs, but that was the only thing they had in common. Luckily the A Team emerged from the girls' bathroom. They barely looked at Lanora. They just assumed she would fall into step with them as they glided out the door and along the sidewalk, on their way to go shopping.

This was New York City. There was no shortage of stores. Monstrous department stores. Trendy boutiques. Exotic emporiums. Each neighborhood had a different delight. SoHo. Fifth Avenue. Even nearby Columbus Avenue had plenty to offer, if they didn't want to take the time to go across town.

Shopping was a fantasy for Lanora. She tried on personas as well as clothes. Sometimes she picked the ugliest thing off the rack and found a way to make it work. She didn't think she would propose that game to the A Team. They were the types who always had their own plan.

They passed the classic jean store, the designer knock-off store, the hat store, the ethnic store—and stopped in front of a grocery store.

Lanora waited. Were they pausing to check their phones? Get out a piece of gum? Adjust the swoop of their hair?

The A Team stared at Lanora. Lanora had never seen such a collection of inscrutable masks. Such narrow noses. Such delicately arched eyebrows always on the verge of being raised.

They moved a little closer to the grocery store. The door sensed their presence and opened for them.

Why would they want to go shopping here? Lanora tightened her smile to hide the fact that she had no idea what they wanted her to do. As they watched her, waiting, Lanora began to understand. The whole point was that they knew the answers
and
the questions; nobody else did. Lanora was smart, however. She could figure it out. First she had to discover if she was being initiated into their group—or set up for a huge humiliation.

Lanora had seen a lot of other abuse at school. Victims tripped on the stairway. Crammed in a locker. Shoved facedown in a toilet. The members of the A Team were too cold to do anything overtly cruel. They couldn't care less about you. Well, so what? Lanora had endured plenty of indifference from her father.

She briskly entered the grocery store. To browse? No thrill in that. To buy? Obviously not. That left only one possibility. She couldn't even pause to consider what she was doing. Or why she even wanted to be one of them. Her only thought was that this was a game she intended to win.

She had in mind a jar of baby food. Taking it would be her comment on their game. You are babies, she wanted to tell them. She found the shelf lined with little glass containers that had adorable pictures on the labels. Unfortunately the aisle was crowded with moms smiling at their actual babies and boys putting more jars on the shelves. Lanora felt the clock ticking. Like all games, there would be a time limit. She couldn't wait until she could be unobserved. She had to go to Plan B.

She headed for the mounds of colorful fruit in the produce section. She wanted to take an apple. A for apple. A for A Team. The red would have matched her shirt. It would have been perfect.

Then, just at that crucial moment, she saw Val's mom enter the store.

 

Five

It was Friday. The first week of school was over. Val had learned the shortest distance between her classes, which drinking fountain spouted the highest, which teachers would appreciate a little joke and which were best suffered in silence. Val had joined a soccer team. They ate lunch together near the dog run. Val had no shortage of new friends—including some who liked to get scratched behind the ears. And yet, mysteries remained. Why was there so much homework? Why were some stairways empty and others clogged with kids? And why didn't she ever see Lanora? Was it possible that Lanora had stopped going to school?

After dinner, Val's parents suggested a nighttime walk. Drew immediately put on his cape and grabbed his staff.

He ran down the four flights of stairs and out the door to hide behind the box elder. As Val came outside, he pointed his staff at her. She staggered and fell to the sidewalk.

Drew sighed. “That wasn't the death ray.”

“Then what was it?” Val said.

“The transporter. I sent you back in time so you are in elementary school just like me. Ha ha!” He laughed triumphantly and shook his staff in the air.

“Good,” Val said.

“You don't mind?” Drew sounded disappointed.

“Nope,” Val said.

“Why not? What's wrong with middle school? Is there something I should know?” Drew said.

Val shook her head. She didn't want to talk about how Lanora was acting. She didn't want to get Drew started. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

“Really? Curiosity kills cats?” Drew said.

“Of course not,” Dad said.

“That's a relief. Because I'm curious about everything. I even want to know the things I don't know I don't know. But I'm especially curious about whether Lanora escaped from the evil Werd.”

“What about Lanora?” Mom said.

“Nothing,” Val said. When the light changed, she stepped down from the curb. Middle school did have one advantage—she could cross the street by herself. She didn't want to give her mom the chance to ask uncomfortable questions, like why Lanora didn't come over anymore. She used to practically live at their apartment.

“Werd is my diabolical enemy. As you know, his name is my name spelled backwards,” Drew said.

“We know,” Mom and Dad said.

“Werd kidnapped Lanora on the first day of school and took her to his secret dungeon carved into the bottom of a cliff right next to the ocean. When the waves come crashing in at high tide, you can't get there at all.”

“Not at all?” Dad said.

“Except if you study the tidal charts. Which I have done. So I can help Val.”

“With algebra?” Val said.

“What's algebra?” Drew said.

Val hid her smile. Oh, to be innocent again.

They had come as far as M.S. 10. Val hardly recognized her school. The dark courtyard was so unlike the chaos of the day, the building seemed to possess a surreal power.

“That evil Werd has cast a spell upon Lanora. That's how he keeps her prisoner.”

“What kind of spell?” Mom said.

“A bad one. You see, she
thinks
she is free. She doesn't even know that Werd has cast a spell upon her. But I know. And I will rescue Lanora!”

Drew raised his staff and ran back and forth in front of the building, shouting huzzahs. He dragged the staff along the bars in the fence until it broke and a dog started to bark.

“Time to go.” Dad picked up the pieces and used them to trap Drew.

“We can't go yet. I haven't finished saving Lanora,” Drew said.

“You can finish saving her at home,” Dad said.

“But she isn't at our apartment. She's in the prison,” Drew said.

“Then you can save us,” Dad said.

And so Drew made a raft out of a sofa cushion and rescued everyone in the family from raging rapids and a large chair-shaped monster named Curiosity. After an hour of this, Val went to do her homework to save herself from being saved again.

“Knock, knock,” Mom said, because she was carrying two mugs of tea.

Val's room wasn't much bigger than a closet. In fact, it had been a closet, before Drew was born and needed a room of his own, closer to where their parents slept. Val hung down from the loft bed and opened the door with her toes. She was quite proud of her feet's feat, but it didn't make her happy tonight.

Mom put the mugs on top of the bookcase and climbed up to sit with Val on her bed. She picked up her mug and blew across the steaming liquid. It was still too hot to drink. “I saw Lanora today.”

“You did?” Val didn't know what to think about this.

“She was at the grocery store. With three blonde girls.” Mom took a noisy sip.

Val moved her mug farther away from a wooden box. Lanora had decorated it with a mosaic of dried beans. Some were missing because she hadn't used enough glue.

“I never saw them at any P.S. 2 events. But that could be because these girls didn't seem to be the participating type.” Mom shook her head. “Why would Lanora want to hang around with girls like that?”