The Book of Dares for Lost Friends (6 page)

As Val fought her way into the building, she thought how lucky Lanora was to avoid all this. Even if
The Book of Dares
had told Val how to change Lanora back, Val wouldn't have done it. Why would Lanora want to be like everybody else?

It rained during lunch. The heavens opened up. Buckets streamed past the classroom windows. This ruined Val's routine. She couldn't kick the ball with the team. She couldn't go to the bench by the dog run. She had to eat inside. As she bravely marched toward the cafeteria, she passed a classroom with an open door. The teacher's desk was unoccupied, but Val heard people inside.

“It's raining cats and dogs.”

“Why cats?”

“Why dogs?”

“Why not rainbow trout?”

Four girls sat cross-legged on the floor. Val barely knew Helena, Olivia, and Tina, but Gillian had gone to her elementary school. This was a much better option than the cafeteria. Val plopped down and said, “Hi.”

“Hello, Val,” Gillian said.

“Do you eat in here even when it isn't raining?” Val said.

“It's always raining somewhere,” Helena said.

“The teacher doesn't mind?” Val said.

“We are a ‘club.'” Tina marked the word for scorn with her fingers.

“What kind?” Val said.

“We are the outsiders looking in. We are the voices crying in the wilderness. We are the thoughts which dare not speak their names,” Helena said.

“Poetry?” Val said.

“Ding, ding,” Tina said.

Val opened her lunch. Today, when she could have shared cookies, there were none. Just a bag of googly eyes.

“Is that candy?” As Olivia leaned forward, her dreads bounced cheerfully around her face.

“It's just my dad.” There was no way for Val to explain.

“I remember your dad. He wore a clown nose to parent-teacher conferences,” Gillian said.

“Yup,” Val said.

“Val and I went to the same elementary school. Val was friends with Lanora,” Gillian said.

“The Lanora in my math class?” Helena said.

“The Lanora who joined the A Team?” Tina tilted her head so that the crooked line of her bangs was parallel to the floor.

Val took a bag of grapes out of her lunch bag. Her mom had bought bunches to try to compensate for what those girls had done. Val picked one off the stem and tossed it into her mouth.

“How did that transformation happen?” Gillian said.

“What do you mean, ‘transformation'?” The word stuck in Val's mouth. It was too much like something that Tasman would have said.

“Do you need the definition or the reason Gillian has used the word?” Tina said.

“One day she's a gawky girl with too much curly hair,” Olivia said.

“And then the next day, she's one of them,” Gillian said.

“How did she get chosen to be in their group? Was there an election?” Helena said.

“An application?” Olivia said.

“I missed the deadline,” Tina said.

“Wasn't it just yesterday she carried a stuffed animal to school?” Gillian said.

“That was third grade,” Val said.

“Third grade!” Tina and Olivia said.

“Tell us more.” Helena fingered the pop tab on the chain around her neck.

“It was the middle of winter. I remember snow. Because when I first saw the fur, I thought it was part of her boot.” Gillian pointed to her own heavy shoe.

“What kind of animal?” Helena said.

“A dog,” Gillian said.

“A duck,” Val said.

“That's right. You started bringing the dog,” Gillian said.

“Why?” Helena said.

“So people wouldn't tease her,” Val said softly.

“That is obvious. I mean, why did Lanora bring the duck?” Helena said.

“She was having a hard time about the divorce,” Val said.

“Ah! She wanted to remind herself that however she felt, whatever they said, whatever they didn't say, it would be like water off a duck's back,” Helena said.

They looked at the rain lashing the window. They felt glad to be inside protected by the glass.

“I guess it worked. Now look at her,” Gillian said.

“A member of the A Team,” Tina said.

“Lanora doesn't even start with A,” Olivia said.

“It ends with one,” Helena said.

“That's not the same thing at all,” Gillian said.

“They'll make her change her name,” Tina said.

“Change her name?” Val said.

“Anora.”

“Aurora.”

“Allegra.”

“Anagram.”

They laughed as they hurled words at each other. And why not? For them, it was a game. They were good at it.

“Angina.”

“Aorta.”

“Anorexia.”

“Algebra.”

Val was better at soccer. She stared at the collection of dangles hanging from her backpack. She straightened the orange wings of the butterfly. Had Tasman found its mate? Even if he had, what was she going to do with it? Reattach it to the strap of Lanora's book bag?

No, she decided. She carefully unclipped the rings of her own dangles and put them in the lunch bag with the uneaten grapes.

 

Ten

On Wednesday, Val saw Lanora in the hallway between 6th and 7th period. On Thursday afternoon, Val saw Lanora getting on a city bus. On Friday, Val saw Lanora coming out of the girls' bathroom. Each time they met, Val greeted Lanora. Lanora didn't respond. Val smiled anyway like everything was normal. After all, this was middle school. Plenty of outrageous things (like stuffing rolls of paper in the toilets) were normal. And plenty of normal things (like greeting someone you knew) were considered to be outrageous.

On Friday afternoon, the kids exploded out of M.S. 10. Everyone was in such a rush to escape; only the poets noticed that something decorated the sidewalk. Val came back across the street to see what they were staring at.

“Look what a child drew on the sidewalk,” Olivia said.

“Not a child. Someone too lazy to make proper letters,” Tina said.

“A prankster who hopes we'll spend hours deciphering scribble.” Gillian pointed to a curlicue with the toe of her heavy boot.

“An egotist who's too self-obsessed to care that no one can read it,” Helena said.

“He isn't self-obsessed. I mean, he is. But he does want someone to read it,” Val said. Tasman must have copied the beautiful, blue markings from
The Book of Dares
.

“Do you know what it says?” Helena said.

“I don't know what it says, I just know what it means,” Val said.

“What does it mean?” Tina said.

It meant Tasman knew where Val went to school. It meant he had been thinking about her. It meant there was something he thought she should do. But she didn't need to. She touched the corner of her backpack. She had gotten rid of her dangles, too.

Just then four pairs of high-heeled boots clicked across the markings. It was the A Team. Lanora passed so close that Val could see one little curl poking out from her sleek hair.

A fifth girl ran up to them. She greeted each member of the A Team by moving her cheek close to theirs. Then they all walked back in the opposite direction. None of them looked at the poets or at Val or at what had been written on the sidewalk.

The poets watched the A Team until they had disappeared around the corner. Then Helena sighed. “I guess they don't like sidewalk art.”

The scuffling boots had obliterated the marks.

“Can you remember what was written there?” Gillian asked Val.

Val shook her head vigorously. She was glad she didn't have to worry about the words or Lanora's new friends anymore.

After all, Val had plenty of other things to think about. On Saturday morning, she had to plan which
Three Stooges
episode to watch first. She had to make sure Drew didn't get more than his share of pancakes. She had to decide if she should wear the Pelé shirt or the Hamm. She had to remove her shin guards from Drew's arms and find him some other kind of armor.

At soccer practice, she threw herself into the game. She was unstoppable. She was first at the ball, wherever anybody else kicked it. She always took a shot at the goal, even when other people were more open. She didn't mind who she stepped on as she fought. She just wanted to win win win.

And then she missed a pass. The ball went between her feet and rolled away. She had to run after it. Nothing looked more lame than chasing a runaway ball. Val kept her head down until she reached the wall.

Tasman was there. He was wearing a large hat pulled down over his eyes like a spy in the movies.

Val picked up the ball.

“I left you a message,” he said.

“I'm in the middle of practice.” She was too busy to talk to strange boys about strange things like undoing strange spells.

“Don't you want to know why I've spent the last forty-five minutes watching you run back and forth in pursuit of a ball, trying to make a goal which doesn't have the meaning that I would prefer for that word?”

“No. It's not any of my business whether Lanora is under a spell or not. She
likes
being part of the A Team. So we don't need to do anything anymore.”

“Oh.” He looked down at his fist, which was closed around something.

Could it be the butterfly, Val wondered. No, she decided. It was something smaller.

“Come on, Pelé! We can't play without the ball!” Jo called to her.

“Don't interrupt her. She's talking to a B-O-Y,” Beck said.

Val heard her teammates laugh. She turned to go.

Tasman grabbed the ball and threw it back toward the team. Then he stood in front of Val to keep her from running after it.

“I'm shocked. Admittedly I only know you in the most superficial way. And I don't know Lanora at all. But I never would have thought you'd be the type of person who abandons her friend when she's in trouble.”

“I just told you. She isn't in trouble. She likes those girls,” Val said.

“Does she really? Do
you
like those girls?”

Val shook her head.

“And if you don't, then how could they be worth anything? Because you like everybody. Well, almost everybody. After all, you've just said that you don't like them.”

Val wiped her face on her shirtsleeve. She wasn't used to people paying this much attention to what she said.

“I wasn't able to find the item you were looking for. But I have something else.”

He opened his fist. In the center of his palm was a blue button with only one hole. Two stick figures were indented in the ceramic. One child crawled in one direction. The other in the opposite direction.

“What is it?” Val said.

“It's an amulet. From the First Intermediate period. About 2000
B.C.
”

She had been about to touch it, but she pulled back her finger. “It's so old.”

“Yes. They were often buried with the dead, to protect children.”

“Why do you think Lanora needs protection?”

“Don't we all? I mean, the rest of us. You don't, but you can keep it for her.” He grabbed her hand and pressed the stone into her palm. Then he closed her fist over the amulet.

She stared at her fist. “I can't take this from you. It's probably really valuable.”

“The Captain has dozens. He'll never know it's gone.”

The stone grew hot in her hand. That seemed significant, until she realized it was just taking on the warmth from her body. “Won't you get in trouble?”

“When you say ‘get in trouble,' you're implying that I'm not already in it.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“The human condition is, alas—”

Tasman was interrupted by someone shouting. It didn't sound like the typical boisterous behavior of kids in the park. Val turned to see what was going on.

A man walked unsteadily along the path, mumbling to himself. He wore a ragged blue sheet draped like a toga across one shoulder. It was tied around his waist with a piece of an extension cord. His hair was like a writhing nest of snakes. He carried a pink plastic wand with a star on the end. He waved this wand at the children who gaped at him because they were too young to know they shouldn't stare. It was almost funny. Almost. Sometimes in New York City, you had to laugh so that you wouldn't cry. Val wondered what Tasman thought about the beautiful absurdity of that man with the child's wand.

But Tasman was gone. He had disappeared as completely as if he had never been there. Val opened her hand and stared at the amulet.

The man with the wand bent over to peer at it, too. “Protecting the dead?”

“What?” Val was surprised. How could a man like this possibly know what it was?

He pointed his wand at her accusingly. “What about the living?”

 

Eleven

Lanora luxuriated in her bed long past nine, glad she didn't have to get up and seize the day. She smiled as she stretched. She whispered the word “Saturday,” as if it were a foreign language.

Ten years from now, her pajamas would be silk and her sheets would be silk and her comforter would be made from the softest down. When she awoke, the sun would be shining through the ivory gauze of the floor-to-ceiling drapes. She would smell deliciously flavored coffee brewing in a very smart pot that sensed the moment she wanted it. She would pour a cup of that deliciously flavored coffee and take it out onto her terrace. She would hear the sound of birds singing. The wind would toy with a set of chimes. She would sit on her bamboo chair and sip and smile, and be glad that everything in her world was the way it was supposed to be.

Lanora brushed her hair slowly and firmly. The bristles invigorated her scalp. A few curls had reappeared right along her hairline. She didn't want to blow-dry her hair today, so she smoothed it back into a ponytail. She put on her robe. It wasn't silk, but it had red piping along the lapels.