The Book of Dares for Lost Friends Read online

  Like Val. There was no stopping Val, if she needed to move a ball across a line drawn in the grass. Lanora looked at her phone where the text remained. She smiled. Squirrel minions had to be Drew’s idea.

  Should she explain what she was doing to him? Or to Val? How could she say that she had to avoid Val for the time being? But Lanora had to. Val was too comforting. Val was a pair of shoes worn in just right. They were great shoes. Lanora had no intention of throwing them away. She just wanted to be able to wear some new ones, too. Val occupied a space that couldn’t be filled by someone else.

  Goth, geek, jock, princess, nerd, punk, emo?

  Even if Lanora had to sit all alone in the dreaded cafeteria for a few days, she was thrilled to have possibilities.

  Candidate 1: A large girl. Dyed-black hair. Wears only one earring and a pop tab on a chain around her neck. Sardonic smile. Plays the electric bass? Or just the ukulele?

  Candidate 2: A tall guy. (Yes, why not have a friend who is a guy?) Buzz cut to control his curly red hair. Quiet. Still waters run deep? Or is he too shy?

  Candidate 3: A tiny girl. Supreme posture. Her body is like a marble statue. Walks on her toes because she is a dancer? Or because she is short?

  Candidates 4, 5, and 6: Three girls moving as one. Each with sleek blonde hair. Yellow, platinum, ash. (Who knew there were so many shades of blonde?) Gliding along the halls. Everyone watching them. Everyone wanting to walk with them. No one dared.

  What was the source of their power? Could Lanora get it for herself? Or would she have to become one of them to find out?

  She sat up and stretched. She didn’t have to choose today. Rushing such an important decision was not wise. After all, she hadn’t exactly chosen Val, either. Somehow or other they had become friends in preschool. Probably because they were the only little girls who had no interest in playing with dolls.

  The stakes were much higher now. No matter how hard it was, Lanora vowed to remain silent in her classes. To observe. To be aloof. To be the cat. To watch and wait. To say nothing to anyone.

  She stood in front of her mirror and practiced a Mona Lisa smile. She was thinking great thoughts, even if she refused to share any of them.

  There was something wrong with her image. She lifted her chin. She tilted her head left and then right. Then she realized what it was.

  * * *

  “You want to do what to your hair?”

  “It has to be straight,” Lanora told her mom. There was nothing to discuss. Nothing to decide except how this was to be accomplished. “I want to go to a hair salon to have my hair professionally straightened.”

  “We can’t afford luxuries like that. Your school supply list is three pages long,” Emma said.

  “He sends us money.” Lanora knew her father had plenty. She didn’t know exactly how he paid her mother for his freedom. She was too young to know the terms of the divorce settlement.

  “I have to save that money. I can’t trust him. He forgets he even has a daughter.”

  “He can’t. His assistants remind him.” Lanora remembered the card she got last year. Happy Birthday to my darling daughter. From, Miss Campbell. Lanora and Val had laughed about it—at the time.

  “I love your curls.” Emma reached toward the auburn waves that framed her daughter’s face.

  “It’s time for a change.” Lanora firmly shut the bathroom door. Over the past three years, she had gotten used to doing things for herself.

  She washed her hair. She got out the blow-dryer. It was trickier than she expected. She had to point that nozzle like a gun at her head. Her curls kept springing away from the brush. The noise and heat were intense. And yet she was glad for the roaring sound. It helped her ignore her mom’s footsteps pacing in the hallway.

  Finally Lanora was satisfied with how she looked. She was especially pleased when her mom shrieked. “You don’t look like my little girl anymore.”

  That was precisely the point.

  Three

  Cats can nap at any time and in any place. Mau’s best sleeps, however, occurred inside a shop on the ground floor of a brownstone residence. At the front of the shop, a display window revealed a shelf crowded with objects. A tall, wooden fetish with startling blue eyes. Several small statues of black cats with the bodies of Egyptian women. A brass bowl full of beads. A cracked vase. A rusty knife. The only available space was on top of an open book. Mau had curled in a ball upon a map of Mesopotamia, her tail tucked under her back legs, her paw over her eyes as if to say, Don’t bother me, I’m being enlightened.

  Perhaps she was. The morning sunshine somehow managed to penetrate the grime on the glass and bless Mau with dancing dust motes.

  But the Earth turned. New York City traveled slightly farther from the sun. The dust became invisible once more. Mau sighed, as cats sometimes do. With regret? With contentment? With longing for a different kind of world? Who knows what cats dream.

  A man approached the entrance to the shop.

  Mau opened one eye.

  The sign outside the window began to sway. A painted eye rimmed in thick, black lines seemed to wink.

  The man shoved a packet of envelopes through a slot in the rusty iron gate and ran away before the packet hit the floor. Plop.

  Mau shut her eye. The mail had come.

  From the back of the shop, heavy footsteps hurried to the door. The Captain was always eager to see what was in the envelopes. Mau couldn’t care less about the pieces of paper. She much preferred the crates that came from far away, some still smelling of the desert.

  “What do we have today?” The Captain grunted as he bent over to pick up the letters. “Any checks? Any checks? Bah. Nothing but bills.” He tossed the envelopes one at a time into a trash can. Then he stopped and opened a letter.

  “What’s this?” He read it to himself. He leaned against a stack of crates and then he read it again.

  “Someone wants to buy the bowl,” he whispered.

  Mau sat up.

  The Captain carefully folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. “Boy! Are you here?” he called.

  There was no answer.

  “Is he here?” the Captain asked Mau.

  Mau blinked. Whatever she knew, she wasn’t about to say.

  “I hope he hasn’t gotten in trouble. School started up again. He probably forgot to take that document that says he goes to … what did I call it? Oh, yes. The Charter School for the Study of Ancient Antiquities. Boy! Are you here or not?”

  When the silence had settled, the Captain took out the letter again.

  “I’m going to sell it. Ten thousand dollars is a lot.”

  Mau narrowed her pupils until they were slits.

  “Quit looking at me like that. He could use the money.”

  Mau twitched her tail back and forth. It rasped across the page of the book.

  “What are you doing on that book anyway? You’ve got your filthy cat hair all over it.” The Captain waved the letter at her. “Go on, get down from there. Not everyone is a cat worshiper. How do you get in here anyway?”

  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 thoug
ht 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 wee
k 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.”