Double Dog Dare (19 page)

“Sort of,” Kansas told him. “If we win, me and Francine will be tied, nine to nine. But …” Kansas hadn’t told anyone yet about what he’d been thinking the past few days, but he supposed it couldn’t hurt to tell Mr. Muñoz. “I think if we win, I’m going to let Francine be news anchor by herself.”

“Don’t
you
want to be news anchor?” Mr. Muñoz asked.

Kansas shrugged. He hadn’t wanted it at first, not at all. But sitting behind that desk last Friday had actually been sort of fun—the heat of the lights, the rush of the moment—much more fun than he’d expected. Well, before the barfing and getting suspended part, obviously. But Francine, she’d wanted it all along. So badly. It had
been her idea about the talent show too. And she really was the hardest-working member of the club. So Kansas couldn’t help thinking that maybe she deserved it a little more.

“Well, whatever happens,” Mr. Muñoz said, “I’ll be there tomorrow night, front and center. Ramona and I already bought our tickets.”

Kansas squinted at the old man through his goggles. “You’re coming? To the talent show?”

“Of course! You think I’d miss the world’s most amazing talent show act?”

“Oh,” Kansas said. He was concentrating so hard on the piece of wood in front of him that it took him a second to notice that Mr. Muñoz had put down his hammer. “What?” Kansas asked. The old man was looking at him curiously. “Did I mess up? What did I do?”

“No, nothing like that,” Mr. Muñoz said. “I just wanted to be sure that … I thought I might have upset you, that’s all. I shouldn’t have invited myself to your talent show. But I would really like to be there, Kansas, if that’s okay with you.”

Kansas picked up his Dr Pepper and took a long, fizzy gulp. Then another. “You can come, I guess,” he said, “if you really want to.” It was a free country, wasn’t it? Kansas set his soda back down on the workbench. “But, I mean, if something else comes up and you can’t come, I won’t be mad or anything.”

Mr. Muñoz waited until Kansas was looking at him again before he said what he did next. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he told him when their eyes met. “I’ll be there. I promise.”

And even though Kansas knew that promises were easier to break than toothpicks, for some reason, this time, he believed it. He picked up another nail and began to hammer.

27.

A plastic spoon

There were still three hours before the talent show started, but Francine couldn’t stop pacing. She paced on the rug in front of the TV in the living room. What if she and Kansas didn’t pull it off? What would she do without Media Club? She paced in front of the couch. What if they
did
pull it off? Who would be the news anchor then? Maybe she could convince Kansas to let her do it all by herself. After all, the whole talent show act
had
been her idea.

Francine had just moved to the kitchen to do more pacing there, when the phone rang. She snatched the cordless off the counter. “Hello?”

“Pea pod! Just the girl I was looking for.”

“
Oh, hey, Dad. What’s up? You’re still coming tonight, right?”

“Of course. I just had a thought about Christmas, and I wanted to run it by you real quick.”

“Yeah?” Francine picked a lemon out of the bowl on the counter.

“Well, more of an inspiration, really. I get you for Christmas dinner, right? So I was thinking. I’m no good at turkey like your mother, but how would you feel about pizza?”

“Pizza?” Francine rolled the lemon across the counter. Takeout from Carlino’s did not sound like Christmas.

“Yeah. You remember Mr. Jules at the college? He has a pizza stone, makes his own dough and everything, and he said he’d teach me a few tricks. I’ve been looking up recipes. We can do whatever you want—pesto, Parmesan, even just plain old pepperoni if that floats your boat.”

“Wait. You mean … make the pizza ourselves?” Francine placed the lemon back in the bowl. “But you burn water.”

Her dad laughed. “We’ll make three pizzas,” he said, “in case I wreck the first two.”

Francine allowed herself a tiny smile at that. “Can we flip the dough in the air like those guys on TV?”

“We’ll make
nine,
” her father replied, “so we can drop at least seven. What do you say? I thought it might be nice to start our own little traditions, just us two.”

Francine thought about that. Christmas wasn’t going to be the same this year, that was for sure. But maybe that wasn’t entirely a terrible thing.

“Yeah,” she said. “That might be okay.”

“Good. I’ll see you soon, pea pod.”

“Bye, Dad.”

When Francine hung up the phone, she saw her mom walking into the kitchen, an empty tea mug in her hands.

“Hey there,” she greeted Francine. “You all set for tonight?”

Francine didn’t answer, just watched her mom walk to the sink and rinse out her mug. All this time, she realized, she’d been looking for the exact right thing to do to get her parents back together again. And all this time, she’d thought she couldn’t because she wasn’t smart enough to figure out what the exact right thing was.

But when Ginny had gotten sick—when she’d eaten that
granola bar—Francine had known what to do right away. She hadn’t even needed a second to think about it.

Maybe there
wasn’t
a solution to fixing Francine’s parents, the way there had been with Ginny and the granola bar. Maybe they were going to get a divorce no matter what Francine did.

“Mom?” she said as her mother opened the dishwasher.

“Mm-hmm?”

“Can we go caroling this year? On Christmas Eve? It’s just …” Her mother set the mug on the top rack and turned to look at her. Francine took a deep breath. “We always say we’re gonna go, every year, and we never do. I’m not gonna get to sing with you this year in church and …”

Francine’s mother crossed the kitchen slowly, then wrapped Francine up in a hug. “Absolutely,” she told her, and Francine buried her face in her mother’s sweater. It smelled like lavender soap. “That sounds like a perfect idea.” She lifted up Francine’s face then and inspected her carefully, both hands cupped below her ears. “You are turning into a beautiful young lady, you know that?”

“
Mo
-om.”

“Even with the green hair.”

Francine laughed.

Her mother kissed her on the forehead. “Anything you need for tonight?” she asked.

“Nah. Everything’s all ready. Kansas and Mr. Muñoz are driving it to the school in Mr. Muñoz’s truck. I said I’d meet them an hour early to set up.”

“Sounds good. You want to see if Natalie’s around? You two could hang out for a few hours, and then we could all drive over together.”

Francine shrugged, which was supposed to mean no, but apparently her mother was not good at reading body language.

“Anything to keep you from pacing,” she said, handing Francine the cordless phone off the counter. “Natalie hasn’t been over in weeks. It will be nice to see her.”

Francine stared at the phone in her hands for a while, then slowly set it down on the counter.

“Sweetie?” her mom said.

“I’m going to get Samson ready for tonight,” Francine told her, heading for the kitchen door. When she reached the stairs, she climbed them two at a time.

Kansas was late.

Francine had been sitting on the props table behind the stage of the school auditorium for fifteen minutes, waiting for him, but he hadn’t shown up yet. Francine huffed. This was just like Kansas, she thought. You go and trust him for one second, and then he was
late
.

The backstage area was mostly deserted, just a couple of high school volunteers dressed in black, running around yelling into headsets. Francine looked at the clock on the wall—forty-four minutes until the show officially started. Butterflies were growing in her stomach again, just the way they had been when she co-anchored the news with Kansas. She tried to squelch them, kicking her legs under the table. How would she ever be a TV animal trainer if she had stage fright all the time? Next to her, Samson grunted from his cage.

“You need help?”

Francine looked up. There was Natalie, her backpack slung over one arm.

“What are you doing here?” Francine asked. Which, she
realized after the words came out of her mouth, was maybe not the nicest way she could have phrased things.

Natalie shrugged. “Me and Alicia signed up to do refreshments in the lobby,” she said. “But I saw your mom, and she said you needed help back here.” Natalie looked around, as though noticing for the first time that there was nothing to set up.

“It’s not here yet,” Francine explained.

“Oh.” Natalie hoisted her backpack higher on her shoulder. “Um, I guess I should go back to the refreshments, then.”

“Yeah,” Francine said. “Or, um.” She stuck a pointer finger in Samson’s cage and stroked his silky hair. “You could wait with me. If you want.”

Natalie glanced over her shoulder, deciding. “Okay,” she said at last. She dropped her backpack on the table and climbed up to sit on the other side of Samson. “What’re you doing for the talent show anyway?” she asked Francine. “Did you teach Samson some more tricks?”

Francine squinted at her. Natalie might know what her act was if she ever bothered to talk to her anymore. “It’s a surprise,” she said.

“
Oh.”

They sat in silence.

Francine checked the clock on the wall again. Forty-two minutes until the talent show.

“Hey, Natalie?” she asked suddenly.

“Yeah?” Natalie was hunched over Samson’s cage, petting him through the bars.

“It’s just …” It had been three weeks since Thanks giving, and not
once
had Natalie even said so much as, “Hey, Francine, you seem a little down. Anything going on?” Hadn’t Natalie noticed that Francine had been upset lately? They’d been best friends since baby daycare. You’d think if you’d been friends with someone that long you’d be able to read her mind a little bit, to know what she was thinking. But maybe Natalie just didn’t care to know.

“Nothing,” Francine said, shaking her head. “Sorry there’s nothing for you to help with. You can go back to refreshments if you want.”

Natalie looked up from Samson’s cage. “I’m not really helping with refreshments,” she said.

“You’re not?”

“
Well, Alicia is. I just came with her ’cause … I wanted to give you this.”

Francine watched as Natalie unzipped her backpack and pulled something out. It was a chocolate pudding cup. “I thought you might want it,” she told Francine. “For good luck.” She had one for herself too. “Oh, and, um …” She dug in her backpack again, searching for something else. “Here.” She handed Francine a plastic spoon.

A best friend, Francine realized then, wasn’t someone who could read your mind. A best friend was someone who remembered the plastic spoon.

“Thanks,” Francine said softly. She peeled off the lid of the pudding cup, licking the underside. “Hey, Natalie?”

Natalie was peeling her own cup. “Yeah?”

“I have to tell you something.”

And so Francine told Natalie all about her parents’ divorce, and her dad’s new apartment, and two sets of furniture, and two Christmases, and all of it. And Natalie sat there, listening and sometimes saying “whoa, that
stinks
!” and sometimes just nodding and sometimes offering Francine some extra pudding. And when Francine was all done
talking and both of their pudding cups were scraped clean, Natalie said, “How come you didn’t tell me before?”

And Francine just shrugged.

“Well, anyway,” Natalie said. “It’ll be okay, I think. I can help you decorate your new room at your dad’s if you want.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I’m your best friend.”

Francine smiled at that. But there was still one naggy question tugging at the back of her brain. “Did you vote for Kansas?”

“What?”

“When we tied for news anchor. Did you vote for him instead of me? You said you thought he was cute, so I thought maybe—”

“No way!” Natalie said. “Just because he’s cute doesn’t mean I’d vote for him over you.”

And Francine knew—the way you know something about someone you’ve been best friends with since baby daycare—that Natalie was telling the truth.

“I wonder who did,” Francine said. “I got three votes.
That’s you, me, and either Emma or Alicia. One of them had to have voted for Kansas.”

“I guess,” Natalie said, but Francine could tell she wasn’t really thinking about it anymore. She was looking at something at the far end of the stage. “What the heck is
that
?” she asked.

Francine followed Natalie’s gaze. There was Kansas, twenty-five minutes late, with Mr. Muñoz, and they were pushing an enormous object on wheels, covered by a large brown tarp. It was at least three times as tall as Kansas, and twice as long.

“That,” Francine told Natalie as the two of them hopped off the table and crossed the stage to meet Kansas, “is our talent show act.”

28.

A CARTON OF MILK

Kansas thought he’d be sweating bullets before his and Francine’s big act, but as it turned out, he was cool as a cucumber.

Francine, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck.

“What if we mess up?” she said, her hands shaking as she fumbled with the lock on Samson’s cage. Inside, Samson squeaked, eager to be let out. “What if I forget what I’m supposed to say? What if everyone laughs at us?” Kansas and Francine were waiting in the wings, watching Carl Schumacher finish up his ventriloquist act on stage. Carl was pretty funny, Kansas thought, but not good enough to win two hundred dollars.