Double Dare

by Tia Mowry

  In the morning, I got dressed and dragged myself out to the kitchen for breakfast. Cassie and Mom were already there. Cass was playing with her phone and nibbling on some toast, while Mom was totally focused on her oatmeal and coffee.

  “Cereal’s on the counter,” Mom told me when I came in.

  I nodded and poured some into a bowl. After setting it down at my place, I reached for the milk.

  It wasn’t until the buzzing started that I realized Mom had been doing the same thing. Touching her hand had set off a vision.

  Real Mom faded out, and Vision Mom took over, more vivid than any of my dreams. She was shaking and crying as she stared at something small and shiny in her hand. Aunt Cheryl was there, too, her arm around Mom’s shoulders and a concerned and freaked-out expression on her face.

  “Caitlyn?” Mom drew back, and the vision was gone. “Are you all right?”

  Cassie looked up quickly. “What happened?”

  Mom was staring at me. “I’ve seen that look before,” she said. “You had one of those—those visions?”

  I gulped, shooting an anxious look at Cassie. Between my fuzziness from lack of sleep and the usual effects of the vision, it was harder than ever to recover and say something coherent. “I—um . . . ,” I mumbled, not wanting to tell Mom what I’d seen. Not until I figured out what it meant anyway.

  Maybe Cassie read something on my face, or maybe it was the old twintuition kicking in again. But she suddenly moved her elbow, knocking over her glass of orange juice.

  “Oops!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

  “Cassie!” Mom got up, too, rushing over and doing her best to mop up the juice before it dripped on the floor. “How many times have I told you not to leave your glass right on the edge of the table?”

  “Sorry.” Cass caught my eye, trying to see if I was okay, before helping Mom wipe up the juice.

  I gave her a shaky smile in return. Then I tried to get my mind back in gear.

  By the time the O.J. was cleaned up and Mom remembered to ask again about the vision, I was ready. “Yeah, I saw something,” I told her. “I saw you smiling because Cassie showed you a good grade on a quiz.”

  “Oh.” Mom nodded. “Sort of like that other time you told me about.”

  “Uh, yeah.” I tried not to feel too guilty about lying. It was for her own good, after all. My visions were only supposed to show good stuff, right? So why worry her for no reason? For all I knew that shiny thing would turn out to be a winning lottery ticket or something. Not that it had looked anything like a lottery ticket . . .

  “Hurry and finish eating,” Cassie told me, shoving the last bite of her toast in her mouth. “We don’t want to be late.”

  I pushed my bowl away. “I’m actually not that hungry. I think I’ll just grab a granola bar and eat it as we walk.”

  Five minutes later, we were on our way and I’d just finished telling Cassie what I’d really seen. “Weird,” she said. “I wonder what she was looking at.”

  “Yeah. And why Aunt Cheryl was there.” I thought back, trying to picture the background. “Actually, I think they might have been at Aunt Cheryl’s house. I think I saw that striped wallpaper from her front hallway.”

  “Has Mom mentioned going to see Aunt Cheryl anytime soon?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.” I shrugged. “But who knows.”

  “So what did the thing look like?” Cassie asked. “All you said was that it’s shiny. You mean shiny like a flashlight? Or like jewelry?”

  “More like jewelry, I think. I couldn’t see it that well.”

  “What kind of jewelry would make her freak out like that?” Cassie wondered. Then she shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t blame you for not wanting to tell her. Mom’s already a little sensitive about this whole Sight thing.”

  “Yeah.” I still felt weird about lying, but it was too late to do much about it now. “Let’s talk about something else. Have you figured out what’s up with Emily?”

  “Not really.” Cassie chewed her lower lip. “I told you what Brayden said about that dare, right? I guess Brent is going to give it to her today. I’ll try to find out what it is, just in case.”

  We talked about that and Grandmother Lockwood until we got to school. Then Cassie gave me a wave and headed off toward her locker. I didn’t need anything from mine that day, so I headed straight toward the first-floor hallway where Bianca’s locker was. A couple of Cassie’s friends had lockers there, too, and it was kind of the unofficial before-school meeting place for the whole popular crowd. At least usually it was—today there was no sign of them. But I didn’t worry about it. For all I knew, they’d decided to start meeting up at someone else’s locker instead.

  Liam and Bianca were already in their usual spot, though. Liam was leaning against the wall, talking a mile a minute while Bianca dug around for her books. When I got closer, I could hear that they were talking about the class trip.

  “I heard we’ll have a couple of hours free afterward to do whatever we want,” Liam was saying eagerly. “I was thinking we could go to the River Walk, or maybe the World’s Fair thingy or—”

  “Hi, guys,” I broke in. “Wow, I can’t believe the class trip is less than a week away.”

  “I can’t wait,” Liam said. Bianca closed her locker and the three of us started walking to homeroom. “The only part I’m not looking forward to is getting up extra early to make that six a.m. bus!” He snorted with laughter.

  Bianca smiled. “It should be fun,” she agreed. “I’ve never been to the Alamo.”

  My eyes widened. “Seriously?” I exclaimed. “But it’s so close! You’ll love it, though, it’s amazing. By the way, are we still all going to sign up as trip buddies together?”

  Liam blinked at me, then glanced at Bianca. “Oh,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “The two of us already signed up as partners.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.” Bianca stopped just outside homeroom and gazed at me worriedly. “Sorry, Cait. We just assumed you were planning to be partners with Cassie or something, since you never wanted to talk about it with us.”

  “Oh.” I bit my lip. “I guess I’ve been sort of distracted lately. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay,” Liam assured me. “Maybe we can figure something out.”

  “No, it’s no biggie.” That distracted feeling was already coming back as I glanced inside and saw Miss Marin at Ms. Xavier’s desk. Again. “Um, I’ll probably just sign up with Cassie anyway.”

  “You sure?” Liam still looked concerned.

  “Yeah. Come on, let’s get inside before the bell rings.” I hurried in, trying not to worry about what had happened to Ms. Xavier.

  15

  CASSIE

  MY FRIENDS WEREN’T at Megan and Emily’s lockers when I got there. I headed to homeroom, but none of them were there either.

  I thought that was a little odd, but I actually didn’t mind too much. I wasn’t in the mood for random chitchat. That vision of Caitlyn’s was bugging me, but I couldn’t quite figure out why.

  I leaned back in my seat, staring into space. Mom and Aunt Cheryl were sisters, and they’d always been close. So it wasn’t a huge shock that Mom might visit sometime soon. But why would she be crying? And why would Aunt Cheryl look all shocked about it? And what was that little shiny thing?

  Suddenly I sat up straight. “Little shiny thing,” I murmured, flashing back to another little shiny thing I’d seen—in that vision about the dude with the braid. He’d pulled something small out of the trash can.

  “Random,” I muttered, slumping down again. Talk about a stretch. There were a lot of little shiny things in the world. And we didn’t even know who that braid guy was. Why assume he had anything to do with Mom?

  Then again, why not? It wasn’t like we had a lot of other theories to work with, and almost all of our visions—except for Braidy and the two other dudes—had been connected to people we knew. There had to be a reason we were seeing those g
uys.

  I snapped out of my thoughts as Mr. Bustamonte hurried into the room. He looked around and frowned. “Where is everybody?” he said.

  I glanced around, too. Only about half the kids were there.

  Before I could try to figure that out, everyone suddenly rushed in. “Sorry, Mr. B!” Emily cried, looking pink-cheeked and excited. “We’re here!”

  “Just in time,” he said as the bell rang. “Sit down and be quiet for morning announcements.”

  Megan glanced back as she slid into her seat in front of me. “You missed it,” she whispered with a giggle.

  “Missed what?” I whispered back. But just then Mr. Bustamonte walked past our desks, clearing his throat, and we had to shut up. Megan mouthed the words Tell you later at me, then turned around.

  The announcements took forever. By the time they finished, we had to book for first period. As we hurried down the hall, Emily elbowed me. “Did Megs tell you about my dare?” she asked with a giggle.

  “Not yet.” I looked over at Megan, suddenly remembering yet another worry from my long list. Had the dare already happened, and I’d missed it? If so, Emily still seemed to be in one piece. Good; maybe that was one thing I didn’t have to worry about. “Is this the thing with Brent?” I asked.

  Suddenly Caitlyn appeared, yanking me away from my friends. “Hey!” I said.

  “She’s still out,” Caitlyn hissed in my ear.

  I gulped. “You mean Ms. X?” My friends had paused to wait for me, but I waved them on. “I’ll catch up in a sec!” I called.

  Caitlyn looked panicky as we ducked into a quiet corner. “Miss Marin was there for homeroom again,” she told me. “Liam asked her if Ms. Xavier would be back in time to chaperone the class trip next week, but she said the principal already asked if she could go on the trip in Ms. X’s place.”

  “Whoa.” That couldn’t be good. The trip wasn’t until next Thursday. What kind of horrible illness could the teacher have that would last that long? “But you can’t still think Granny L had something to do with it.” Actually, I was kind of thinking that myself at this point, but I didn’t want to believe it.

  “You heard what she said yesterday.” Caitlyn started chewing on her thumbnail. “She said she’d dealt with her. What if she did something horrible?” She swallowed hard and met my eye. “Like what I saw in that vision?”

  I hated seeing my sister look so freaked out, so I shook my head, ignoring my own feelings that Caitlyn could be right. “Doubtful,” I assured her. “Remember, you only see good stuff.”

  “What could possibly be good about lying unconscious—or maybe worse!—in a room full of skulls?”

  “I don’t know. But I know it definitely won’t be good if I’m late for first period.” I squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out what to do.”

  She smiled weakly, looking slightly less terrified. As we rushed off to our respective classes, I could only hope I was right.

  ALL OUR TEACHERS knew that the entire sixth grade would have two days off from schoolwork the following week. The class trip was on Thursday, and then Friday was an in-service day so we didn’t have to come to school. To make up for it, most of the teachers seemed to be cramming as much work as possible into the next few days. I barely had time to breathe that morning, let alone worry about Ms. Xavier, Grandmother Lockwood, and the rest.

  Finally the bell rang for lunch. “Ready for this?” Megan asked, sounding oddly excited. Then again, she does love fish stick Fridays in the caf.

  “I’ll meet up with you in a sec.” I shoved my books in my bag. “I need to stop off at the library first.”

  “Okay, we’ll try to wait for you.” Megan giggled. “No promises, though!”

  She rushed off with the Minions. I stared after them, confused. What had that been about?

  But I didn’t think about it for long. I had more important things to worry about. That little talk with Cait after homeroom had made me decide that enough was enough. I was tired of feeling worried and helpless. Especially the second part—worry is one thing, but I don’t do helpless. Grandmother Lockwood didn’t want to answer any of our questions? Well, it was time to make her answer at least some of them. And I’d finally figured out how to do it.

  As I stepped out of the classroom, Brayden rushed past me. I flashed him a smile, but he didn’t even seem to notice me standing there. He was shouting and waving at the other B Boys, who were a short distance down the hall. Brent lifted a skateboard over his head, grinned, and shot Brayden a thumbs-up.

  It was just like Brent to suddenly decide to skateboard to class instead of walk. Principal Zale would love it.

  Turning the opposite way, I hurried toward the library. Moments later I was logging on to my email account at one of the school computers. I dug into my pocket for that little scrap of paper Grandmother Lockwood had given me, with her email address written on it.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I looked up. Caitlyn was standing there blinking at me. “I could ask you the same thing,” I said. “I thought you’d be first in line for fish sticks.”

  “Funny.” She set her bag on the floor by the next computer. “I can’t stop thinking about that Ms. Xavier vision. Or the one about Mom and Aunt Cheryl, for that matter.” She shrugged. “I thought I might do a little research, see if I can find anything that might help us figure things out.”

  “I had a better idea to figure things out.”

  “What?” Cait glanced at the screen. “Checking email? Brilliant plan.”

  “Just wait.” Closing my eyes, I thought about what to say. Then I opened up and started to type.

  Dear Grandmother, we know you’re still keeping secrets from us. For instance, we know you did something to Ms. Xavier. You have to tell us what’s going on. Otherwise we will be forced to tell Mom what you said. She’s a police officer, you know, and she won’t be able to ignore a possible crime.

  “Are you kidding?” Cait was reading over my shoulder. “You can’t write that. Way too aggressive.”

  Was she right? My finger hovered over the backspace button on the keyboard, but then I shook my head.

  “I disagree,” I said. I couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t objected to my idea to email Granny L. Just my phrasing. “We need to write something she can’t ignore. That’s the only way we might get her to answer some of our questions. Anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  I quickly signed the email from me and Caitlyn, then hit send before Cait could object.

  She didn’t. She just stood there chewing her lower lip. “Okay,” she said at last. “I guess we’ll see what happens.”

  “Yeah.” I slung my bag over my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go get some fish sticks.”

  When we stepped out of the library, I heard laughter from the direction of the west stairwell at the far end of the hall. I glanced that way and saw a bunch of people clustered at the bottom of the steps, staring and pointing up toward the second-floor landing.

  Caitlyn noticed, too. “What’s going on over there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “And I’m way too hungry to care.”

  “Okay.” Caitlyn turned toward the cafeteria. “It’s probably just the B Boys goofing off. Brent almost crashed into me on his skateboard on my way to the library.” She shook her head, going all prissy. “He’s just lucky Principal Zale wasn’t around.”

  I barely heard the last part. I gasped as everything suddenly fell into place in my mind. “Emily!” I blurted out. “Skateboard—oh, no!”

  “Huh?”

  “Emily’s dare hasn’t happened yet after all.” I felt frozen in place as it hit me. “I never heard what Brent decided to make her do, but I’m pretty sure I just figured it out.”

  “Emily’s dare?” Caitlyn sounded confused. “Is this about your vision?”

  “You bet.” I took off down the hall. “And it’s about to play out—at least if we don’t get there in time to stop it.”
>
  “But—” Cait began.

  There was no time to explain further. “Stop!” I hollered as I sprinted toward the stairwell. “Wait!”

  Halfway there, Principal Zale stepped out in front of me. “Whoa, young ladies,” he said, holding up his hands. “No running in the halls.”

  Somehow I managed to skid to a stop before I crashed into him. But I danced to the side, itching to run again. “I have to go,” I told him urgently, gesturing toward the stairs. “They’re about to do something really stupid.”

  Down the hall, I could hear kids starting to chant “Go! Go! Go!”

  By then Caitlyn had caught up. “Sorry, sir,” she said breathlessly. “We just need to get over there.”

  I closed my eyes briefly, shuddering at the images that flashed through my mind. It didn’t take the Sight to figure out what happened next.

  “You’ve got to stop them,” I blurted out, pointing. “That way. I’m afraid they’ll get hurt—bad.”

  I tried not to think about what my friends would say if they found out I’d tattled. But I could worry about that later. Whatever was going to happen, it didn’t look good for Emily. Not if people were going to end up decorating her desk with ribbons and her locker with cards. Not if she was going to be carried off on a stretcher.

  Principal Zale looked doubtful for a second, but I guess something in my face told him this was for real. He took off down the hall, and Cait and I followed.

  “What’s going to happen?” she panted in my ear.

  “Nothing, I hope.” I crossed my fingers as I ran.

  “Stop right there!” the principal bellowed, pointing up into the stairwell.

  When we caught up, Emily was at the top of the steps, one foot on Brent’s skateboard and a surprised look on her face. More people were crammed into the stairwell—lots more. It looked like almost half the sixth grade had turned out to watch Emily’s dare. Talk about being the last to know. Well, second last. Obviously, Caitlyn and her dorky friends hadn’t heard either.

  “Aw, man!” Biff muttered.