Free Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan, Rachel Cohn Page B

judge another for the prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn’t be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations. (Gotcha with the word choices, right? I know, sometimes I surprise even myself.)
    Belief. That’s what I want for Christmas. Look it up. Maybe there’s more meaning there than I understand. Maybe you could explain it to me?
    I had continued writing in the notebook when the train came, and finished my entry just as it arrived at Fifty-ninth and Lex. As the zillions of people, along with me, poured out of the train and up into Bloomingdale’s or the street, I concentrated hard on not thinking about what I was determined not to think about.
    Moving. Change.
    Except I wasn’t thinking about that.
    *
    I dodged Bloomingdale’s, walking straight toward FAO Schwarz, where I realized what Snarl had meant by “payback.” A line down the street outside the store greeted me—a line just to get into the store! I had to wait twenty minutes just to reach the door.
    But no matter what, I love Christmas, really really really I do, don’t care if I am sardined in between two million panicky Christmas shoppers, nope, don’t care at all, I loved every moment of the experience once I got inside—the jingle bells playing from the speakers, the heart-racing excitement at seeing all the colorful toys and games in such a larger-than-life setting. Aisle after aisle and floor after floor of dense fun fun experience. I mean, Snarl must know me well already, perhaps on some psychic level, if he’d sent me to FAO Schwarz, only the mecca of everything that was Great and Beautiful about the holidays. Snarl must love Christmas as much as me, I decided.
    I went to the information counter. “Where will I find the Make Your Own Muppet Workshop?” I asked.
    “Sorry,” the counter person said. “The Muppet Workshop is closed for the holidays. We needed the space for the Collation action figure displays.”
    “There are action figures for paper and staplers?” I asked. How had I not known to include these on my list to Santa?
    “Yup. Just a hint: You might have better luck finding the Fredericos and the Dantes at Office Max on Third Ave. They sold out here the first day they went on sale. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
    “But please,” I said. “There has to be a Muppet workshop here today. The Moleskine said so.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Never mind,” I sighed.
    I worked my way past the Candy Shoppe and Ice Cream Parlor and Barbie Gallery, upstairs past all the boy toys of guns and Lego warlands, through the mazes of people and products, until I finally landed in the Collation corner. “Please,” I said to the salesclerk. “Is there a Muppet workshop here?”
    “Hardly,” she spat. “That’s in April .” She said this with all the contempt of Well, duh, who doesn’t know that?
    “Sorry!” I said. I hoped someone’s parents sent her to Fiji next Christmas.
    I was about to give up and leave the store, my belief in the Moleskine defeated, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a girl who looked college age, dressed like Hermione Potter. I assumed she was a store employee.
    “Are you the girl looking for the Muppet workshop?” she asked.
    “I am?” I said. Don’t know why I said it like a question, other than I wasn’t sure I wanted Hermione knowing my business. I’ve always resented Hermione, because I wanted to be her so badly and she never seemed to appreciate as much as I thought she should that she got to be her. She got to live at Hogwarts and be friends with Harry and kiss Ron, which was supposed to happen to me.
    “Come with me,” Hermione demanded. Since it would be dumb not to do what a smarty like Hermione instructed, I let her guide me to the farthest, darkest corner of the store, where the stuff no one cared about anymore, like Silly Putty and Boggle games, was. She stopped us at a giant rack of stuffed giraffes and