Free Double Dog Dare by Lisa Graff Page A

down.

11.
    A bottle of green hair dye
    Luckily, the store was open late. And luckily, they sold green hair dye.
    Well, Francine wasn’t entirely sure if it was lucky or not. When they were back at the hotel, Francine sitting sideways on the bathroom toilet and her father hovering above her with plastic gloves on and the bottle of green dye in his hands, she began to have second thoughts.
    “How long does it take before it comes out again?” she asked. She’d washed and patted her hair dry already, like the instructions on the box said. The damp towel around her shoulders felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
    Her father grabbed the package off the sink and read the back. “Ten washes.”
    Francine thought about that. If she went through with it, it would be at least a week—probably two—before her hair was back to its normal color. Two weeks of looking like a human palm tree, every single day at school.
    Her father studied her reflection in the mirror. “You sure you really want the news anchor job this badly, pea pod?”
    That
was one thing Francine didn’t need to think about. TV animal-trainers-to-be were meant to be in front of cameras, not behind them. She nodded, one sharp jerk of her head. Then she took a deep breath. “Do it,” she told her father.
    “Okay …,” he said. And Francine watched in the mirror as he tilted the bottle over her head, squeezed, and …
    Splat!
    Francine Halata could no longer call herself a blonde.

12.
    A SPARKLY WHITE TUTU
    Kansas had had a lot of nightmares in his life. Nightmares about skeletons chasing him, and having to jump off mile-high cliffs into pits of bubbling lava, and vampires with machine guns for fangs. But wearing his little sister’s sparkly white tutu on his second Friday at his new school turned out to be worse than anything Kansas could have dreamed up in a thousand years. Even for the King of Dares, this one was a doozy.
    Kansas walked up the front steps, eyes straight ahead, tugging tight on his backpack straps. He took each step casually and quickly, in a way that said, “Yes, I know I’m wearing a tutu, thank you. I think it looks pretty awesome.”At least he hoped it said that. But he was pretty sure it didn’t. How could he look awesome in a
tutu
? He’d worn a plain white T-shirt that morning, thinking that it would blend in and make the tutu less noticeable, but the second Kansas had caught his reflection in the bus window that morning, he’d realized that it didn’t make him less noticeable. It made him look like a swan.
    Beside him, Ginny took his hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry, Kansas,” she told him. “I think you look good. Just like a real ballerina.”
    After Kansas dropped Ginny off at Art Club, he focused his eyes on his feet. The waistband of the tutu was too tight, and it itched, too, chafing his belly with every step. And was it just him, or had the hallway gotten longer since yesterday? And more full of kids? Kansas’s senses were suddenly on hyperalert. He could hear every snicker of the swim team over by the lockers, laughing at him. He could feel the air rustling from every mathlete who whipped a head in his direction. And the fingers of all the yearbook members pointing at him were practically in Technicolor. One of the Basketball Club kids over by thegym shouted, “Hey! Nice dress!” And the whole hallway broke out in screams of laughter.
    Five feet from Miss Sparks’s door, Kansas felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled around.
    Francine.
    “Nice tutu,” she told him.
    “Nice hair,” he replied. Her smirk quickly faded into a frown.
    Kansas almost couldn’t believe she’d really done it. But she had. Francine’s new green hair hung down in front of her face like vines in a jungle.
    “I can’t believe you made me do this,” she said, jabbing a finger toward her head. “You’re so mean. I would never do anything that mean to you.”
    “
I’m
so mean?” Kansas replied.
    The door whipped