by Lisa Graff
“Francine!” Her father got up and followed her.
“You should get this one,” she told him, pointing to the mattress in front of her. “I mean, it’s pink and everything, but you’d never know when you put the sheets on it.”
“Francine,” her father said again.
“And it’s on sale.”
“Francine.”
Why did he think that if he just said her name a whole bunch, everything would be okay? It wouldn’t be okay. They were shopping for mattresses, for goodness’ sake. Nothing would ever be okay again. She spun around on her heel and glared at him. “I want my ice cream sundae now,” she said.
“Francine, listen to me.”
“No.”
“Francine.” He picked her up and set her—plop!—on top of the pink mattress, and he took hold of both of her hands. She wiggled free of him, but he grabbed her hands again and held on until she finally looked at him. “Francine,” he said. “You’re a smart girl. And I know that this is hard on you, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Francine. But I think, in the end, it really is the best thing we can do for you, to give you two happy parents, instead of two just sort-of-fine ones.”
“But …” Francine sniffled. “We were happy.” She looked down at the stitching on the mattress, the way the lines crossed each other, breaking the surface up into perfect diamonds. “I thought we were happy before.”
Her father took a moment to think about that. He let go of her hands and sat down next to her, but he didn’t talk, not for a long time. Then, finally, he said, “We were, mostly.” He paused and smoothed his hand across the top of her hair then, the way he used to when she was little. “But I don’t think there’s just one kind of happiness. You and I and your mother, I think we need to find a different way to be happy.” He tucked a loose strand of green hair behind her ear. “Does that make sense, pea pod?”
Francine fingered the stitching on the mattress, letting the words sink in. A different way to be happy. Was it possible to be happy with two different houses, two different beds?
“Maybe,” she said. She puffed out her cheeks. “I guess.”
“You ready for ice cream?”
“But I thought …” Francine looked around at the hundreds of mattresses.
“I can sleep on the floor a few more days before my back gives out, I think. What I really need right now is some rocky road. What do you say?”
At that, Francine gave him the tiniest smile. “With hot fudge,” she said.
18.
A BLUE SWIVELY CHAIR
Kansas was in for a surprise when he arrived at Media Club on Friday morning.
“Club members,” Miss Sparks announced, “Alicia won’t be here for the announcements today. Her father just called, and she has an early dentist’s appointment. So I’ve decided that this morning we will have both Kansas and Francine try out the news anchor’s desk.”
Kansas was so busy watching Brendan slap his desk that it took him a moment to register what Miss Sparks had just said. News anchor? Him? Today?
Miss Sparks smiled at both Kansas and Francine in turn. “It will be good practice for whichever one of you ends up with the job. So!” She clapped her hands. “We have a lot of work to do, don’t you think? Let’s get bustling!”
And what a lot of bustling there was. While everyone else went about their normal jobs, Kansas and Francine got set up behind the desk. Francine grabbed Miss Sparks’s big blue swively chair before Kansas even had a chance to say he wanted it, but Brendan and Andre helpfully offered to borrow one from Mr. Paulsen next door so that Kansas could have a nice, big, twirling one too. Once he was seated, he and Francine began splitting up the announcements.
“Do you want to read this one?” Kansas asked Francine, flipping through the papers. “About the talent show?” He wanted to give her all the ones with words he wasn’t sure how to pronounce.
But Francine wasn’t paying attention. “Emma!” she hollered, jumping out of her chair so quickly it toppled over. “That’s not how you turn on the camera! No, it’s not that button, it’s … Here, let me show you.”
While Francine taught Emma how to use the camera, Natalie came over to make Kansas “camera ready.” This mostly consisted of pushing the hair on top of his head from one side to the other.
“You sure you don’t want any lip gloss?” she asked.
“Uh, no.”
“But it’ll make your lips shinier.”
Kansas told Natalie that he was perfectly happy with his unshiny lips, thank you.
After the bell rang and the other students in Miss Sparks’s class began to trickle in and take their seats, Francine finally came back to sit beside Kansas. But she didn’t stay long.
“Emma, no!” she hollered again. “I told you! That’s not how you zoom!”
Kansas shook his head and turned his focus to the papers in front of him, reading each one over carefully so he’d be sure to say everything correctly. His palms were itchy. He’d never been on camera before. What if he did something embarrassing?
“Two minutes!” Miss Sparks called.
Luis came back into the room and handed the last-minute announcements to Brendan, who looked at them quickly, then began scribbling notes on top. Francine returned to the news desk so Natalie could prep her, but after squinting at her for ten seconds, Natalie announced that there was “nothing to do for green hair,” and wandered off. Francine scowled into her stack of papers. Kansas did his best to ignore her. He’d rather share a news desk with a warthog.
The bell rang.
“Places, everyone!” Emma shouted, clearly enjoying her new role behind the camera. Kansas ran his tongue over his teeth, checking to make sure he didn’t have any leftover oatmeal stuck there. Beside him, Francine sat up a little straighter. For someone who’d been trying to be news anchor so badly, Kansas thought, she looked downright petrified. Kansas smiled.
“Ten seconds!” Emma hollered.
That’s when Kansas noticed Andre, walking right toward him.
“Is something wrong?” Kansas asked. “Is there a problem with the lights?”
Andre placed the stack of last-minute announcement on top of Kansas’s pile of papers. But he didn’t answer his question. He turned, instead, to Francine. “We double dog dare you …,” Andre began.
“And five!” Emma screeched.
“… to pick your nose …”
“Four!”
“… on camera …”
“Three!”
“… and …”
“Two!”
“… eat it.”
“ROLLING!”
Andre turned and raced away. The light on the camera turned green.
Francine was speechless. She sat, staring at the camera, her mouth hanging open. It was hard to tell if she had stage fright or was still in shock about the dare. Maybe a little of both.
But Kansas, surprisingly, found that he felt cool as a cucumber.
“Good morning, Auden Elementary,” he said, smiling into the camera. He turned his focus away from Francine and thought instead about what he was supposed to say. “Happy Friday. Alicia’s out sick, so Francine and I are going to be your co–news anchors for the day.” This wasn’t so bad. Nope, not at all. “I’m Kansas Bloom.” He turned to Francine.
“Um …,” Francine said slowly. Her hands were shaking on top of the desk, and her face, Kansas couldn’t help noticing, was almost as green as her hair. Was she going to do it? Would she really do the dare?
Slowly, Francine raised her hand to her face.
She wouldn’t, Kansas thought. Not in front of the whole school.
She reached one outstretched finger to her nose.
No way.
She took a deep breath …
And, just like that, Francine Halata picked her nose.
And ate it.
The room exploded with shouts and screams and laughter. The whole school exploded. You could hear it out the door, echoing down the hallw
ay.
Wow, Kansas thought. That had actually been sort of impressive.
At the far end of the room, Miss Sparks had her lips drawn into a tight line. It wasn’t a frown, but it definitely wasn’t a smile either. Kansas waited until the ruckus around him had died down to a low rumble, and then he looked at the stack of the papers in front of him, to start reading the announcements.
But what was on top of Kansas’s papers wasn’t an announcement.
It was a note, on a small scrap of paper, written in Brendan’s pointy, thin scrawl.
We double dog dare you to spin around in your chair for the entire announcements.
Kansas gulped. Spinning was the one thing he wasn’t good at.
But a dare was a dare.
Without a further second of hesitation, Kansas picked up his stack of announcements, tucked his toes to the ground, and spun himself around in his swively chair.
“The PTA is having a bake sale!” he announced as he twirled. One twirl, two twirls, threefourfivesix … His brain was already a jumble of dizziness, but he wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t. “Next Friday, before the winter talent show.” Eleven twirls. Twelve. The dippy bird perched on the edge of the desk was a blur of red and blue. Thirteen. Fourteen … Kansas lost count. Every time his eyes whirled past Miss Sparks, he could see her shaking her head into her hands, but still Kansas kept spinning. “Fifty cents for cupcakes, a quarter for cookies. Francine, over to you.”
“Uh …” Even now that she was done with her dare, Francine’s voice sounded trembly. She looked down at her own stack of papers. “Congratulations to Dylan Kutner for winning the spelling bee last night. Dylan will be competing in the semifinals next month, so everybody wish him luck. Kansas, back to you.”
Was it Kansas’s turn to talk again already? He took a deep breath and, stomach beginning to churn like a dishwasher, he read from his sheet of paper.
“The school talent show is coming up next—”
Kansas’s stomach gave a threatening lurch. But still he kept spinning. Spinning and reading.
“The talent show is next Fri—”
A sour tang crept into the back of his throat. But still he continued to spin.
“Friday. The show is next Friday. Come watch your schoolmates compete in all sorts of acts. The winning act will get two hundred—”
Kansas tried to stop it. He really did.
But there, in front of the camera …
… in front of the school …
… his vision shifted into sparks and darkness …
… and, still spinning …
… Kansas Bloom barfed up his breakfast. Bananas and oatmeal, and a glass of OJ. It all came out in a spin, spewed on the desk, on the ground, all around him in a perfect circle.
Kansas stopped spinning and looked over at Francine, his head barely lifted off his chest. He had never felt so miserable. Pukey and miserable. He was never going to live this down. He couldn’t say that he was the King of Dares, not anymore. He hadn’t finished the dare, so he hadn’t gotten the point, and now they were tied, eight to eight. And the tiny part of him that felt anything other than pure and utter awful was plain angry, because he knew—knew—that Francine was going to be so, so happy.
But Francine didn’t look happy.
Actually, she looked like she might …
19.
A dippy bird
Barf.
That was the only word running through Francine’s head.
There was barf everywhere. Barf on her shoes, barf all over the floor, even a little bit flecked on her jeans. And in the glass in front of Miss Sparks’s dippy bird, was that …? Yes. It was oatmeal. Kansas had eaten oatmeal for breakfast, Francine could tell for a fact. And now the dippy bird was dunking down to eat it.
Her cheeks went hot.
Her forehead went cold.
Her chest pulsed.
Her eyes watered.
And then, in front of the camera, the school, and everybody …
Francine barfed too.
20.
A DESK FAN
“Well, now,” Mrs. Weinmore said, inspecting both Kansas and Francine carefully over the bulb of her nose. “I had a feeling you would both wind up here sooner or later.”
Kansas looked up at the clock on Mrs. Weinmore’s wall. Eight sixteen. Straight from the nurse to the principal’s office in eight minutes flat. That had to be some kind of record.
“Mrs. Weinmore,” he began. He could still see a little bit of puke on the toe of his shoe. “It wasn’t my fault. I promise. I—”
The principal held up a hand to quiet him. “Mr. Bloom,” she said, her voice sharp as an ice pick, “I strongly suggest you stop talking for the time being.”
Kansas followed her suggestion.
“I was very clear to both of you,” the principal went on, “that no shenanigans would be tolerated in this school. Wasn’t I?” She looked first at Francine, then at Kansas, and Kansas could feel her eyes boring into him like lasers. “Wasn’t I clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kansas mumbled, eyes in his lap, just as Francine squeaked out a “yeah.” Mrs. Weinmore’s desk fan was pointed straight at him, drying out his eyes with a whirr. He wondered if that was part of his punishment.
“I thought that I was clear. And yet you both went and made fools of yourselves anyway, in front of the entire student body. Dares.” She spat out the word as though it left a rotten taste in her mouth. “If someone told you two to march off a cliff, you’d both do it in a heartbeat. I’ve never seen such behavior. I know crushes at this age can be overwhelming, but engaging in dares is no way to deal with your feelings.”
A crush? On Francine? If Kansas had had anything left in him to barf, he would’ve upchucked it right there in the principal’s office.
Next to Kansas, Francine squirmed in her chair. “You can’t prove we did any dares,” she said. “I just had a booger this morning, that’s all.”
Kansas liked where this was going. “Yeah,” he said. “Francine eats her boogers all the time.”
Francine nodded furiously. “I do. It’s true.”
“And me,” Kansas added, “I just felt like spin—”
“Mr. Bloom. Miss Halata.” The principal’s voice had changed from ice pick to sledge hammer. “Our janitor, Mr. Grell, informs me that he found a small slip of paper on Miss Sparks’s desk, underneath your other … digestibles. Now, I don’t believe there is a single person on this earth who wants to attempt to read what is on that paper. But I am willing to bet that on it there may very well be written a dare.” For someone with such a bulge of a nose, Kansas thought, Mrs. Weinmore really knew how to look threatening. “If I am forced to read the paper instead of having you tell me what it says directly, I will gladly double your punishment. So, do tell me.” She leaned forward on both elbows. “Was it a dare, Miss Halata? Mr. Bloom?”
Francine sighed. “Yes,” she admitted. “It was a dare.” And all Kansas could do was nod in agreement.
“I see. And what do you think might be a suitable punishment for such an offense?”
Kansas was just about to mumble out “getting detention,” when suddenly he realized something.
“All I did was spin,” he said. So he’d spun around in a chair during the announcements. So what? Was that really worth getting in trouble for? “And that’s not against the rules. I mean … it’s not, right?”
“Yeah,” Francine agreed from the seat next to him. Kansas snapped his head in her direction, and he could tell that she felt just as surprised as he did to find them both on the same side. “It’s not against the rules to pick your nose, either. If it was, Andre would be in trouble all the time.”
The look Mrs. Weinmore shot them then could’ve shriveled a plum to a prune in three seconds flat. “The two of you,” she admonished, “cannot even begin to understand the chaos your little morning high jinks have wreaked in this school.”
“Um … chaos?” Kansas said.
“
All across the school”—Mrs. Weinmore swept her arms out to her sides wildly—“we had some of our more … delicate students become ill from watching your little capers on the air.”
“Ill?” Francine asked.
“It seems that there can be something of a chain reaction in watching a person vomit.” She closed her eyes for a moment in disgust. “Forty-three students,” she told them. “Forty-three students are currently in the nurse’s office, calling their parents to come pick them up from school.”
So that was why there had been such a crowd in the nurse’s office. Kansas had figured there’d been a lice outbreak or something.
Francine’s eyebrows were raised to the ceiling. “You mean, we made forty-three kids …?”
Mrs. Weinmore nodded. “You made forty-three students vomit before first recess,” she confirmed. “Forty-five if you include yourselves.”
Now that had to be a record.
“Which is why,” the principal went on, “both of you will be suspended for the rest of the day.”
“Suspended?” Kansas’s throat felt like it might close up. He’d never been in trouble in his whole life. He’d never even been to the principal’s office before.
“Suspended,” Mrs. Weinmore confirmed.
Francine’s face went completely pale. “What about …” She took a deep breath. “What about Media Club? You’re not going to … We can still be in it, right?”
Mrs. Weinmore drummed her fingers on the table, studying Francine’s face for a long moment. Kansas sank as far back in his chair as possible, as though maybe, if he stayed far enough out of her way, the principal would forget he was there altogether.
“Under normal circumstances, Miss Halata,” Mrs. Weinmore replied at last, “I would remove the two of you from Media Club immediately. However, it seems that in this instance I don’t have to.”
Francine cleared her throat. “Re-really?”
“Really,” Mrs. Weinmore replied. “Because as of this coming Monday, Media Club will be canceled.”
“What?” Kansas and Francine cried together.
Mrs. Weinmore had already turned her attention to some papers on her desk. “Yes. As it happens, you need a camera to run a media club, and the one you’ve been using is broken.” She tapped the bottom of a stack of papers against her desktop. “It seems that modern-day camera equipment is ill-equipped to handle the effects of vomit.”