“I could too, easily. I could go a whole week.”
It was times like this that my straight-A, honor roll brain jumped into overdrive. I knew there was only one way to beat Eddie and that was to play by his rules, which unfortunately were always dirty. The plan that formed in my mind was not a nice one. “What if the person who completes the craziest dare at school gets the attic room?”
Eddie was speechless. We were both engrossed in our own thoughts. Eddie finally broke the silence. “I dare you to burp really loud in class,” he challenged.
I was afraid Eddie would come up with something like that. “Yeah, okay. I can do that. But then I dare you to stop being a bully for one whole week.”
Eddie let out a sigh of relief. “Easy.”
“And you have to be nice to everyone you have ever been mean to.”
“How am I supposed to do that? It would take forever!” Eddie whined.
“True. But I’m giving you a week.” I said.
“Fine. But your burp can’t be a regular burp. It has to be loud enough for everyone to hear including Ms. Waverly. And it has to be at a time when no one expects it. Can you do it?”
Not wanting to appear unsure, I said, “No problem. Do I get the whole week too?”
“Yeah. We will start on Monday. Whoever doesn’t complete his dare by Friday loses. Agreed?” Eddie asked.
“Agreed. Wait!”
Eddie laughed. “Are you backing out already?”
“No. But what happens if we both complete our dares? Then who gets the room?” I asked.
“I didn’t think of that,” Eddie said.
“I know. We’ll have back-up dares for the next week,” I said.
“Genius,” Eddie replied.
The next week was poetry week. I knew there was some kind of great dare in there, but couldn’t figure it out. Eddie, on the other hand, didn’t have a problem with coming up with my next dare.
“You have to fart really loud in class. And in front of Ms. Waverly. And it has to smell, too.” Eddie laughed.
Dang, Eddie was picking all the things that he was good at. He was also a legend when it came to farting. There was this one time, in science class, when Eddie farted too close to the sulfur beaker and it exploded. The whole class had to evacuate. He got sent to the principal’s office for that one too.
“Well, what about me? Can’t think of anything?” Eddie inquired.
And just then it hit me, “You know how we have our poetry unit in two weeks?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said cautiously.
“You have to write a love poem to Ms. Waverly and recite in front of the class,” I said.
“No way. Ms. Waverly is so old and ugly.”
“Can’t do it?” I smirked.
“You little...I can do it. Wait! What if we both do our dares again, who wins?”
“If we both do our dares, then the third week should be a shared dare. One so bad that whoever does it first, automatically wins hands down.”
“I like the sound of that,” Eddie said.
“You would. Hey, we have to make a pact. If either one of us tells anybody about these dares, especially our parents, then he automatically loses. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Eddie jumped down to face me. “I got it. The final dare. The ultimate dare!”
“What?” I asked.
“Whoever runs though the cafetorium in his underwear during lunchtime wins!”
“Are you crazy? Do you know how much trouble we could get into?” I asked.
“Are you in?” Eddie narrowed his eyes.
“I’m in,” I said reluctantly. I didn’t sleep well the rest of the night.
Eddie’s Big Caveman Feet
CHAPTER 3
Even though it was Saturday and I got to sleep in, I was cranky and tired. I tossed and turned all night and wondered what I’d gotten myself into. Eddie, on the other hand, slept like a baby. His snores echoed off the walls and burrowed into my ears. He really was the king of disgusting sounds.
I knew I had to prepare myself for the coming week if I was going to succeed. I made a few notes before getting dressed and then headed downstairs. Allie was already up. The rich smell of bacon filled the room and not just regular bacon but the thick, smoky kind.
“Do you want some bacon and eggs?” Allie asked cheerfully as she tucked a strand of long brown hair back into the messy bun from which it had escaped.
“I’ll have some bacon, but eggs give me gas, maybe next Monday,” I said.
Allie looked puzzled as I filled a cereal bowl.
“I’m going to the store later, do you want anything special for your lunch this week?” she asked.
“Actually, yes. I’ve made a list.” I pulled it out of my back pocket and handed it to her.
“Pop-rocks, lemon-lime soda and straws. I can’t get you these things; they’ll rot your teeth and give you indigestion.”
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“I mean it’s for a science project about food that gives you indigestion,” I quickly answered.
“Oh, alright,” she said not thoroughly convinced.
Eddie’s caveman feet pounded down the stairs.
Is he ever quiet? I thought.
* * *
On Monday morning, the yellow school bus doors folded open with a hiss. Eddie stomped aboard and I followed behind him. The noisy bus grew instantly quiet as Eddie made his way down the aisle. I knew Eddie would never be able to be nice to everyone he wronged. The attic room was as good as mine.
Eddie passed Matthew, a somewhat geeky boy in our class. Matthew opened his lunch box and removed his daily offering. It was an enormous snicker-doodle cookie. The smell of cinnamon and sugar made Eddie’s stomach rumble loud enough for me to hear.
“My mom just made these this morning,” Matthew said nervously.
I peeked around Eddie’s shoulder. “Yum, delicious,” I said as I tried to goad Eddie into taking the cookie. “I bet you wish you had a tall glass of cold milk right now. Huh, Eddie?”
“That does sound good,” Eddie agreed and grabbed the cookie. “Wait a minute...” he said as he caught onto my scheme and tossed the cookie back into Matthew’s lunch box.
“Nice try, shrimp boy,” Eddie said to me.
Matthew looked confused as Eddie continued down the aisle.
Bria, a shy girl with blonde hair and chubby cheeks, held out a folder for Eddie.
“Here’s the book report you asked for,” she said.
“Did you make it a C-, because last time the B+ made Ms. Waverly suspicious,” he growled.
“Yes and I even spilled some jelly on it to make it more authentic,” Bria said.
“I don’t know what that means, but that word better not be in the report,” Eddie added.
“Authentic means its real, as in it really looks like you wrote it,” Bria said.
Eddie’s face fell as he realized his error. He couldn’t take the report or he would lose the bet.
“Keep it, Bria. Maybe you can rewrite it and use it yourself,” Eddie said.
“Okay,” Bria answered with a puzzled look.
As Eddie continued down the aisle, several students on the bus held up a dollar bill for him to collect. I guess I never noticed that before because I usually sit in the front as far away from Eddie as possible. But for this week, I wanted to keep my eye on him.
“Here’s this week’s protection money,” one freckled-face boy said as he handed Eddie a dollar.
“That’s impressive,” I said to Eddie. “No wonder you have such a good DVD collection.”
“I won’t be collecting protection money this week,” Eddie announced in a loud voice.
The freckled face boy started crying. “Does that mean we won’t be protected from you?”
“No,” he continued, “I’m taking the week off, but I will collect next week and the price will be double.”
I nudged Eddie in the ribs, “Thanks for the room,” I whispered
in his ear.
Eddie wasn’t going to let me win that fast, so he quickly said, “What I meant to say was next week is free, too.”
Cheers all around the bus. I couldn’t believe they actually cheered for Eddie. Eddie smiled and raised his hands in victory. He loved the attention. You’d have thought he’d just become the President of the United States. This wasn’t working at all like I planned.
* * *
I sat in the cafetorium and opened my lunch box. I tossed a handful of pop-rocks in my mouth. It felt like a small firework display exploding against my checks. I sipped the lemon-lime soda through a straw. My nose tickled at the combination of fizzy soda and pop-rocks but I managed to keep it down.
Paul, a tall, blonde boy, laughed exposing pieces of his bologna sandwich in his mouth. “I can’t believe you just did that! Nobody mixes those two things. You could die!”
“That’s a stupid rumor,” Chelsea, a pretty girl with brown skin said.
“No, it’s true,” a short boy named Manny said. “It happened to my cousin’s best-friend’s brother. His head blew off.”
“I do feel a little queasy,” I said.
“Serves you right for eating that way.” Marina, the smartest girl in the class said as she drank her milk.
I continued drinking my soda.
“Idiot,” Marina said under her breath.
I looked over at Eddie eating lunch by himself. Every once in a while a kid would walk over and offer him a tasty treat. I saw Eddie turned down two Snickers bars, a bag of potato chips, a chocolate pudding, a juice box, and a strawberry cupcake. Eddie was taking this more seriously than I ever imagined. I doubled my efforts to finish the lemon-lime soda. My stomach gurgled loudly.
“Are you alright?” Chelsea asked.
“He’s going to blow, just like my cousin’s best-friend’s brother!” Manny yelled.
I put my hand over my mouth and ran for the bathroom.
“Stupid boys,” Marina said as she daintily dipped a chicken nugget into honey-mustard sauce.
* * *
The porcelain sink felt cool under my fingers as I stared at myself in the mirror. My skin was the same green color as the lemon-lime soda can. My sandy-brown hair stood up in different angles and my brown eyes were bloodshot. I felt pressure building up in my throat. Just then, Eddie barged through the door.
“I just heard a rumor that your head blew off,” he said. “I thought I’d come see for myself. You look okay to me for a green dude,” he said as he slapped me on the back.
“Burrrrp!” It came out of my mouth before I knew it and it was my best burp ever.
“I did it!”
“Too bad no one heard it but me. It doesn’t count,” Eddie said.
“Wait, I feel another one coming on,” I said and ran back into the cafetorium with Eddie on my heels. “This one will count,” I said as I opened my mouth. But instead of burping, a spew of vomit erupted from my lips. It hit the floor with a splat as the entire student body moaned in disgust.
Eddie and I stared at the vomit in amazement as little pop-rocks continued to burst in the gooey mess.
“Cool, popping vomit,” Eddie exclaimed.
* * *
I hated the school clinic. The bed was rock hard and every time I moved, the sanitary paper crinkled beneath me. Nurse Turley leaned over me and her breath smelled like tuna fish. She put her hand on my forehead.
“You don’t feel hot,” she said. “Maybe it was something you ate. What did you have for lunch?”
“The usual,” I answered not wanting to give myself away.
“And what was the usual?” she asked.
I had to think fast. I knew I couldn’t say pop-rocks and lemon-lime soda.
“Fruit,” I answered.
“What kind of fruit?”
“Mostly lemons and limes,” I said.
“That’s your usual lunch?”
I remembered the pop-rocks were grape flavored. “I also had some grapes,” I added.
“Are you familiar with the food pyramid?” she questioned. She pointed to a poster of the food pyramid on the wall. It was next to a poster that showed kids covered with disgusting rashes and chicken pox.
I felt the bile rise in my throat as I stared at the gross disease poster. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Of course you don’t. You have too much acid in your stomach from all that fruit. I’ll give you a sip of carbonated soda to settle your stomach. Would you like grape or lemon-lime?” she asked.
“Neither,” I moaned.
“Either? Okay, lemon-lime coming right up,” she said cheerfully. She handed me a small Dixie Cup of soda. The red polka-dots on the Dixie Cup looked just like the chicken pox on the poster.
“Drink up,” she ordered.
As I drank the soda, I couldn’t help but stare at the poster. It showed a kid’s arm covered in red splotches with the word Rubella written under it. What’s Rubella? Gross! I thought. It was all too much. Poor Nurse Turley didn’t stand a chance. Bull’s eye! My vomit hit her squarely in the chest. Now I understood why she always wore a smock. I rolled over and closed my eyes. This really wasn’t going at all like I planned.
CHAPTER 4
The damp washcloth felt cool on my forehead. I snuggled deeper into the couch and pulled the quilt up to my chin. I wasn’t really sick, but I liked how Allie doted on me. My stomach felt fine now that I ate some chicken soup. Mostly, I just liked having a mom.
“Feeling better?” Allie asked as she entered the room. She placed a hand on my cheek.
“Yeah, much,”
“Nurse Turley said something interesting when I picked you up from school,” she said.
“Really? What?” I said nervously. Maybe Allie was onto me.
“She said something about you eating only lemons and limes for lunch.”
I knew I was the worst liar in the world. If only I had Eddie’s skill in that department.
“Yeah, that’s right, he did.” Eddie said as he swaggered through the door and tossed his backpack on the floor. “It was awesome!”
“Hi sweetie,” Allie said to Eddie. “How was your day?”
“Josh set a new puking record at school, so I’d say pretty great,” Eddie answered.
“Why would you eat lemons and limes for lunch?” she asked me again.
“And grapes. Didn’t you eat some grapes, or something grape flavored?” Eddie added with a mischievous grin.
“Grapes, lemons and limes? That’s a lot of acid for one meal. Why did you do it, it wasn’t a dare was it?” Allie asked.
How did she know? I thought. “Well, it was like this, you see, um, it, ah…” I was going down in flames and then something amazing happened. Eddie, the master liar, came to my rescue.
“See Mom, Josh and I were watching this show last week about the lives of real pirates and we were all sitting together at lunch today talking about how the pirates got scurvy, and...”
“Wait,” Allie interrupted.
Oh great, I thought, the one time Eddie’s lie didn’t work.
“You mean to tell me you and Josh sit together at lunch?” she said and looked surprised.
“Sure, we do. Anyway, we were talking about the ocean voyages of pirates and how they always keep citrus on board to prevent scurvy. Then Josh was worried he might have scurvy because he hadn’t eaten any fruit in a while. So, I raided the teachers’ ice tea table when no one was looking and gave him the lemons and the limes to eat.”
Eddie was a true genius! I looked at him in amazement. Eddie fired off a quick wink and a half grin. I could barely hold in my laughter. Eddie, big mean Eddie, just came up with a world class excuse and put himself in the line of fire to pull it off just to save my skin!
“I don’t like you raiding the teachers’ table,” Allie said. “And if I hear of it again, you’ll be in more trouble than you can imagine. But I’m glad to hear you boys are sitting together at lunch.” she said and she patted both our heads and disappear
ed into the kitchen.
“That was priceless! You truly are the master. How did you remember all that stuff about pirates?” I asked.
“I always remember what I watch on TV,” Eddie answered and you could tell he was quite pleased with himself.
That was true. Eddie always remembered everything he saw on TV. I realized this meant something important, but couldn’t quite figure out what.
* * *
The next day, I was focused on the task at hand. I knew the pop rocks had been the fatal error. If I could bring myself to just drink the soda, I could pull it off. To make sure I burped in class, I came up with a clever plan. Tucked into the left leg pocket of my cargo pants were ten straws. A can of soda was in the right leg pocket.
As the entire class sat through Ms. Waverly’s math lesson, I put my plan into action. My palms were sweaty from nerves, so I had to keep wiping them on my pants. But I knew I could pull it off.
“When adding fractions, how do you change the denominator and numerator?” Ms. Waverly droned. Marina’s hand flew up. She knew everything.
My hand moved slowly down toward my left pant leg as I very carefully unzipped the zipper. It took me three full minutes to remove each straw and place them into my desk.
“Josh,” Ms. Waverly said.
I snapped to attention. Ms. Waverly looked suspicious.
“Are you paying attention?” she asked.
“Yes,” How do they always know?
“Then perhaps you should come up to the board and finish this problem,” she said.
I walked up to the white board and stared. I grabbed the blue Expo Marker and effortlessly solved the problem of converting the denominator to a like number for both fractions and then added and reduced and was done. I only wished I could burp as easily as I could add fractions. I saw Eddie watching me. He looked impressed.
Ms. Waverly said thank you, but looked a little disappointed. She lived to catch kids not paying attention.
The Underwear Dare: Nerd vs. Bully! Page 2