Double Dog Dare Read Online Free PDF Page A

make it out—Kansas, standing in front of the flagpole, grinning like an idiot, like he was about to get his picture taken or something. And high atop the flagpole above him, something small and white was swaying in the December breeze.
    Francine had never been quite so depressed to see a pair of underwear.

4.
    A FUZZY PHOTOGRAPH
    “Take the picture!” Kansas called to Ginny. She was standing in front of the school marquee, blocking parts of the words SCHOOL SPIRIT DAY TOMORROW! WEAR GREEN & WHITE! so that all Kansas could see, around her tutu, was SCHOOL MORROW! WE ITE!
    It hadn’t been too hard to string his underwear up the flagpole once they’d finally gotten outside. The flagpole was still flagless, so all Kansas had to do was grab the rope, clip the briefs on, and haul them up.
    The hard part was getting Ginny to snap a photo before anyone saw them. Kansas hadn’t read Auden Elementary’s official rule book or anything, but he was pretty sure thatstringing a pair of underwear up the flagpole would
not
be considered acceptable behavior.
    “You just push the big button!” he shouted.
    Ginny wasn’t the greatest photographer, but she’d have to do, since Ricky and Will were back in Oregon. Ginny had taken a photo of the dare he’d done yesterday too—telling Mr. DuPree that he needed to smell his armpit for a science project—and that one had turned out okay. Kansas hadn’t gotten a photo of the lizard-licking dare on Tuesday, which was too bad, because that was pretty much the grossest dare Kansas had ever done. But Ginny had helped him re-create it when they got home, with a lizard from their backyard that Kansas pretend-licked for the camera. It wasn’t quite the same, but it would do for the Wall of Dares in his bedroom, and he knew Ricky and Will would get a kick out of it when they finally checked their e-mails. Now, Kansas was always prepared—carrying around the cheap digital camera his dad had given him in his back pocket at all times.
    Ginny snapped the picture.
    Kansas hustled Ginny back to Art Club with—hechecked the clock on the wall of the art room—twelve minutes until the bell rang. Kids were already starting to trickle into the hallway, and he could hear a few murmurs here and there that sounded quite a bit like “flagpole” and “underwear.”
    Kansas was just making his way back to Media Club when he noticed Luis heading out of a classroom two doors away, a stack of papers in his hands.
    “Hey, Kansas!” Luis called, stopping so that Kansas had no choice but to talk to him while they walked together.
    “Hey,” Kansas said. He was still the tiniest bit mad at Luis for nominating him for news anchor.
    Luis grinned at him. “Did you do the dare?”
    At that, Kansas couldn’t help but grin back. He pulled the camera out of his back pocket to show him, flipping the On switch as they continued down the hallway. But his grin quickly faded. “Aw, man! Ginny cut my head off!” He brought the camera close to his nose. All you could see was the tip-top of Kansas’s hair, poking out in front of the flagpole.
    Luis leaned in to look. “At least she got the underwear, though,” he said. “That’s really the important part.”
    “I guess,” Kansas grumbled. The entire image was fuzzy, completely out of focus.
    “If you want someone to take pictures for you, you know, I could do it. I took a photography class this summer. I’ll bring my camera tomorrow. It’s one of the old-fashioned ones. You know, like, with film?”
    “Um,” Kansas said. People actually had those still? “Thanks. That’d be cool.”
    “No problem.” Luis was riffling through the papers in his arms, last-minute announcements from various teachers. “Hey,” he said, “are you going to be around over winter break?”
    “Nah. I’m going camping with Ricky and Will. We go every year with Ricky’s dad, out in Glenyan, for, like, three days. We go rock climbing and ride ATVs, and Ricky’s dog comes too.