Double Dog Dare Read Online Free PDF Page B

trouble?” Kansas asked. “I mean, if someone finds out?”
    “Yeah, probably,” Brendan said. “But you probably would’ve gotten in trouble for the flagpole thing if you gotcaught, and Francine didn’t seem to care about you. So come on. You vote yes or what?”
    “Yeah,” Andre said. “Or what?”
    Kansas thought about it. “Sure,” he told Brendan. “I vote yes.”
    “Cool. We gotta make her do it before lunch is over. You should come with us.” And Brendan walked toward the door, snatching a thick black marker off the librarian’s desk as he went. Andre walked right behind him.
    Kansas thought, but he wasn’t certain, that he could just make out a suspicious bulge in the back pocket of Andre’s jeans—a bulge that looked a whole heck of a lot like a wadded-up pair of underwear. He even thought he maybe saw the hint of a waistband sticking out, with what might just be the letter
K
on it. But Kansas didn’t say anything about it. What was he supposed to say? “Hey, Andre! Do you have a pair of underwear with my name on them in your pocket?” Uh, no. So, without another word about anything, Kansas followed Brendan and Andre out of the library to find Francine.

5.
    A black permanent marker
    Not that Francine had ever spent any time thinking about it, but if she had, she would have assumed that a boys’ bathroom would smell pretty similar to a girls’ bathroom—soap and floor cleaner and just a little of that classic bathroom stink.
    It did not. The boys’ bathroom smelled quite a bit like the inside of one of her dad’s gym socks. She could smell it even from the hallway, with the door partially open.
    Kansas finished checking underneath the last stall door for feet and gave Francine the all clear. Andre held the door open for her, then handed her the black permanent marker. Brendan grinned his sinister grin. “Good luck,” he told her. But Francine could tell he didn’t really mean it.
    “Don’t worry,” Natalie assured her. “If any boys are about to come in, I’ll pound on the door so you can hide.”
    “Thanks,” Francine said with a gulp. The last thing she wanted to see that afternoon was
boys peeing
. She stepped inside, and the door shut firmly behind her.
    Francine uncapped the marker and looked around for a good place to write her message. She didn’t want to do it anyplace obvious, where the janitor would see it and she’d get in trouble.
    A faucet dripped.
    Settling on the tile wall beneath the sink, Francine crouched down, head below a rusty pipe, and began to scribble.
    Francine was here
    She’d just finished the last letter when she heard it.
    Pound, pound, pound.
    Natalie was knocking on the door! Francine’s head shot up—
smack!
—into the bathroom sink. “Ouch!” she cried, then slapped a hand over her mouth. This was no time for sissies.
    Tossing the marker quickly in the garbage can, Francine raced to the farthest stall against the wall and locked herself inside. Then she stood up on the rim of the toilet bowl, crouching slightly so her head wouldn’t show over the door. She could hear the main door to the bathroom creak open. Francine hoped that whoever had come in would pee and leave quickly. She didn’t want to spend one more second in that nasty stall than she had to.
    But the person did not pee. The person shouted.
    “Francine Halata!”
    Francine’s legs began to tremble underneath her. The voice on the other side of the door was unmistakable. It belonged to none other than Mrs. Weinmore, Auden Elementary’s bulldog of a principal.
    “Francine HALATA!”
    That fink Kansas had tricked her, Francine realized. He and Brendan and Andre must’ve raced for the principal the second she walked through the bathroom door. That was probably their plan all along.
    “I know you’re in here, Miss Halata!”
    Maybe, Francine thought, if she could stay perfectly quiet, she’d be okay. Mrs. Weinmore wouldn’t know forsure she was in the boys’ bathroom unless