Let Them Dare novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Table Song

Selah sings on a cafeteria table to win her phone back; Dane returns it dead, her portal password already changed, and the reissue window closes at four.

At 12:10 on Friday the cafeteria was full, and I climbed onto a lunch table in front of everyone.

Somebody had already started recording.

Then six more phones came up, and then twenty.

Dane sat three tables away with his arms crossed.

He was smiling at me, and I did not like it.

Delaney stood by the milk coolers with her shoebox.

She nodded once, and I understood that I was supposed to start.

I do not sing.

I have never sung in front of anyone, and the school song is not easy to sing even in the shower.

"Ridgeline, Ridgeline," I started, and my voice cracked on the second word.

Someone whooped.

"We climb as one, we climb as one."

My cheeks were hot, and I kept my eyes on the clock over the door.

The second verse is about the hills and the third is about the river, and I got through both.

By the last line the whole room had begun to sing it with me.

They sang it loud and badly, and they were laughing, and for a few seconds I was laughing too.

I got down off the table, and the applause was real.

A boy I barely knew slapped my shoulder.

Delaney was clapping with her hands over her head.

I walked right up to her.

"Rule three," I said, loud enough for the tables around us to hear. "A player who finishes a dare in front of everyone can ask for one thing back from the Pot."

The clapping thinned out.

Delaney's smile did not change.

"That's on the back of every card," I said. "Check yours."

Half the room turned a card over.

I heard someone say, "Oh, she's right," and then someone else said, "She's right."

"One thing," Delaney said.

"My phone."

I turned to Dane.

He had stood up, and the smile was gone from his face.

"Selah, come on. We talked about this."

"We talked about it yesterday. You said Sunday."

"Sunday's the game's end."

"The game says one thing back from the Pot," I said. "Rule three. Delaney wrote it."

I looked at Delaney.

She was quiet for exactly as long as it took the room to start watching her.

"A rule is a rule," she said.

I had not expected her to say it.

Dane stared at her, and I saw something go across his face that I did not understand.

Then he unzipped his left jacket pocket and held out my phone.

The room clapped again.

I took the phone and pressed the side button.

Nothing happened.

"It's dead," Dane said, and shrugged. "You wore it down on Wednesday."

"I didn't touch it on Wednesday. You had it."

"Then it's just old."

"Thanks, Dane."

I walked out with the phone in my fist while the cafeteria cheered a girl who had done a dare.

In the library I plugged it into the charger behind the periodicals shelf and stood over it for six minutes.

It came on at four percent.

I opened the browser and typed in the address for the testing center's portal.

I entered my application number and my usual password.

The page said, Password incorrect.

I tried again, slower.

Password incorrect.

I tapped Forgot password, and a box told me a reset link had been sent to the email on file.

It showed me the address with most of the letters hidden.

d*****@r*****.org

That was not my email.

Mine starts with a W, for Selah.

I sat down on the floor between two shelves.

The shelf in front of me was the biography section, and I read the spines because I could not read anything else.

Dane's email starts with a D.

His is on a school domain, and I knew it by heart because he gave it to me our first week.

I opened the account page on my phone's saved login.

The change log said the recovery email had been changed on Wednesday at 11:48 at night.

Wednesday was the night Dane held my phone while I studied for the exam.

He had sat on my couch and told me not to worry about a thing.

I called the testing center on the library's desk phone.

The same woman picked up.

I gave her my application number and told her what had happened, and I tried to keep my voice steady.

"Oh, honey," she said, and I heard her typing. "That's marked as a security change. Anyone could've done it. It locks the account for twenty-four hours, so you can't reissue online."

"Is there another way?"

"You can come in with your photo ID before four, and we can verify you at the desk. Your school has to sign the letter, though."

"I can't get the school to sign anything before four. The administrators are all in an assembly."

"Then after four you'd need an administrator at the door on Saturday." She hesitated. "I'm sorry. I'd help you if I could."

It was 12:51.

The testing center was forty minutes away, and I did not have a car.

Pia worked her shifts at the bakery on Fridays.

My mother had the bus pass.

I stood up, and I did not know whose door to knock on.

Someone leaned in the library doorway behind me.

"I've got a free period," Robby said. He held up a ring of keys. "My truck's in the lot."

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