Let Them Dare novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Vote

Delaney pleads and the seniors vote with her; Selah learns a ticket reissue needs a code sent to the phone Dane holds, and decides to play rule three; Delaney hands her a dare card.

I did not call anyone from the office.

The secretary was still holding the clipboard, and she was already frowning at it.

"Is something wrong, Selah?"

"No," I said. "I need to find Dane."

That was true, and it was also the only sentence I trusted myself to say.

The seniors had moved out to the courtyard for the last half of lunch.

Delaney sat on the low brick wall with a shoebox in her lap, and about thirty people were around her.

Dane stood behind her with his hands in his jacket pockets.

I walked straight up to him.

"You signed my name."

"It was a note, Selah. It's not a big deal."

"The tickets are not a prank. They're the only way anybody gets into that exam on Saturday."

"Nobody's losing a ticket." Dane looked at Delaney. "Tell her."

Delaney looked up at me with her red eyes.

"They're safe, Selah. I promise. I'm hiding them on bus three on Saturday morning, and everybody finds their own on the ride. It's the last dare of the week."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"It's the last big adventure," Delaney said softly. "That's all it is. We search together, we laugh, we get to the center, we take the test. Nobody's in danger."

Somebody behind her said, "That's actually kind of sweet."

"Every one of us has a ticket with a number and a photo," I said, and my voice was higher than I wanted. "If one is lost, that person doesn't sit the exam. They wait until October."

"Then nobody should lose one," Delaney said.

She said it so gently that I almost agreed with her.

She turned to the courtyard.

"Hands up if you want to keep the final dare. I'm serious. If most of you don't, I'll give them back right now."

I waited.

The hands went up, thirty and then forty, and then every hand in the courtyard.

A girl I had tutored in algebra raised hers and would not meet my eyes.

Dane raised his as well.

"It's decided," Delaney said, and wiped her cheek again. "I'm sorry, Selah. I really am."

I looked at the hands, and then I turned around and walked out of the courtyard.

I was shaking by the time I reached the science wing.

Pia caught up with me by the water fountain.

She did not say anything.

She put her own phone in my hand and stood there.

I called our homeroom teacher.

It rang four times, and then his recorded voice said he was at the state teachers' conference until Saturday morning and would answer messages when his train arrived.

I left a message that said, "It's Selah. Please call the school office as soon as you hear this. It's about the exam tickets."

I called the Harlan County Testing Center next, and a woman answered on the second ring.

I told her my name and my seat number and that my ticket might be missing.

She was kind about it.

"We can reissue it online, hon. We send a one-time code to the phone number on your application. You type it into the portal and print a new one."

"Do I have to have the phone?"

"The code goes to that number only. You've got until four o'clock tomorrow. After that, reissues need a signed letter from a school administrator, in person, at the door."

I thanked her.

I hung up and handed the phone back to Pia.

"It's my number," I said. "It all goes to my phone."

"And your phone is in Dane's pocket."

"Yes."

"Oh," Pia said. "So that's not an accident."

"He's had it since March, Pia. I just handed it to him."

"You handed it to him because he asked nicely. I hate saying this, but you should think about why."

I did not want to think about why.

Somebody called my name from the stairwell.

"President."

Robby Fitch was sitting on the third step with a paper bag lunch on his knee.

He was in my chemistry class and he sat in the back, and in four years we had maybe exchanged a hundred words.

"You're not playing," I said.

"I read the rules card on Monday." He took out a sandwich. "Delaney wrote them. There are three."

"I know the first two. Don't tell a teacher, and every phone goes in the Pot."

"Number three is the one nobody talks about." He took a bite and chewed. "A player who finishes a dare in front of the whole class can ask for one thing back from the Pot. Any one thing. Delaney has to give it."

I stood very still.

"Is that written down?"

"On the back of every card. Dane's in charge of the Pot, so he'd have to hand it over."

"He wouldn't."

"He might, in front of the whole cafeteria." Robby shrugged. "People like Delaney keep their own rules in public."

I went back out to the courtyard.

Delaney was alone on the wall now, folding her paper into a smaller square.

She looked up at me and tucked it into her pocket.

"I want to play," I said.

Her eyebrows went up.

"You?"

"You said everyone's an adult. I'm everyone."

She paused, and then she smiled, the first real smile I had seen on her all day.

She took a card out of her shoebox and held it between two fingers.

"It's not an easy one, president."

She turned it over so I could read it.

Tomorrow at 12:10, stand on a cafeteria table and sing the school song. Everyone watches.

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