Truth or Dare Read online

  For Christopher Dee

  The Comma Club

  I RIPPED OPEN THE BOX, and there I was.

  My name, times five hundred.

  Amalia Jessica Rollins.

  Seeing my name in print always gave me a weird feeling. But this wasn’t just weird. It was wrong.

  Not even asking me for input, Dad had ordered five hundred labels for the stuff I was bringing to sleepaway camp. How had he come up with the number five hundred? Even if I labeled every bristle on my toothbrush, I didn’t own half that many things altogether.

  And the font. It was all frilly and girly, like what you’d use to invite someone to a tea party. This is my sock. Sorry it smells like feet. I say, would you care for a crumpet?

  Plus, he’d ordered the wrong name. Nobody called me Amalia, which sounded like a fussy old lady who wore lace collars, or maybe an old-timey girl who played piano for her cat. I was just Lia, definitely not a lace-collar sort of person, and I couldn’t play piano, except for “Chopsticks.”

  And if I stuck all these labels on my clothes and towels and stuff, I’d be spending the entire summer going, Actually, it’s Lia. No, just Lia. L-I-A. You pronounce it Lee-uhh.

  Another thing: He’d included my middle name. Using your middle name on camp labels made you sound kind of like a baby. The fact that Jessica was also my mom’s name—well, I didn’t need five hundred labels to remind me about her. It’s not like I’d forgotten anything in two and a half years.

  And if all that wasn’t enough, the labels Dad had ordered were iron-on. Abi’s mom had told him to get the stick-on kind, but maybe he forgot. Or else he remembered that Mom had always used the iron-on kind, so he assumed they worked better. Maybe they did—but I was supposed to leave for camp in two days. I didn’t know the first thing about how to iron. Even if I downloaded some instructions, ironing labels—five hundred!—at the end of a scorching June sounded to me like medieval torture.

  I plopped onto my bed.

  All my camp clothes—shorts, tees, swimsuits, jeans, socks, pj’s, sweaters, raincoat, underwear—were piled in semi-neat stacks on my bedroom floor, waiting for somebody to pack them. Me, obviously. Well, I could just write Lia Rollins on everything in Sharpie, couldn’t I? But what if the ink ran in the rain, or in the washing machine, and all the clothing I owned got smeared? Or what if the ink bled through to the other side, and so my back said snilloR aiL?

  That would be horrific. Actually, no, it’s Lia. Read it backward, okay? Just pretend I’m standing in a mirror!

  Then it occurred to me: I could ask Abi’s mom to help me iron. Abi’s mom was like the Mom in Chief of Maplebrook. Plus, she was the leader of what Dad calls the Mom Squad, all my friends’ moms who pitched in after Mom’s accident. Abi’s mom—she made us call her Val—was constantly saying, You can call me anytime, Lia. About anything.

  So maybe I could call her now and say, Hi there, Val. How would you feel about ironing labels? Even though Dad ignored your advice about the stick-ons?

  Okay, maybe not.

  I reached under my bed, which was where I stored all my collections in bins: buttons, seashells, erasers, marbles, charms, dice. I opened the bin of marbles and started sorting them by color, which usually relaxed me.

  “Lia?” My fourteen-year-old brother, Nate, was in the doorway. “Friend for you downstairs.”

  “Now? Who?” I sat up.

  “I dunno. All your little friends look the same to me. Except for Jules.”

  “Shut up,” I said. I was sick of his comments about Jules. “Is it Abi? Makayla? Marley?”

  I’d tossed my cell phone exactly two and a half years ago, vowing never to get a new one. This meant friends of mine were always showing up without the “can-I-come-over-now” call first. It wasn’t a problem for me, but it got on my brother’s nerves.

  He shrugged. “Go see for yourself, Lia, okay? She’s in the kitchen.”

  I ran downstairs. Marley was standing at the counter. She was wearing a baggy Maplebrook Middle School tee and jeans with holes in the knees, and she was holding a Tupperware.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She grinned. Marley’s orthodontist let her change the colors of her rubber bands every visit, and now, for some reason, they were purple and orange. Her mouth always looked as if she were rooting for a team I’d never heard of.

  “I came to say good-bye,” she announced. “For the summer. Also, my mom made you these. She wants the container back, so . . .” She handed me a Tupperware. I took off the lid: oatmeal cookies.

  “Yum,” I said. “Tell her thanks.”

  “They have raisins,” Marley said. “Sorry.”

  “What’s wrong with raisins?” I took a big bite of cookie.

  “They’re all shriveled up.” She made a face like a raisin. “I like food that’s smooth.”

  Marley could be a little weird sometimes, but she was smart. Sometimes people thought she was sort of slow, because she had “a learning thing,” which meant that she had a bunch of different aides and tutors at school and also at home. But I knew how fast her brain worked and how she noticed things. Also how incredible she was at drawing.

  Plus, there was another thing about her: She was the only friend I had who looked like me.

  I don’t mean in the face. (I was green-eyed and light-brown-haired, with a turned-up nose and pale freckles on my cheeks. Marley had dark brown eyes and dark brown hair and messy bangs and wore black glasses that practically shouted nerd. But on her they looked cool; I can’t explain why, but they did.)

  I mean in the body. Of all our friends, Marley and I were the Least Developed. Neither of us had boobs or waists or hips, and we were both skinny as spaghetti. Julianna—who everyone called Jules—was Most Developed; she’d had her period since the start of sixth grade and made sure we knew about it every month. (“Omigod, I have killer cramps,” she always said, which sounded to me like a cheesy sci-fi movie: Attack of the Killer Cramps. Return of the Killer Cramps.) Makayla and Abi—which was short for Abigail—were both “on the verge,” they said, constantly talking about and comparing “symptoms.”

  But Marley and I weren’t even close to being “on the verge.” We were both in the Comma Club, we joked—comma as opposed to period, haha. (This was a private joke, by the way; we didn’t share it with our other friends. At least, I didn’t.)

  Marley was spending this summer with her dad in Chicago, going to art school at some museum. And suddenly it occurred to me how much I was going to miss her.

  “I wish you were doing camp with us,” I blurted.

  “Not me.” She shuddered. “I hate spiders. And sitting around the campfire, toasting things.”

  “We don’t toast things. We toast marshmallows. And it’s not like that’s all we do for ten weeks.”

  “Yeah, okay. But the whole cabin business.” She caught my eye.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Living with the same people all the time. Eating with them, listening to them snore, changing clothes in front of them . . .”

  I didn’t need to ask; I could guess what she meant. Marley still wore undershirts. I had a couple of “training bras” Val gave me after Abi must have asked her to. Training bra: The idea was funny, if you thought about it. Like you needed to train yourself to wear underwear. Oh, good job; you’re really wearing that thing correctly today!

  “But it won’t be so bad,” Marley added quickly. “I mean, you have Jules and Abi and Makayla—”

  “Yeah. But there are twelve girls in our cabin, not just them. I wish—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. No, you’re right. We’ll have an awesome summer. So will you.”

  Marley threw her arms around me and squeezed. “I’d say I�
�ll write to you, but you know I won’t. See you in September, Lia.”

  “See you, Marley. Bye. No, wait!”

  Except she ran out the front door before I could give her back the plastic container.

  The You-Know-What

  TWO DAYS LATER I WAS meeting the camp Sunflower Hill bus in the shopping center parking lot. Dad, who was an optometrist, had taken off work that morning so he could bring me over, even though Val had insisted she could do it. But at the last minute some patient needed emergency sunglasses or something, so he was on the phone when we should have been driving. And by the time we got to the shopping center, my friends were already waiting in the parking lot, with their duffel bags and backpacks piled beside them.

  “Lia!” Abi screamed as I joined them. “We thought you’d forgotten! Where are all your bags?”

  “In the car.” I pointed to where Dad was standing, nodding slowly while Val was giving a speech to him about sunscreen.

  “Well, aren’t you bringing them?” Abi laughed. She always laughed at the end of sentences, even if what she said wasn’t funny.

  “Yeah, I will,” I said. “In a minute.”

  “But the bus will be here in, like, thirty seconds. You should go get them; I’ll help you carry them.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll get them myself. But thanks, Abi.”

  She made a “whatever” face.

  Then Jules threw her arms around me in a squeezy hug. Last year Jules was just sort of blobby; this year when she hugged me, it always gave me a little shock. I mean, it felt almost like hugging a grown-up. Today she was wearing a sundress a few shades yellower than her hair, and you could see purple bra straps peeking out from both shoulders. All of Jules’s clothes were hand-me-downs from her fashion-obsessed big sister, so everything Jules wore was the latest style, although from three years ago. Not that any of us was counting.

  “So did Abi tell you?” Jules murmured.

  “Tell me what?” I glanced at Abi, who usually was in charge of information.

  “About Makayla. She got her you-know-what.”

  “Her period?”

  “Last night. Finally.”

  “It was really, really baaaad,” Abi said, doing an exaggerated wince. I looked at Makayla, who was standing a few feet away with her mom. Of all of us, Makayla was the best student, the best athlete, and (in my opinion) the best-looking. She was tall and strong, half African-American (her dad) and half Korean (her mom); her skin was warm brown, and her long black hair made a thick, wavy ponytail. She was captain of the district swim team, played flute in the countywide band, and wasn’t afraid to stand up to anybody, even Abi. I was in awe of Makayla, to be honest, but right then she looked droopy and weepy.

  She must have noticed that I was staring, because she said something to her mom and walked over.

  “Hey, Lia.” She gave a crooked smile. “So you heard the big news?”

  I nodded. “You okay?”

  “Sure. If it’s okay to feel like your body’s been taken over by aliens.”

  Jules smiled sympathetically. “Is that how it feels to you? Because whenever I get killer cramps, I think of them like mice playing on gym equipment.”

  “That’s horrible,” Abi said, laughing.

  “To me the cramps feel bigger and slower,” Makayla said thoughtfully. “Like maybe a giant sea monster walking through peanut butter.”

  “That’s pretty good,” Jules said. “My sister says it feels like they’re taking down a building. With one of those wrecking-ball things.”

  I started to chew on my cuticles.

  “Plus I have a headache,” Makayla added.

  Jules nodded. “A throbbing one?”

  “No. More like my head is a gum-ball machine.”

  “Well, that’s better than a pinball machine!” Jules said. “That’s what my headaches always feel like!”

  “And I just feel so bleh,” Makayla said. “And slow. Like a slimy slug.”

  “Well, at least you don’t look too bad,” Abi said.

  “Are you serious, Abi?” Makayla groaned. “My stomach is completely bloated. My hair’s a mess. My skin is supergross—”

  I took a couple of steps backward.

  “Lia, where are you going?” Abi asked.

  “Bags,” I said as I turned and started jogging. “Back in a sec.”

  I stopped in front of Dad, who was telling Val something about his Check Engine light. “Excuse me? Dad?” I said, out of breath. “Can I please talk to you a minute? Inside the car?”

  “Everything okay, Lia?” Val asked, her made-up eyes concerned and piercing.

  I nodded. “Great.”

  Dad and I got in the car. “What’s up, Doc?” he asked, patting my knee.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m not going.”

  “You mean to camp?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. It was a huge mistake.”

  He smiled patiently. “Oh, come on, Lee-lee. It’s normal to feel a little nervous—”

  “I’m not nervous. I just don’t want to do it.”

  He stopped smiling. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then what’s changed? Lia, you’ve been to sleepaway camp before. You loved it. A week ago you were so excited to go back.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  His eyebrows rose. “You’re not even going to give me a reason?”

  “I can’t. It’s too personal.”

  “Well, you need to tell me something.”

  “Okay.” I stared out the window at my friends. Abi, Makayla, and Jules had their arms around one another’s shoulders, and they were singing, but I couldn’t tell what. Val was chatting with Makayla’s mother, and Jules’s mom was smearing sunscreen on her elbows.

  “I didn’t iron on the labels,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The labels you ordered. They were all wrong. The font was horrific, and it wasn’t even my right name, so I can’t possibly go to camp, or all my stuff will get lost.”

  “Oh.” He blinked. In this light, I could see his eyes behind his sunglasses. They looked tired. “Well, Lee-lee, I’m sure someone at camp can help you label your clothing—”

  “But that’s not everything,” I blurted. “Please don’t make me talk about it, okay? I just don’t want to go. I’ve changed my mind. Please, Daddy?”

  He sighed. I never called him Daddy anymore, and it probably startled him a little to hear it. Also, I never asked him for anything. Ever since Mom’s accident, I made myself be as easy as possible. Sometimes Nate was moody and gave Dad backtalk, but not me. I just wanted there to be no more problems.

  So maybe that was why he seemed to be thinking it over. “Well, aside from the fact that I already paid for the summer and don’t even know how much I can get back, there’s the issue of you. I’ve got to go to work, obviously. And Nate has travel baseball—”

  “I know. I wouldn’t hang out with him, anyway.”

  “And all your friends will be gone. So how will you entertain yourself all summer?”

  “I’ll stay with Aunt Shelby.” As soon as I said this, I knew it was a brilliant plan. Aunt Shelby had a beach house up in Maine, and she’d been begging me to visit for “girl time.” Dad always said Aunt Shelby was “a nut,” and Nate always said she was just plain crazy. It wasn’t that I disagreed with them, to be honest. But Aunt Shelby was also Mom’s younger sister, the only grown-up female relative I had.

  Dad scratched his chin for a few seconds. Then he said, “Has she invited you?”

  “Only like a million times.”

  “I’ll have to think—” he said slowly.

  I kissed his cheek fast, so he couldn’t.

  And right at that moment I could see the camp bus pulling into the parking lot. It was shiny and silver, bigger than a school bus, and it probably had a bathroom. Probably played videos too.

  “Dad? Can we please just leave now?” I begged.

  He grunted. “
I don’t know about this, Lia. You don’t even want to tell your friends you’re not coming with them?”

  “Truthfully? No.”

  “Well.” We sat there and watched the bus come up to the curb. Abi was looking at our car, waving her arm like, Hurry up, Lia! What’s taking you so long? And Val began jogging toward us with a concerned-mom look on her face. I couldn’t watch.

  “Your mom would never agree to this, you know,” Dad murmured.

  “I know.”

  “As long as you do,” he said, and we zoomed off.

  Mom Squad

  I GUESS IT’S TIME TO tell you what happened with Mom. I’ve put it off as long as I could, but nothing will make sense if I don’t explain it. So here goes. Two and a half years ago Mom was driving home from work. She taught first grade at Maplebrook Elementary and had to stay late that day for some faculty meeting. It was dark and raining when the meeting ended, so she took the long way home, because the streetlights were better. But some stupid guy in a stupid SUV was talking on his stupid cell phone, and instead of paying attention to a stop sign, he slammed his car into Mom’s. And he killed her.

  At first I was just kind of in shock. All I kept thinking was, I wonder what that guy was talking about on his stupid cell phone. Like, what could possibly have been so important that it was more important than being careful about my mom? Hey, did you see the game last night? or Honey, I’m sorry I’m running late, but there was traffic. Or, Did you see that skating cat on YouTube? Dude, it was hilarious.

  After the funeral the guy actually came to our house to apologize. He was bald and pudgy, crying into a handkerchief, and he came with his wife, who brought us cookies. The fancy bakery kind that look all fake, pink and green with rainbow sprinkles that taste like wax. Dad let them sit on our sofa and apologize for a few minutes, while Nate and I watched from upstairs. Dad didn’t say very much, and then he stood, which meant it was time for them to leave. But the guy started blubbering, so finally Dad left them alone in the living room.

  “That poor man,” was all he said to us afterward.

  But Nate and I didn’t think he was a poor man. We thought he was a monster. Not the fairy-tale kind, but the real kind, who were actually scarier, because they acted “sorry.”