Authors: Constance C. Greene

Double-Dare O’Toole (13 page)

Oh, Lord, he thought. What now?

When he tapped on the door, Mr. Palinkas said, “Yes?” in his impatient way. Fex went in and waited. Mr. Palinkas finally looked up. “It's me, Fex O'Toole,” Fex said.

“So it is,” The principal got up, came around to the front of his desk, and shook Fex's hand. “Well, well,” he said. “You had me worried there for a while. But now it looks as though you had a grip on yourself. You'll be fine.”

There didn't seem to be anything more to say. “I'm going now, if it's all right with you,” Fex said. “I'm taking off.”

“Yes,” Mr. Palinkas said. “I expect you are.”

The funeral home looked very gay. Behind its lighted windows many shadows moved. Fex made himself small as he followed Audrey up the path, dragging his feet as if he were going to the dentist. I don't know what to say, he thought. I don't want to go. I'm afraid. But I've got to. I've got to pay my respects. What shall I say? I'm sorry. I feel bad. Angie was my friend. I'll miss her.

Any or all of these things were true.

Please accept my sympathy. Once he'd heard his grandmother say, “May God have mercy on her soul,” when a friend of hers had died. Wasn't that God's job, to have mercy on people's souls? Angie was a good lady. A kind person. There were plenty of stinkers around. Why couldn't one of the stinkers have died instead of Angie?

Standing on the top step, Audrey turned to see if he was coming. The door was flung open. A man stood there, dressed in a shiny black suit that must once have belonged to someone much bigger, much fatter than he was.

“Ah,” the man said, as if he'd been expecting them, “there you are.” Fex fought the urge to run. “Come in,” the man said. Briskly Audrey did as she was told. Fex had no choice. He followed.

In the room beyond, the crowd roared like a seashell. Fex took a deep breath. “Why don't I wait outside?” he said in a squeaky voice. As if he hadn't heard, the man in the too-big suit said, “You'll want to see her.”

Fex's head felt funny, not entirely his. The back of his neck tingled. Perspiration ran down inside his underwear. Audrey had disappeared.

“I came with my friend. Her name is Audrey,” he babbled. His voice sounded ridiculous even to his own ears.

An old lady came at him.

“She looks beautiful!” the old lady said. Who did she mean? Audrey?

“Like a saint! Like a beautiful saint!” The old lady's little gray hand fell on Fex's shoulder. She gazed into his eyes, which were level with hers. The odor of fried fish clung to her clothes. He tried to work his way free. The smell of fish frying had always made him feel sick. She hung on. He wanted very much to hand her a karate chop he'd been practicing for some time, but he didn't dare. Not here. She wouldn't let him go.

“She was a wonderful girl,” the old woman hissed. The strong smell of fish rose again to his nostrils, settled somewhere in his stomach. “You're a friend of hers, eh?”

Fex nodded, conserving his strength. He struggled silently. The little gray hands held firm.

“Come with me,” she said. Candles flickered; heat and the scent of flowers overpowered him. He let himself be led.

Up ahead was a casket. He knew what it was, although he'd never actually seen one in the flesh. Or whatever you called it. He'd seen a picture of one once in a magazine. You've seen one casket you've seen them all, he thought. It was shiny, very shiny. Brand-new.

“There.” The old woman's hands dug into him. Her voice was thin and triumphant. “Didn't I tell you? Is she beautiful or is she beautiful?”

She pushed him down, forced him to kneel beside the casket. It crossed his mind that she was extraordinarily strong for such an old person. “Say a prayer,” she commanded. Fex put down his head, closed his eyes, and tried to pray. His mind was blank, the way it sometimes went in class when he was called upon to answer a question. Even when he knew the answer perfectly well.

He moved his lips in an effort to fool her.

Behind him, people moved, murmuring sorrowfully. Using up the oxygen. When your oxygen supply was used up, you passed out. Hadn't they just studied oxygen in science? He was going to pass out.

Fex forced himself to raise his head. He brought his eyes to the level of the casket's edge. The person lying there had a smooth, pink, untroubled face. Her lips were rouged and slightly smiling, as if at a private joke. Her glasses were gone. She wore a dress covered with dots. The dots made spots in front of Fex's eyes. An enormous sense of relief came over him. Why, that's not Angie, he thought. He'd never seen this person before in his life. It was all a mistake. Angie's not dead. This is someone else.

He started to rise, to get to his feet. He was going to get out of here even if he had to knock the old woman down.

“Sorry,” he said in a loud voice. “That's not Angie. You've got the wrong person.” He took a step away from the stranger lying there, lying peacefully in a dress with white dots. If they didn't know that Angie never wore dresses, with or without white dots, then they should. That did it. That made him know for sure that this wasn't Angie.

“Sorry,” he said again. It seemed to him that everything swayed: the room, the people watching him with open mouths, the candle flames, the flowers. Everything swayed. There must be a storm coming.

“Catch him,” he heard someone say. “Get him,” and that was the end of it.

“You O.K.,?” Audrey asked, peering anxiously at him. They were sitting on a bench in the hall of the funeral home. They were alone. Even the old lady had finally gone. So had the man in the too-big suit. The floor shone with a peculiar brilliance that made Fex's head hurt.

“What happened?” he said.

“You fainted.”

“I did not.”

Audrey shrugged. She looked worn out. “O.K. Call it what you want. What do I care? You feel well enough to walk home, or should I call your mother to come get us?”

“I'm fine.” He struggled to his feet. “Let's go.” He wobbled out into the air. The damp wind felt good against his face.

“What the heck happened to you?” he asked irritably. “One minute you were there and the nextâwhoof! you were gone.”

“I just went and sat down,” Audrey said. “Against the wall. I sat there, and the next thing I knew you were kneeling down by the coffin and putting your head down.”

“It was the old lady. She made me.”

“Anyway,” Audrey went on, “next thing I knew, you keeled over. Fainted, whatever it was you did. Everybody started rushing around, and I told them I was with you, and they brought you out into the hall, and I waited until you were fine.” She looked at him. “Are you fine?” she said.

Fex held himself very still. If he moved, something inside him might come loose. “Did I throw up?” he asked. His mouth didn't feel or taste as if he had. He didn't have the sour smell of throw-up on him, but he wanted to be sure.

“No,” she said. “You looked like you would, but you didn't.”

He was relieved. That would've been the end. They walked in silence to the corner, where they waited for the light to change.

“I didn't know men fainted,” Fex said. “I thought it was only women.”

“Women faint, men pass out,” Audrey told him.

He was too weak to argue.

“I don't think that was Angie,” he said. “It sure didn't look like her. I think they made a mistake. Either that or we were paying our respects to the wrong person.”

“It was her, all right.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I talked to her husband. And her son. I told them we were sorry. They said thank you for coming. Her husband said Angie was getting supper, and she said she didn't feel so hot, and she lay down, and when they went to wake her up, she was dead.” Audrey spread her hands wide.

“Then where'd she get that dumb thing she had on?” Fex said angrily. “That dumb dress. She never wore anything that looked like that, not when we knew her, and you know it. She wouldn't be caught dead in a dress.”

Audrey stepped back, away from him, her eyes wide. The enormity of what he'd said swept over both of them. They began to laugh. Their laughter grew louder, harsher, more frantic. It merged with tears. They cried standing on the sidewalk while the light changed from red to green and back again to red. They cried with their arms hanging at their sides. For a brief minute they clung together, hanging on each other's neck like exhausted swimmers who had finally touched bottom, safe at last.

Then, through his tears, Fex noticed that Audrey's neck had a faint, spicy odor. Funny. He hadn't noticed that smell the last time he'd touched her neck. The only other time he'd touched her neck. That night on the sofa in her house. That unforgettable night. This was different.

Fex's nose started to run.

“You got a handkerchief?” he asked. Audrey rummaged through her pockets.

“No,” she said. He used his sleeve. By now they'd stopped crying. They were too tired to cry. They stayed where they were a little longer. Then they turned, and Audrey's hand bumped against his. Fex took it and together they headed for home.

About the Author

Constance C. Greene is the author of over twenty highly successful young adult novels, including the ALA Notable Book
A Girl Called Al
,
Al(exandra) the Great, Getting Nowhere
, and
Beat the Turtle Drum
, which is an ALA Notable Book, an IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and the basis for the Emmy Awardâwinning after-school special
Very Good Friends
. Greene lives in Milford, Connecticut.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. Inc. for permission to reprint two lines from the song “I Double Dare You” by Terry Shand and Jimmy Eaton. Copyright MCMXXXVII, renewed by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0095-6

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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