Authors: Lisa Graff
All around the table, the members of the Media Club nodded.
“Sounds fair to me,” Alicia said.
“Good idea, Brendan,” Emma agreed.
“I think it sounds
brilliant,
” Andre put in.
“Let’s make it official,” Luis said. “All in favor?”
Everybody except Kansas and Francine raised their hands. The dare was officially on.
On the way home from school, Francine convinced her dad to swing by her mom’s house to pick up Samson. That
guinea pig, Francine realized, was her ticket to winning the talent show on Friday. What judge
wouldn’t
vote for an adorable furry creature with big sappy brown eyes? Especially if he could do lots of great tricks, like leap over walls and crawl through mazelike tubes.
Only … Samson hadn’t quite seemed to figure out that was what he needed to be doing.
“Aw, come
on,
Samson!” she cried when Samson got lost in his tunnel for the fourth time. He’d been in there for five minutes, snuffling and snorting and generally doing everything but coming out the other end. “We’re never going to win if you keep that up.” So far the only thing Samson had done correctly every single time was walk in a straight line to get a guinea pig treat. And no judge was going to give her two hundred dollars for
that
.
Francine stuffed her hand into the tube and coaxed Samson out. He snuggled his warm body against her palms, cute as ever, with his tufts of fur peeking out between her fingers. But Francine was still mad at him.
“Maybe he’s just nervous,” Francine’s father piped up. He was sitting on the couch, drawing in his sketchbook.
He’d been working on a new machine—Francine had taken a peek in the car. This one would be thirty steps long, and end with a carton of milk tipping over into an empty glass. “It’s a lot of pressure on the little guy,” he said, “trying to win a talent show. Maybe Samson just has stage fright. Some of us were never meant to be in the spotlight.”
Francine’s father grinned at her, like he thought he was being funny. But Francine didn’t grin back. She was still mad at him too.
After dinner—pizza from Carlino’s, again—Francine walked across the street to Kansas’s house. Mainly, she wanted to see how Ginny was doing. Partially, she also wanted to try to wiggle some information out of Kansas and find out what he was planning to do for the talent show.
When she rang the doorbell, a woman answered who must’ve been Kansas’s mom.
“Um, hi,” Francine said. “I’m Francine, and—”
But she wasn’t able to finish her sentence, because Kansas’s mother immediately wrapped her up in a bear hug.
“
Thank you, Francine,” she said when she’d finally let go. “For everything. I was so sorry I missed you at the hospital. I really wanted to meet you. Thank you for being such a good friend. To both Ginny and Kansas.”
“Uh, yeah,” Francine said. “No problem. I—” But Kansas’s mother was back to hugging her again.
After what felt like a century, Kansas’s mom finally stopped hugging Francine and led her through the house, past a beat-up corduroy couch and a tiny Christmas tree bursting with ornaments. “Ginny’s resting right now,” she told Francine as they walked. “But I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you.”
“Franny!” Ginny shouted the second she laid eyes on Francine. She was in bed, tucked beneath her covers, but she looked a million times sunnier than she had the day before. Scraps of green construction paper were strewn across her bed, and she was wielding a pair of scissors, which Francine carefully avoided as she bustled across the room for a hug. “Your hair is starting to fade,” Ginny told Francine, squeezing her in tight.
“Really?” Francine plucked a strand of green hair away from her face and examined it. “Huh. Maybe it is.”
“
You gonna dye it back?” Ginny said. “I really like it green.”
Francine laughed.
From the doorway, Kansas’s mom told them, “I’ll let you two catch up. But just fifteen minutes, okay? Ginny needs her rest.”
“Aw,
Mom
.”
“Ginny, I don’t want you to overdo it. Be calm, you hear me?”
“Mo-
om
.”
“Calm.”
She shut the door.
Francine peered around the room. There was a small pile of unpacked boxes in the corner, and posters all over the walls. And there was a second bed against the far wall, and a thick line of masking tape separating the two sides.
“You share with Kansas?” Francine asked.
“Yep. There used to be a wall of boxes in the middle, but Kansas took it down. Now it’s just the tape. He loves sharing with me. We’re like best friends.”
“He’s not home?”
“Nah,” Ginny replied. “He’s next door practicing for the talent show.”
“
Oh?” Francine sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, careful not to smush Ginny’s construction paper scraps. “Do you, um, know what his act is?”
“He’s gonna ride a unicycle,” Ginny said, picking up a piece of green paper and aiming her scissors at it. “I think he borrowed it from one of the teachers at school. Won’t that be great?”
Francine frowned. Riding a unicycle was
way
better than having a guinea pig who could only walk in a straight line. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Great.”
“You wanna help me make a Christmas tree?” Ginny asked her. She passed Francine one of her scraps of green paper. “I wanna make it as tall as the ceiling, but I’m not good at cutting.”
Francine took the paper, and the scissors too. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
While Francine cut, Ginny directed her, chattering about Christmas trees and ornaments and all the presents she was going to ask Santa for. And mostly Francine listened. Mostly. But she also thought.
She thought about Kansas riding a unicycle, and how he was probably going to win the talent show. And she
thought about how, as soon as he
did
win, everything that Francine had worked so hard for—becoming the news anchor, beating Kansas in the dare war—was going to be all for nothing. And then she thought about how, in the end, maybe that wasn’t as terrible as she’d thought it would be.
Not that Francine
wanted
Kansas to win the dare war. Not that she
wanted
to lose the news anchor job. But at least if Kansas won the talent show, he’d be able to save the Media Club. And maybe saving the club was more important than beating Kansas Bloom. If she could just get back behind a camera, she thought, she’d be pretty happy. Even if it
was
aimed at Kansas.
After Ginny’s mom came in and told them that it was time for Francine to go home, Francine hugged Ginny good-bye and let herself out the front door. And it was then that she heard the terrible crash from next door.
Screeeeeeeeeeech! THUD.
Francine poked her head over the fence to the neighbor’s driveway, and that’s how she found Kansas—facedown on the concrete beneath a unicycle, his legs splayed at odd angles.
“
Are you okay?” she asked, bustling next door to help him up.
Kansas was back on his feet before she got there. “I’m fine,” he grumbled, dusting off the knees of his jeans. “I was just trying a new trick.” He yanked the unicycle up by the seat. “My act’s really good. I’m totally going to beat you.” But Francine could tell, by the way he avoided her gaze as he spoke, that Kansas was lying. His act was just as rotten as hers was.
“Oh,” Francine said. “Good. Mine’s really great too.”
“Great,” Kansas replied. “It’ll be a really good show then.”
“Yeah. Well …” Francine shuffled her feet. It was hard to believe that the Media Club was going to be over for good. Just like that. “Um, well, anyway, I guess I should go.” She gestured vaguely across the street. “I just came to check on Ginny. She’s, um, she seems better today. I was helping her make a Christmas tree.”
Kansas shook his head. “Is she still doing that?”
“Yep. She says she wants to tape it to the wall and glue you guys’ ornaments on it. I tried to tell her they’d probably fall off, but—”
“
That’s what I said too!” Kansas cried. Their eyes met briefly, and then Kansas shot his back down to the ground again. “I
told
her we already have a tree, but she says the one Mom got this year isn’t big enough.” He snorted. “Whoever heard of having two Christmas trees?”
Francine laughed. “I have two Christmas trees,” she told him.
“Really?”
“Yeah. One at my mom’s and one at my dad’s. ’Cause my parents are getting a divorce and—”
Francine stopped talking. Her heart skipped a beat. The words had just tumbled out of her mouth.
My parents are getting a divorce.
She’d really said it. Out loud. “My parents are getting a divorce,” she said again, just to hear how it sounded.
Kansas kept his eyes on his feet. “I, um, already knew,” he told her.
“You did? How?”
“I read a note you got from the office. I was going to tell you that day you IM’d me, but then you—”
“What are you talking about?” Francine asked. Maybe he’d fallen over one too many times that afternoon. “I never IM’d you. I’m not even allowed to use IM.”
“
Sure you did. When you dared me to wear Ginny’s tutu. You were super mean. That’s why I dared you to dye your hair.”
Yep, Kansas had definitely lost it. “I never dared you to do that,” Francine told him.
Kansas froze, his mouth open. He wrenched it closed, then opened it again, slowly. “Really?” he said.
“Really.”
“You
swear
?”
Francine nodded, and Kansas cocked his head to the side. “Who do you think it was, then?”
Francine shrugged. “No idea.”
“Francine!”
There was a call from across the street. Her dad. Francine could see him in the parking lot of their apartment complex.
“Yeah?” Francine shouted back, cupping her hands to her mouth. “What is it?”
“Time to come in, pea pod! It’s getting late.”
For the first time, Francine realized that the sky was dimming—had dimmed. It was dark, murky. She could even make out several stars in the sky.
“
Be there in a sec!” she hollered. Her father nodded and hiked back up the stairs to the apartment.
She turned to Kansas. “Look,” she said, before she could stop the words she knew she needed to say. “I know you said your talent show act was really good, but …” Kansas rolled his unicycle slowly back and forth across the driveway, avoiding her gaze. “Well, one of us needs to win, to save the club. And I was thinking”—Francine took a deep breath—“would you maybe want to work together?”
Kansas stopped rolling the unicycle. “Why would you want to work with me?” he said.
“To save the club. I just
told
you.”
“Is this some sort of trick?” Kansas asked.
“No, it’s—”
“Francine!”
It was her father again, leaning his head out the window.
“Pea
pod!”
“Coming!”
She turned back to Kansas. “Just forget it,” she said. “I’ll do it by myself.” Maybe there was still time to train Samson. “I thought maybe you actually cared about the club, but I guess not.”
“I care,” Kansas said.
Francine rolled her eyes. “You hated the club from the very first day. You never even wanted to be in it.”
Kansas pressed his thumb hard into the unicycle seat. “Not everyone can be the star of the club like you, Francine,” he said.
Francine raised an eyebrow. What was he talking about? Francine wasn’t the star of the club. If anyone was the star, it was Alicia. She was the news anchor.
“I want to save the club too, you know,” he told her. “But what am I supposed to do? I can’t even ride a stupid unicycle. You want me to just get up on stage and pour a glass of milk or something? Who would pay two hundred dollars for
that
?”
Francine blinked.
“What?” Kansas said. “Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something in my teeth?”
Suddenly Francine’s heart felt a million times lighter, as though all her worries had been lifted away. “I’ve got it,” she said, allowing a smile to stretch across her face. “I know what we’re going to do in the talent show.”
26.
A HAMMER
Of all the tools in Mr. Muñoz’s workshop—the drill, the buzz saw, the grinder—it turned out that the one Kansas liked the best was the hammer. There was something calming about pounding a nail into a piece of wood, feeling the wood give at the very last minute when the nail finally went through.
“Looking good, Kansas,” Mr. Muñoz told him, stepping back into the garage holding two cans of soda. “Coke or Dr Pepper?”
Kansas’s mom never let him have caffeine at night. “Dr Pepper, please,” he said, setting down the hammer. Mr. Muñoz tossed him the can. Kansas caught it, then tapped
on the top with his fingernail a few times before popping back the lid. It opened with a satisfying
fizz,
and Kansas took a good long gulp.
“Why do you tap it?” Mr. Muñoz asked him when Kansas had set his can on the workbench beside him. “Before you open it?”
Kansas readjusted his plastic goggles. “It, like, settles the soda.” He picked up his hammer again, then set a nail against the large piece of plywood, right where Mr. Muñoz had marked it. “The carbonation or whatever. So it won’t spray out when you open it.” Now that Kansas thought about it, he wasn’t sure any of that was true at all. But Will had always done it, so Kansas had too, for as long as he could remember.
“Huh,” Mr. Muñoz said. He tapped a few times on the top of his Coke, then popped the top—no foam. “Well, how ’bout that?”
Kansas and Francine had been coming over to Mr. Muñoz’s workshop every afternoon that week to work on their talent show act. It was a ton of work, and there was no way they could have done it without Mr. Muñoz. Kansas could hardly believe they’d done it at all. It had been three
days of measuring, sawing, and nailing, long into the evening, and somehow they were almost completely done. Francine was at her mom’s tonight, so it was up to Kansas to work on the finishing touches.
“So tell me again,” Mr. Muñoz said, strapping on a pair of goggles to match Kansas’s. He picked up a second hammer. “If you guys win the talent show tomorrow night, then you get to read the morning announcements for the rest of the year together? Is that the deal?”