Double-Dare O’Toole by Constance C. Greene Page A

sweet-and-sour pork. Fex gorged himself. Jerry leaned on his elbow when his father wasn’t looking, pushing bits of pineapple around his plate, as if they were racing cars and the plate the track.
    â€œMay I please be excused?” Pete said. When his manners were good, it was a sign of big things. Pete was going to a dance at the high school.
    â€œWho’s your date?” Mrs. O’Toole asked.
    â€œDate?” Pete mouthed the word as if it were distasteful to him. “Date? You must be kidding, Mom. Nobody has dates for a dance.”
    â€œIn my day,” said Mr. O’Toole, “it was considered standard practice to ask a young lady to a dance. Otherwise you’d have to dance by yourself, and that might cause talk. Whom do you dance with if you don’t bring a date?”
    â€œWe mess around, see what we can dig up when we get there,” Pete said. “The girls come in a crowd, we come in a crowd. Some kids disco. The rest sort of mill around, you know?”
    â€œNo,” said Mr. O’Toole. “I’m not sure I do.”
    â€œI thought you liked that nice Butler girl,” Mrs. O’Toole said. “She seemed sweet the one time I met her. Why not ask her?”
    Pete rolled his eyes and said nothing.
    â€œBe home by eleven,” Mr. O’Toole said.
    â€œDad!” Pete smacked his forehead with enough force to knock himself to the floor. “Dad, the dance isn’t over until eleven. Make it twelve? Please?” He shot a pleading glance at his mother, which she ignored.
    â€œI’ll compromise. Eleven-thirty. That’ll give you ample time. Especially as you don’t have to see a date to her front door.”
    â€œYou boobed that one,” Fex said under his breath.
    Later, he leaned on the bathroom door, watching Pete lavish his father’s after-shave on his face, then do the same with hair tonic, coating each strand of hair with great care.
    â€œHow come you didn’t ask a girl to the dance?” Fex asked.
    â€œYou think I’m taking some girl out and have us sit in the back seat while the old man drives us to the door?” Pete squeezed toothpaste on his brush. He was going all-out tonight. “I know guys who do that. Once. Only once. They sweat buckets. The girl’s making conversation with the old man, and the guy sits there like some super nerd. No dates for me until I get my license. Then I get behind the wheel and spin over to the chick’s house and load her inside and take off. Once you got wheels, your sex life begins,” he finished, leering.
    Fex figured if he kept his mouth shut, he might learn something. “Oh, yeah,” he said noncommittally.
    â€œYou know about sex, baby brother? The birds and the bees?” Pete admired his muscles in the mirror. “You ever make out with a girl?” he said.
    â€œI’m not even twelve yet!” Fex protested. “Whadya want?”
    â€œBy the time I was your age”—Pete’s hands were suspended over his coiffure—“I was an old hand at making out. Some guys got it, some don’t.”
    â€œWho’d you make out with?” Fex said.
    â€œA gentleman never tells.”
    â€œDo girls like to make out? Did she like it, the girl you made out with?”
    Pete rolled back his lips and studied his gums in the mirror. “Girls, sonny, girls,” he said at last. “You better believe they did. All of ’em,” he said, leering again. “But you need practice. You don’t just all of a sudden lunge at a chick and say, ‘This is it, babe.’ She might deck you. You gotta be subtle.”
    Fex held his breath, afraid the sound of his breathing might stop the flow of Pete’s advice.
    Who do I practice on? he asked himself. Just who?
    â€œPractice makes perfect,” Pete continued. “You put the moves on a girl, you better know where it’s at. For instance.” He stared