The Daring Game by Kit Pearson Page A

sleeves and pulled the folds straight with a satisfying ripping sound.
    Miss Bixley was braiding Carrie’s hair. “What a lucky girl you are,” she said. “I had lovely hair as a child, you know. I could sit on it, it was so long.”
    â€œIt sounds like a lot of trouble to me,” said Helen.
    The matron was always telling them about her childhood in New York City, where she had gone briefly on the stage. This was hard to believe, but she had scrapbooks of pictures to prove it.
    â€œTonight we’re going to play the Daring Game,” Helen told them when Miss Bixley had left the room.
    â€œBut we’re going out!” said Carrie.
    â€œAll the better. We’ll go to bed later than usual and everyone will expect us to nod off quickly like sleepy little children.”
    Jean look scared. “Is the dare for all of us again?”
    â€œNo, I think we should draw names. Then I’ll decide what the person who’s picked has to do. Unless it’s my name, of course.”
    â€œYou can count me out,” said Pam. “I don’t want to have anything to do with it. Why should you decide? And why should you all listen to her?” she asked the others.
    Eliza wondered why too, as she hurried over to piano practice. She knew Helen hoped it would be Eliza’s name that was chosen.
    B UT THE NAME Helen drew from the four strips of paper she’d dropped into her beret was Carrie’s. Eliza was first relieved for herself, then anxious for her friend, until she saw that Carrie didn’t mind. She twirled around the dorm in her long pink dressing-gown, her braid flying out behind, pretending to be a ballet dancer. “Okay,” she puffed, landing on Helen’s bed, “what do I have to do?”
    Helen paced the room. “Let’s see, Turps. I dare you to … uhhh …” Eliza wondered if she was hesitating because she’d had a special dare just for Eliza in mind. “… to climb up to the Nursery by the roof.”
    â€œShe’ll fall!” said Pam at once. “That’s too dangerous.”
    â€œNo, she won’t. It’s dry tonight. I climbed down once, and up must be easier.”
    â€œWhy not by the fire escape?” Eliza suggested. It was the first time she had spoken to Helen in over a week.
    â€œIt doesn’t take much courage for that ,” replied Helen scornfully, looking away. Eliza reddened.
    They all peered up at the slanted roof that led to the Junior Dorm above them.
    â€œI can do that,” said Carrie. “Should I come back the same way?”
    Helen shook her head. “No, you’d better sneak down the stairs and stop off in the Red and Turquoise Dorms for safety. I know—send us a message on the Slipper Express when you get to the Turquoise Dorm and we’ll let you know when the coast’s clear.”
    The Slipper Express had been invented by Helen and Linda O., one of the grade sevens in the Turquoise Dorm. She was always called Linda O. to distinguish her from Linda I., although there wasn’t much need for this. Linda I. was quiet and dull, while Linda O. was almost as boisterous as Helen herself.
    The Yellow Dorm associated mainly with the two dorms of grade sevens and eights near them, with occasional forays into the Nursery above. No one on their side of the house had much to do with the three dorms of grade nines beyond Miss Tavistock’s bedroom. They were too loathsome, pimply and fat and full of self-pity because of it.
    Visiting between dorms was allowed only before dinner and on Sundays, so the Slipper Express enabled messages to be passed between the Yellow and Turquoise Dorms at other times. The slick hall floor was a perfectsurface for a flat-bottomed slipper to coast along.
    Now Helen wrote out a warning. “Carrie paying you a late-night call,” she muttered. “Be prepared.” She stuck the note inside one of Eliza’s moccasins, the