Cooper looks at me with a smirk, and I know that it’s not because of our teacher’s story or art at all.
Sam sits next to me at Kohr Bros, her giant cone dripping onto her hand. “Can wepleasedo it?” she pouts.
“Absolutely not,” Natalia snaps.
I knock my knee into Cooper’s. “I don’t know. Sounds kinda fun,” I tell her.
It’s the spring, and all the tourists have yet to arrive. While Rehoboth is a popular vacation destination during the summer, andespeciallyon holidays, there are only around fifteen hundred people who live here year-round. In the summer? There are at least twenty thousand people. Well, according to my dad, anyway, who’s constantly upset about it taking him three times longer to get home because of traffic.
Cooper is just a seven-minute drive away in Dewey Beach, which has even fewer people who live there year-round.
Safe to say that everyone knows everyone here. We all go to the same school and hang out at the same places.
“I say let’s go for it,” Cooper snickers.
Natalia shoots him a lethal look.
“We’re going to get in trouble,” she complains.
Kids are always up to no good here. Now is our time to have fun.
No one says anything for a moment.
“Okay, fine.”
“Thank god,” Sam mutters, slurping at her melting ice cream.
“What are the dares going to be?” I ask them.
Rebecca grins. “Well, Sam hasfinallygotten the new iPod touch, right? So, how about this? We each have a few tasks we have to do, and we all take photos of ourselves doing them. Then we meet back here. Whoever does the most, wins.”
“Let’s do it,” Cooper says quickly, getting up. “What are the tasks?”
“Ding dong ditch,” Sam says through a mouthful of dessert.
Natalia thinks for a moment before she eyes the cone. “Eat three ice cream cones.”
Sam makes a face. “They can be little right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
She places her hand on her stomach. “I’m lactose intolerant.”
Natalia’s brows furrow. “You took your medication, didn’t you?”
Sam shakes her head. “Nah.”
We’re all confused, but she just shrugs.
And then everyone looks at me.
I think about it for a few moments. “How about taking a dip in the ocean?” I smile.
Rebecca gasps. “You jerk!”
The ocean is freezing. It’ll be fun.
“Okay. We’ve got a few things down. If anyone else wants to add something in, we can come up with a few more when we meet back here, okay?”
