Stay || Benny The Jet Rodriguez

The Dare

June 15, 2021

We all sat around telling funny stories and laughing until we cried for about an hour. I had completely forgotten about Jake. Benny stayed extra close to me though. I didn't mind it, It made me feel safe.

"So you guys did all of that when you could've just knocked on his door?" I said laughing.

"Yeah, I almost died because Squints said Mr. Mertle would kill us if we knocked on his door." Benny said leaning against a box behind him.

"And I almost got blown up because of it." Timmy said, leaning over and smacking Squints on the arm. "I had sawdust in my ear for a month."

"For a month!" Tommy copied, also leaning over to smack Squints.

"Hey! How was I supposed to know he wasn't like people said in the stories?" Squints said smacking Timmy and Tommy back on their arms.

I laughed so hard I almost peed myself, but I held it in because I didn't want to pee in a bush like the guys did.

After the guys all finished giving Squints crap for not letting them just go and knock on the door when they had hit that baseball into Mr. Mertles backyard, we sat in silence.

"Hey!" I said with a mischievous smirk on my face. "You know what we should do?"

"What?" they all said at the same time. It was almost creepy.

"Back in Texas, at parties and stuff, we would all play truth or dare. That would be fun right?"

"Yeah yeah, that sounds fun!" Yeah Yeah said.

The rest of the guys agreed by nodding their heads.

"I'll go first..." I said looking around to choose who to pick first. "Smalls, you seem like a goodie two shoes, truth or dare."

Smalls's eyes went wide. "Oh, um, truth." he said nervously.

"Alright, what's the worst thing you've done, besides hitting your dad's ball signed by Babe Ruth into the backyard with 'the beast'" I said 'the beast' as dramatically as possible.

"Oh... I don't know. I mean, one time I helped a kid shoot a spitball at the teacher, but I didn't actually shoot it, he did." he said, obviously scared as if he was going to get in trouble.

I gasped dramatically and said "oh my gosh! You devil!" which made everyone including him laugh.

"Alright Smalls, now your turn." Benny said.

"Um, Squints, truth or dare." he said looking over to squint's who was stuffing his face with a S'more.

"Dare." he said, his mouth full of marshmallow.

"I dare you... to... Lick the bottom of Ham's foot."

Squint's swallowed the food in his mouth and looked at Smalls as if he was crazy.

"What?" he yelled.

Ham started taking his shoe off, leaving just the sock, while smiling at Squints.

"No, I'm not doing that. I don't know where that foot has been!"

"Oh come on, my feet aren't that bad." Ham said taking off the sock.

His foot reeked. I could smell it from the other side of the treehouse. We all, except for Ham who was probably used to the smell, put our shirts over our noses to block the smell.

"Get your foot fungus away from the s'more stuff you idiot!" Bertram yelled.

Ham pushed his foot closer to Squints face, who was sitting right next to him, making Squints gag.