35 Skip or Dare
After their graduation song rehearsal, John Michael suddenly called the class for attention. He held a stack of papers in his hand. He instructed the class to bring their seats and form a big circle. The boys grunted and John Michael had to tell them more than twice before they finally obliged.
Nicky dragged her chair in between June and Beatrice. John Michael hurried the class to settle down on their seats. Then he went right in the middle of the circle and brandished the papers he held in his hand.
“Okay, everybody listen,” John Michael then said in his almost authoritarian voice. “I have here with me a questionnaire you all have to answer in two minutes for our activity I called Skip or Dare.”
“Why, I thought we’re done with the exams already,” Eddie Boy’s loud voice soared. Nicky looked up and saw him seated in the other side of the room, in the far corner, with Red right next to him.
“This is not an exam,” John Michael grinned at Eddie Boy, then, his eyes ran the circle formed around him. “You will all see,” he said as he took half of the stack of papers and placed it on top of Nicky’s armchair. “Take one and pass,” he told her.
Nicky looked at the papers uncertainly. She took one and gave the rest to June, who did the same and passed it to the next classmate.
At first, Nicky didn’t understand. The questionnaire didn’t ask anything academic. The questions were too personal that she didn’t even feel like answering any of them.
“What is this? A slum book?” June finally asked John Michael, her voice, sounding a little cranky.
John Michael waved his hand at June dismissively. “Just answer each item, all right.” Then, he turned to the rest of the class around him who were all throwing him with puzzled looks. “Again, you all have to answer that for only two minutes. You’ll be timed, so answer as fast as you can. Then, after that, you’ll pass the paper and we’ll exchange it among ourselves.”
“Exchange?” Lois’ small voice was almost inaudible. “We’re gonna check the papers?”
John Michael wore a smug smile on his face. “We’re not gonna check the papers, but we’re just gonna read the answers out loud, one by one, making sure that no one would read his or her own paper, and so as changing answers could also be avoided.”
He breathed in, and then breathed out, that smug smile still stitched on his face. “Anyone who couldn’t answer the questionnaire completely in the allotted time or just simply skipped an item would be given a punishment—hence, the dares.”
“Dares?” A boy from the other corner asked. He stuck his spiky head out to be seen and heard. It was Jay. “Who’d give the dares?”
“You.” John Michael turned to him.
“Me?”
“Uh-huh. All of you. If the person whose paper you would then receive after the exchange has an incomplete answer, then you have the power to dare him into doing anything you can think of. So you all better answer completely or you’d have to be dared.”
“That sounds like fun. I love it!” Danica exclaimed with all excitement as she hurried to answer her questionnaire.
John Michael then instructed everyone to answer theirs, noting that he’d be timing them so they had to hurry.
Cringing on her seat, Nicky studied the questionnaire.
________________________’s High School Life in a Nutshell
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Teen FictionFor the booksmart yet naïve 16-year-old Nicky, high school in her quaint little hometown island in the Philippines had always been predictable. Until that senior year. Nicky thought she got things all figured out. She'd be very good at school and be...
