Triple Dog Dare You

Chapter 11

For the next couple of weeks, the school with aflutter with girls getting ready for semi. Semi-formal is a huge deal at my school. The girls take the day off of school to go and get their hair and nails done and the guys take the day off to golf.

The night of last year’s semi, Laura and I spent the night at her house with a bottle of tequila and the first and second seasons of One Tree Hill. Laura’s parents were out for dinner that night and didn’t care what we were up to. Well, to be honest, they never care what Laura is up to. They’re sort of like my parents.

But this year Laura and I are going to semi. Laura doesn’t plan on taking a date. She’s going to come over to my house and we’re going to get ready, along with our other friends, Brooke, Taylor and Juliet.

“So are you excited for tonight?” Laura is asking me.

I come back to reality. We’re walking down the hallway towards class, although there isn’t much of a class today. The teachers know that they shouldn’t expected many students on semi day – even less on prom day, so the lessons are basically useless.  

“So today we’re just going to have a work period to prepare for the test next week,” Ms. Dechante announces to the class. There were a total of nine students sitting in the classroom. “I’ll just write the questions on the board and you can get to work.”

I raised my hand.

“Yes, Mady, what is it?” Ms. Dechante asks me.

“Can we work in partners?” I ask. Usually Ms. Dechante wants us to work alone so that we can get as much accomplished by ourselves as we can, but I thought there might be an exception today. Also, I really wanted to speak with Laura about tonight.

Ms. Dechante looks around the sparse classroom, were the remaining students were all nodding their heads in agreement with my questions. “Okay, but just for today – and I want there to be work being done.”

The class gave a brief cheer and then there was the sound of desks moving across the floor. I dragged a nearby desk and connected it to Laura’s desk that was in the middle of the room.

“Hey,” I smile at her.

“Hey, what’s up?” Laura asks me.

 “Oh nothing,” I reply. “So are you planning on bringing a date to semi tonight?”

“Maybe,” Laura says elusively.

“Oh, well I was just wondering because Zach wanted to get a limo to drive us over to the arena, so we just wanted to know if we were going to be stopping at anyone else’s house,” I say.

“You can just come to my house,” Laura replies.

 “Okay . . .” I answer. This was my apparently failed attempt at asking Laura if she was bringing a date. But I guess I just got my answer. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Laura replies. She smiles at me.

“All right,” I answer. “I suppose we should get down to the math homework then, don’t want to do poorly on the math test on Tuesday. I’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime.”

I pull my textbook out of my bag and flip to page 452. I write the date on the right side of the paper and sign Mady O’Hara directly overhead of the date. I get down to working on the math homework instead of thinking about how semi would work out.