SOPHITZ

11

Edaline served them a delicious dinner of dried pink roots (which in Sophie's human-educated opinion tasted extremely like sage Applewood smoked pork tenderloin) the seven of them went back upstairs to continue their truth or dare match. As soon as they sat down, Keefe exclaimed

"Well, man, are you ready to tell us?" Fitz blushed crimson.

"Is there any way out of this?" he begged, staring at no one in particular.

"Nope." said Sophie smugly, sealing his misery. Fitz stared at the ground, and whispered something that was inaudible.

"What was that?" asked Keefe eagerly.

"I don't have to repeat it." said Fitz stubbornly.

"WHAT?" cried Keefe, clearly disappointed.

"I don't have to repeat it." repeated Fitz. "I said it. There was nothing in your dare about saying it so that everyone can hear." with that he looked smug, and brushed his wavy brown hair out of his eyes, and smiled his movie-star smile. "Boom!" he crowed, fist bumping Tam, who actually looked a little relieved.

"I was afraid it would be my sister." he admitted, fist bumping Fitz again. "Now I don't have to know." Sophie noticed, with a twang of jealousy, that Fitz turned red when Linh's name was mentioned. Good grief!

"Now it's my turn." said Fitz, gazing around the room. His eyes fell on Dex. "Truth or dare, Dex?" asked Fitz. Dex blushed.

"Truth." he whispered, his face as red as his hair.

"If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?" asked Fitz. Dex sighed in relief.

"I was afraid you were going to make it embarrassing." he admitted, as he thought. "Ooh! I know! My mom is a superfreak on human stuff, and she once told me about this amazing place called Paris. Have you heard of it, Sophie?"

"Yeah, I have." said Sophie. "With the humans, Paris is a pretty big place. Very important."

"Well, I would like to see the Eiffel Tower." said Dex dreamily. "I would bring an obscurer, and levitate myself to the top, and I would sit there and gaze upon the whole city. That's where I would want to go."

"Uh, enough sappy stuff." interrupted Keefe "Would you please just get going?" Dex colored slightly, but said

"Linh, truth or dare?" Linh's face turned red as a tomato.

"Truth." she whispered, in a voice identical to Dex's when he answered for his. Dex pondered for a moment.

"Oh! I have one! What is it like to be a Hydrokinetic?"

Linh sighed happily. "Once you learn to control it, it's amazing. You can do anything you want with water... I imagined once that one day I would create for myself a castle made out of water, but then I realized that as soon as I fell asleep, my castle would fall apart and I would drown. It's really hard to control." Linh turned beet red after that last statement. "Okay, ummm, Sophie, Truth or Dare?" Sophie pondered for a minute. 

"Dare." she replied adventurously. Keefe gave her a high-five.

"I dare you to choose a different game." said Linh. "I've had enough with truth or dare." Dex and Biana nodded in agreement.

"Okay, well I only know three others. Would You Rather, 7 minutes in Heaven, and Spin the Bottle." said Sophie. No one seemed to recognize any of them, which Sophie was grateful for. It would be awkward to explain spin the bottle to a group of elves.

"What's Would You Rather?" asked Keefe.

"It's where someone asks a question like 'Linh, would you rather Mallowmelt or Cinnacreme?' and then the person has to answer truthfully." explained Sophie.

"Sounds boring. How do you play spin the bottle?" he asked. Sophie colored slightly.

"Let's not." she said quickly.

"That leaves us with one option." concluded Biana. "Seven minutes in Heaven. How do you play that?"

"Well, you write each person's name on a piece of paper, and separate them into boys and girls. Then, when it's a boy's turn, they draw from the girl's pile. That boy has to spend 7 minutes, alone, with the girl they drew. Make sense?"

"What about girls?" asked Linh.

"They have to spend 7 minutes with the boy they chose." Everyone blushed at this.

"Let's play!" said Keefe eagerly. "Soph, you got paper?" Sophie quickly retrieved a school notebook and hastily scribbled down the names of each of her friends, and separated them into two piles.

"I'll go first." said Linh, grabbing a name from the boys' pile. She unfolded it, and whispered "Fitz."