Reality

Chapter 16

"Welcome to the squad initiation," says Zack.

Ethan looks at me and grins. "Sit your ass down, you're about to hear a wonderful story."

Leslie rolls her eyes. Liz elbows Matthew. I don't think this is going to end well.

"Children of today," Zack booms in the kind of voice a gameshow host would use. "Carly and Catherine, our newest additions, must prove their worth and fight to the death!"

"What?" Carly asks, shocked.

Angel slaps the back of Zack's head.

"Idiot, no they don't," then he turns to us. "All you have to do is complete the dares given your way to prove yourself, and if you don't..."

Zack slides his finger across his throat.

Angel smacks his head again.
"Dude, cut that out."

"We can't join the squad?" I guess.

Matthew shrugs. "Actually, we don't know. It's never happened before."

Okay, then.

"But first, you two must know the history," Zack says in an old man's voice.

"When we first joined the soccer team and became friends," Jace begins, "We argued a lot. We're all cocky bastards here. We needed a way to prove we were better than one another, and so we began to play truth or dare. Since that ended up with our good friend Matt here naked in the neighbor's swimming pool, we had to call it off. Anyway, soon these guys started to find girlfriends and brought them along everywhere, so Matt and Angel thought it would be fun to have a 'squad initiation' and so Leslie, Liz, and Diana had to suffer from our dares."

"And now it's your turn," Angel says with a smirk.

Zack brings out a box of beer. "For every dare you don't accomplish, you have to drink one of these," he says.

Damn it.

"I still remember the horror of last year," whispers Liz through her gum. Matt laughs and kisses her forehead.

"Catherine, truth or dare?" Asks Diana.

Okay. I can do this.

"Dare," I say nervously.

Diana thinks for a while. "Hmmm...."

I sit still as she ponders my destruction.

Her face brightens. "Oh! I know! Ethan, does the cranky old lady with the wig still live next door?"

I don't like where this is going.

"Yeah, I think she's hosing the front lawn right now," he says with a smirk.

Diana grins evilly. "Alright. I dare you to go up to the cranky old lady and pull off her wig."

That doesn't sound too bad. Does it?

Zack whispers something like "She's a goner" to Angel and they burst out laughing.

"Okay." I say, and walk out.

"Don't forget to bring us the wig," calls Jace.

I go outside onto Ethan's lawn, and sure enough there's an old lady a few steps away.

I walk up to her. "Hello," I say politely.

She turns to me with a scowl. "What do you want?"

I notice she has a cat by her side, and, judging by the sounds coming from her house, she has more. Her wig is this creepy green thing with yet another cat emerging at the top.