Double Dare (From the Files of Madison Finn, 14) Read Free Page A

whispered.
    Madison thought for a moment.
    This was way more than just one contest. This was some kind of junior high ritual. It was a test of friendships. It was her chance to show Egg that he’d made a major mistake in not asking his oldest friend—her—to do the contest first.
    “Aimee, a computer contest may sound dumb to you, but it really isn’t dumb,” Madison explained. “Not to me, anyway.”
    “So, Maddie, is it a dare or what?” Egg asked again.
    Madison nodded. “Absolutely,” she said, crossing her fingers under the table. Fiona and Chet were still screaming at each other, even though they could barely be heard above the sound of other voices, silverware, trays, and backpack zippers in the lunchroom.
    For the remainder of the school day, Madison replayed the lunchroom exchange over and over in her mind. When she arrived at Aimee’s house later that night, Madison immediately turned on her laptop. She wanted to continue working on her file marked, “The Contest.” Her mind swirled with thoughts. As always, Madison had to overthink everything. Had she done the right thing? Did she and Fiona really have a chance to win? Would this mean the end of her friendship with Egg?
    An Insta-Message from TweenBlurt.com interrupted all the questions.
    : You were soooo excellent in school! Meet me in private room COMPGIRL
    Fiona was online. She wanted to talk—now. Madison scooted into the chat room.
    : Chet is freaking
    : ?
    : locked himself in his rm LOL
    : 1-)
    : so what’s the plan
    : plan?
    : what do u wanna do for the webpage
    : IHNI
    : I thought you had some big plan that’s y I said I’d do it
    : LOL
    : seriously
    : well I don’t have a plan I only just found out about the contest
    : what do the rules say??
    : the webpg has to be like a homework helper
    : what’s that?
    : we nd to put lots of information and links
    : IDGI
    : it’s like a place to go for answers and cool information I think like a web search function
    : can we put a poll online? I always wanted to do that
    : I think you can download that from somewhere, what would the poll be about?
    : something like what is ur fave subject
    : I saw a poll site once where kids put up notices on a bulletin board to vote for the hottest kid in their class
    : weird
    : yeah and it got really nasty too people writing mean stuff about girls and guys in their class
    : I could never do that
    : so what would OUR poll be?
    Madison and Fiona chatted back and forth about different webpage ideas, but neither of them could agree on a direction for the contest. They decided to meet over the weekend to finalize their plan. Fiona suggested that she spy on her brother so she could get information about what he was planning to do on the webpage with Egg. Madison wasn’t sure that was fair, but then decided that anything seemed fair in this game.
    And after all, it was a double dare.
    When Fiona logged off, Madison headed into her e-mailbox. She had five spam messages, so she quickly deleted them. Bigwheels hadn’t written back yet, so she popped off another quick e-mail to her. She needed the advice now more than ever.
From: MadFinn
    To: Bigwheels
    Subject: Fw: Need Your HELP!
    Date: Thurs 14 Sept 5:02 PM
    Did u get my last e-msg from yesterday? I attached it again below just in case.
    Hey, I found a partner for the contest but now I am stuck figuring out what 2 do for it. My BFF Fiona is my partner. She is so nice but 4 this we’re up against her brother so she is mad crazy to win, saying all this competitive stuff. It makes me a little nervous, like extra pressure to win. I think we do have a chance even though Egg is hands down the smartest guy in the contest. I would only admit that to you, BTW. If he knew I thought that