"Yeah. Then it would just be called 'dare.' And then, other people would only choose to do what they want. Then the game wouldnt' be any fun."

"Dare to play truth or dare." Anthony said absently. "Ha-ha." He followed up. "Truth and truth or dare and dare. We could play dare or truth. Or dare, dare, truth, truth, dare."

"No dares." Ralph insisted.

"But then it's not truth or dare!"

Michael watched the situation unfold, without saying anything, his eyes darting between the different interlocutors, absorbing the discussion, face expressionless.

Shawn tried to be the voice of compromise in the discussion. "Ralph, maybe you can just watch the first round or two? Then you can decide if you want to do dares or not for real?" In Shawn's mind, Ralph was probably a little young for Truth and Dare anyway. What could you even dare him to do that you wouldn't have to basically do for him, right?

"Oh brother! Ralph, you can just watch, not play a dare if you don't want. I'll take Ralph's spot for him. This should be fun." With the others' agreement, Anthony took center stage.

"Let's see, let's see, let's see." Anthony said. He picked up a stick and began to point it at different members of the group. Just when that person thought they would be selected, he would pull the stick away and then point it to someone else.

Finally he came upon Shawn, leaving the stick hovering out before him.

"Truth. Or Dare?" Anthony asked.

"Pick dare!" Bobby encouraged.

"No dares! P..p..pick truth!" Ralph insisted.

"He get's to choose, that's the way it goes." Tiffany instructed.

Shawn considered his choices, and the advice he was getting. "Hmm, well, since I'm first, I think I'll start off easy. Truth!"

"yay!" Ralph rejoiced.

"OK.OK. OK. OK. OK. OK." Anthony said, getting excited that the game was beginning. "What's the worst thing you've ever done? And don't say lying or anything like that, because that's lame. Oh, and it can't be a sentence. You have to tell the story." He insisted.

"The story behind it. Or whatever happened that was bad."

A naughty sort of excitement settled into the group as the other kids got the sense that secrets were about to be told and parental guidance would be avoided

Shawn paused to think about it, even as visions of April's screams, Bradford's face, and Henri's corpse echoed through his mind. He couldn't tell those stories; he had to come up with one of his own. "Well, there was this one time...I was on this movie set, and they had this really cool makeup thing where it looked like you'd been stabbed, and if you squeezed a little bag, fake blood would squirt out."

"And one time there wasn't anyone watching, so I decided to try it out, just for fun - I put it on my stomach, like I'd been stabbed in the gut, and I was pretending like it was an action movie and I was dying or something. But then I accidentally squeezed the little bag, and the blood squirted out really far, and it got all over a bunch of costumes they needed to film. They were expensive costumes, and they got ruined I was really afraid I'd get caught, so I put the thing back and ran away. I think one of the prop guys got in trouble for it, but I never told anyone about it." It was a semi-true story that had actually happened to Shawn, albeit tweaked slightly to make it a little bit worse for him and worthy of 'the worst thing he'd ever done'.

"Gross!" Tiffany said, disapprovingly. It was clear that she didn't like the story, or didn't appreciate the gory affects of it, judging by the way she shook her head in disgust.

"No way! That's cool. It's got all blood and guts on it. And it was probably messy. Gee that is bad that he got in trouble. But I'd done the same thing as you, to be honest. I mean to get the blood pack....." he paused for a second.

"Did you say movie?"

"He's an actor." Michael concluded. The first words he had uttered since introducing himself.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Stop the clock. What's that like?"

Shawn opened his mouth to answer, then stopped suddenly as a mischievous smile passed over his face. "Oh no, you've got to wait for the next time I pick 'truth'!" He giggled.

"Oh come on!" Anthony cried

"No thanks. Too much blood and guts and gross stuff. You're call." Tiffany urged Shawn, encouraging him to pick someone else for truth and dare.

"bl...bl...blood." Ralph repeated, as if thinking of something distant and long ago, and altogether unpleasant.

"Oh brother! This is fun!" Bobby commented, now getting into the rhythm of the game.

Shawn does an 'eenie meanie miney moe' and winds up pointing at...Bobby. "Bobby! Truth or Dare!"