I Dare You

Rainey, 16, is a tech geek with a passion for video filming and editing. He’s in grade 10 (sophomore year) and suffers from Tourette Syndrome. His longtime friend Jordan and Jordan’s new friend Rowan concoct a plan that involves Rainey’s using his tech skills to film a staged fight between Rowan and Jordan outside the private high school. Rainey is to film it in such a way that Rowan’s and Jordan’s faces are not in the footage in order to make it look like it is a fight between students at William Fairfax Private School. After the filming is complete, the camera, ‘borrowed’ from Best Buy, is returned, and Rainey uses his expertise to divert the source of the video through various channels so the trail to the three boys is all but impossible to follow. The boys are pumped by the video’s going viral and by the response it elicits in their community.

This success leads the boys to develop another script for a video. Rainey overcomes his reluctance by the idea that he could create a calling card for himself in the tech business and start to make money. They decide on “a dude… A hitchhiker coming out of the woods.” As part of the scheme, they raid Mrs. Cain’s, the art teacher’s supply cabinet for “a long cape-like thing” and some plywood. Out of these materials, the boys create a ghostly apparition. They find the perfect spot to film on a deserted stretch of road and ‘borrow’ another camera from “a different Best Buy”.

As the Hitchhiker video becomes popular, Rainey has second thoughts: “I’d enjoyed making the video and was amazed at how many people believed what they saw. But I was beginning to feel as though Jordan and I were in it for totally different reasons.”

In light of their success, they decide to return to the spot and once again have Rowan come stumbling out of the woods as the ghostly apparition. While the boys were filming this second video, a car comes by and crashes into the ditch. Rowan and Jordan leave the scene, but Rainey stays to assist the woman driver, Mrs. Calder. When police arrive, they question Rainey’s reason for being in on the deserted highway at that late hour, and his explanation of being out for a run, does not seem realistic to the police.

The art teacher’s husband is one of the officers who arrives on the scene, and he recognizes Rainey as one of his wife’s art students. Rainey is not charged, but, at Mrs. Calder’s request, Constable Cain takes Rainey to visit her in the hospital. The woman reveals she had an encounter with the apparition as a child and that she had been out on the road that night to see it for herself. Rainey tries to set the record straight, but she refuses to believe him, crushed as she thought she had a fellow believer. After this visit, Rainey decides to “come clean”, and he tells his parents the story.

Though Rainey’s parents are supportive, they remind him he is responsible for what happened to Mrs. Calder, and, as a consequence, Rainey finds a different avenue for his talent for tech editing, one that does not involve potential conflict with the law.

As can be seen from the plot description, I Dare You is a good page-turner, one containing lots of action. Some readers might question that the boys could get away with using a camera from a Best Buy and being able to return it without suspicion, given the stores’ many safeguards on cameras. The novel includes a scene where Mrs. Cain talks to Rainey at school about the accident, with the conversation being based on information Mrs. Cain had learned from her police officer husband. Sharing Rainey’s information in this way is not something that would be permissible with current Canadian privacy laws. However, as this novel appears to be set in the United States with the school grade language (sophomore) and the type of yield sign (“It was nothing more exciting than a yield sign, but clearly American in style.”), this plot may not be held to the same privacy expectations. Perhaps the accuracy of these details is not important and they certainly keep the plot chugging along building lots of tension.

Ross tries to cover a lot of ground in I Dare You, from tech geek expertise, to mental health, to a neurodevelopmental disorder, to teenage mischief. The characters are all one- dimensional designed to advance the plot. The plot does take an interesting twist with the creation of the psychologically unreliable Mrs. Calder, demonstrated by her mental state upon seeing the video and recognizing – not a lost hitchhiker – but a creature from a childhood camping trip.

For schools and libraries looking for more in this high interest low vocabulary genre, particularly for male readers, I Dare You has promise.