What Does Dill Dare Jem To Do

In Chapter One
of , Charles Baker Harris, known as "Dill," arrives in Maycomb to
spend the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel Haverford (who also happens to be the next door
neighbor ofand ). Dill, Jem, and Scout form a fast friendship predicated on their wild
imaginations. When the trio finally gets tired of acting out stories as entertainment, they
decide to up the stakes.

Dill, who is fascinated with the mysterious , bets
Jem his copy of The Gray Ghost against two Tom Swifts that Jem couldn't
walk past the Radley's gate. It takes three days of Dill's persistence for Jem to finally accept
the dare, at which point Dill decides to make it more interesting. He promises Jem that he won't
say he "ran out" on a dare and will give him The Gray Ghost if
Jem goes up and touches the Radley's house. Jem winds up running through the gate and slapping
the house, which evokes a tiny movement in the window; for the children, this seems to be yet
another spooky sign of Boo's presence.