A Whole New Ball Game (2 page)

“It seems like we're more different than ever. She's so ‘go, go, go!' right now.”

“Honey, that's just your sister's way of dealing with all these changes,” Mrs. Sackett said. “I know she's been a little . . . intense lately, but she'll be calmer once we've all settled in. You know she feels better when she's working on some sort of project—picking up in Texas where she left off in Boston is her new project.”

Ava thought about this. Her mom was right—Alex didn't like change. When she was five, she had thrown a fit when their mom started buying a different brand of peanut butter.

“But you know she needs you to pull her nose out of her planner once in a while,” Mrs. Sackett joked.

Later that evening, after another takeout dinner sitting on top of still-packed boxes, Ava stood at her windowsill, listening to the night outside. In spite of the newly functioning air
conditioner, she'd opened her window a little so she could hear the sounds of her new backyard. Back in Massachusetts, she'd loved to listen to the crickets and tree frogs. Here, everything sounded strange. She heard the steady, high-pitched drone of insects. A bird was calling
wooo! whuh-whuh-woooo!
over and over, and something large bumped against her window. Was it a huge moth? A bat?

“What are you doing, Ave?”

Ava jumped and turned to see her sister in the doorway, in her pajamas with a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth.

“Are there bats in Texas?” Ava asked.

“Yup, lots,” said Alex. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” said Ava. “You going to bed, Al?”

“Yeah,” said Alex. “I just came to say good night. Wow, it feels weird to have to come say good night to you.” She hesitated for a moment, bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“It is weird,” said Ava.

Ava thought about telling Alex she missed sharing a room with her, but before she could put the right words together, Alex turned and
went to spit out her toothpaste in the bathroom.

“Well, see you tomorrow!” she called as she went into her room, stepping over Moxy in the hallway.

Poor Moxy was so confused. She'd always slept in the girls' room, in the area between their beds. Now she didn't know what to do. The night after they moved in, their mom had found Moxy lying in the hallway between Alex's and Ava's rooms. Mrs. Sackett had dragged the doggie bed out there for her.

Ava climbed into her own bed. She was just drifting off to sleep when her phone vibrated.

It was Charlie.

Hey, what up? All good in Texas?

You wearing cowboy boots and

a ten-gallon hat yet?

Ha. As if. I'm just trying

not to roast to death.

It was over 100 degrees

again today.

Whoa. You need to find a pool.

Yeah, I think there's one

pretty close to here. We haven't

had time to look for it, though.

How's practice going?

Doesn't start for three weeks.

We're not on the crazy

Texan schedule, remember?

Ha ha.

Oh right. Ha ha.

Ha ha. Well, CU L8ter.

CU L8ter.

Ava read and reread Charlie's texts. Her first-ever potential crush now lived 1,983 miles away.

And her twin sister was sleeping a whole room away. Sigh. Both felt worlds apart.

The following afternoon, Alex sat at her new desk. She bit her bottom lip and frowned at her computer screen. Should she do aqua as the accent color for her new purple color scheme? It was amazing how many details one needed to consider when designing a room. Every choice was perplexing. Or was “agonizing” the better word? Yes, every choice felt agonizing. She couldn't wait until her room was all set up—then she could relax a little.

Ava had teased her for years about her excellent organizational skills, like they were a bad thing. What was wrong with choosing your outfit and laying it on a chair the night before school? Or ironing your T-shirts before you put
them away? Or coordinating the color of your cardigan with the color of your headband? She smiled, thinking of how different she and Ava were when it came to getting ready in the mornings. It was usually a mad scramble to find Ava's other shoe, or her math book, and once or twice her sister had actually missed the bus. When they were younger Alex used to say she was more responsible because she was twelve minutes older.

Alex turned to the neatly stacked pile of pictures on her new desk. There were lots of shots of her and Ava. They'd dressed identically when they were little—their choice—and had delighted in being confused with each other, even, from time to time, by Tommy and their dad. Their mom never mixed them up—it must have been a mom thing.

She found a picture of her and Ava taken a couple of months ago, at the sixth-grade end-of-year party. Their outfits were totally different, because they had stopped dressing alike by then, but with their matching grins and identical long brown curls, they still looked exactly alike. Alex smiled and put the picture in the “yes” pile for her new oversized bulletin board. She loved
pictures that showed how identical she and her sister were on the outside. Alex knew they were different in a lot of ways, but she preferred to focus on their similarities. And besides, even if she was a little disorganized and didn't care enough about important things like color coordination, Ava was still the best sister in the world. Alex felt lucky she had a twin, a best friend, to move across the country with. She vowed to try to help Ava fit in, be more organized, and make friends at their new school. These things just came more easily to Alex.

Alex was trying to decide which picture of her and her friend Isabel she should put up when she sensed her sister in the doorway and turned. She and Ava always seemed able to feel the other's presence.

“Studying your flash cards?” asked Ava with a grin.

“No, I did my five words already today,” said Alex.

“Oh, well, that's a relief,” teased Ava.

“It gets a little boring to learn them alphabetically, so I got daring and shuffled them up,” she said with a smile. “Today I learned ‘perplexing,' ‘stupendous,' and ‘agonizing.' I already
knew what they meant, of course, but I'm also trying to practice using my vocab words in everyday conversations.”

“Al, you realize you are the only middle schooler on the planet who is already preparing for her SATs,” said Ava.

“I know,” said Alex with a sunny smile.

“Seriously, how is it possible that you love school so much when I would stop going right now if I could?” Ava asked.

“How is it possible that you love football so much when I would never go to a game if Daddy weren't the coach?” countered Alex.

“Fair point,” Ava said cheerfully. “Anyway, are you ready to go to dinner?”

“Where are we going?”

“There's a barbecue place across town. One of Coach's assistants told him about it. Evidently half the town eats there. The other half eats at the place across the street.”

Alex grinned. “Stupendous. Maybe we'll meet some of our new classmates. I'd better rethink my outfit.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “You look fine to me. But whatever. Mom says be down in five.” She turned to leave.

“Hey, Ave?”

“Yep?”

“Um, Ave?”

“Still here.”

“Do you think you could call me ‘Alex,' not ‘Al,' when we're around other kids? ‘Alexandra' would be fine too. ‘Al' just doesn't sound very sophisticated.”

“I never call you ‘Alexandra,' ” said Ava. “But okay, I'll try not to call you ‘Al.' ”

“Thanks,” said Alex. “And maybe you could call Daddy ‘my dad' rather than ‘Coach' in front of other kids too.”

“That I won't do,” said Ava. “I've called him ‘Coach' our whole lives; it comes naturally.”

“I just don't want people here to think it's weird!” protested Alex.

Ava smiled. Alex noticed for the zillionth time how her sister's whole face lit up when she smiled.

“Too bad! There's no way our family is ever going to seem totally normal,” said Ava in a singsong voice, and she clomped down the stairs in her bright green canvas high-tops.

Alex sighed and checked herself in the mirror once more. Maybe Ava was right about the
outfit. She didn't want to look like she was trying too hard. Her periwinkle T-shirt with the scalloped hem did look pretty nice. Periwinkle was one of her favorite colors to wear because it went so well with her dark-brown hair, green eyes, and pale skin. She was wearing it with a white skirt that stopped a few inches above her knees. She wondered if she should put her hair up. Even though it was after six, it was still baking hot outside . . . but she
was
having a great hair day. As a compromise, she slipped a hair tie onto her wrist.

She stepped over to her laptop and closed the open windows before shutting it down. In addition to her home-decorating apps, she'd also been researching last year's student government at Ashland Middle School, studying the names and faces of the kids. She wanted to be sure to recognize them if she ran into them. It was all part of her campaign to be elected to the student government. Who knew? Maybe she could pull off class president! She'd been the sixth-grade class president last year, and she had been counting on being seventh-grade class president this year. She was really hoping the move to Texas didn't have to ruin her plans.

“Alex! Come on, I'm starving!” she heard Tommy's newly deep voice bellow from downstairs. “Your hair looks fine! My stomach is starting to digest itself!”

Alex giggled and hurried downstairs.

The restaurant was called Jimmy's Pit Bar-B-Q. Alex wrinkled her nose as they entered the place. It seemed every restaurant they'd been to in Ashland so far smelled of smoky, bacon-y, meaty cooking. It wasn't a very welcome smell for someone who'd recently decided to become a vegetarian. But Mrs. Sackett had checked out the menu online and had assured her that they had meatless options.

There was a line of people waiting to be seated, but when her father gave the hostess their name, they were ushered right in. Alex and Ava exchanged a look.

After they were seated, Alex scanned the menu with a weary sigh—ribs, brisket, sausage, pork loin, beef,
double
beef, whatever that was—and clapped it shut. “Looks like another scintillating night of cornbread, greens, and black-eyed peas for me,” she said glumly.

Her dad looked at her over the top of his huge menu, his eyes twinkling. “Probably the
healthiest things on the menu,” he said with a chuckle.

Tommy nudged her with his elbow. “You picked a great moment to become a vegetarian. Who ever heard of a vegetarian from Texas?”

“All right, Tommy,” said their mother. “Look, Al. There's a kid's menu on the back. You can get macaroni and cheese.”

Alex flipped to the back to look. “Or a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“Or a grilled cheese sandwich,” said Ava at the same time.

The girls grinned at each other.

“Will you two stop with your weird twin thing?” Tommy asked them good-naturedly. “You'd think that—” He stopped.

A middle-aged man had suddenly appeared, standing close to their table, waiting politely for them to notice him. He was tall and burly with an impressive handlebar mustache. He wore a Texans hat and an Ashland Football T-shirt.

Coach got to his feet and shook hands with the man. “Mike Sackett,” he said. “How do you do?”

The man pulled off his hat and nodded at the rest of the family. “Howdy, folks. I'm sure sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I just wanted
to introduce myself and meet the new coach. I'm Floyd Whittaker. Mighty pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The rest of the family smiled and nodded at him.

“I played for Ashland back in '79 when we won state. The year we scored with thirty seconds left and were down one? I was the running back. You probably heard about me? Coach decided to go for two, and I ran it in to win it all.”

“Ah, yes. Thanks for introducing yourself, Floyd,” said their father.

“I'll let you get back to your dinner,” said Floyd. “But Coach, we're sure excited to see what your plans are for our boys this season. How's the team look?”

“Well, we're young,” admitted their father. “And our defensive line could use a little more size.”

“I hear you like to throw the ball. Not the way we've done it in the past,” said Mr. Whittaker. “Always had excellent running backs here in Ashland, if you don't mind my saying so.”

Coach smiled at him. “I'll talk about our options with my assistant coaches, and—”

Alex was relieved to see a young waitress approach their table to take their order. Mr. Whittaker seemed to get the message. He said good-bye and went back to his table.

Alex and Ava exchanged another look. Alex could see that even Ava, who loved to talk football, was unnerved by the intensity of Mr. Whittaker's interest in their dad's team.