Go! Fight! Twin! (2 page)

The girls were home from Sal's, getting ready for bed in the bathroom they shared. Their Australian shepherd, Moxy, had splayed herself out right in front of the door in the hallway. Ava could hear Tommy playing his keyboard in his room, and their parents had gone to bed early. Coach had been pretty quiet and preoccupied after the Tigers' loss.

Ava put some toothpaste on her toothbrush
and frowned. “Alex, you do realize you're going to get cut immediately. No offense, but these girls are really good. They've been practicing for years. They go to cheer camp and stuff in the summer. And this is Texas. You've probably noticed that people don't do things halfway here.”

“I know,” said Alex. “But Rosa practically forced me to say I'd go to the first day of tryouts. It was a matter of pride. My pride.” She sighed dramatically. “All I have to do is make it past the first round of cuts and then I'll be done. I can prove to her that I'm not a total klutz, and Emily says after I demonstrate my commitment to the sport, the coach might let me be manager for the team, which will be an easy way to fulfill my athletic requirement.”

Ava nodded, but it was hard to hide the exasperation she was feeling. Alex was always getting into these situations by saying stuff without thinking about it.
Well, there's nothing I can do,
Ava thought. Her sister would just have to get knocked down and learn her lesson.

Ava spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth. “I'm going to bed, Al,” she said. “I have a big game tomorrow.”

“Do you mind very much if I don't go?” asked
Alex. “They posted the video of the routine we have to learn for Sunday, and I think I'm going to need all day tomorrow to practice it.”

Ava nodded. “That's fine. You never know what's going on in the game anyway.” With a wry grin, she headed into her room and left her sister in the bathroom, practicing clapping her hands with enthusiasm.

The middle school Tiger Cubs' game didn't go well either. Ava's team lost 17–7. The car ride home from the game was a quiet one.

“It's nice that you went in as wide receiver,” said Mrs. Sackett, breaking the silence at last.

Ava shrugged. “I didn't touch the ball the whole game,” she said. “Except to kick that extra point.”

“But it's great that Coach Kenerson had enough confidence in you to put you in,” said Mrs. Sackett. “Right, Michael?”

Coach flicked a glance at Ava in the rearview mirror. “That's right, Ave,” he said. “You ran a nice pattern.”

Ava sighed and gazed out the window at the
passing landscape. “I heard Mr. and Mrs. Kelly grumbling to Andy after the game,” she said. “I think they were mad Coach K pulled him and put me in. They probably thought we could've won if he'd stayed in the game.” The Kellys and their nephew Andy Baker had been some of Ava's biggest opponents in her quest to be the first girl to play football in Ashland.

Coach sighed quietly and shook his head, as he turned the car into the Sacketts' driveway. “Doug Kelly means well,” he said. “He's just looking out for his nephew. But the fact is, the Armadillos were the better team. I don't think it would have made a difference one bit. You're not as skilled yet as Andy Baker, but you're faster and have great instincts. It was just a tough outing for Corey, and our linemen didn't give him enough protection.”

After a long shower, Ava felt much better. She put on comfy sweatpants and a T-shirt and headed to Alex's room to see how she was doing with her cheer routine.

“Hey,” said Alex, although the word came out in the form of a grunt.

“How's it going?” asked Ava, suppressing a grin as she watched her sister attempting a split.

Alex groaned and fell over to the side in an ungainly tumble. “Ow!” she said. She pounded lightly all over her thighs with her fists. “I can't unclench my muscles.” She groaned again. “I'm not even close to doing a split. I'm, like, a foot off the floor!”

“It takes time to get to that level of flexibility,” said Ava, coming into the room and sitting on the ground next to her sister. “Have you really stretched out first? You don't want to hurt yourself.”

“Sort of,” muttered Alex. “But I've seen you do one before. You don't even warm up first.”

“Al, I stretch all the time, though,” said Ava. “Here, I'll show you some stretches you can do.”

The two of them spent the next fifteen minutes in a series of floor positions.

“Try one,” said Alex. “Try doing a split and let me see how far down you can go.”

Ava hesitated. She didn't want her sister to feel bad. But she took off her sneakers, and in her socks, lowered herself down on the polished wood floor, in the space between the rug and the wall, and slowly descended into a full split. She pretended to wince with discomfort a little, but in fact, she was good at splits and could drop into one pretty readily.

“You can totally do one!” marveled Alex. “That's so awesome!”

“You can too,” said Ava encouragingly. “You just need to practice every day.”

“I don't have every day,” said Alex. “I have to do one by tomorrow.” She sighed. “Hey, remember back when we were in ballet class when we were, like, five? You were the best one in the class. It was only when you learned you had to wear a pink tutu that you flat-out refused to go back. Remember that?”

Ava rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Guess we haven't changed all that much,” she said.

“Can I show you the video of the routine I'm supposed to learn?” asked Alex. “Maybe you can help me with it, just a little?”

Ava smiled. “Let me just eat something first. I'm starving. We can practice down in the living room.”

Half an hour later, both girls stood side by side in front of Alex's laptop, which they had propped up on a high shelf of the curio cabinet. They had moved most of the furniture into a corner of the room and rolled up the rug so they could work on the bare wood floor.

“Okay,” said Ava. “Let's try it one more time. Together. Right foot first. Knees high. Arms go
straight up and out in a V. Ready?”

Alex nodded resolutely as the music began, her face the picture of concentration.

Ava counted along. “. . . five, six, seven, eight! March-march-arm-arm-clasp, turn, head-head, squat-two, three, four . . . jump!”

Ava looked behind her to see if Alex had sprung up in unison with her. Alex was sprawled on the rug, a dejected look on her face. She'd fallen. Again. Ava groaned inwardly. This seemed hopeless.

Someone in the doorway clapped, and the girls turned. It was Tommy.

“Not funny, Tommy,” said Alex through gritted teeth. She scrambled to her feet.

“No, really, you guys looked great, at least for a minute,” said Tommy. “Is this for a talent show or something?”

“Al's trying out for cheerleading tomorrow,” explained Ava. She was slightly out of breath. They'd just practiced the routine four times in a row, and Alex had goofed on some part of it each time.

“Al's trying out . . . for cheerleading?” repeated Tommy, looking from one girl to the other with a look of surprise.

“Yes!” said Alex defiantly. “Why is that such a shock?”

“Oh, no, I didn't mean that,” said Tommy quickly. “You'll be awesome.”

“No, I won't,” sighed Alex. “Ava's so much better than I am, and I've been practicing this dumb routine all morning. She got it the first time through!”

“Well, maybe she can wear a wig and go as you!” said Tom with a grin. “You'll be fine. Just don't drop anyone on her head, okay, Al?” He drummed a comical
buh-duh-bum!
rhythm on the doorjamb and left.

“Okay,” Ava said, turning back to Alex. “Let's try this one more—” She stopped.

Alex was staring at her with a thoughtful expression.

“No,” said Ava firmly. “Whatever it is, no.”

Alex was still looking at her, but then her gaze drifted upward, and she stared hazily into the middle distance, somewhere over Ava's head.

Ava knew that look. Her sister was formulating a plan. And Ava felt a growing sense of unease. “Al. I mean it. It would never work. Not in a million years.” But she could see it was no use. Alex's eyes were beginning to sparkle deviously.

Alex and Ava hadn't switched places with each other in years. Ava recalled trying it on their mother a few times—little things, like when they were six and Ava wanted a third cookie. She tried to pretend she was Alex and asked for one. Or the times they'd tried switching places at the dinner table. Mrs. Sackett always seemed to know. Sometimes it had worked on their dad, but he usually figured it out after a few minutes. Although they'd talked about doing it many times, they'd never swapped roles with each other in a situation that counted, out in the real world.

“I have no clue how to be a cheerleader,” said
Ava. She was still exhausted from practicing the routine, but now she wondered whether her elevated heart rate was caused less by the dance routine and more by anxiety at what her sister was proposing.

“You're ten times better at it than I am, and you know it. Plus, you don't have to make the team. You just have to get past first cuts so I can prove to Rosa that I can do it.”

Ava started to raise the point that it would prove nothing if Ava made the cut, rather than Alex. But she stopped herself. She knew from experience that Alex tended to adopt her own brand of logic in situations like this. She tried a different approach.

“We don't look a thing alike.”

Alex scoffed. “We're identical twins, Ave. The emphasis being on the word ‘identical.' ”

“What about our hair? Mine's short, yours is long. It won't work. Case closed.”

“Case reopened. Remember that fake ponytail hairpiece Mom bought me two years ago when I was Princess Leia from
Star Wars
for Halloween? I still have it! Remember how she pulled together two-thirds of my hair and made a circle braid on one side and then attached that
ponytail to the other third of my hair and coiled it into another circle braid on the other side?” She got a dreamy look on her face. “I looked awesome.”

“I refuse.” Ava put her hands on her hips. “Let the record show: I'm not going to wear my hair like Princess Leia.”

“You don't have to, silly! But your hair is long enough that I can attach the fake ponytail to the back of your hair, and then we can smooth the rest into place with hair gel and tons of bobby pins, and it will look perfect. Just like mine.”

Ava could feel her resolve weakening. She had learned through experience that when Alex got like this, with that determined look in her eye, it was pretty much useless to resist. “It's never going to work,” she muttered.

Alex bounded over and gave her a huge hug. “Thanks, Ave. You're the best sister ever.”

“This is never going to work,” said Ava for what felt like the millionth time in the past twenty-four hours.

Alex looked up and managed, with some
effort, not to laugh. Her sister was standing at the door of Alex's room, dressed as though she were on her way to a basketball practice. Alex moved toward her twin and guided her into the room, closing the door quietly.
This is going to require some delicate diplomacy,
Alex thought.

“Of course it will work, Ave,” she said. “But first of all, we need to work on the outfit.”

“What's wrong with my outfit?” asked Ava.

“Well, let's start with the shorts. Those are for basketball. They're long and baggy—totally wrong for cheering. Here, try these.”

She picked up a pair of neatly folded shorts from her dresser and handed them over.

Ava stared at the shorts. “Please tell me these are just the underwear.”

“No, they're the shorts you need to wear. They're snug-fitting so you can kick and stretch and stuff. Put them on.”

Ava stepped out of her basketball shorts and shimmied into the shorts Alex had given her.