Go! Fight! Twin! (5 page)

“You realize Coach would kill you if you left.”

“Gee, thanks. Like that hadn't occurred to me.”

“Sorry.”

“Can you help me think of something?”

Ava pondered. “Maybe you could pretend to be sick.”

Her brother shook his head. “I thought of that. But he'd never believe it. He knows how tough I am.”

Ava raised her eyebrows. “Aren't we being modest?”

“No, I mean, we all are. All the guys understand
you need to be semi-comatose or bleeding from multiple wounds before you're allowed to admit you don't feel well. It's the football culture.”

“Not if you suddenly come down with a stomach bug,” Ava pointed out. “Even Coach would send you away. No one on the team would want you within half a mile of the locker room for fear of catching it.”

Tommy stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm.”

“Go to him at halftime. Tell him you have a stomach thing. That you think you caught it from someone at school. Tell him you don't want to infect the rest of the team.” As soon as Ava had said it, she felt a shudder of unease at how easily the lie had come to her.
Am I becoming a hardened criminal? One who can come up with diabolical schemes without batting an eye?

“I think you're onto something, Ave. I can bolt at halftime,” said Tommy, with growing enthusiasm. “I can get a friend to drive me—if I hop into a waiting getaway car, I should get to the concert in plenty of time. We're third on the program.” Tommy looked intrigued. Then his face fell. “But the band competition might run late. What if I'm not home before Coach is? If I'm supposed to be half-dead of the stomach
flu, I can't be out when he gets home.”

“Good point,” said Ava. “I'm not sure.” She and Tommy sat side by side on Tommy's bed, their chins resting on the heels of their hands, brooding.

Ava sat up. “It's highly unlikely he'll be home right after the game. He always has to stay and talk to the press and get interviewed and stuff. But on the off chance that he gets home first, I can tell him you got a friend to drive you to the walk-in clinic. Like Luke or somebody. On whom, by the way, Alex already has a mega-crush.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “I could've seen that one coming,” he said. “I always forget how dreamy Luke is. I guess I don't stare into his eyes as often as I should. But yeah, Ave, I think this plan might just work. Have I told you you're awesome?”

“No.”

“Well, you're . . . wait. Forget it. You're not awesome.”

“Why not? What's wrong with this plan?”

“Uh, hello? What about Mom? If she hears I'm sick, she'll be home to check on me in four minutes flat. She'll have me rushed to the nearest hospital.”

“She won't hear. Who would she hear from? You say something to Coach at halftime. You leave. No one would go running into the stands to tell her.”

“What about after the game, though? Coach will tell her then, and she'll go straight home to cook up some strengthening broth for me.”

“Ha! No, she won't!” said Ava triumphantly, leaping up. “I just remembered! She told me she has an old friend coming in from out of town Friday night. She's having a late dinner with her, leaving straight from the game. So you're clear! She won't even see Coach until much later.”

“Ave?”

“Yep?”

“You're awesome.”

“I know.”

“But you do still look freaky with that eye stuff on. And you have glitter on your nose. Go wash your face.”

“Thanks,” she said drily, getting to her feet. “I will.”

As she headed for the bathroom, she found herself wondering how, in just two days, she had become partners in crime with both of her siblings.

Ava came down to dinner half an hour later, having scrubbed her face with a washcloth and washed her hair twice to get all the hair spray out. She stepped over Moxy, who was sprawled as usual across the kitchen floor, and slid into her seat.

Coach was talking about the upcoming game on Friday. “They're deep and talented on both sides of the ball. Defensively, their corners are fast and athletic, and offensively, their line protects their QB very well. It's going to be a close game.” He took a moody bite of his meat loaf. “PJ's going to have his work cut out for him. He's going to need your moral support big-time, Tom.”

Tommy flicked a glance at Ava. She held his gaze for a fraction of a second and looked down at her plate. They both knew that what Coach was saying was code for
You're not going to play and we all know it
.

“So tell us all about tryouts, Alex!” said Mrs. Sackett, who seemed eager to change the subject.

“Tryouts?” said Alex. “Ow! Oh, oh, right. Tryouts. They were great.” She smiled.

Ava, who had just kicked her sister under the table, was surprised that Alex didn't seem more upset about lying to their parents, even if she wasn't great at it. Was her sister heading straight to a life in a penitentiary? In English, Ava's class was reading a story by Edgar Allan Poe called “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Although usually Ava had a hard time sticking with a story for very long, this one had held her attention. It was about a guy who'd murdered someone and stuck him under the floorboards, but then the guy went mad and imagined he heard the pounding of his victim's heartbeat growing louder and louder until he couldn't stand it anymore and turned himself in to the police. Was guilt not pounding through Alex's brain like it was through Ava's?

“Was Molly Clifford there?” asked Mrs. Sackett.
“I ran into her mom at the grocery store, and she told me Molly had sprained her ankle, but I'm not sure how bad it was.”

Alex blinked. “Molly? Oh! Yes. She was. I mean, no. I don't think so. I mean, I can't remember.”

On second thought, Ava realized, Alex was a terrible liar. She jumped in to rescue her sister.

“I think you mean she was there but wasn't actually trying out,” said Ava hastily. “What I heard was that Molly is under doctor's orders to stay off her ankle for two more days, so they're going to give her a tryout on Tuesday.”

“Oh, right,” said Alex. “I forgot.”

Ava could feel her mother shift in her seat. She didn't dare look up. Her mom was nearly impossible to deceive.

“What's that you're wearing, Ava?” Mrs. Sackett asked suddenly.

Ava froze. Had she somehow left the bow in her hair or something?

Her mom put a hand on Ava's cheek and pulled it gently in her direction. “Your eyes. Are you wearing glitter? There's some on your cheek, too.”

Ava felt her whole face go hot. She'd had
no idea how to get all the stupid glitter off her face. She'd scrubbed every inch of herself, of course, but it just seemed to transfer bits of glitter from one part of her body to another. She heard Tommy snort across the table, and if she could have been sure exactly where his legs were, she would have planted an indignant kick to his shins.

For once, Alex saved the day. “I was experimenting on Ava,” she said.

Coach raised one eyebrow and inspected Ava's face with interest. “Huh,” he said.

“And by the way,” Alex continued, “are you guys planning to hire Tommy's friend? Was his name Luke?”

“We're not sure yet,” said her mother. “We've just started the process of interviewing people, and we're not totally sure what we're doing, but he certainly seemed bright, and enthusiastic. And more than competent.”

“And dreamy,” coughed Tommy into his napkin. “Ow!” he said loudly. “Who kicked me?”

Alex must have been sure exactly where Tommy's legs were.

As soon as they were finished helping with the dinner dishes, Alex nodded to Ava, and the two girls hurried upstairs and into Alex's room. They sat side by side as Alex's fingers flew across the keyboard. A moment later they were staring at the list of girls asked to return for the second day of tryouts.

Ava let out a whoop. “We made it!” she yelled, doing a fist pump and then giving Alex a high five.

Alex laughed. “You made it, you mean. You were so good, Ave. I cannot wait to see Rosa's face when she has to admit that I can do anything I set my mind to. Or, er, that I set your mind to.”

Both girls looked at each other with troubled expressions. Alex was starting to feel that her circular logic wasn't quite working. What was she proving here? And now that she was past the first round of cuts, the consequences of what she and Ava had done were finally starting to sink in. She'd been so focused on just “making first cuts” that she hadn't really thought beyond this point.
How did I not contemplate the next step?
she thought.

“Well, anyway, it's done,” said Ava, getting to her feet. “I'm glad I could help you out, but I'm really relieved not to have to do this again.”

“Um, about that,” said Alex slowly.

Ava's eyes narrowed. “Alex,” she said. “No.”

“Sit down,” said Alex gently. “Let's discuss this calmly and rationally.”

“Al, there's nothing to discuss. I did what you wanted. You made first cuts. You go tomorrow and you don't make the team. Then you can be manager or whatever.”

Alex shook her head, slowly, wearily. “No, Ave, it won't work. First of all, if I go to tryouts tomorrow and I am completely and utterly horrible, when I was amazing the day before, they're going to suspect something. I don't
know the routines you learned today. The clinic went on for hours, and I didn't watch each and every minute, to be honest. And there's no time for me to learn them!” With a pang of guilt, she thought about how she'd curled up on the mats and read for most of the clinic.

“So e-mail Coach Jen and tell her you had second thoughts, and that you've decided to quit.”

“I can't do that, Ave! If I quit now, she'll never in a million years let me be manager. You of all people know that coaches do not look kindly on quitters. If I don't become manager, I'm looking at some horror show of a sports activity. Like Square Dance Club!” She shuddered. “No, I have to get cut fair and square, but it has to be you. You have to go back and just be convincingly semi-awful, rather than a disaster, which is what I would be.”

Ava shook her head violently back and forth. “Al! Tomorrow is Monday. I have football practice. I can't miss football practice to go to cheerleading tryouts!”

“Don't worry,” said Alex. “I have a plan for that.”

Ava stared at her with a disbelieving look.

“Just tell Coach K that you have a doctor's
appointment. Kids do have doctors' appointments sometimes. He'll be fine with that. Please?”

Ava opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again when she saw the desperate look in her sister's eyes. She sat, massaging her temples. Then she said, “Okay. You're right. Even though I thought—and still think—this whole plan was stupid and doomed, I see that what you're saying makes some sense, in a warped kind of way. We're in this too far. If you show up tomorrow and you don't know anything, they'll guess in two seconds that we switched places and we'll both be in big trouble. But you know if Mom finds out about this, she'll kill us both.”

“I know.” Alex hugged her. “Ave, thanks. You're the best, most generous sister anyone could ever ask for.”

“But no glitter this time,” said Ava firmly.

“Hey,” said Kylie in a low voice. She and Ava were sitting side by side in social studies the next day. Kylie nudged Ava's sneaker under the desk with the side of her green cowboy boot. “You are definitely distracted today. You keep drumming your
fingers, tapping your foot, squirming in your chair, and you just used the blue pencil to color Panama, and blue is our ocean color.”

Ava stared down at their map of Central America and groaned. “Sorry,” she said. She picked up the eraser and scrubbed at the blue.

“What's up? You seem to have a lot on your mind today.”

“I guess I am a little distracted,” said Ava. She chuckled ruefully. “Maybe it's my ADHD.”
Or maybe I'm distracted because I'm helping both my sister and my brother with their harebrained, risky plans to deceive people,
she thought.

“How's tutoring going?”

“It hasn't started yet, but I think my parents might have found someone. And my sister promptly developed a crush on him,” said Ava.

Kylie rolled her eyes. “Of course she did. Hey, you know what you need? Some riding therapy! Maybe you should come to the ranch this weekend and we'll take the horses out for a nice, long ride.”

“That sounds awesome,” agreed Ava. “But first I have to get through the rest of this week.”