Two hours passed quickly. Alex finished a chapter, put away her book, and went back to her lookout post to see what was going on. Everyone was lining up for the final routine. The coaches and high school cheerleaders were sitting in the bleachers, watching. Where was Ava?
Alex spotted her, second from the left. It was a little eerie, how much Ava looked like her at that moment. Her ponytail was still pinned securely in place, although Alex noted that Ava had flipped up the waistband on her shorts. Oh well—Alex had asked a lot of her. At least she was remembering to smile.
The music started. The girls began the dance. It was an upbeat, popular song, one that you couldn’t resist dancing to when you heard it. Alex moved her feet as she watched the girls step, step, step, twirl. Check mark left, check mark right, V-pose. Then a mambo-cha-cha-cha, turn around, and do it again. Ava was excellent. Alex marveled at how confidently she nailed every step. She bounced up and down with excitement. And was it her imagination, or was Rosa glaring at Ava out of the corner of her eye?
After the routine, she watched the girls demonstrate jumps. Ava did a hurdle, a pike, and a toe touch. She was awesome at all three.
Tommy picked them up right at five o’clock, at the side door of the gym.
“How’d it go?” he asked them, as Alex slid into the front seat and Ava into the back. Ava had called shotgun, but Alex argued it was more believable that she—pretending to be Ava—would be sitting in the front.
Alex noticed that Ava’s face was flushed and her eyes were shining. She knew that look. Her sister loved competing, no matter what the sport. “I thought she looked fantastic,” said Alex. She turned toward Ava. “How do you think you did?”
“Well, except for the fact that my mouth is paralyzed into a permanent frozen smile, I think it went pretty well,” said Ava. “They’re posting the results online at seven tonight.”
Tommy was shaking his head. “I can’t believe you guys got away with this. You’re so lucky Mom and Coach didn’t offer to come get you. They were in the middle of interviewing Luke.”
“Who’s Luke?” asked Alex.
“Luke Grabowski. He’s my friend who’s applying for the tutoring job in the Sackett household, remember?”
“Oh yeah. My tutor,” muttered Ava. “I’m really looking forward to that happening.” The Sacketts had recently found out that Ava had ADHD, and they were trying to find someone to help her with homework a few nights a week.
They parked in the driveway. “I’ll go in and make sure they’re still with Luke,” said Tommy. “You two might want to switch back before you go inside. You know Mom won’t be fooled for a second by your getups.”
Alex knew he was right. As soon as he’d gone inside, she unpinned Ava’s fake ponytail and pulled the Celtics cap off her own head. Her long curls tumbled down around her shoulders. The girls swapped shirts, which wasn’t pleasant for Alex, as the shirt of hers Ava had worn was damp with sweat. “Ew,” she said, curling her lip and plucking the shirt away from her body.
“What did you expect?” said Ava. “Cheerleading is hard work.”
Alex watched Ava pull out several bobby pins and then try to mess up her own hair.
“It’s not doing what it usually does,” said Ava. “You put too much hair spray in it.”
“Here,” said Alex, thrusting the Celtics cap toward her sister. “Put this on.”
“Good plan,” said Ava. “And hand me a tissue so I can wipe some of this gunk off my face.”
Ava followed her sister inside. Moxy came bounding around the corner to greet them, and then skidded to a stop and cocked her head to one side, looking perplexed.
“I think she’s confused because our clothes must smell like both of us together,” whispered Ava, giving Moxy a reassuring pat on the head. Moxy’s tail thumped on the floor, but without the usual enthusiasm.
There were voices coming from the study. She exchanged a quick look with Alex. They silently agreed it would be better to say hello briefly than try to sneak past their parents. Anyway, they were now more or less back to their regular selves.
“Ava!” called Coach. “Come meet Luke.”
“You too, Alex,” said their mom.
The girls both stopped at the door of the study.
A blond boy about Tommy’s age stood up from his chair and turned toward the door. He seemed nice enough, Ava thought. And he had a friendly smile. But she was still nervous about having a tutor.
“Hi,” she said shyly, stepping into the room.
“Hi, Ava,” he said.
“Yo, dude!” said Tommy from the hallway. “Have you bamboozled them into thinking you’re an upstanding citizen?”
Luke blushed and rolled his eyes, which Ava thought was sweet. She already felt a little bit better about having to work on her homework with him.
“Ignore Tom, please,” said Coach. “This is Ava’s twin sister, Alex.” He gestured to Alex, who was in the doorway. “How were tryouts, Al?”
When Alex didn’t answer immediately, Ava turned to look at her sister. Uh-oh.
Alex’s mouth had dropped open, and her head was tilted slightly to one side. If this were a cartoon, Ava thought, Alex’s eyes would have hearts for pupils. Ava knew this look. Her sister was love struck.
“Hey, Al?” prompted Coach. “Tryouts? Did they go okay?”
Alex seemed to snap out of it. “Tryouts? What tryouts?” She tore her gaze away from Luke and focused on Coach. “Oh! Tryouts! Yes! They were great! Awesome!”
Mrs. Sackett narrowed her eyes at Alex.
“Well, it was nice to meet you,” Ava said to Luke hastily, and hustled her sister out of the room before their mom could examine either of them too closely.
Ava shoved her sister kindly but firmly into Alex’s room with a whispered “Go change!” and then hurried toward her own room. The sooner she got into the shower to wash the spray out of her hair and the rest of the gunk off her face, the better.
She was gathering up clean clothes in a bundle to take to the bathroom when she heard Tommy call her from down the hall.
“Hey,” she said, stopping at the door of his room.
“Hey,” he said, and beckoned her in. “I’ve got a little situation I need some help with.”
Ava came in and sat down on his bed.
“You look really freaky with makeup on,” he said.
“Thanks. That’s what you called me in to tell me?”
“No. Sorry.” Tommy got up and quietly closed the door. “It’s about Friday night and the game.”
“It’s going to be a close one, huh?” said Ava.
“Yeah, and that’s the thing,” said Tommy. “See, I know I’m not going to get into the game. PJ’s not going to come out when it’s that tight a contest. And Dion’s getting healthier every day, and he’s ahead of me. And the thing is, I have somewhere I would rather be than standing on the sidelines, knowing there’s no chance I’ll get into the game.”
“Where?” asked Ava, although she had a feeling she already knew the answer.
He looked at her directly. “The tri-school band competition. It starts at eight p.m., and I want to be there.”
Ava nodded. She was silent. This was touchy. Coach would never say yes to Tommy leaving the game midway through. It just wasn’t what you did as a member of a team, no matter how important—or unimportant—you were to the team’s chance of winning. But Tommy would definitely need to leave at halftime if he wanted to get to the concert on time.
“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.