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.”
Monday afternoon, just after the last bell rang, Ava hurried to her football teammate Xander’s locker, which wasn’t far from hers.
“Hey, Xander,” she said, as he slammed his locker door closed and hoisted his practice stuff onto his shoulder.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I need you to tell Coach K I won’t be at practice today.”
“Are you sick?” he asked her, raising his eyebrows.
Ava gave a little cough. “Just a little. It’s more that I have a really bad sore throat and my mom thinks it could be strep, so I’m going to get a strep test. I don’t want to infect the team.”
“Okay,” he said. “Feel better.” He headed down the hallway toward the locker room.
Ava blew out a breath. Getting out of going to practice wasn’t so hard, she thought. She hurried off to meet Alex.
They had picked a remote bathroom in a far corner of the school, where almost no one went at this time of day. Alex was already dressed in Ava-wear. Her hair was tucked into the Celtics cap, and she had on one of Ava’s faded, comfy T-shirts and jeans.
“Freakishly convincing,” said Ava, when she saw her sister. “Except I don’t wear bubblegum-pink lip gloss. You need to wipe it off.”
Alex’s hand flew to her mouth. “Right. I forgot. Let me borrow your lip balm.”
Ava dug it out of her pocket and handed it over.
“We need to hurry,” said Alex, getting right down to work. “Tryouts are in fifteen minutes.”
Ava sighed and took the neatly folded T-shirt and shorts from her sister. “This is crazy,” she muttered as she went into the stall to change.
Ten minutes later Ava looked at herself in the mirror and saw her amazed reflection staring back. Her eyes looked huge, rimmed with dark, smudgy eye pencil. Her lips glistened with pink gloss. She gave her hair a shake, and the fake ponytail swayed back and forth. She had to admit that once in a while she missed the feeling of having long hair. Although this big bow did look ridiculous.
“Four minutes till tryouts start,” said Alex briskly, moving to open the door. “Remember: Don’t try too hard. Be below average. Don’t get carried away and get all competitive, okay? Just be bad enough to get cut, and it will all be over.”
“It will all be over,” repeated Ava, and hustled off toward the gym.
There were fewer girls in the gym today, of course, but still at least twenty. Ava was put into a different group from the day before, led by a high school girl named Serena. Rosa was also in the group. After stretching, they practiced poses.
Serena demonstrated something called a scorpion. Ava watched in amazement as Serena stood on her left foot and used one hand to grab her right foot, bent at the knee, behind her. Slowly and smoothly, her right foot went up, up, up behind her body, until it was at the back of her head. Then she grabbed the leg with her other hand and stood perfectly balanced.
“Wow,” the girls said.
“This is a flexibility pose,” said Serena, lowering her foot. “I’ll spot you guys, don’t worry.”
A few of the girls were super flexible, and although not as graceful as Serena, could do the pose with some guidance. When it was Rosa’s turn, she expertly grabbed her foot and sinuously moved it up until she looked just like Serena.
Ava was next. “I’ve never tried this,” she admitted to Serena under her breath.
“Don’t worry. I’m here to spot you,” said Serena reassuringly. “I know you’re flexible, but don’t push yourself too hard.”
Ava had no trouble grabbing her back foot. Up, up it went.
“Nice!” said Serena encouragingly. “Now reach back as far as you can with your other hand and grab your foot with both.”
Ava was amazed. She could grab her foot with two hands!
“Nice flexibility!” said Serena. “Have you really never tried this before? You’re doing great!”
With a start, Ava reminded herself she was supposed to be performing badly today. No, no! Not great. She dropped her foot quickly. “Oops,” she said. “Lost my balance.” She smiled apologetically at Serena and rejoined the group.