But as they got off the bus the next day, Alex quickly realized that Ava seemed to be all anyone was talking about.
“Good for you, Ava!” yelled a girl.
“Girls can’t play football!” yelled a boy.
A group of girls was arguing with a group of boys, and Alex was pretty sure she heard “football” and “Sackett.”
Other groups of kids just stopped talking and watched Alex and Ava make their way through the crowd.
“Everyone’s staring at us,” said Alex through a frozen smile. She was trying to speak without moving her lips, like a ventriloquist.
“Sure looks that way,” Ava muttered back, as the two walked up the front steps of the school.
Ms. Farmen, the principal, was standing at the top of the stairs as she did most mornings, greeting kids as they walked in. As Alex and Ava passed her, she flashed Ava an encouraging smile.
“Well, it looks like you’ve got Ms. Farmen’s support, at least,” said Alex. “She probably can’t be too obvious about it, though, because she’s the principal and she answers to the school board.” She looked around the lobby at the posters plastered on every wall. Of course there were posters for the sixth- and eighth-grade candidates, and there was the one of hers she’d put up yesterday morning, but it felt as though everywhere she turned she saw Logan and Ella’s posters.
A group of eighth-grade girls walked past them. “Way to go, Ava!” said one.
A group of seventh-grade girls Alex vaguely recognized from the one science club meeting she’d attended walked past from the other direction. “Aren’t you afraid you’re going to get hurt?” asked one of them.
Ava opened her mouth to respond, but Alex poked her in the side. “It’s better to ignore them!” she whispered.
“Football’s for guys,” grunted a boy, and the group he was walking with all nodded.
Mr. Fifer, the music teacher, passed by as they arrived at their lockers. He stopped and gave Ava a double thumbs-up, pausing briefly as though waiting for someone to snap his picture.
“You go, girl!” he said enthusiastically, and walked on.
Ava cringed. “Who even says that anymore besides nerdy teachers and parents?” she asked Alex.
Alex shook her head darkly. “I had no idea this was going to be such a big deal,” she said. “It’s definitely distracting my voters from the issues at hand. I don’t like it one bit.”
Ava slammed her locker closed and glared at Alex. “It isn’t always all about you, Al,” she said. “Do you think I want to be the center of attention? All I want to do is play.”
Before Alex could respond, Kylie McClaire appeared on the other side of Ava. “Oh my,” she said, grinning. “You do know how to cause a stir, Sackett girls! The whole school is talking about you and the school board meeting next Wednesday!”
“It is?” asked Alex, growing more despondent by the minute.
“Mm-hmm.” Kylie nodded, her long, dangly earrings jangling. “And it sounds like Logan Medina is trying to turn it to his advantage, saying stupid stuff about how ‘girls should be girls’ ”—she crooked her fingers in the air as quotes—“and how the Sackett twins are troublemakers, et cetera.”
“He said that?” asked Alex weakly.
“Yeah, but I think it’s going to hurt him,” said Kylie. “He’ll lose the girl vote if he keeps this up.” She turned to Ava, who had remained quiet during this whole exchange. “You okay?” she asked her.
Ava nodded. “The worst thing is all the whispering I see kids doing. I have no idea if they’re for or against. And I guess I don’t care. But still—it’s awkward.”
It was still early, and when Alex arrived at her homeroom classroom she found Emily and Lindsey chatting outside the door. Lindsey was wearing the dress she’d been trying on at the thrift shop. Her mom must have hemmed it, and it looked adorable on her.
“Hey, Alex!” said Emily, cheerful and welcoming as ever. “Don’t you love Lindsey’s new dress? She got it at Spruce. Isn’t it just the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“She got it at—wait.” Alex wrinkled her brow. She was positive that was the dress . . . oh. Of course. Lindsey didn’t want Emily to know she’d been shopping at a thrift store. She’d lied about where she’d gotten her dress. “Spruce!” said Alex hastily, her face lighting up. “Of course! It looks—it looks awesome on you, Lindsey.”
The worried furrow on Lindsey’s face smoothed and relaxed. She smiled gratefully at Alex, clearly relieved that Alex was playing along. “Thanks,” she said. “So how’s the campaign going?”
Alex was momentarily shocked that Lindsey was initiating conversation with her. It was the first time in a while—she had been so standoffish lately. “Um, fine!” said Alex. “Well, mostly fine. Logan seems to have an entire staff at his disposal. He’s got them passing out candy, helping him with posters, doling out pencils. And Ella has the public relations thing wrapped up. It’s amazing how many posters she’s got up, and what professional quality they are.”
“That’s no fair! Hmm . . . what if we help you?” suggested Lindsey.
“Yes! Let’s help!” said Emily with genuine enthusiasm.
Again, Alex was startled by Lindsey’s warmth, and by her offer. Lindsey and Emily had said they would help a while ago, but so far they hadn’t been around much, and Alex had assumed they hadn’t really meant it.
“Wow, that would be awesome,” said Alex.
“Great,” said Lindsey. “We all have the same lunch period, right?” When Alex and Emily nodded, Lindsey said, “Let’s sign out the art room. We can make a bunch more posters.”
The bell rang, and Alex and Lindsey said good-bye to Emily, who headed off to her homeroom class.
“I’ll see if other kids want to come help us!” said Lindsey as she slid into her desk. Alex slid into the one next to her, elated but perplexed.
“Wait, Lindsey did that?” Ava almost dropped the book she was holding and stared incredulously at Alex.
“I know. It’s crazy, isn’t it? She started being nice just after I went along with a lie she told.”
Ava’s eyes widened. She’d never been a big fan of Lindsey and hadn’t understood why her sister wanted so desperately to be accepted by her. Sure, she was part of the “cool” crowd, and belonging was really important to Alex, but it was clear that Lindsey didn’t like Alex, and that bothered Ava. Of course, that could be because of the whole Corey issue. But Alex had turned him down, and Lindsey still hadn’t been super nice to her. Until now, Ava supposed.
“What do you think made her change her mind about you?” asked Ava.
Alex explained how she had run into Lindsey in the thrift shop, and how she had seen her in the girls’ bathroom before the field trip. “So after I saw her in two different embarrassing situations—embarrassing for her, I think, even though I didn’t have a clue why they’d be embarrassing—she’s been totally nice to me. She rounded up half a dozen kids and they all helped make twelve more posters, and then she even insisted on putting them up during lunch. Why do you think she’s doing this?”
Ava stopped putting in her locker combination and turned to her twin. “Al, it’s really obvious.”
“It is?” Alex looked relieved.
“She probably feels she owes you now because you know this secret about her. You know that her family is struggling, and she’s a proud person, and she doesn’t want it to get around. It’s like an unspoken deal: If you can be discreet about all this, she’ll repay you by helping you get elected. Maybe it’s not totally that clear in her mind, but I think she feels she has a debt to repay.”
Alex still didn’t seem to get it. Ava knew how much her sister relied on her to help interpret subtle stuff like this, so it was good that they were talking again. Ava had been feeling hurt that Alex wasn’t getting behind her about her right to try out for football, but maybe, Ava thought now, it was just one more example of Alex’s self-involvement. It wasn’t that Alex didn’t care, Ava realized. She just got so wrapped up in her own stuff sometimes that she forget to think about other people’s stuff.
“That’s so weird,” Alex said slowly. “What’s the big deal about getting a reduced-price lunch or shopping in a thrift store? I mean, don’t you remember back in Boston when Mom hadn’t gone back to work yet and Daddy wasn’t making very much money and we couldn’t afford to go on vacation for like, three summers in a row?”
“I don’t think it’s the same thing,” said Ava. “I think Lindsey has an image to protect. Kylie told me that the Davises have always been one of the better-off families. I think she wants to make it seem like nothing’s changed, even though it has.”
Alex stared down the hallway as she contemplated this. Then she nudged Ava. “Look at Logan,” she said under her breath, gesturing with her chin. “He’s totally flirting with that group of girls over there.”
“Whatever,” said Ava, spinning the dial on her locker. “He’s—” She stopped as something fell out and landed on the floor.
Alex stooped to retrieve it and handed it to Ava. “What’s that?” she asked.
Ava stared down at it. She felt the heat rise in her face. Without a word, she passed it to Alex.
It was a piece of construction paper with two cutout pictures pasted to it. They looked like photos from old magazines. The picture on the left showed a football player in a three-point stance, one hand on the ground. Someone had drawn curlicues around the sides of the helmet with a bow on top—to indicate that the player was a girl. The person had also drawn a circle around the football player, with a slash through it—girls shouldn’t play football. The picture on the right showed an old-fashioned cheerleader with her hair in blond pigtails, wearing a wool sweater and a flouncy skirt. She was doing a dumb-looking leap in the air, shaking her pom-poms, and she looked like the least athletic person on earth. The person had drawn an arrow pointing to her. As in—this is what girls should be doing.
There was no name, no message, nothing else written on the paper.
Alex looked perplexed. “What does this even mean?”
“It means,” said Ava, her voice shaking with rage, “that I shouldn’t play football because I’m a girl. I should be a cheerleader instead.”
“That’s dumb. You don’t even like cheerleading.”
“It’s a message, Al, that girls should stick to cheerleading. It’s so stupid, too . . . the whole reason they say they don’t want me to play football is so I don’t get hurt, but cheerleaders get hurt just as much if not more than football players do. Plus, there are tons of boys who are cheerleaders. Has this person been living under a rock?”
“Just ignore it, Ave,” said Alex. “Anyway, I better run. Emily and Lindsey promised to listen to me practice my speech.”
Ava watched her sister walk away. She couldn’t believe how much Alex had downplayed this. It was a big deal. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make this dumb sign and shove it into her locker while she was at lunch. She looked around the hallway at all the chattering, laughing kids at their lockers. One of them had sent her this message. It could have been anyone.