Sisters Forever

by Lexi Ryals

  Everyone is pretty gloomy, huddled on Liv’s bed. Luckily, Liv and I have found a brilliant-beyond-brilliant solution.

  “Okay, guys,” I say. “We were shut down by Fickman again. I know that was a real kick to the stomach. But if he’s not going to help us, we’re not going to sit around and cry about it, am I right? We’re going to help ourselves.” Then I gesture to the door of our bathroom. “Stains, would you come out here, please?”

  Stains slides the door open and walks in wearing one of the boys’ old blue uniforms. She doesn’t look happy. She has to hold the shorts to keep them from falling down, and the shirt comes almost to her knees.

  “This is what Principal Fickman thinks we’re worth. Are we going to stand for this?” I say in a booming voice. “Stains, catch!” I toss a ball to Stains. As soon as she lets go of the shorts to catch the ball, they fall around her ankles.

  “This. Is madness!” Stain exclaims, pointing to her fallen shorts.

  Willow shakes her head. “I bet the boys don’t worry about their pants falling off!”

  “Are we going to take this sitting down?” I yell.

  “Willow doesn’t go down!” Willow shouts, making a fist.

  Liv appears in the doorway, tapping her cane on the ground hard. The whole team turns to look at her.

  “Attention, Lady Groundhogs!” she says dramatically.

  “Um, we’re the Porcupines,” Cassie says, looking indignant.

  “Whatever,” Liv says. “Cue music!” She pulls the remote off a nearby shelf, and music starts to play. She then rips a purple silk sheet off an easel to reveal the colorful poster she made earlier.

  “Behold your future uniforms,” she says, pointing her cane at the poster. “The sporty sport short looks great on the court or just sitting on the bench.”

  “That’s me!” Stains exclaims. “I sit the bench. I’m going to look great!”

  Liv ignores her and clears her throat. “The b-ball tank is perfect for all that dribble-y, drabble-y, shoot-y stuff you girls like to do. Dunk-tastic, am I right?”

  Willow looks at the poster longingly. “I want to get married in that.”

  “We need those uniforms!” Cassie says. “We can’t let Fickman ruin Willow’s wedding!” The girls turn to each other with nervous expressions.

  Aaaand we have our common goal. Step three, achieved!

  I have to admit, it’s cool to see the girls so excited for once, even if it is about fashion.

  “We’re all ears, Captain. How do we get ’em?” Stains asks me.

  I lift a bag filled with the 490 extra “Got Your Back” bracelets I’ve had made for the team. “This is how,” I say. “We’re going to raise money for those uniforms by selling these bracelets to the kids at school who do support us. Are you with me?”

  “Yeah!” the girls yell, pumping their fists in the air.

  “Are we going to tell Principal Fickman he can’t push us around?!” I yell.

  “Yeah!” they say, and all pump their fists again.

  When Stains throws her fist up, her shorts fall down again.

  “Does everyone want Stains to pull up her pants?” I yell.

  “Yeah!” the girls, even Stains, call out.

  I walk into the living room and find Parker on the couch. He’s lowering a live cricket into his mouth. This is too weird, even for Parker.

  “Parker, what are you doing? Stop!” I yell, bolting over to him.

  “Eating a cricket. To catch a tarantula, you have to eat like a tarantula,” Parker says. “Duh.”

  I take a seat beside him. “And...where did you hear that?” I ask.

  “Oh! The man in my head,” Parker says. “He comes up with all kinds of cool things.”

  I smile. “Oh! Okay! Yeah!” I say. “Please, carry on.”

  Parker lowers the cricket toward his mouth again just as Mom walks in.

  “Put. The. Bug. Down!” Mom says. “What’s going on?”

  Parker immediately puts the cricket into a paper bucket. He looks at Mom sheepishly.

  “Okay, fine,” Parker says. “I’m tired of the lies. I brought home tarantulas from school, and they kinda...sorta...got out.”

  “What?” Mom asks, looking terrified.

  “We caught two, but one of them got away,” Parker explains.

  I gasp. “Joan, the troubled ringmaster?”

  Parker nods sadly. “She just can’t be tied down.”

  Mom looks back and forth between Parker and me. She looks like she wants to scream in horror. “There are gross, hairy tarantulas crawling around our house somewhere? Find them. Now.” She shudders and pulls at her clothes. “I know this is completely in my head, but I feel like I can feel them crawling all over me.”

  Mom starts to head upstairs.

  She has five tarantulas clinging to her back!

  I guess Parker sees them, too. He yells, “Mom!”

  I immediately clamp my hand over Parker’s mouth.

  “What is it?” Mom turns on the step and looks at us.

  “Just...we love you,” I say, pretending to hug Parker.

  “Aw, I love you guys, too,” Mom says, blowing us a kiss. Then she goes on upstairs.

  I put my finger up to my lips, shushing Parker. “It’s better this way.”

  The next day I strut right up to Principal Fickman in the hallway, where he is taking a polka-dot bikini top (not a cute one) off the Paulie the Porcupine statue.

  “Joke’s on you, students,” he mutters to himself. “Mother is going to love this!”

  “Principal Fickman!” I say rather saucily.

  “Too late, I’ve got dibs,” he says, clutching the bikini top territorially.

  “Okay...” Who’d want that tired old thing anyway? I say, “The girls’ basketball team decided we weren’t going to wait for you to come through for us, so we took matters into our own hands.”

  “Ooh, did you bake a pie?” Principal Fickman laughs.

  “Are you with me, Ridgewood High?” I call over my shoulder.

  Every kid in the hallway raises a hand. They are all wearing teal “Got Your Back” bracelets.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” Principal Fickman asks me.

  “You’re about to see steps four and five: marching into battle and looking good doing it. Joey, cue my jam!” I call out, raising an eyebrow at him.

  Joey raises his phone above his head and presses play.

  That’s when the doors to the gym fly open.

  Here goes nothing!

  Once the gym doors are open, I march toward the principal. Me and my team are all wearing the bejeweled new uniforms Liv designed for us. They consist of purple, teal, and silver jersey tops and shorts with our names and numbers outlined in rhinestones. We look good! Bam! What?!

  I am also carrying a mesh sack over my shoulder. My team walks behind me. Talk about getting my back. Smoke flies around us, disco lights flash, and we march in time to Joey’s music. I feel super powerful. It’s a perfect moment to shine. (Well, minus Stains walking into a locker. Good thing she walked it off.) We stop right in front of Principal Fickman.

  I say, “Thanks for the loaners, but we don’t need these anymore.” I dump the bag out at his feet. It is filled with the boys’ ugly old uniforms. “Bam! What?!” I say sassily, exuding my Liv-esque attitude.

  “You said money only goes to the things the student body cares about,” Willow says. “Well, look around.”

  The principal gives her a blank stare.

  “I said look!” Willow bellows. That’s my girl.

  The principal’s eyes widen.

  “She meant look please,” Stains says. “We’re working on manners.”

  Principal Fickman grimaces like he smells something bad. Probably the boys’ uniforms. “I hate to say it, but I have a new respect for you girls. Ha-ha. Really hate to say it,” he says through gritted teeth, looking crestfallen.

  “Are you going to send us to the Worciechowski tournament?” I ask him.


  I hold my breath. I feel my whole team holding their breath.

  Principal Fickman sighs. “I could find room in budget for that.”

  Everyone in the hallway cheers. I flash Liv a smile.

  “All right, make way, people,” says the principal. “I have to get to the yearbook folks and tell them I’m just going to print last year’s edition again. Sorry ninth graders, you lose.” Principal Fickman walks away down the hall.

  Joey laughs. Then his expression hardens. “Wait...I’m a ninth grader,” he says. “That was the best picture I’ve ever taken!” He hurries down the hall after Principal Fickman. “Wait! Please stop! No!”

  “Nice work!” Willow tells me. “My porcupine quills feel a little sharper because of you, Captain!” She gives me two super-hard high fives.

  “We really have to thank Liv.” I smile as I walk over to my sis, no doubt looking as proud as I feel. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you are the best teammate I’ve ever had,” I tell Liv. “I mean, I never could have rallied the team without you.”

  “Oh, Maddie, that’s so sweet,” Liv says kindly. Then she says in a more serious tone and lowly so only I can hear her, “We both know I’m quitting, right?”

  “I already cleaned out your fake locker,” I assure her.

  Dad runs in. “Maddie! I have a great idea! We should sell those extra bracelets you ordered and use the money to buy new uniforms,” he says.

  I point at my new uniform.

  “Oh, come on! I’m the coach. You gotta keep me in the loop!” Dad says.

  I turn to my team. “All right, Fighting Porcupines. Let’s bounce.” I wrap my arm around Liv’s shoulders and we walk, side by side, down the hall with the team.

  We may have gotten off to a rough start, Liv and I, but we are already back to being an unstoppable team.

  It is going to be such a great year.

  Bam! What?!

  Q: What’s it like to play identical twins? Are you ever playing Maddie or Liv and the other sister slips in accidentally? How do you keep them as separate characters?

  A: Playing twins is the time of my life, but it’s also (quite literally) twice the work! It’s a really unique opportunity, and I’m forever grateful to Disney Channel and Gary Marsh, president and chief creative officer for Disney Channels Worldwide, for trusting me with such a huge challenge. I’ve actually gotten both characters down to such a science that I find it hard, or next to impossible, to accidentally slip into one when I play the other. I feel like I know them as well as I know myself, since I got to create the characters from the ground up. Keeping them separate has gotten pretty second nature to me. I don’t really use tricks anymore! As an actor, it’s just like playing two completely different characters on separate projects. They have nothing to do with each other. The only difference between playing these characters and another character on another show is I switch back and forth between each girl five or six times in a twelve-hour span, and I talk to myself. [laughs]

  Q: What has been your favorite moment on set?

  A: In season one, we got ordered for a full season after sending about six episodes to the network. The producers found out and gathered us all together on camera and pretended that they had bad news and announced that we were going to be a real live TV show on one of the biggest networks in the world. All of our dreams came true in synchronicity, and we all got to share it in a heightened and loving environment. It was a very intense few hours. That was probably my favorite set memory.

  Q: We all know Maddie and Liv have their catchphrases (Bam! What?!, O-M-Wowza, and even Sing it loud!). What would your catchphrase be?

  A: My catchphrase would probably be “Do we have time to stop at Starbucks?” That’s probably the thing I hear myself say the most! Complete and total coffee addict.

  Q: If you had to give Maddie one piece of advice, what would it be?

  A: “Just because your sister has a hobby or profession that gleans more attention from people because it’s been glamorized doesn’t mean that you deserve any less love or affection.” I’ve seen plenty of sibling relationships go down because of jealousy or feelings of inadequacy. Liv definitely gets more attention, and I think that probably made Maddie more shy growing up, and I figured she probably put herself in the background of things on purpose just because she felt she couldn’t compete with Liv. That definitely factors in to how I play her on the show.

  Q: If you had to give Liv one piece of advice, what would it be?

  A: “Just because you’ve been rewarded for being in the spotlight and performing with love and affection doesn’t mean that that’s all you’re worth.” As a performer myself, it’s pretty easy to feel like people only want one thing from you, whether that’s professionally or personally, sometimes. It gets hard to feel like you’re much else beyond your job description. I love my job, but I sometimes feel like people don’t want me to have real emotions like other people, they just want me to be the funny one to lift the room, or they want me to always be perfect. It’s a lot of pressure, and it can make you feel a little inhuman sometimes. When you’re used to exceeding expectations, it’s devastating to not live up to them. I think Liv definitely has a “perfection complex” and doesn’t give herself much room to mess up. She’s always perfect, always practiced. And I think that’s why she’s so neurotic sometimes, the pressure to be perfect is heavy, so she has to let off some of that pressure by being a little more emotional and unbalanced than Maddie. No one can be perfect forever. I definitely incorporate that whenever I play her.

  Q: How do you calm your nerves? On set and in life?

  A: Listening to music and journaling! I’ve found that if I’m ever stressed, it’s because I don’t feel aligned with (or clear about) my thoughts and feelings about a certain situation! Knowledge is power, and there’s a certain unshakable confidence that comes with knowing exactly how you feel and think about something, and honoring those thoughts and feelings. When you are at peace with yourself, and aligned with your center, there’s nothing outside of you that can touch you, and journaling helps me understand what I think and feel about everything and get in touch with myself.

  Q: What’s your favorite place to visit?

  A: Either Paris, France, or India. I grew up traveling back and forth between those places and my hometown practically my whole childhood. They both feel like home to me, and while I haven’t visited my friends in India for a few years, I still make regular trips out to Paris for work, or just to get away and be in my second home. My family is very French.

  Q: If you started a club at school, what would it be? Or would you play on a sports team? Or both?

  A: I would definitely start a show choir, if my school didn’t already have one. It’s like a combination of both girls’ interests. I love performing, singing, and dancing, but I’m super competitive. Show choirs (I was in one in high school) travel across the country and compete for awards. It’s a thrill. I loved it.

  Q: If you started a charity, what would be your cause/mission?

  A: If I started a charity, it would definitely be something that could make a difference worldwide. I traveled internationally when I was younger so I was very impacted by all of the poverty and hunger and disease that we, in America, are so untouched by. I talk to most people in the States about the conditions of the rest of the world, and for the most part, the people who I talk to are completely unaware of it. So I suppose my first mission would be to raise awareness, but then it would be to build homes in India, raise money for medical materials, and bring those to places in need. I love the Heifer Project. I’ve been a big supporter of them since I made my first dollar. I make sure to give lots of donations to the Heifer Project annually.

  Q: Describe your idea of a perfect slumber party.

  A: I actually still have slumber parties with my girlfriends! I consider myself somewhat of a tomboy, but I’m secretly super girly. The keys to a perfect slumber party: face masks, deliciously scented body moistu
rizer/butter, nail polish, homemade lip scrub (olive oil, sea salt, sugar, and honey!), a new pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt (so fluffy!), wayyyy more cozy blankets than you need (or will use), a pile of DVDs, and lots and lots of junk food! Indulgence is key.

  Q: What’s your biggest fear?

  A: Small spaces! Even if I get stuck in a coat or sweater and I start to overheat and the zipper gets stuck (which has happened to me more times than I would like to admit), I freak out! So stressful.

  Q: What’s your favorite snack?

  A: My diet consists of meats, veggies, fruits, nuts, and grains. I never eat anything with dairy, gluten, or sugar, except for every other Saturday, when my boyfriend and I do a full-on junk food day. Doughnuts, Toaster Strudel, Pop-Tarts, Goldfish, burgers, pizza, everything. So in terms of my favorite healthy snack that I eat all the time: either frozen grapes or baby carrots dipped in mustard! I know that sounds weird, but it’s delicious. But in terms of junk food snacks: strawberry Toaster Strudel! Or doughnuts.

  Q: Who is your favorite Disney character?

  A: Rapunzel! She’s just like me. I just relate to her so much, and I’ve been told that she’s my cartoon twin! I’d love to be her best friend! Or play her on Broadway! [laughs]

  Q: What is your favorite Disney movie?

  A: Frozen! I saw it six times in theaters. It’s my dream to perform as one of those girls on Broadway.

  Q: Any advice for your fans on surviving high school?

  A: Never do anything that feels inauthentic to you and your moral compass. Understand that only having one or two close friends is okay, and better than having thirty acquaintances. Understand that it’ll be over quicker than you think, and once it’s over, it’s so over.

  Q: If you had to pick, would you choose acting or singing?

  A: I could never pick! That’s why a show on the Disney Channel appealed so much to me! I started onstage and developed both passions simultaneously, so they really feel like one thing to me. That’s also why I want to be on Broadway one day!

  Q: You’re starring in the new Disney Channel original movie The Descendants. Can you give the fans a taste of what to look forward to?