Double Trouble
Page 10
That also explained why Megan had been behind the other girls in my vision, crying by herself. Lavender had probably blamed her for what had happened to Amigo.
What had almost happened to Amigo, that is. Glancing down at the lively little dog, I smiled with relief.
“So we did it,” I said. “We changed the future. Again.”
Caitlyn nodded. “And something else happened again,” she said. “A vision you thought was good turned out to be bad. I mean, here you thought it was just a nice vision of Megan petting Amigo, right?”
“Gee, thanks for pointing that out, sis.” I rolled my eyes. “I love being reminded of what a downer my visions are.”
“No, but listen,” she said. “It’s a good thing you see bad stuff, right? Because that gives us a chance to stop it!”
I thought about that for a second. Maybe she had a point. Maybe my bad visions were actually more important than her good ones. Not that I was about to admit it.
“Okay,” I said. “Anyway, like you said, we don’t know for sure that I only see bad stuff and you only see good stuff. What about your Liam vision?”
“But that didn’t turn out so bad, did it?” Cait said. “I mean, yeah, those scrapes couldn’t have felt good. But the main thing my vision focused on was the B Boys, remember? The good thing was the way they all rushed to help Liam.” She smiled. “Which is great, right? It shows that they’re good guys, even if they do mess with people sometimes.”
“If you say so.” Just then a shout of laughter drifted in from the direction of the pool. “But let’s not waste time with philosophy or whatever, okay? Now that we’ve saved the day, let’s get in there and enjoy our birthday party!”
HOURS LATER, THE party was winding down. Some people had left already, though the B Boys were still there. Brayden was on a lounge chair chatting with a bandaged-up but cheerful—and slightly sunburned—Liam, while the other three played keepaway with a beach ball in the pool.
I wandered over to the food table, where Megan was tidying up. “Thanks again for all this,” I said.
“You’re welcome.” She smiled at me. “Happy birthday, Cassie.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed a leftover cookie. “You sure know how to throw one seriously epic party! I bet it’s the talk of the school on Monday.”
She laughed, then frowned slightly. “That reminds me,” she said slowly. “Did you say anything about the party to Gabe Campbell?”
“Ew, no.” I made a face. “He’s about the last person I’d want to invite. Why?”
“Because I ran into him on the way out of school yesterday.” Megan wiped some crumbs off the table. “He was asking all kinds of questions about you and your birthday and stuff like that.” She shrugged. “Probably no biggie. He’s always been kind of strange, you know?”
“Yeah.” But I couldn’t help feeling uneasy as I remembered coming out of that classroom to find him watching us the other day. “No biggie.”
Before I could say anything else, Brayden was coming toward us, swinging along on his crutches. “Hey,” he said. “Thanks for everything, Megan. And happy birthday, Cassie. Thanks for inviting me.”
“No problem.” I tried to sound casual. “I’m glad you came. You know—all you guys. I hope you had fun.”
“We did.” He glanced over his shoulder at his friends. Brent was clapping Liam on the shoulder, while the other two gathered up their towels and stuff. “It was kind of cool hanging with Liam. He’s a smart kid, you know?”
I flashed back to Cait’s vision, and her theory about why it had actually been a good one. Was it just Cheerful Cait putting her happy spin on things as usual? Or was I really destined to see only doom and gloom in my visions?
Whatever. I could worry about that later. Because right now, I was way too aware that Megan was sort of giggling and sidling away, leaving me with Brayden. Obvious much? I just hoped he didn’t notice.
But I also felt a flash of gratitude to her for doing it. It was nice to have friends.
WE WERE ALL pretty quiet on the ride home. Mom was in a good mood, which I guessed meant she and Mrs. March had hit it off. It was definitely a good thing that she was making friends, too; maybe it would help her chill out about stuff.
It took a few trips to bring in all the empty containers and leftover food from the car. But finally Cait and I dropped the last couple of loads on the counter, and Mom shooed us off.
“I’ll put everything away,” she said. “Happy birthday, girls.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Cait said, and I nodded.
Back in our room, Cait flopped onto her bed. “That was fun, right?” she said.
“Beyond fun.” I flashed to Brayden and smiled. “But without our visions, maybe it wouldn’t have gone so well.”
She sat up immediately. “Wait. Are you actually accepting that our visions might be, you know, not horrible?”
“No,” I responded quickly. Then I paused. “Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, a lot of our visions seem pretty pointless, you know? Like the one I had about Ms. Xavier, or the random ones we sometimes get from people we don’t even know. It’s annoying not knowing which ones are superimportant and which ones we can ignore.”
“I know what you mean. Like, it would’ve been easy to ignore a vision of Megan playing with Amigo, right? Definitely random.”
“Only not.” I tried not to think about what could have happened. “And we could have ignored the Bianca ones, since they didn’t have anything to do with us.”
“Only not,” Cait echoed. “Those visions were important even if they weren’t what we thought.”
“I guess.” I wandered over and stared at myself in the mirror over the dresser. “Important or not, though—how are we supposed to know the difference?”
“I don’t know. And I think the only way we can figure that out is with help from our grandmother. We need to try to find her somehow.”
“I agree. Let’s get on that—tomorrow, okay? I’m worn out.” I dug into my purse for my favorite lip balm, but it wasn’t there. “Oops,” I said, vaguely remembering that I’d used it on the way home. “I’ll be right back—I think I left something in the car.”
I hurried for the front door. As I passed the kitchen, I could hear Mom humming as she cleaned up. She was in such a good mood today. Should Cait and I take advantage of that, maybe try talking to her right now? Or would that ruin what was supposed to be a happy day?
As I pondered that, I opened the door and stepped outside. A car was pulling up to the curb in front of our house. No, not a car—a taxi.
Huh? I hadn’t seen a yellow cab since leaving San Antonio. This particular taxi had the name of an Austin cab service printed on the side. What was it doing way out here in Aura?
The door swung open, and a woman climbed out. She was tall and angular, impeccably dressed in an expensive-looking burgundy suit. Her steel-gray hair was pulled back in a sleek bun, and her face wore an expression only slightly less haughty than you might expect from the Queen of England.
I squinted at her, trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. Just then Mom appeared in the doorway with Caitlyn right behind her.
“Cassie, I was telling Cait we should—” Mom cut herself off with a loud gasp.
The gray-haired woman heard her and turned to peer at us. Mom took a deep breath and pushed past me.
“Verity?” she called out, her voice shaking slightly. “Is that really you? Long time no see.”
The woman came toward us. “Hello, Deidre,” she said icily. “Yes, it has been some time, hasn’t it?” Speaking of the Queen of England, the woman kind of sounded like her, too, with a distinct British accent of the upper-crust variety.
I gulped, suddenly realizing why she looked familiar. I’d seen her in my vision. And I was starting to get an inkling of who she might be and what this might mean. . . .
“Hello, girls,” the woman went on, turning her clear blue eyes on Cait and me. “Happy birthday. I did get the day correct
, didn’t I?”
“Y-yes?” Caitlyn said uncertainly. “But who . . .”
The woman came closer, peering at us curiously. “Oh, my, you really are nearly identical, aren’t you? So which of you is Caitlyn and which is Cassandra?”
“Girls,” Mom broke in grimly before we could respond. “I suppose I should introduce you to Mrs. Verity Lockwood. Your grandmother.”
My mouth fell open. “Grandmother?”
“Lockwood?” Cait squeaked out.
We traded a stunned look. Wow! And just when we thought our birthday couldn’t get any more interesting!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
TIA MOWRY-HARDRICT
TAMERA MOWRY-HOUSLEY
Photo by Diana King
Photo by Dana Patrick
TIA MOWRY-HARDRICT & TAMERA MOWRY-HOUSLEY have been in the public eye for over twenty years, beginning with their hit ABC/WB show Sister, Sister. They’ve starred in Disney Channel’s original movies Twitches and Twitches Too as well as the Style Network’s #1 reality series, Tia & Tamera. Tia was the lead of The CW/BET’s show The Game and can most recently be seen starring in and producing the Nickelodeon series Instant Mom and on Cooking Channel’s show Tia Mowry at Home. Tamera is currently a host and producer of the hit daytime talk show The Real, which airs on FOX, and starred in the Lifetime series Strong Medicine. Tia and Tamera reside in Los Angeles with their families.
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2016 by Annabelle Métayer
Cover design by Katie Fitch
Front cover type by Annica Lydenberg
COPYRIGHT
TWINTUITION: DOUBLE TROUBLE. Copyright © 2016 by Dashon Productions and Two Heart Productions. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015952545
ISBN 978-0-06-237289-5
EPub Edition © April 2016 ISBN 9780062372918
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FIRST EDITION
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