by Belle Payton
He gave her a sideways smile and an almost imperceptible nod, and leaned back in his chair to watch the film.
“Okay, don’t get mad, but I think you’re Alex, not Ava,” said Corey, as they walked toward the locker rooms. The “chalk and talk” session was over, and Coach K had dismissed them for the afternoon, urging them to get a good night’s sleep. Most of the guys had run ahead, laughing and jostling one another.
Alex had finally allowed herself to relax the tiniest bit because the official football stuff was over, but now she felt a jolt throughout her whole body. She darted a look at Corey. She thought about protesting, but that would be futile. He knew. And anyway, he’d saved her life in there, answering Coach K’s question.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please, please, please don’t tell.”
“Why would I tell?” he asked with a grin. “Was that you I was talking to yesterday, watching the cheer tryouts and pretending to be Ava?”
Alex nodded ever so briefly, her eyes darting from side to side, making sure no one was listening.
“So Ava’s trying out for cheerleading, pretending to be you.” Corey gave a low whistle. “That’s bold.”
“It’s really complicated,” said Alex out of the side of her mouth. “I can explain, but maybe not here, or now.”
Coach D’Annolfo and Coach MacDonald walked past them, discussing something on a clipboard.
After they’d passed, Corey shrugged. “No need to explain. I’m sure you guys have your reasons. Will you . . . ah . . . will Ava be at football practice tomorrow?”
Alex nodded vigorously.
“Okay, good. Tell her to text me and I’ll fill her in on what we went over today.”
Alex smiled gratefully at him as he headed into the boys’ locker room. He was a good guy. Of course, she no longer like liked him, but she could still admire the fact that he was a good guy. And trustworthy—hopefully.
Alex went straight to the gym to watch the end of the final day of cheerleading tryouts. She sat in the bleachers, and besides one mom who was sitting with two younger kids, overseeing their homework, she was the only spectator. Ava and five other girls were practicing a dance routine in a small group.
Rosa, Molly, and Emily were together in another group. Lindsey was in yet another group, along with Annelise and some other girls Alex didn’t know.
Alex frowned. Ava was not looking at all terrible. She was moving in sync with Yvette as the high schooler led them through the steps. In fact, she looked like she was the most coordinated in the group. Alex sighed. Her sister was so competitive. She couldn’t not try her hardest. Well, she’d better not have done this well all day. What a disaster it would be if Ava made the team! Alex shuddered, just thinking about it. As she looked at the group of girls working together with such skill and coordination, she couldn’t even begin to imagine herself out there. She’d fall over her own feet. They practically looked professional—and there were still cuts to be made!
“Hey, Ava,” said someone to her left.
It was Jack Valdeavano. He must have come in through the side door behind the bleachers and was standing alongside them, surveying the scene. Alex smiled at him. “Hey, Jack.”
“I promised my aunt I’d stop in to see how Lindz is doing,” said Jack. He and Lindsey Davis were cousins. “Aunt Beth says Lindsey tells her absolutely nothing, so she has to resort to spying. I’ve been drafted into the Secret Service.”
Alex laughed. “It looks like Lindsey’s doing great,” she said. She self-consciously touched her hat, making sure her hair was still tucked up and under.
“Plus, I figured you’d be here,” he added, his face getting a tiny bit pink.
For a second Alex panicked. Why was Jack turning pink talking to her? Aside from the fact that she knew she looked cute in this Celtics hat? And then she remembered she was Ava. He was talking to Ava, not to her. What would Ava say here? Alex wondered. Probably nothing. She’d probably punch him in the arm or something.
But he was definitely blushing. Ha! she thought. So he does like Ava! She sat up a bit straighter and swiveled her body so that her knees were pointing slightly in his direction. She’d read somewhere how important body language was in sending someone a message. Crossing your arms and legs sent a message that you weren’t open to what a person had to say. Open arms, a slight lean in the person’s direction—those were little signals that told the person you were interested in him. After all Ava had done for her, she owed it to her sister not to mess up here. Jack was supercute. Ava could do much worse.
“Hey, listen.” Jack didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes fixed on the girls working through the routine. “I was wondering.”
Alex waited with bated breath. Was he going to ask her—Ava—out? She gave him a small, encouraging nod.
“Do you want to, like, hang out together after the game on Friday night?” He said it quickly, all in a rush, still not looking at her. His face went two shades deeper pink.
She knew it! He was asking her out! Ava would probably make a joke out of this and change the subject, or tell him to stop being such a dork, or grab his hat and toss it behind the pile of mats or something.
But she wasn’t Ava. She just looked like Ava. Still, she had better seek clarification.
“So you mean, like, a date?” she asked.
He looked taken aback, and momentarily at a loss for words. “Oh! I, ah, yeah. Yes, I guess you could call it a date. But just to Sal’s. And there’s probably going to be a lot of guys there and we don’t have to—”
“I’d love to!” she interrupted him.
He closed his mouth. Then he grinned at her with a slightly surprised look in his eyes. “Cool!” he said. “I’ll come find you after the game then.”
He darted away, and Alex leaned back and smiled with satisfaction as she thought about how much easier it was to talk to a guy she didn’t have a crush on. And Ava was going to be so pleased with her. Really, this identity switch was proving to have some real side benefits.
CHAPTER
Eleven
Ava was hot and sweaty and totally sore, but she still felt exhilarated. Cheerleading was really fun! It wasn’t exactly a contact sport the way football was, but there was a lot of teamwork and real athleticism involved. These past few days had given her a newfound respect for how coordinated and highly trained a cheerleader needed to be.
“So how terrible were you?” Alex asked her in a low voice. They were on the late bus home, still in disguise, sitting close to the front, where there were empty seats all around them. Most kids preferred to sit toward the back.
Ava hesitated. “I tried. I wouldn’t say I was terrible, but I wasn’t great or anything,” she said. “I intentionally didn’t jump very high on my hurdle or my pike.”
“Do you think you’ll be cut?”
Ava pressed her lips together uneasily. She was worried about this. She hadn’t paid a lot of attention to how the other girls were doing. It was hard to compare yourself when you were trying to learn a complicated routine. “I think so. I hope so. There were some really talented girls, like Rosa and Lindsey. And there were some girls there who really, really want to be on the team and have clearly put in a lot of practice. It makes me feel terrible that I could be keeping someone off the team who deserves it.”
Alex shook her head. “You won’t be, if you get cut. There are several girls vying for just the few slots. Not all of them will make it. You haven’t deprived anyone.”
“Well, there’s also Molly, who still has a sprained ankle. She was there today, participating for the first time, and her ankle was pretty heavily taped. She did okay but was clearly not a hundred percent. This isn’t a game, Al. It’s pretty stressful to think I might be bumping some deserving girl off the squad. I better get cut.”
They rode in silence for a while. Then Alex said, “Corey knows.”
Ava turned to her, eyes wide.
Alex explained how Corey had jumped in and saved her from C
oach K’s question. And how he’d guessed she wasn’t Ava but had promised he wouldn’t tell anyone.
Ava got a creepy-crawly feeling along her spine. This was getting more and more complicated. She liked Corey. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would go around telling everyone, but still. It would be a huge disaster if her football teammates found out she had tried out for cheerleading, even if she was pretending to be her sister! She groaned softly.
“Anyway,” said Alex briskly, “tomorrow it will be over. They’ll post cuts first thing in the morning, and I’ll be off the team and can go to Coach Jen and ask to be manager. And you can go to football and we can pretend it never happened. We got away with it, Ave. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you were willing to do this for me.”
Ava managed a small smile.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Alex added mischievously. “I’ll need to help you with your outfit for the game Friday night.”
“Why?” asked Ava, immediately growing suspicious. “What’s happening Friday night?”
“Well, you’ll want to look extra nice for your date.”
“My what?”
“Your date. With Jack.”
“My what?!” Ava shouted the words. She felt her face get hot as a few kids on the bus turned to look at her curiously. In a quieter, but no less frantic voice, she hissed, “My what?!”
“Your. Date. With. Jack.” Alex said it slowly, as though Ava didn’t understand English very well. “He asked you out. And you said yes.” She smiled at Ava encouragingly. “I know, I know. There are some things I’m just smoother at than you, so isn’t it great that I was pretending to be you when this happened? There’s definitely an upside to this whole thing.”
Ava was momentarily speechless. She could only stare at her sister in disbelief. She and Jack liked each other, that was clear. But she was not ready to think about him as boyfriend material. There was Charlie, for one thing. Sure, she’d been considering telling Charlie that she really just wanted to be friends. But she hadn’t yet. And what if going on a date with Jack wrecked the fun relationship they had? He was more of a buddy than a romantic interest. She groaned and sank down low in her seat.
On Wednesday morning the twins raced toward the girls’ locker room before school started. The list was posted on the bulletin board just outside. A clump of girls was already there, so they had to wait before they could get close enough to see the list. Some were looking thrilled. More than a few looked like they were about to cry.
“Madison Jackson must not have made it,” Alex whispered to Ava, as Madison walked past them dejectedly.
Ava nodded grimly.
Finally Alex and Ava were able to step up to the posted sheet. They stood side by side, scanning the names.
Alex saw her own name first, but she couldn’t get her brain to compute. “Wait,” she said. “If my name is on the list, does that mean I was cut or that I made it?”
Ava made a little fist pump upon seeing Alex’s name, but almost immediately seemed to regret having done so. A stricken look appeared on her face. “Al, it means we made it.” She pointed to the note at the top of the sheet:
The following girls should report to cheerleading practice today, Wednesday, at three fifteen p.m. Thank you to everyone who tried out.—Coach Jen
Alex was still having trouble absorbing this information. “Wait. When you say I made the team, do you mean, I made the team?” She looked at Ava reproachfully. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Ava. What did you do? Execute a back aerial or something?”
Ava started to retort, but several more girls were crowding in to have a look at the list. So she pulled Alex back a few steps, out of earshot.
“I’m sorry. I tried. It isn’t easy to flub up on purpose. You’ll have to tell Coach Jen you can’t do it,” said Ava.
Alex shook her head. “Not after all this. I can’t. Why would I go through three days of tryouts and then quit? You just have to go back today.”
“Al, you know I’m not going to do that. You’re on the team now. You either do your best or you tell the coach you’re quitting. You’ll just have to figure this out,” said Ava.
And Alex could see that she meant it. This time, there would be no talking her into it. Ava cared too much about football to miss another real practice. Besides, she was right. What good would it do if Ava showed up today? There would be tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. At some point, Alex was either going to have to start going to practice, or she would need to quit.
“Congratulations, Alex!” said a girl passing them.
Alex smiled weakly. “Thanks.” She was struggling not to reproach Ava for being so competitive. Couldn’t she have been a little less good, for once? But knowing Ava, Alex should have realized this would happen. This was a disaster. A horrifying realization dawned on her. “There’s a pep rally last period on Friday,” she said. “What am I going to do? I have no idea how to do the routine!”
“Go to practice today and learn it,” said Ava, and she headed away to class.
Alex stared after her sister. Ever since she’d told Ava about the date with Jack that she’d said yes to, Ava had seemed very irritable with her. Really, Alex was the one who had the right to be mad at her. This was all so wrong.
At cheerleading practice that afternoon, Alex joined Lindsey, Emily, and Rosa for stretching.
“We’re going to be so awesome!” squealed Emily excitedly as she stretched out her long legs in front of her and bent over to effortlessly touch her nose to her knees.
Alex tried that too. She couldn’t get within ten inches of her knees. She tried the stretch Lindsey was doing, which looked slightly more manageable. One leg bent in a half cross-legged position, the other crossed over it, her body turned to one side. Wait. How did this work? She was getting it all wrong. She stretched out her triceps instead, which was much easier. You just pointed an elbow up alongside one ear and pulled it gently with the other hand.
“I was a little afraid Molly might make it instead of you, Alex,” said Lindsey in a low voice. “She still gets a day more to try out, but I don’t think she’s totally back to normal. Coach told my mom that if Molly’s good enough, we’ll just have one extra girl on the squad. But I don’t think she’s anywhere near as flexible as you are. Maybe she can try again in the spring.”
Alex looked over at Molly, who was sprawled out in a split. She gulped as she watched Molly bend her head over her knee and touch it with her nose. She was as graceful as a swan. Alex redoubled her efforts at stretching out her triceps.
“How’s your ankle, by the way?” asked Emily.
“My ankle? Fine. Why?” asked Alex.
“Um, because you said it was bothering you yesterday,” prompted Emily. “After you landed on it funny?”
“Oh, yes, right,” said Alex weakly. “It’s better.”
Coach Jen called the team over and practice began.
On the late bus home, Ava tried to console Alex. “You can’t have been that terrible, Al.”
“Oh, Ava! I was beyond terrible!” moaned Alex. “I was a catastrophe! I didn’t know any of the routines! I had no clue what anyone was talking about! Coach Jen just looked dismayed every time she looked at me. I almost dropped a girl when I was supposed to lace my fingers together and then boost her up onto Emily’s knee!”
Ava grimaced. “So what happened?”
“I told Emily and Lindsey I’m going to quit.”
“Smart.”
“But they talked me out of it.”
“They—they talked you out of it? How?”
“They said that everyone has an off day, and that I’ve got too much talent to quit. They made me realize that the team needs me. And Molly wasn’t very good either. Emily and Lindsey said so themselves. They said maybe she’ll be okay when her ankle heals, but that I’m bigger and stronger than she is so they can use me to spot until I’m ‘back to my old self.’ ” For the last part she crooked her fingers in air quotes.
“What if you tell Coach Jen your ankle is too sore? She knows I landed on it funny the other day. You can tell her it’s bothering you and ask if you can be the manager.”
“I think she already has a manager. She picked Ariel Salina, who got cut on the second day. So if I don’t stay on the team, I’ll have to do some other sport instead!” She buried her face in her hands.
“Maybe you weren’t as bad as you thought,” said Ava uncertainly.
Alex lifted her head out of her hands. She’d brightened considerably. “Do you think so?”
“Um, well . . . ” To be honest, Ava didn’t think so. She was just trying to cheer Alex up. Chances were Alex had been worse than she thought.
“Because that’s what Emily and Lindsey told me, too!” Alex said eagerly. “Maybe I wasn’t as bad as I thought!”
Ava’s heart sank. Alex was so willing to take people at face value. She doubted Emily and Lindsey had really meant what they’d said to Alex, any more than she’d meant what she’d said.
“And Coach Jen must not think I’m all that awful, because she assigned me to be a spotter for the pep rally,” Alex continued. “I guess I’m pretty strong for my size. Or, well, you are. But how badly could I mess up spotting?”
Ava grimaced. “Well, Al, as Tommy pointed out, it’s kind of important not to drop someone on her head.”
Alex laughed. “I think I can handle it, Ave.”
Later that evening Ava and Tommy reviewed the plan for Friday night.
“So I’ll meet you outside the locker room as soon as halftime starts,” said Ava. “I’ll have your bag of concert stuff ready for you.”
“Good,” said Tommy. “And Luke says he’ll be waiting to take me to the concert. Mom’s definitely going out with her friend, so that part’s all set.”
“Did she tell you who her friend was?” asked Ava. “Because she was kind of mysterious with me about it.”
“Just a friend from back in Massachusetts who’s in town for the night, was all she said,” said Tommy with a shrug. “She said it was someone passing through on her way somewhere else.”