Twin Dangers

by Megan Atwood

  During classes, she kept her eye out for anyone giving Emma dirty looks or anyone flirting with Trey. Every look, every sound, every movement captured her attention. She studied Emma. Her sister had big bags under her eyes, and her hair was stringy and dank. Clearly she hadn’t been sleeping. And her already sharp cheekbones stuck out even farther.

  Sophie was furious—someone was making Emma miserable. Sophie kept on high alert.

  But by midday, she hadn’t noticed anything different among the rest of the student body.

  Except that everyone thought she was psycho.

  Sophie racked her brain. Was there anyone at all who had a crush on Trey besides her? The problem with the 4–1 girl-guy ratio was that half a dozen girls probably held crushes. But no one gave herself away during any of the day’s classes.

  Before the second ballet practice, Sophie saw Emma break away from everyone else and go into an empty classroom. Sophie looked around to make sure no one was watching and then followed Emma quietly.

  In the same classroom where Sophie had learned that Emma and Trey were dating, Emma and Trey met up once again. Sophie could hear them talking. She was about to turn around—Emma was safe with Trey, and although Sophie was pretty over the whole Trey thing, she still wasn’t eager to listen to their love whispers—when she heard a loud crash of glass on the floor.

  Emma squealed.

  “What the hell?” Trey said.

  Sophie peeked around the corner.

  On the other end of the classroom, safely away from Trey and Emma, a glass beaker had shattered on the floor. Emma was crying again.

  “I can’t take this, Trey. Why do these weird things keep happening? And with the notes …”

  Trey stroked Emma’s hair. Even though Sophie had once hoped that she’d be in Emma’s place, she was happy that Trey cared so much for her sister. Emma deserved someone who treated her well.

  “I thought we knew that your sister was writing those notes, Em,” Trey said.

  Emma stepped back, chewing on her fingernail. Sophie knew that chew. Emma was conflicted.

  “I don’t know, Trey. The more I think about it, the more I don’t think Sophie would do that. She may be mad at me, and she has a temper, but she would never hurt me. I think I just got caught up in the moment, thinking about who might’ve had access to my computer.”

  Trey moved closer. “It’s a pretty weird coincidence that those notes happened when she was gone. And that she is the only one who has your password and your room key.”

  “Yeah, it all points to her. But, Trey, something deep down in my heart says there’s something else going on. Sophie just wouldn’t be that spiteful.”

  Trey took Emma into his arms and said, “Well, that’s a beautiful heart you have, so I trust it too. Maybe you should talk to her?”

  Emma sighed. “I should. But if she didn’t leave those notes … Oh, Trey. I’ve been a terrible sister.”

  “Sisters forgive each other. Go talk to her and see what she has to say about the notes. And try to make up.” Trey smoothed strands of hair behind Emma’s ears. “I hate to see you so upset.”

  “I’m so nervous to talk to her. To even see her. If she did write those notes, it’s horrible, but it’s even worse in some ways if she didn’t. I need to practice what I’ll say in my room during dinner. Can we meet up here later, so I can run it by you? She’s so important to me, Trey …”

  Trey hugged her closer. “I’m always here for you. See you in a bit, OK?”

  Emma nodded, and Sophie decided that this was a good time to move away. She walked back to her dorm room with a gigantic smile on her face.

  Nothing else mattered: Emma knew. Emma knew in the deepest part of her soul—the part where she and Sophie were twin-connected—that Sophie wouldn’t have made those threats. Sophie vowed to keep watching Emma until Emma came to talk to her tonight.

  For now, though, she’d let Trey take care of Emma. Maybe Sophie could let go just a little. Emma seemed able to figure things out for herself, and she had good people on her side. Trey seemed to like her a lot, maybe even love her. And with her jealousy gone, Sophie felt amazing about that.

  Sophie endured dinner alone. She’d thought of going to talk to Emma but decided to give her some space like Emma had wanted.

  As she ate, Sophie noticed Chloe—right?—at the next table, also by herself. She sat and picked at her food. If possible, the girl seemed paler and more pixielike than usual. Her eyes were huge and haunted. She caught Sophie’s eye at one point and quickly looked down at her plate.

  Now even Chloe was ignoring Sophie.

  With a sigh, she decided to go up to Emma’s room after all.

  Sophie stood up so fast she made a scraping sound with her chair, earning looks from the whole dining room. She walked through the room and passed Madeleine, Kayley, and Ophelia. Madeleine made a motion to speak, but Sophie ignored her. Time to make things right with her sister.

  A trickle of unease passed through Sophie. She had no idea why, but she felt like she needed to get to Emma right away.

  She took the stairs two at a time and walked fast down the red carpeted hall. She saw Emma from far away. She was wearing her robe and flip-flops, carrying her shower caddy.

  Sophie slowed down a little. Having glimpsed Emma, she felt better. No one else was around. Her sister was fine. Sophie walked a little ways closer to the shower room and laughed to herself. Was she going to watch Emma take a shower? She’d just wait to talk until Emma came back to her room. Her sister was safe.

  Sophie turned around and ran smack into someone again. They both staggered back a little.

  It was the tiny red-haired girl again. Was she everywhere?

  The girl’s freckles stood out in glaring contrast to her pale face. Terror was in her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Sophie said.

  The girl shook her head and looked away. She seemed to be debating something. Finally, she turned to Sophie and said, “I think you should go check on Emma.”

  “Why?”

  “Um,” the girl said, “I think there might be an exposed wire or something in the bathroom? I don’t know. Just a hunch.”

  With that, the girl turned and ran away down the hall.

  Adrenaline shot through Sophie.

  An exposed wire plus water equaled electrocution.

  Electrocution equaled death.

  Emma’s death.

  Sophie sprinted to the bathroom.

  Emma had taken her robe off and was pushing the shower stall’s curtain away with her foot.

  “Wait!” Sophie yelled.

  An alarmed, naked Emma turned her head as Sophie barreled toward her. But it was too late. In a half second, Emma would be stepping into possible death.

  Sophie smacked into Emma right as her sister’s foot was about to touch the stall floor. They slammed into the shower room wall, Emma’s head smacking against the tile.

  “Are you OK?” Sophie asked.

  “Are you trying to kill me after all?” Emma shouted.

  She scrambled up and put on her robe, glaring at Sophie.

  Sophie looked into the shower stall. Sure enough, there was standing water on the floor. In the water sat an exposed wire from the wall.

  Emma would have been electrocuted.

  Sophie pointed to the wire and the standing water. “No, Emma. I’m trying to save your life.”

  Chapter 7

  Emma’s face went white.

  “Wha? What in the world … ?” She sagged against the wall.

  Sophie burst into tears. “If something had happened to you … ,” she sobbed.

  Emma took two steps toward Sophie and wrapped her in a big hug. She too began to cry.

  “You saved my life. I’m so sorry for everything. I’m so, so sorry!”

  Sophie hiccupped and said, “No, I’m sorry! I should have never said those things to you.”

  “No, it was all my fault. I broke the code! I’ll stop dating Trey. And the
n I—” She wailed and hugged onto Sophie tighter. “I can’t believe I accused you of putting notes on my desktop!”

  Sophie stepped back. “First, you better keep dating Trey. You guys look so happy together.” Sophie wiped her eyes. “Besides, I’m soooo over him. He’s yesterday’s news.”

  Emma giggled and wiped her eyes too. Then she got serious. “I never want any guy to get between us. Or anything else.”

  Sophie nodded. “I missed you. So much. But this is how life happens. Other people are going to become bigger parts of our lives. And that’s OK. Because we’re sisters and we’ll always have each other.”

  They both hugged each other tight again. Sophie started giggling once more. “We’re drama queens, huh?”

  A voice echoed through the bathroom: “I’ll say you’re drama queens.”

  Sophie heard the snap of gum and knew that Kayley had found them.

  Kayley, Madeleine, and Ophelia stood at the shower room entrance, wiping away tears of their own.

  The twins began to walk toward them.

  “What the hell happened in here?” Ophelia said.

  “Sophie just saved my life,” Emma said grimly. “There’s an exposed wire down there and a puddle of water.”

  Madeleine, Kayley, and Ophelia all gasped.

  “Holy schmolies!” Madeleine said.

  Kayley’s eyes were huge. “Did you see it there or something, Sophie?”

  Sophie remembered her hallway warning. “No, that little redheaded girl … Chloe—is that her name? She said there was an exposed wire. And I saw Emma go into the shower, so I sprinted to grab her.”

  “That fairy girl, the one who looks like she’s twelve? Yeah, that’s Chloe. So that girl saw the wire but didn’t tell Emma?” Ophelia said.

  Sophie shrugged. “I mean, maybe she was going to tell someone.”

  “Did she see Emma walk in?” Madeline asked.

  Sophie shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. She showed up out of nowhere. All I know is without that information, Emma would be dead.”

  The five of them shared a shudder. The shower room door opened, and one of their classmates started toward the shower stall by the far wall.

  “Don’t go in there!” Sophie shouted.

  The girl looked at her quizzically and said, “Aren’t you the one who threatened your own sister?”

  “My sister would never do something like that,” Emma said. “And I had better not hear you saying anything close to that again.”

  The girl retreated with her hands out. Sophie felt a warm glow of love spread through her.

  Emma backed away and added, “Unless you have a death wish, I’d stay out of the shower for now.”

  Chapter 8

  “One more time,” said Madame Puant, her face a mask of confusion. She’d had the same expression for about forty-five minutes as the girls tried to relay their story to her. Madame had immediately dispatched Bert, the maintenance man, to check out the problem. Ten minutes later, he came back confirming the danger. The shower was now roped off, and an electrician had been called.

  “I don’t know how that wire got exposed,” Bert kept saying. “It came through a crack in the grouting, but I don’t know how a wire could just come out like that.”

  But the girls knew. Someone was trying to kill Emma. At a small ballet school, people had their favorite shower stalls and stuck to them religiously. That one was Emma’s. Someone had arranged the wire there and had timed it just perfectly.

  The thought made Sophie’s blood boil.

  “Madame,” Sophie said, “Someone is trying to kill my sister.”

  Madame shook her head. “You have a fine imagination, Sophie, but who would want to kill Emma?”

  Kayley sighed. “Whoever left the notes.”

  Madame said, “And the notes were left on your computer, yes?”

  Emma nodded.

  “Did you see the time stamp? Keep the documents?”

  “No,” Emma mumbled.

  Madeleine, Ophelia, Kayley, and Sophie flipped their heads around to her.

  “What?” Sophie said. “Why didn’t you keep those notes?”

  “Well, I thought they were from you, Sophie,” Emma said. “And I wanted to think that, in the end, you’d never hurt me. I didn’t want you to get in trouble. So I deleted them.”

  Sophie ran her hand through her hair and then said the words that had been bothering her for days. “How could you think I would write something like that?”

  Emma’s face got red. Madeleine rubbed Sophie’s shoulder and spoke up. “I think we might have convinced her, Sophie, to be honest. In your room, you said Emma was dead to you. And then there were these notes that threatened death, and you were gone … and you are the only one who has Emma’s key and her password. We’re so, so sorry. You were just so angry …”

  “Yeah, I guess I can see that,” Sophie said.

  “No, it’s unforgiveable,” Emma said. “Somewhere deep down, I knew you didn’t. But I didn’t listen to that voice.”

  Sophie smiled. “Water under the bridge.”

  “Ahem,” Madame Puant said. “I hate to interrupt this episode of Sisters United, but we aren’t getting anywhere. I’m afraid that without any physical evidence, well … I have nothing to go on. A wire in a shower stall—a communal stall at that—does not a murder threat make. And without the notes … you girls understand my predicament.”

  She stood up, managing to look imposing even though she couldn’t be more than five foot two. “That said, my students’ safety is my number one concern. Emma, my inclination is to send you home.”

  “Madame, no, please. I’m not ready to go home yet!” Emma said.

  Sophie knew that her sister was afraid of missing out on any upcoming performances. At the school, missing any time set you back months, sometimes years. Sophie also suspected that Emma didn’t want to leave Trey.

  Madame stared hard at Emma and sighed. “The last thing this school needs is another scandal. Even a hint of one could do damage. But I’m simply not sure the wire was prepared for you. This school is very old.

  “You may stay for now, Emma. However, if you so much as stub your toe, I’m sending for your parents. I’ll see that Bert makes his rounds more often and add more hall monitors. I’ll also talk to all the teachers and see if we can’t ferret out who the culprit is. Threats—however serious—are cause for expulsion. In the meantime, Emma, make sure you are with someone at all times. All times—that means even going to the bathroom. Sophie, you have permission to sleep in Emma’s room until we get to the bottom of things.”

  Sophie saw a small smile pass over Madame’s lips, as if Madame too was glad she and Emma had made up.

  “Now, if that will be all, I have an academy to run and a shower to fix.”

  Halfway to Emma’s room, Sophie stopped short. Kayley ran right into her. “Dude!” Kayley said as she climbed off Sophie’s heel.

  “Sorry,” Sophie said absently. “I just remembered something important. Right after everyone got mad at me, someone pushed a note under my door.”

  “Was it a note threatening to kill you too?” Emma asked.

  Sophie shook her head. “No. It just said, ‘I believe you.’ But it was cut out of magazines.”

  “Do you think that’s the same person who left the notes for Emma?” Ophelia asked.

  “Think about it, Ophelia. Everyone thought I’d planted those notes. Even Emma. Because it all fit. Almost too well, like someone was trying to frame me. So who would believe me, then? The person who actually did leave the notes for Emma.”

  Madeleine’s face scrunched up. “But why would they bother with all that if they were busy framing you? I don’t know, Sophie. That doesn’t add up.”

  “It just seems right, though,” Sophie said. “Maybe the person framing me … felt bad?”

  Kayley said, “What kind of a person would go through the trouble of getting Emma’s key, finding out her password, sending her notes at
times when you didn’t have an alibi … and then leave you a nice note saying ‘sorry, dude’?”

  “That is a lot of stuff going on,” Emma said. “While we’re at it, how did someone get into my room and onto my computer?”

  “Well, let’s find out,” Ophelia replied.

  They walked to Emma’s room, and Ophelia put her hand out to keep everyone back. “Emma, you’re sure you lock the door every day?”

  Emma nodded.

  Ophelia took a bobby pin out of her hair. “OK, then I’m going to try to pick the lock. I saw someone do this once on True Crime, so I YouTubed it to find out how. I’ve only had it work once …”

  She put the bobby pin in the old, iron lock and twisted it around. Her tongue stuck out as she concentrated. Sophie doubted that Ophelia’s measly bobby pin was any match for the iron lock.

  But then she heard a click, and Ophelia’s eyes widened. “I think I got it.” She turned the handle and the door swung open.

  “Holy crap,” said Kayley. “Are you sure the other time this worked you didn’t try it on Emma’s door too?”

  “Nope,” Ophelia said happily. “This is gonna come in handy … ,” she added under her breath.

  “Oh great,” Kayley said. “Now we have Ophelia the cat burglar. Time to change the locks.”

  Emma walked in the door, her face pale again. “So basically, anyone could have gotten in here.”

  “Well, any delinquent like Ophelia,” Sophie said.

  Ophelia shot her a dirty look, and Sophie grinned. It felt good to be a part of the group again.

  Emma shook her head. “Well, that’s freaky. I mean the delinquent part, not Ophelia.” She went on: “But that still doesn’t answer the question of who got into my computer. My password is pretty good.”

  “I don’t think EmmaheartsTrey is a good password.” Kayley looked for a laugh from everyone and flinched when she got to Sophie. “Sorry, Soph.”

  Sophie chuckled. “Seriously. I’m over all that.”

  “Well, what is your password, Emma? You’ll need to change it again, probably, anyway.”