Twice the Talent

by Belle Payton

  Alex nudged her out of her reverie. “We should probably, you know, leave these guys alone,” she whispered.

  Ava looked up and saw that Owen and Kylie were deep in conversation about some alien princess or something and nodded to her sister.

  “Kylie, I’ll come back and visit,” Ava promised. “And I’ll make sure Alex doesn’t bring your homework.”

  “That was a genuinely nice offer,” Alex protested as Ava dragged her out of the room.

  They found their parents talking with Mr. and Mrs. McClaire. After a round of good-byes, the Sacketts headed home.

  “Thanks for bringing me,” Ava said on the ride home.

  “Of course, sweetheart!” said Mrs. Sackett. “I’m just glad that Kylie is going to be okay.”

  “So am I,” said Ava.

  And I’m going to be okay too, she thought. From now on, no more moping around!

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  “Uncle Scott, I have to catch the bus in twenty minutes!” Alex said, knocking on the bathroom door.

  “I just need three more minutes, Alex!” Uncle Scott called through the door. “I’ve got to finish shaving and then use my Neti pot. I need my sinuses clear for this interview!”

  Ava walked past Alex’s open door on her way downstairs.

  “Neti pot? Is that the thing that looks like a teapot in the downstairs medicine cabinet?” Ava asked.

  Alex nodded. “Right. But it’s not a teapot. He uses it to clean out his nostrils.”

  “Seriously? That’s gross!” Ava said. “That is almost enough to make me not want to eat breakfast, except that I am so hungry I could eat three breakfasts!” Then she walked off.

  Alex sighed and pounded on the bathroom door again. “Why are you in our bathroom, exactly?” she asked.

  She heard the sound of running water. It stopped, and then her uncle answered.

  “Because your dad was in the shower downstairs when I woke up, and I have an early interview,” Uncle Scott replied. “Can’t you go eat breakfast and then use the bathroom when I’m done?”

  Alex frowned. She had her morning routine worked out: She got up and showered before Ava even opened her eyes. Then she got dressed and went back into the bathroom to tame her stray curls with a flat iron. Then breakfast.

  She glanced at the clock.

  “Fine!” she said, and headed downstairs.

  “Alex! You sound like an elephant,” Coach said as Alex continued stomping into the kitchen.

  “It’s Uncle Scott,” Alex said. “He’s disturbing my morning routine.”

  “Oh boy,” said Tommy, digging into a huge bowl of oatmeal and sliced bananas in front of him. “That’s a criminal offense in Alex’s book. Poor Uncle Scott.”

  Mrs. Sackett came in through the back door with Moxy on a leash.

  “What about Uncle Scott?” she asked.

  “He’s disturbing Alex’s morning routine,” Ava reported.

  “Oh, right, the job interview!” Mrs. Sackett said, sounding exceedingly chipper. “Alex, you let your uncle do whatever he needs to do to get ready. Besides, it looks like you’re ready for school anyway.”

  Alex grabbed a banana from the basket on the counter. “For your information, I have not tamed this wayward strand of hair,” she said, yanking on it to demonstrate its waywardness. “It constantly gets in my right eye. I won’t be able to concentrate in school all day if I don’t get back up in that bathroom and use my flat iron on it. Is that what you want?”

  Just then Uncle Scott came bounding down the stairs. Alex had to admit that he looked job-interview ready. He was freshly shaven, and he’d styled his wavy brown hair with just the right amount of gel. He wore a crisp blue dress shirt with a red tie and dark blue pants.

  “Looking good, bro,” Coach said.

  “Yes, your nostrils look especially clean,” joked Ava.

  “Mock all you want, but that Neti pot keeps me healthy,” Uncle Scott retorted.

  “Good luck!” Alex said as she raced past him and back up the stairs to fix her wayward lock.

  She was heating up her flat iron when her phone chimed with a text from Emily.

  Home with a cold!

  Oh no, feel better!

  Alex reached for the flat iron—it wasn’t quite hot yet, but she was out of time. Her curl went untamed, and Alex spent the whole day brushing it away from her face. She was still brushing it away as she entered third-period social studies.

  Max lifted his head up from his desk as Alex walked past. “What’s up?” he asked. “You look somewhat perturbed.”

  That’s an odd way of putting it, Alex thought, but very observant.

  “Oh, it’s just . . . families can be challenging, you know?” she asked, thinking of Uncle Scott.

  Max nodded. “Tell me about it,” he said, and then he started to put his head back down on his desk again.

  “Wait!” Alex said. “We need to meet in the library to do our research for the project. Are you free tomorrow after school?”

  “What?” Max looked confused for a minute. “Oh yeah, sure.”

  Lindsey walked past Alex and gave her a look that clearly meant, What are you talking to him for? Alex was almost going to say something when Mrs. Bridges walked in and the bell rang.

  “All right, everyone open up to page one hundred twenty,” she announced, and Alex forgot about Lindsey’s look as the lesson began.

  But as soon as the last bell rang, Lindsey charged up to Alex’s desk. Rosa hung behind her, curious.

  “Alex, I heard you talking to Max. Why are you making plans with him when he’ll probably sleep through your study session anyway? Tomorrow is dance practice. I thought you were too busy to dance with us,” she said accusingly.

  Alex quickly glanced in Max’s direction. He had just gotten up from his desk, and Alex was sure he had heard Lindsey. She cringed.

  “Lindsey, I keep telling you, it’s not just that I’m too busy, it’s also that I can’t dance,” Alex said, trying to be polite.

  “That’s just an excuse,” Lindsey said. “Besides, dancing with us is better than working on some lame report with a loser!”

  She emphasized the last word, looking at Max as he made his way out the door behind Mrs. Bridges.

  That was too much for Alex. She couldn’t keep ignoring Lindsey’s nasty remarks about Max. Not anymore.

  “Listen, Lindsey, Max is not a loser,” Alex said.

  Lindsey laughed. “Are you serious? He never changes his clothes or even showers, for that matter. He falls asleep all the time. That is super lame!”

  “Oh yeah?” Alex shot back, getting angrier and angrier. Why was her friend being so mean? “Well . . . well, maybe I don’t want to be in your dance because I think your whole routine is lame!”

  Lindsey’s jaw dropped, and behind her, Rosa gasped.

  “If that’s how you feel,” Lindsey said, her voice cold as ice. “Come on, Rosa.”

  Alex stood, frozen, as Lindsey and Rosa walked away.

  That was not the right way to handle things, she scolded herself. She had worked so hard to become friends with Lindsey, and now everything was ruined!

  Well, Lindsey ruined it too, by being so mean to Max, a little voice inside her reminded Alex. But it didn’t help. Because Alex knew that by insulting the dance routine, she had not only insulted Lindsey, but Rosa, Annelise, Charlotte—and Emily.

  “Oh no,” Alex groaned. Once Lindsey told everyone what she had said, she wouldn’t have a friend left in Ashland!

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  “Two cheeseburgers, extra ketchup,” Ava announced, holding up a greasy white paper bag as she walked into Kylie’s hospital room later that afternoon.

  “Ava, you’re the best,” Kylie said, sitting up in her hospital bed. Ava pulled a green plastic chair closer to Kylie’s bed and sat down. She thought her friend still looked really tired. Her braids were pulled back behind her neck.

  “When you texted me
that you had creamed chicken with peas for dinner on Sunday, I thought you might appreciate these,” Ava said, handing Kylie the bag. “Mom stopped at Burger Hut on the way here.”

  “Tell her thanks,” Kylie said, biting into the burger. “Oh wow, that’s good.”

  “How does your leg feel after the surgery?” Ava asked.

  “It hurts pretty badly, but the medicine helps,” Kylie said. “I just want to get out of here! I’m going crazy. But the doctor says I might have to say another couple of days.” She sighed.

  “Well, you didn’t miss much at school,” Ava reported, trying to remember if anything interesting had happened. “Oh yeah. During lunch, Billy Scarbek balanced a chair on his nose. He said he was practicing for the Variety Show.”

  Kylie stopped chewing and looked down at her hands.

  “Hey, you looked sad when Alex mentioned the Variety Show on Saturday, too,” Ava said, remembering. “You weren’t going to be in it, were you?”

  Kylie put down the cheeseburger she was eating and took a deep breath. “Ava, I need to tell you something about me that you don’t know,” she said solemnly.

  “Okay, now I’m in suspense. What is it?” Ava asked.

  “I love line dancing,” Kylie blurted out. “I know you probably think it’s goofy, being from the East Coast and everything, but it’s actually a lot of fun. I learned when I was a little kid.”

  “Well, you are wrong about me thinking line dancing is silly, because I don’t even know what line dancing is,” Ava admitted.

  Kylie picked up her phone and found a video clip. Then she handed it to Ava.

  “This is line dancing. You’ve probably seen it in movies and stuff.”

  Ava looked at the video playing on the phone. Three rows of people wearing cowboy hats were dancing in perfect step. They clapped and slapped their knees in time with the music. Ava thought the tune was pretty catchy.

  “Hey, this is cool,” Ava said. “It’s pretty amazing the way everybody does the steps at exactly the same time, and they keep the lines straight too.”

  Kylie smiled. “I’m glad you don’t think it’s dumb. Anyway, since the theme this year is Wild West, my line-dancing friends and I were really excited to have an act in the Variety Show. When I texted them that I broke my leg, I could tell they were upset. The dance works with five people, but it looks a lot better with six.”

  Kylie looked really sad, and Ava felt so bad for her friend. She wanted to do anything she could to make Kylie feel better. Before she could really think about it, she blurted out, “I’ll take your place!”

  Kylie looked surprised. “Ava, that’s sweet, but what about your ankle?”

  “It’s been a week already, and it doesn’t even hurt,” Ava countered. “I’m allowed to walk on the brace, I just can’t jump and run and stuff. It doesn’t look like there’s any of that in the video.”

  Kylie looked thoughtful. “No, there isn’t, really. I mean, you’d probably be okay . . . but you didn’t even know what line dancing was until I told you!”

  “I know, but it doesn’t look that hard,” Ava said. “I mean, I’m sure you need to practice a lot, but I learned a lot of complicated cheerleading routines when I was pretending to be Alex, right?”

  Kylie shook her head. “Yeah, and that worked out really great,” she said sarcastically.

  Ava laughed. At the beginning of the school year, Alex wanted to impress her friends by trying out for cheerleading, but she knew how terrible she would be at it. So Ava had agreed to dress like Alex and try out in her place. She was supposed to do well enough to be respectable, but not well enough to make the team. But she had really gotten into it, and Alex (actually Ava) had made the team! Then, when the real Alex took her place on the team, it had been a disaster.

  “Okay, that wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” Ava admitted. “But the point is that I was really great at cheerleading. And on the football field, I have to follow complicated plays all the time. So I should be able to figure out line dancing, right?”

  Kylie looked amused. “You know, it just might work,” she said. “Okay, do you know Carly Hermano?”

  “Yeah, she’s a cheerleader,” Ava replied. “And I think she’s on student council with Alex.”

  Kylie nodded. “So, Carly and I were in dance class together when we were little. She’s the one who’s leading the dance. I’ll text her and let her know you’re going to replace me.”

  She had a funny grin on her face when she said it.

  “You don’t think I can do it, do you?” Ava asked. Kylie’s skepticism made her even more determined to help the line dance be the best act at the Variety Show.

  “I think that it’s really nice of you to do it, and I think it’s going to be really fun to watch,” Kylie replied. “I just hope I’ll get out of this hospital before the big night!”

  “Of course you will,” Ava assured her.

  Then she realized that she had just committed to performing a traditional Texas dance in front of a crowd filled with native Texans, and she had just moved to Texas and had never even heard of line dancing before.

  What have I gotten myself into? she wondered.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  “Why do you keep checking your phone?” Ava asked her sister on the bus ride to school the next morning.

  Alex looked around to see who was sitting near them, and then spoke in a low voice.

  “It’s a long story, but I kind of insulted the dance routine that all my friends are doing for the Variety Show,” she explained. “I texted Emily last night asking if I could talk to her, but I think Lindsey must have gotten to her first, because Emily hasn’t texted me back. I don’t know if it’s because she’s mad at me or because she’s still feeling bad from her cold.”

  “What do you mean, ‘kind of’ insulted?” Ava asked.

  Alex sighed. “I told Lindsey it was lame. But she was being mean, and I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Well, I’m sure Emily will understand,” Ava told her. “She’s nice. She knows how Lindsey can be sometimes.”

  “I hope so,” Alex said anxiously.

  “Anyway, I didn’t tell you my news,” Ava said. “I’m going to be in the Variety Show. I’m taking Kylie’s place in a line dancing thing.”

  Alex’s eyes got wide. “You mean Toe the Line?”

  “Toe the Line?” Ava repeated.

  “Yeah, it’s the name of the line dancing group,” Alex explained. “It’s a pun. You know, T-O-E . . .”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Ava said. “Kylie didn’t say they had a name.”

  “Well, everyone on the committee is super excited about it,” Alex reported. “Apparently, they’re amazing and they brought the house down last year.” She looked at Ava. “Line dancing can be pretty complicated. Are you sure you’re up for this? I mean, with your sprained ankle and all.”

  “I’m up for it,” Ava said firmly.

  Alex studied her sister’s face. She could see the nervousness behind her confident statement. But she knew that once Ava was determined to do something, there was no talking her out of it. She had fought hard to become the only girl on the boys’ football team. And she had never given up when their parents refused to let her play basketball. Besides, she really had been amazing during cheerleading tryouts.

  “I’m sure you’ll be great,” Alex said supportively.

  The school bus made a noise like a groaning dinosaur and pulled up in front of school. When Alex got off the bus, she spotted Emily’s blond head among the crowd of students walking into school.

  “See you later,” Alex told Ava, jogging toward her friend.

  “Emily!” she called out.

  Emily turned. She didn’t smile when she saw Alex, but she didn’t look upset, either. She marched right toward her.

  “Do you really think our dance routine is lame?” Emily asked directly.

  “That’s what I wanted to explain,” Alex said. “Why I texted you last
night. But you didn’t text back.”

  Emily sighed. “Lindsey was texting me like crazy too, and I didn’t want to get into some text war. So why don’t you explain, then?”

  The girls walked into the school and leaned against a wall in the front hallway.

  “I’m so sorry,” Alex said. “We were in social studies class, and Lindsey was saying mean things about Max. She’s been saying mean things about him for days now. I think she’s still mad at him for embarrassing her.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Emily admitted. “I’ve been wanting to say something to her about it, but . . . what does that have to do with our dance routine, anyway? That’s the part I don’t get.”

  “Well, she said it was lame that I was working on my project with Max instead of joining your dance act, and that Max was lame, so I just said that the dance routine was lame,” Alex said. “I didn’t mean it. Lindsey just pushed me too far.”

  Emily nodded. “Rosa said it happened something like that. I understand.”

  “So does that mean we’re good?” Alex asked. “Because I really, really, really am sorry.”

  Emily smiled. “Yeah, we’re good.”

  Alex smiled back, relieved—until she remembered that just because Emily forgave her didn’t mean Lindsey would. “I know you’re good, but what about everybody else?”

  “I think Rosa understands,” Emily replied. “Annelise and Charlotte will too, once I explain it to them. But Lindsey is really fuming about it.”

  Alex nodded. “I’ll make it right with Lindsey, I promise.”

  The first morning bell rang, and the girls scurried to their lockers. Alex felt comforted knowing that Emily understood and was still her friend, but she knew that making things right with Lindsey wouldn’t be easy. She and Lindsey had gotten off on the wrong foot right from the start, and it had taken months for them to finally become friends. This might be the last straw in their friendship.

  Alex’s hunches were right. In social studies, Lindsey made a point never to look in Alex’s direction. And when Max approached Alex and said he would meet her in the library after school, Lindsey whispered something to Rosa and then laughed really loudly.