by Megan Atwood
Kayley said, “Are you afraid the other half of your brain won’t give you as much time now, Sophie?”
Madeleine threw Kayley a dirty look. Kayley chewed her gum and looked down at the floor.
“Well, yeah, that’s part of it,” Sophie said. “But it’s way worse than that. I liked Trey, and Emma knew it. And she swooped in and took him!”
Kayley let out a low, long whistle. “Yeah, that’s low.”
Madeleine knelt down and grabbed Sophie’s hand. “That undoubtedly sucks, Sophie. And she shouldn’t have done that.”
Sophie felt wary—Madeleine’s tone of voice said she’d be adding something that Sophie probably wouldn’t like.
Madeleine’s brown-yellow eyes got big. “But, Sophie, isn’t part of you a little happy for her? If your twin and best friend is happy? I know she’s miserable without you.”
Sophie flung her hand away from Madeleine. “Good!” she said and stood up. She was energized by the anger, and it felt good. Madeleine stood up too, to avoid being run over. She backed up against the wall, looking slightly alarmed at Sophie.
Sophie marched to the closet and grabbed some clothes for school. “She should feel miserable. She’s been awful! I would never do something like this to her.”
She started putting pants on, hastily, not caring what they looked like, as long as they weren’t pajama bottoms. She stomped over to her dressing table and grabbed a ponytail holder, reaching around Kayley, who leaned back out of the way.
Wrapping her hair in a messy bun, Sophie turned to face all of her friends. “I’ll just say it. She is going to be sorry for this. I will never forgive her. She’s dead to me.”
Chapter 4
Sophie grabbed her books and marched out of the room into the always-dark hallway. Her anger started to sputter out. For the billionth time in two days, she felt tears in her eyes.
No way could she make it through an entire day of academic classes.
The academy was so small that everyone was with everyone else all day. She couldn’t avoid Emma and Trey completely, but she could make a darn good effort.
She would have to go to afternoon ballet practice—Madame didn’t look fondly on students who missed those classes unless they were deathly ill. Sophie was sure she was already in trouble for missing the morning practice.
She trudged to the nurse’s station and walked in. Nurse John was there, tending to another student. She did a double take—it was the same girl that she had run into. Chloe something or other. Sophie hoped the girl wasn’t seeing Nurse John because of their encounter earlier.
Sophie tried to catch Chloe-or-whatever’s eye to mouth “sorry” again, but Nurse John blocked her view. Soon he’d be coming over to her. She’d have to rearrange her face to look sick. She looked down at the floor and held her stomach.
Before greeting Sophie, Nurse John asked, “Did you have breakfast?”
He was convinced all ballet dancers didn’t eat enough. There were some, Sophie knew, that didn’t. And Ophelia had almost killed herself through just that sort of habit. But most dancers Sophie knew ate like horses. They just had too much physical activity to do and couldn’t survive without eating.
Sophie’s stomach growled. She realized she hadn’t touched the croissant or yogurt her friends had brought her. Nurse John heard the growl and pressed his mouth in a thin line. Sophie knew the speech was coming—his standard “ballet dancers have to eat” speech—but she was too excited about the upcoming breakfast to groan. Even though she was depressed about Emma and Trey, a plateful of eggs and hash browns and toast sounded just about right. Nurse John was all about the protein/starch/carb combo. He turned his back, and Sophie sat down on one of the beds, feeling a little bit better emotionally and a lot hungrier too.
She glanced across the room and noticed the red-haired girl was gone. She shrugged to herself. She’d just have to tell the redhead that she was sorry the next time they had class.
While she waited for breakfast, Sophie started to feel bad about how angry she’d been with Emma. And about her morning outburst.
Madeleine had been right. There was one tiny section of Sophie’s heart that was happy for Emma. Because she knew, deep down, that Emma wouldn’t have dated Trey unless there was some real feeling there. And that the whole thing was probably eating Emma up inside.
Which meant that Emma was torturing herself with horrible guilt when she should have been enjoying her first boyfriend.
Sophie sighed. Of course she would forgive Emma. She was her sister.
The smell of fantastic food wafted over to Sophie. Her stomach growled in response. Nurse John set down the food, and Sophie dug in, half enjoying every bite and half lost in thought.
She needed to do something special for Emma, something that said Sophie forgave her. Because she really did want Emma to enjoy having a boyfriend for the first time. And Trey had never once acted like he liked Sophie back—she had no hold on him.
Sophie decided that she would take the rest of the day before ballet class to let go of the idea of her dating Trey and to let her love for her sister take over. Her excitement for Emma’s happiness could overpower the jealousy. Then, in ballet class, she’d go give Emma a gigantic hug. Everyone would see then that Sophie cared more about her sister than someone else. And maybe that would make Emma feel better.
A gigantic weight seemed to fall off Sophie’s shoulders. It was a good plan. And without all that anger, Sophie felt light as a feather. She finished her breakfast happily and then waited out the rest of the day for ballet class.
Sophie had fallen asleep. And that was not a good thing.
She glanced at her clock: 3:27. Ballet class was in three minutes.
Bolting out of bed, Sophie threw on the first pair of pink tights she could find and found a stained leotard to put on. She wrinkled her nose. Well, she wouldn’t be the best-smelling person there, but she could bet she wouldn’t be the worst, either.
She hurriedly fixed her hair into a tighter bun and then grabbed the bag with her ballet shoes and warm-up clothes.
The bad news was, she would be late to class. Madame considered anyone late who wasn’t five minutes early.
The good news was, she would get a warm-up by sprinting up the stairs.
When Sophie arrived, all the students were already at barre doing warm-ups. She threw her bag in the corner and grabbed an open barre space. It wasn’t one she normally used, but her place was taken. Sophie tried to look over the sea of ballet dancers to find Emma and Trey or even Madeleine, Ophelia, and Kayley, but she could only see the backs of their heads. She caught Madame giving her a dirty look, so she concentrated on warming up her muscles.
Plié, grand plié, relevé in first, relevé in second … The familiar exercises felt good. Sophie let her muscles relax into them. She forgot about Emma and Trey and her friends and just worked on perfecting her technique. After about twenty minutes, Madame had the students move the barres out of the room and gather for center work, then pas de deux practice.
As she came back in the room after putting a barre away, she ran into Emma. Sophie gave her a big smile, but Emma looked down at her sister’s shoes.
“Emma—,” she started.
“I don’t want to talk to you!” Emma said, a tear spilling over her cheek.
“Emma, what’s wrong?”
Emma swiped her cheek and shook her head.
“You know what’s wrong!” she whispered urgently. Sophie watched as Emma’s sadness turned to anger. “How could you?”
Sophie was completely taken aback. She knew she’d overreacted about Trey, but when all was said and done, she was still the injured party. Anger flared in Sophie, but she tamped it down and remembered that what she wanted most was for Emma to be happy.
She softened her eyes and put her hand on Emma’s arm. “I’m sorry I yelled at you in front of everyone. I forgive you. I do.”
She smiled at Emma and leaned in for a hug.
But Emma
stepped back like Sophie’s hand was a hot iron. “Well, I don’t forgive you!” she hissed, a fire in her eyes that Sophie had never seen before.
“Excuse me?” Sophie said. It was one thing for Emma to be happy. It was another for Emma to not even feel bad about betraying her.
Emma slitted her eyes and walked away. Sophie stood there, baffled, until Emma stomped back toward her. Madeleine, Kayley, and Ophelia stepped behind Emma. Sophie could see that both Ophelia and Kayley had looks of disgust on their faces. Madeleine looked confused and a little sad.
Emma pointed her finger at Sophie. “I know what I did was wrong. But what you did was way worse!”
Meanwhile, Madame slammed her cane to the ground and said, “Divide in two groups, dancers.”
Sophie shook her head. “What are you talking about? I said I was sorry for yelling at you!”
“Don’t play dumb,” Emma said. “You know what you did. And all because a boy liked me and not you!”
Sophie’s head snapped back like she had been slapped. Bewildered and hurting, she looked at the other girls. Kayley and Ophelia gave her dirty looks and turned their backs.
Madame Puant said, “OK, group one …” and listed off a sequence of dance moves Sophie scarcely heard.
Madeleine leaned in close to Sophie. “I am having a hard time believing what you did too. That doesn’t seem like you. But you were so mad this morning … I just hope you can find it in your heart to come clean and make things right.”
“Madeleine, for the sake of being thorough, what is it I did?”
Madame shouted, “Girls!” and she continued with her counting.
“It’s one thing to say that someone’s dead to you, Sophie,” Madeline whispered. “But it’s another thing to tell them you’re going to kill them. And your own sister!”
She turned on a heel and walked away.
Sophie stood there, feeling like she was in the Twilight Zone. And wondering what in the hell everyone was talking about.
Chapter 5
Sophie chased after the retreating backs of Ophelia, Kayley, and Madeleine as they walked out of the studio. She had to get to the bottom of this “killing her own sister” business. Emma had disappeared completely.
“Hey, wait up!”
Poised at the top of the stairs, the three girls turned as if choreographed to give her a nasty look.
From the bottom of the staircase, Sophie said, “You guys, I have no idea what you were talking about back in practice.”
Ophelia crossed her arms and stuck out her hip. Sophie noticed that Ophelia’s turnout was perfect even in that small, casual move.
“Seriously? You expect us to believe you?”
Madeleine and Kayley shared Ophelia’s stare of disbelief. Even Madeleine wasn’t tempered by any sort of empathy. She just looked sad and disappointed. Kayley blew a bubble and let it pop, loud.
Suddenly, Sophie was tired. All that crying, all that fighting, and now this. It had been a hard two days. Her sister was mad at her and dating her crush. And now even her best friends wouldn’t talk to her. For something Sophie was pretty sure she hadn’t done. Everything seemed to catch up with her at once.
Her shoulders slumped and she turned away. “I don’t expect anything anymore. Whatever. Have a great dinner.”
She walked down the hall to her room, slowly, feeling like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. She opened her door, and without even taking off her blue Uggs, she fell back flat on her bed. She felt like she could sleep for the next fifteen hours and be OK with that. But a knock came at her door. A timid knock, quiet and subdued.
She ignored it. She was too tired to talk to anybody. And anyway, it was probably a former friend who was going to tell her she was awful or a sister who was going to steal her crush and then inexplicably freak out on her.
Sophie heard a shushing sound as something slipped under the door onto her hardwood floor. Curious, she sat up and checked it out. A letter, plain and white. She got off her bed and picked it up, turning it over.
The envelope wasn’t sealed, and she lifted out the paper inside with ease. Unfolding it, she saw, in magazine cutouts that looked like a vintage ransom note:
I BELIEVE YOU
She turned over the letter to see if there was more, but there was nothing. She opened the door and looked down both ways of the dark hallway.
Nobody.
Of course, with the thick carpet and a student body full of people who were light on their feet, the chances of catching someone sneaking down the hall were slim to none. In fact, during previous adventures, Sophie and her sister had counted on those odds. How many nights had they snuck to each other’s room and had a slumber party?
Sophie sighed. Whatever this note meant, whatever person believed that she hadn’t done whatever is it she was supposed to have done didn’t matter to Sophie. What she wanted most desperately was her friends and her sister to believe her. She fell back in bed and crashed out.
Ballet class was brutal.
Not physically. Sophie welcomed the release of jumps and twirls and arabesques. Just brutal in every other way. Sophie wished desperately that she was back in bed and that this strange nightmare would end.
The minute she got into class, people started whispering. She had been late again—earning another dirty look from Madame—and had started her warm-ups like usual. But soon she noticed the stares, the hard looks from almost everyone in her vicinity. Even the boys were huddled around each other in one corner. At one horrible point, Sophie saw Trey look at her, say something to his group of friends, and then watched them laugh at her.
Her face burned. What was going on?
During rehearsal, she tried to get close to Madeleine, Kayley, Ophelia, and Emma, but they all seemed to be protected by an invisible fortress of mean.
The only soft looks came from the girl she’d run into the other day. The one she actually had caused harm to. When Sophie caught her eye across the room, the girl—Chloe, was it?—gave her a tentative smile. Sophie smiled back sadly. She now knew how lonely it must be for the girl. Except, Sophie would have loved to go unnoticed at the moment. The stares and whispers were going to kill her soon.
After class, Sophie meant to grab Emma or Madeleine or Ophelia or Kayley and make one of them tell her what was going on, but Madame Puant stopped her as she walked out.
“This is the second day in a row you were late. And you missed one practice entirely.” Madame’s eyes bored into hers. “One more lateness or missed practice and you’re out of the next performance.”
All Sophie could do was nod, because for the billionth time in two days, she was about to burst out crying.
She ran to her room and sobbed on her bed. Worst. Ballet. Practice. Ever.
Once again, a knock sounded at her door. Sophie bolted upright and wiped her eyes angrily. If the letter writer was in the hallway, maybe she’d finally get some answers.
She opened the door and almost fell back. It was Emma. In tears. For a wild moment, Sophie thought Emma might have come to make up, to give her a big hug, and to say they should start over.
Instead, she saw Madeleine, Kayley, and Ophelia come into view behind her sister.
“I’m not going to stop dating him, so you can stop with the threats already!” Emma said.
Sophie’s jaw dropped. What in the world was Emma talking about?
From behind Emma, Madeleine said, “Sophie, this isn’t like you. And none of us have wanted to do anything because we thought maybe you’d stop. But if this keeps up, we’re going to have to tell Madame. And you will get kicked out.”
Emma hung her head.
Sophie threw up her hands and said, “I. Don’t. Know. What. You’re. Talking. About. Can someone please tell me what I did?”
“You know what you did,” Emma said. “You are the only one with the password to my computer and the only one I trusted enough to give a key to. And you were gone from class when the first note appeared on my laptop—whi
ch gave you all the time in the world to do it. ‘Stay away from Trey/or you won’t see another day.’”
Behind her, Kayley snorted. “Not even a great rhyme.”
Emma continued, “But the one today …” She stopped and sobbed. Madeleine put her hand on her shoulder. “That one is just off the charts, Sophie. How could you? I’m you’re sister!”
Sophie tried to process all the information coming at her. A tendril of worry was starting to wind through her. Her sister was getting threatening notes?
“What did the second note say?”
“You want a reminder of your handiwork?” Emma said. “You want me to let you know I really got the message? OK. Fine. You wrote, ‘Keep hooking up with Trey/and you will die in the next few days/I’m watching you.’”
“Seriously. That’s terrible poetry,” Kayley said.
But Sophie barely heard her. Someone was threatening her sister. Not just threatening her sister but threatening her sister with death.
Before Sophie could say anything, Emma said, “Stop threatening me or I will go to Madame.”
She let out a sob and walked away. Ophelia and Kayley shot Sophie another nasty look. Madeleine’s eyes lingered on Sophie’s face before she followed them.
Sophie didn’t care at this point what anyone else thought of her. She didn’t care that she’d been unfairly accused or that her friends weren’t talking to her.
The most important thing, the thing that fired her up and made her blood run cold: someone was threatening her sister.
And she was going to put a stop to that.
Chapter 6
The tricky thing about following her sister, Sophie noticed, was that Emma spent a lot of time in public places.
Which was good if you were a sister being threatened but not good if you were a sister trying to do some discreet spying.
Despite the hard looks from everyone, Sophie was on a mission. She didn’t miss any classes—easier to keep track of Emma that way.
Madeleine kept giving Sophie looks from across the room—tentative, probing looks—and at one point, a very small smile. Sophie halfway returned it, but she was busy trying to suss out who could be threatening Emma.
