Double or Nothing (5 page)

And before Alex could answer, Ava left the room, shutting the door behind her with force.

Tuesday morning Alex sat in the backseat of Coach's car clutching her stack of posters, half listening to Coach and Tommy in the front seat, talking about Friday night's upcoming game against the Spartans. As usual, she was quick to tune out the conversation, which was heavy with football jargon and offensive patterns and defensive strategies. For the millionth time, she thought about how complex football was.

She reflected on the sort-of fight she'd had with Ava last night. She was still not sure why Ava had gotten so upset with her. She wished the football tryouts and the election didn't have to happen at the exact same time. It made
everything so much more convoluted. Well, maybe it would resolve itself, if Coach Kenerson told Ava she couldn't play. That would certainly make Alex's life easier. As soon as she'd thought it, she felt guilty.

They pulled up in front of the middle school. It was weird to be here this early, before the buses that clogged up the semicircular drive, before swarms of chattering middle schoolers had arrived. The parking lot was about half-full of cars, and Alex saw two teachers, a man and a woman whom she didn't recognize, trudging in, both laden down with heavy-looking briefcases and large, steaming cups of coffee. Teachers drank a lot of coffee, it seemed.

Alex said good-bye to her father and Tommy and went inside. She checked in with Mrs. Gusman at the front office, who gave her the approved wall-mounting double-stick tape that the custodians had said wouldn't mark the walls. Then she set about putting up her posters in the seventh-grade wing, near the auditorium, the locker room areas, and finally, outside the cafeteria.

It didn't take that long. She'd only made eight posters, and those had taken hours. Hers seemed
to be the first ones up—she didn't see any of Logan's or Ella's. That would likely be a temporary situation. No doubt their posters would be plastered all over the school soon enough.

As she finished mounting the last one outside the cafeteria, she stepped back to survey it.
Not bad,
she thought. She hadn't come up with anything clever for a campaign slogan, so she'd finally decided on something straightforward:
VOTE FOR ALEX SACKETT! SEVENTH-GRADE CLASS PRESIDENT.
She'd decorated her name with glitter glue, and it looked pretty nice. Below the slogan was a picture of her, a blown-up scan of her school picture from last year. It was an okay picture—she was looking off to one side, smiling widely, and she thought she looked pretty confident and presidential.

By now kids were starting to arrive, probably not yet the kids who took the bus, but those who'd been dropped off by their parents. She discovered she had glitter all over her hands and headed toward the girls' bathroom just outside the cafeteria. That was all she needed—glitter on her clothes and in her hair all day.

She assumed the bathroom would be empty at this early hour, but as she pushed open the
swinging door, she realized that it wasn't. A girl was standing near the sinks, an open lunch bag unzipped across the metal ledge below the mirrors.

“Oh! Hey, Lindsey!” Alex said cheerfully. “I didn't expect to see you in here so early!”

Lindsey Davis turned toward Alex. She seemed as surprised to see Alex as Alex was to see her.

“Hey, Alex,” she replied curtly, and went back to what she was doing, although Alex wasn't sure exactly what that was.

Alex moved to the sink one away from where Lindsey was standing and washed her hands. She really did have glitter in her hair, she realized ruefully, and after carefully drying her hands, began fishing the glittery specks from her curls. “Glitter from my posters,” she said to Lindsey, just in case the other girl might think she was fishing out something much grosser, like dandruff or, even worse, lice.

Lindsey didn't answer, but she seemed eager to finish what she was doing. Alex realized Lindsey was transferring lunch food from a white paper bag to a zip-up green lunch bag with a shoulder strap.

“Oh, right, I forgot Mr. Lehner is taking both his seventh-grade science classes to the museum!” said Alex. When Lindsey didn't respond, she kept up the chatter to fill the uncomfortable silence. “So that means you and Emily are coming too! That's awesome. I've got Madison Jackson for my partner, and she's nice and everything, but I don't know her that well, so I'm so glad you guys will also be there. Plus, Ella Sanchez is in my class, which is awkward because we're both running for class president, so we don't really have a lot to say to each other. Hey! Is that a school lunch? I didn't know they gave those out! Are they an improvement over their hot food?” When Lindsey still didn't immediately answer, Alex kept babbling, even though she knew she was babbling. Lindsey had that effect on her. “Probably the school bag lunch is better, I'm guessing, because it's hard to mess up a sandwich and chips, ha-ha.”

“It's fine,” snapped Lindsey, who had finished what she was doing. She slung the lunch bag onto her shoulder and dumped the remains of the white paper bag and its contents into the garbage can.

“Yeah, I guess it beats the meat loaf surprise
they're probably serving today,” said Alex with a laugh. “I didn't even know the school made bagged lunches for kids going on field trips. I'll remind my dad for the next time. He'll be happy not to have to make my lunch.”

Lindsey muttered a quick “See you later” and hurried out of the bathroom.

Alex felt that familiar uneasy feeling up and down her spine. She had upset Lindsey. Again. Somehow. What was it about that girl, and why was it that practically every conversation they had, Alex felt like she'd offended her without having a clue how?

With a heavy sigh, Alex shouldered her own lunch bag and followed Lindsey to where everyone was gathering for the field trip.

Mr. Lehner was standing next to the bus, checking kids off his list as they boarded. They were supposed to sit with their designated partners. Alex and Madison found each other and got in line to board the bus.

Alex caught a glimpse of Emily and Lindsey—partners, of course—who weren't in line yet. Both girls had similar lunch bags slung on their shoulders. Alex felt a pang of what wasn't quite jealousy but rather was that familiar feeling
of being left out, which she knew was dumb because Lindsey and Emily had been friends since preschool. As Madison was chattering away next to her, Alex realized she was standing behind the Fowler twins, Tim and Greg. Both boys were in the other science class, so she didn't know them, but she knew of them. Alex had counted four sets of twins at Ashland Middle School, which was a lot, but then again it was a really big school. The Fowlers were identical, just as she and Ava were. She knew from Emily that the Fowler family had seven kids. Alex was pretty sure they weren't very well off. Emily said their dad was in the military and had been on active duty for a while, and their mom worked part-time at the supermarket.

As she lined up behind the Fowlers, she noticed the two of them were carrying their lunches in white paper lunch bags. That was when it struck her like a thunderbolt.

The kids with white bags got reduced-price lunches from the school. Usually no one knew which kids got the reduced-price lunches, because everyone just handed their cards to the lunch lady to swipe. But on field trip days, it was painfully obvious, because the reduced-price
lunch kids were supposed to pick up their lunches in the cafeteria first thing in the morning.

So Lindsey was receiving a reduced-price lunch. That was what she'd been doing in the bathroom: transferring her school-issued lunch into her own lunch bag, so people wouldn't know.

Alex felt like kicking herself as she filed onto the bus. No wonder Lindsey had been so short with her.
Why, why,
she thought,
am I always so clueless? Lindsey was embarrassed that I saw her with a reduced-price lunch.
Alex racked her brain, trying to remember what she'd said. Something about how the bag lunch had to be an improvement over hot lunches. But now, as she thought about it, she realized Lindsey always got the school's hot lunch. Should she apologize to Lindsey, or would that make an awkward situation even worse?

When she'd first moved to Ashland, Alex had been on Lindsey's bad side because she'd quickly developed a crush on Corey . . . and it seemed like Corey liked her, too. But once Alex found out that Lindsey liked Corey, she began pretending she had a boyfriend back in Boston
named Charlie—she had panicked and named Ava's crush as her own boyfriend—and ever since then Lindsey had been much nicer to her. Except when Alex did things like this.

She wished Ava were here to help her negotiate all this. But Ava was mad at her too.

She groaned softly.

Madison had been chatting away about upcoming cheerleading tryouts, but she broke off midsentence and looked at Alex. “You okay?” she asked her.

Alex nodded. “Yes, fine,” she said, trying to muster some enthusiasm. “I just ate too much breakfast this morning, and I have a little stomachache. It'll pass.”

Alex didn't see much of Lindsey and Emily at the museum. Mr. Lehner's two sections naturally formed separate groups, and Lindsey and Emily were in the other class. In the morning, both sections had a tour guide for the first hour, but then they had split up with their partners to complete a set of questions based on certain exhibits around the museum. They hadn't
even sat together at lunch—the classes had sat separately.

On the bus ride back to school, Alex got a text from her mom.

Just got out of a meeting. I'm at your school right now. Happy to take you with me that thrift store.

Alex texted her back and told her sure.

On Tuesday after school, Ava stared at herself in the grimy locker-room mirror. She barely recognized the person in the Tiger Cubs practice uniform peering out with anxious eyes from the shiny blue Cubs helmet. It had been awhile since she'd worn a helmet, and she'd forgotten how heavy they were, and how hot her head felt with one on. She was already sweating! But having the uniform and helmet on also felt great. This helmet was fancier than the battered old thing she'd worn last year, back in Massachusetts—it had some sort of gel padding that was supposed to mold to your head.

Coach Kenerson had sought her out at lunch
and told her it was okay to suit up—for today, anyway. The athletic director had told him to tell her this, but said he might have to take it up with the school board. Great.

Her pads were a little too big for her shoulders and shifted a bit. She'd signed up for the right pads for her height and weight, she was sure, but her shoulders were probably narrower than an average boy of her size. Whatever. They'd have to do.

It wasn't like she was the smallest kid trying out by any means. There were at least half a dozen sixth graders who were smaller than she was.
And they'll probably get cut,
a little voice told her.
Or if they do make the squad, they'll never play in a game.
She ignored the little voice and headed outside to the field.

The two captains were already assembling the team for the warm-up laps. She joined the clump of kids toward the back, resolving to keep a wary eye on Andy and Xander. It was a lot different from the day before, running with a helmet and pads. But she knew she'd get used to it, the way she had last year on her Massachusetts team.

No one tried to trip her, which was good. But
she observed Xander and Andy running ahead, side by side, talking nonstop to each other. About her, she was pretty sure.

Then came warm-ups and dynamic stretching. Ava took her place in the back line with the sixth graders. There was no point in making a big deal about the injustice of where to stretch out. She'd need to prove herself to the coaches, not worry about team politics.

Warm-ups went fine, although Ava was keenly aware of the strange energy of the team. There wasn't the typical joking around, chatting, laughing you might ordinarily expect. She was sure it was because of her presence. Why was this such a big deal? It was just football. She remembered something Coach had once said to her several years back, after she'd missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw that could have tied the basketball game. “Ave,” he'd said, “sports matter a lot in life, but they also don't matter at all.” She hadn't understood what he meant at the time, but now she was beginning to.

After warm-ups, Coach K and the assistants told them to break down into groups according to positions. “Linemen with Coach MacDonald!” he bellowed. “Running backs with Coach
D'Annolfo! Quarterbacks and receivers with me!”

Ava gulped. Where should she go if she was just a kicker? Everyone else seemed to know where to go. Even Xander, whom she'd assumed was also “just” a kicker, had joined the group of linemen. Well, that made sense. He was big, and he looked like he liked to knock people down. Soon she was the only one who hadn't moved toward one of the coaches.