Triple Trouble (5 page)

Brown belt (Boy, Payton was prepared. Accessories and everything.)

The bell rang for next period, just as I brushed my hair and pulled it into a ponytail. There. At least outwardly, I was pulled together. I better get to the classroom where Mrs. Burkle wanted to meet.

“Hi, Emma!” My friend Quinn came down the hall and pushed through the crowd to get near me.

“Hi!” I said. “The hallway looks awesome!” I pointed at the posters on the wall.

“Do you really think they look good?” Quinn worried. “I heard that some people were making fun of the glamorous geckos I drew on them. But I mean, I was trying to put some school spirit into the posters. Go, Geckos, and all that.”

“I think they're not only very cute but they're also well drawn,” I said emphatically. “I'd never be able to draw lizards in formal wear.”

“Thanks, Emma.” Quinn lit up. I smiled, because I'd made my friend smile. I was getting much better in the friends/social skills department. “Hey,” Quinn said. “Where are you going next?”

“Oh, I have to go see Mrs. Burkle about something,” I said. “In the VOGS room. Mrs. Burkle is in that room this period.”

“I bet they're interviewing you for VOGS,” Quinn
said. “About either your Mathletes win or your TV commercial.”

“I hadn't thought about being on camera,” I mused. “I was thinking she wanted to talk to me about English homework or something.”

Well, it was a good thing I'd changed my clothes. Payton would have to appreciate that. I said good-bye to Quinn and headed toward the VOGS room. I was just about to go in when I noticed the new boy coming around the corner. Just one boy. Still. I was feeling jumpy since the double-triple-vision incident.

Oh no! Another one! I was having another attack of vision problems.
Calm down, Emma,
I told myself. It could be worse. It could be triple vision, like before. And then suddenly, it was. Another new boy. The one boy had turned into three. Three boys coming down the hall.

“Ms. Mills!” Mrs. Burkle's voice rang out. “Time is of the essence!
Entrez vous!
”

I stumbled into the room and blinked to clear my vision. Only one Burkle. Okay, only one. That was good. I looked around. One Nick, standing at a video camera in front of the VOGS set.

Then the new guy entered. Whew! Just one of him.
But wait, he was followed by another one. And another one . . .

“The triplets are here!” Mrs. Burkle announced.

Triplets? TRIPLETS!

Oh. Duh.

I hadn't been seeing triple. Well, I had, but that's because they were triplets! I was an identical twin. You would have thought that I would have figured that one out. But I was thrown off after hitting my head.

Plus, honestly, they did look like one person in triplicate. They were all wearing the same shirt, jeans, and sneakers. They all had black hair cut identically sharp. And when they walked, it was practically in unison.

Even Payton and I weren't like . . . clones.

I watched the three boys as Mrs. Burkle ushered them onto the VOGS set. They were so in sync as they sat down in the chairs, sprawled out, and waited. Were they robots?

“Any questions?” Mrs. Burkle asked them.

“No,” they all said, of course, almost at the same time.

“We've been on TV a lot,” one of them added. The other two nodded.

“One minute till . . . VOGS showtime!” Mrs. Burkle announced. One minute until VOGS? Why was I here?
Was she going to let me know why she had called me here at this time?

“We're ready!” Burkle waved at me. “Come on over!”

Ready for . . . ?

“What—” I started to say when a girl I didn't know suddenly started attacking the neck of my sweater.

“Shush while I mike you,” the girl said clipping a microphone on me. “You'll be heard all over the set. Okay, now say ‘Testing, testing.' ”

“Testing, testing,” I repeated. “But—”

“You know the drill. On set in five.” The girl sighed. She practically pushed me onto the set into the seat across from the triplets. “Sometime I hope I get to be on camera too. Payton.”

Payton?

“In ten . . .”

Payton!

“. . . nine . . .”

They thought I was Payton! I saw the teleprompter angled right at me and I froze. Sure, I'd been on camera in Hollywood, but I had been prepared! I still hated being on camera.

“I think she's nervous,” one of the triplets said, grinning.

“Maybe she's never been on camera before,” said another one, nodding.

“She can follow our lead,” the third said smugly. “Watch and learn.”

“I've been on camera!” I started to protest but saw Mrs. Burkle pretending to slice her throat, so I had to stop talking. I took a deep breath and . . . my competitive spirit kicked into gear.

A girl wheeled the teleprompter right in front of me. That's it?

“I just have to read the teleprompter?” I checked.

“Yeah. Since we had to get this on the air so fast, I wrote the news report for you,” the girl said. “And three . . . two . . . and you're on the air!”

I looked one of the triplets directly in the eye and smiled my best competition smile. I had a genius IQ—I could read a simple teleprompter!
Don't worry, Payton
, I thought.
I've got this
.

BACK TO CLASS . . . AGAIN

I left the principal's office feeling pretty genius. Not like a math genius, but like I'd covered for Principal Patel and Emma pretty well. Just call me mathEmmatician!

Hee!

I practically skipped down the hallway.

I didn't mean to Twin-Switch, but that one couldn't be helped, right? And I had to admit, if we had to have an accidental twin switch, I was glad that it was ME pretending I was Emma, rather than the other way around.

Not that Emma didn't do a good job pretending to be me, I also had to admit. It's just that I preferred to have control over my image. Emma pretending to be me could go smoothly, or it could go very, very wrong.

BREAKING NEWS

I read my lines off the teleprompter.

“Hi, I'm Payton”—er—I felt a moment of guilt but continued on reading. “Here with a breaking news story. As you may know, I'm an identical twin. And I'm here with three new students who aren't just twins, but triplets!”

The camera flashed to the triplets, who were now smiling.

“I'm Dexter,” said one. “That's Oliver and Asher.”

Okay, Dexter on the left, Oliver in the middle, Asher on the right. Got it.

“Wow, that is so cool,” I read off the teleprompter
and shuddered inwardly. Who wrote these lines? “Are you identical?”

“Yeah,” Oliver said. “And identical triplets are extremely rare. One in a million.”

“Are you identical?” I read off the teleprompter. Wait. I'd just asked that. It wasn't scrolling ahead.

“Dude,” Dexter said. “You just asked us that.”

The girl at the teleprompter was shaking it a little bit. Mrs. Burkle had jumped up and was waving her hands in the air, like “keep talking.” Oh, great. The teleprompter was stuck, and I had to wing this thing. Okay, keep it rolling. . . .

“Identical triplets
are
extremely rare,” I said. “Identical triplets occur when a single fertilized egg splits in two, and then one of the resulting two eggs splits one more time.”

There. That should impress them. Except, wait, I was supposed to be Payton. Payton didn't spout facts. I relaxed my shoulders and did my best Payton posture.

“So kewl!” I added.

“Identical triplets are always the same gender and blood type, but they don't have to always look alike,” Oliver said.

“But obviously we do,” Dexter said.

“Even our parents have trouble telling us apart,” Asher said.

“Yeah, my twin and I have that issue,” I said.

“Pffft, try being
three
, not just two of you,” Dexter said dismissing me.

“Triplets are also called supertwins,” Oliver said.

“Super, meaning extraordinary twins, not just regular twins,” Dexter said.

Hey, wait a minute. Was that directed at me? It sounded on the surface like he was kidding. But I could tell from my competitions when someone was an opponent.

“Well,” I shot back, “everyone is extraordinary in his or her own way. For example, my twin
Emma
has extraordinary talents—”

“And we're really extraordinary because . . .” Dexter said, cutting me off.

“We're the SUPERTWINS!” all three of them said together. And suddenly, in unison, the three of them stood up and faced the camera. The girl who had miked me raced up and handed one a guitar.

“Ah one, two, three,” Dexter said.

And they started singing. I looked at Mrs. Burkle, and she looked as surprised as I did.

“ . . . and ooh, ooh, ooh . . . we're the SuperTwins!”

“We're the SuperTwins!” they said, then gave little waves and sat back down like normal.

The other people in the room started clapping. I looked at Mrs. Burkle, who was beaming and applauding.

“Well, that was unexpected,” I said, game face still on. “So you're a boy band?”

“Dude, no.” They all shook their heads. “Not a boy band.”

“We're a musical force!” Asher added.

“Available for parties, bar and bat mitzvahs . . .” Oliver said.

“Book us now before we hit it big,” Dexter said. “Text us.”

Mrs. Burkle was making slicing motions across her neck and mouthing something. I was pretty good at reading lips, so I leaned forward. “Wrap it up!” she was saying.

“Well, that's all the time we have,” I interrupted them. “Welcome to our school.”

I started to get up but nearly strangled myself. The microphone was still attached to my collar. The triplets cracked up.

“Psst! Still rolling!” Mrs. Burkle waved frantically and pointed at the green light, which unfortunately was still on.

“. . . and welcome to our school,” I added. The green light was still on. Oh, come on, would this never end? The triplets remained slouched in their seats, smirking at me.

“Go, Geckos!” I said weakly.

“And we're off the air!” Mrs. Burkle clapped her hands. “Oh, what I wouldn't give for a higher budget for a new teleprompter. But that was wonderful, triplets. An impromptu musical performance!”

“Thanks,” the triplets said in unison. Of course.

“Have you all considered joining the drama club? Or show choir? Are you in band?” Mrs. Burkle tried to enlist them.

“Looks like you all have a lot to chat about, so I'll just be leaving,” I said, still in cheery Payton mode. Speaking of which, I needed to get out of there before someone discovered I wasn't Payton. I reached down to detach my mike.

“Can I have your cell? So I can, um, text you guys about playing at a, um, event,” the girl who had attached my mike asked. Oh no, their first groupie.