Triple Trouble (8 page)

AT DINNER

“So Counselor Case tried to blot the chocolate milk off, but it was fruitless,” Emma said as she reached over and plucked the last of the chow mein fun with her chopsticks.

We were finishing dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Emma was filling us in on the details of the epic food fight at lunch. It was the only time I'd ever wished I'd had third-period lunch.

“I remember this food fight I was in once,” my dad said looking gleeful. “It was spaghetti day at school, and the principal walked in just as I was throwing a plate and—”

“Ahem,” my mother said. “Don't be a bad influence on the girls.”

“And that's my cue to pay the bill,” Dad said, cheerfully sliding out of the booth and heading up to the front room where the cashier was located.

“You're so lucky,” I grumbled. “I've never been in a food fight.”

“Now, that's something to be
proud
of,” my mother told me. “Although Emma, I'm glad you helped Counselor Case.”

“Well, it worked out great for me,” Emma said. “Because as punishment, the twins have to do an extra day with me.”

“That
is
punishment, spending extra time with you,” I snorted.

Emma shot me a look.

“I'm getting paid extra money too,” she said. “So, ha!”

“Don't forget your fortune cookies,” the server said as she came up and placed four of them on a silver tray. She looked at me and then at Emma and then back at me. I knew what she was thinking.

“Yes, we're twins,” I told her. “Identical.”

“I see it's a night for that,” the server said. “You should see the three twins in the front room. They look even more alike than you too!”

I guess I didn't know what she was thinking after all.

“Three twins?” my mom asked. “Triplets?”

Emma and I looked at each other. We hadn't mentioned the new triplets to our parents yet. We'd talked about it when we had gotten home. I told Emma I wasn't going to say anything, because I was afraid I'd blurt out something stupid about VOGS and Emma being me. Emma said she didn't want to say anything, because she didn't want to judge them yet on their first day.

(But she thought they'd been mean.)

“Oh, yeah,” Emma said. “I forgot to tell you. There are new identical triplets in school. Boys. They have their own boy band too.”

“Neat,” my mom said. “Did you meet them?”

“Yeeesss,” we both said slowly. We were saved from answering any more by our dad, who had come back to the table.

“Maybe we can sneak out. You hide behind Mom, and I'll hide behind Dad,” I whispered to Emma, who nodded.

“Hey, guess what?” Dad said to us. “I just bumped into some triplets, and when I mentioned I, too, had identicals, they said they go to your school. Come and say hello.”

“What a coincidence!” my mom said.

“A twincidence?” I whispered to Emma. “Or what would you call a triplet-coincindence?”

“Annoying,” Emma muttered back. “I'd call it annoying. They're everywhere.”

Emma and I followed Dad out to the front room. Yup, the triplets were there, sitting with two women who looked like—each other.

“This is my wife, and these are my twins.” Dad nudged us closer to the table.

“I'm Bonita, and this is
my
twin sister, Belinda,” the woman said. “And these are my sons, Dexter, Oliver, and Asher.”

I couldn't tell which one went with which name.

“We met in school,” I said. “Hi, I'm Payton. That's Emma.”

“One of them interviewed us, and the other one was lying on the floor in a hallway,” a triplet said.

Our parents looked at us.

“We didn't get to tell you guys about the rest of our day,” I said brightly.

“So many stories, not enough time,” Emma added, even more brightly.

“Just to be sure, which one of you is which?” I asked them. “I know how annoying it can be when people just lump you together because you look alike.”

“Dexter is the charmer, Oliver is the funny one, and
Asher is the sensitive one whose thoughts run deep,” the mother said.

“Oh, how . . . interesting,” my mom said, looking slightly flustered.

“The boys formed a music group, so you know how it is,” their mother said. “These days they need a brand, which, of course, in our case is triplets.”

“SuperTwins,” a triplet nodded.

“But each boy needs to have his own identity,” their mother said.

“Oh, I highly agree,” my mom said. “It's important for multiples to feel like individuals.”

“Actually, I meant for marketing purposes,” their mother chuckled. “Like Paul was the cute one, Ringo was the funny one, George was the quiet one . . . You want to have a member to appeal to different girls.”

“Oh.” my father said. There was a moment of quiet.

“Well, welcome, and I hope you're enjoying your new community and school,” my mom said cheerily.

“Thank you,” Bonita said. “We're celebrating the boys' first day at school after our move here. I just divorced their father, and we moved in with Belinda.”

That could be hard, a divorce and a move. I smiled at the triplets to show that I was understanding of that. They
just eyed me back, without any facial expression at all.
Okay
.

“Of course, eventually we plan to end up in LA or New York or Nashville for the business, so it's temporary,” their mother continued.

My parents just nodded.

“So you two are twin sisters?” Emma asked. “The prevalence of multiples in family histories interests me.”

“Yes, Belinda and I are identical twins, just like you girls,” the mother said. “Obviously, multiples run in our family.”

“I'm so pleased that Bonita and the boys will be here for the festival,” Belinda said.

“What festival?” my mom asked.

“The annual multiples fest: Multipalooza,” Bonita said. “A festival to celebrate multiples. Belinda is on the board of directors for it. You must bring the girls!”

“This year the boys will get to attend for the first time,” Belinda said. “It was previously for adults. But now we're having a new Multiples Tweens and Teens division.”

“You've never seen so many identicals in your life!” Bonita said.

A whole festival just for twins and supertwins! I did want to go! Emma and I would be among our people! I wondered what we should wear. Should we dress alike? Or
not exactly alike, just complement each other with coordinating colors and—

“And there will be all kinds of competitions,” Belinda added.

I saw Emma perk up at that.

“The boys will be performing this year,” Bonita said.

“It's about a two-hour drive from here,” Belinda was saying to my parents. “It's Saturday, the—”

“Not the dance weekend, I hope,” I blurted out.

“Oh, is there a dance?” Belinda asked the triplets.

“Yeah, a homecoming thing,” one of the triplets answered. “All these girls were asking us to go with them. They saw us on that video show at school and came after us.”

These guys should call themselves the Super
Ego
twins. Ha. I bet Emma would be proud of me for that joke.

“We can text you the details about Multipalooza,” Bonita said.

“Great, what's your cell?” Emma asked.

“I don't have a new one yet, so boys, one of you text Emma your number, please,” she said.

One of them did, although he didn't look too happy about it. We said good-bye to Belinda and Bonita.

“Bye, Dexter, Oliver, and Asher,” Emma said to the triplets. They gave us a forced good-bye back.

“Can we go to the multiples festival? Can we go?” Emma said, as we went out the door and into the parking lot.

“I don't know,” my mom said. “It seems like a little too much. A festival and a dance.”

“I'm
definitely
going to the dance,” I warned. Definitely. (With Nick!)

“Well, I
definitely
want to go to the festival now,” Emma said excitedly. “I've been craving competition.”

Emma was practically skipping.

“It would be nice to go somewhere where we're not so unusual,” I said. “Where we fit in. Where everyone looks like someone.”

“That does make a compelling argument,” Dad said.

“I think it would be fun,” I agreed. “All those twins and triplets and quads? Pretty cool.”

“I have to admit, it sounds like fun,” my mom said, nodding. “Okay, I think it's a good idea.”

“On one condition,” my dad said. “You're not going as a brand, a package, or to be marketed. Deal?”

“Deal!” Emma and I said at the same time. I smiled at Emma. Sometimes it was fun being a twin.

“We'll just be us,” Emma reassured our dad.

We gave each other a twin hand-clap-slap. We were going to Multipalooza!

LATER THAT WEEK, AFTER SCHOOL

After last period, I stopped at my locker and headed to the library for my tutoring session.

“Hi, Emma,” Ox said. He was leaning against the wall just outside the library.

“Hi!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I knew you had tutoring today, and I've got a few minutes to kill before I suit up for football practice, so I hoped I'd get to see you.” Ox smiled.

I smiled.

Ox smiled.

“Um, so.” I tried to continue the conversation. “Does football season last all year?”

Ox snorted.

“Actually, football is a fall sport,” he told me. “We only have one more game.”

“Oh!” I thought fast. “That gives your team one last chance to get over .500! Or, conversely, if you lost, your percentage would only be .416 repeating six. That's not so good.”

“Yeah,” Ox agreed. “But I had one hundred percent fun playing, and I think next year our team will be really good. I'm moving up to junior varsity. They play on the high school field, so it'll be cool. You'll have to come cheer me on.”

“Me?” I cringed, imagining myself in a cheer outfit attempting clumsy cartwheels.

“Only if you want to,” Ox said quickly. “I know sitting in the stands isn't exactly thrilling. . . .”

“Oh! In the stands!” I started laughing. “I thought you expected me to be a cheerleader!”

“Only in your dreams, Twin,” Sydney said, passing by holding pom-poms. “Cheerleading is for the athletic and adorable. Not mathletic and dork-able.”

“Very clever, Sydney. Ha-ha!” I said. Insulting, but clever. I remembered back when Sydney had wanted Ox to be
her
boyfriend, but instead he liked ME. Ha-ha.

“I was just kidding!” She smiled at Ox.

“Saying ‘just kidding' doesn't excuse an insult,” Ox told her. Then he turned to me. “Though it's not really an insult because I like mathletic and dorkable.”

I swooned. Sydney flounced off. Ha-ha.

“Emma! I got a new geometry app for my phone!” Jason came running down the hall toward us, followed by Mason and Counselor Case.

“That's
my
cell phone, Jason,” Counselor Case corrected him.

“And I made slime in science today! Wanna see?” Mason held out an orange blob.

“Great,” I said.

“Cool, dude,” Ox said.

“Just to be clear, that does not go in my hair or in my tote bag,” I informed Mason.

“Aw.” Mason's face dropped.

“Emma, before you begin with the boys, I wanted to update you on the plans for the Multipalooza festival,” Counselor Case said.

“We're going too!” Mason and Jason screamed and jumped around like crazy people.

“Ox, can you come?” Mason stopped jumping. He treated Ox like a hero, which was pretty cute.

“He can't come,” Jason scoffed. “He's just a singleton.”

“JUST a singleton?” Ox frowned. “JUST?” He reached down and picked Jason up off the ground. Then he pulled Mason up too.

“Just ONE of me can lift TWO of you,” he said while the twins dangled from his arms, giggling.

Ox let Mason and Jason down. Then he looked at me. “I should get to practice,” he said. “What's this festival?”

“And I have some math tutoring to do,” I said.

Jason cheered and Mason groaned.

“I'll call you after dinner,” Ox told me, and said good-bye to everyone.

“Oooh, I know math,” Mason said. “Ox plus Emma equals L-U-V . . .”

“Enough, Mason,” Counselor Case said. “Boys, behave yourselves with Emma. I'll see you at five o'clock.”

As I herded the twins through the library doors, Jason said, “Actually, did you know that Ox plus Emma results in Oxemma, which is a patented health care technology used for diagnostic imaging?”

Mason and I were silent.