Twice the Talent (2 page)

Another
swoosh!
Ava grinned.

I just hope the game goes this well!
Ava thought, but the warm-up had helped get rid of her nervousness. She had practiced hard for this. She had done the impossible and convinced her parents to let her play. She was ready!

Tweeeet!
“All right, Cubs! Time to huddle!” Coach Rader called out.

In the stands, Alex watched her sister jog off the court and get into a tight circle with the other girls on her team.

“This is so exciting!” Alex blurted out to her parents. She knew how much playing basketball meant to Ava and could only imagine how her sister felt right now.

Her father nodded. “I'm excited for your sister too,” said Coach. “Ava has worked so hard for this.”

Five girls from each team came out onto the court, and Alex noticed that Ava was one of them. Callie stood in the center circle, with Ava and Madison on either side of her.

“What does it mean that Ava is up front like that?” Alex asked.

“The coach is starting Ava as a forward,” her mom explained. “Madison is a forward too, and Callie is the center. And the two girls behind them are guards.”

“That's Tamara and Tessa,” Alex said, recognizing them. “So, they're like the defense?”

“Not really,” her mom said. “They actually handle the ball and shoot the most.”

Alex took out her phone and typed the positions in her notes. She wasn't super interested in basketball, but she hated being left out of the conversation at dinnertime, and she had a feeling that basketball would be a popular topic for the next few weeks.

The referee blew his whistle and tossed the ball in the air between the team's two centers. The Mustangs' center jumped up and pushed the ball forward, but the pass went wild and Tessa grabbed it. She dribbled forward and passed it to Ava, who caught it. Ava took it down the middle of the court and passed it to Callie, who was open right under the basket. Callie jumped up, shot, and scored!

Two points appeared on the scoreboard, and the Tiger Cubs fans in the bleachers let out a cheer. Alex cheered louder than anybody.

There was something really fun about watching Ava play basketball. When she played on the football team, there was always that underlying tension, knowing that many people in the stands were wondering the same thing: Was Ava as good as the boys? Would she get hurt?

But here, on the basketball court, that pressure was off.

Alex thought about how she had been running for class president at the same time Ava was causing a stir by trying out for the football team.
I'm so happy basketball season
is going to be much less stressful than football season—for both of us!
she mused.

On the court, Ava grinned and slapped Callie's hand. The Mustangs' center passed the ball to one of the forwards, who lobbed a long pass down the court to one of the open Mustang guards. Ava charged down the court just as the guard lost her grip on the pass and the ball bounced away. Ava retrieved it and dribbled it back down the court. She saw Madison open and passed the ball to her.

Madison caught it, but two Mustangs immediately surrounded her. Trapped, she jumped up and took a shot, but it fell just short of the basket.

Callie grabbed it and quickly shot it at Ava, who caught it and made the shot from the right corner.

Swoosh!
The ball sailed through the net.

“Go, Ava!” cheered Kylie from the stands.

“Yaaay, Ava!” yelled Alex.

The Tiger Cubs scored once more during the first quarter, and the Mustangs scored again
to make the score 6–2, Cubs, when the quarter ended. Coach Rader benched Ava and the four other girls on the court and put in five different members of the team.

“Looking good out there,” Coach Rader said to the starters on the bench, and Ava could feel herself beaming with pride. The game was off to a great start!

The Cubs kept their lead in the second quarter, which ended 10–5 after one of the Mustangs made an impossible basket from past the three-point line. Otherwise, their defense kept making the mistake of converging around the player who had the ball while leaving other players open.

Coach Rader put Ava, Callie, Madison, Tessa, and Tamara back in for the third quarter. By then the Mustangs seemed to have figured out their defensive problem, and only Madison was able to score. The quarter ended 12–9—too close for comfort.

The girls came back to the sidelines.

“Their defense is getting better, but they're still clumping up under the basket,” he told the girls. “Ava and Madison, stay close to the sidelines if you can, and try to shoot from there.”

Ava and Madison nodded, and the girls jogged back onto the court. Callie got control of the ball, but one of the Mustangs stole it from her. She drove down the court and made a successful layup.

The scoreboard now read
HOME
12,
GUEST
11, and Ava started to feel nervous for the first time.

“Ava!” she heard Madison cry out, and Ava realized she had lost focus for a second—long enough for one of the Mustangs to bat the ball out of Madison's hands. She passed it down the court to her teammate, who took a shot and missed. Ava ran up to catch the rebound. Ava passed it to Callie, who passed it to Madison, but Madison missed her shot too.

For the next seven minutes it seemed like neither team could score. Then one of the Mustangs fumbled a pass, and Tamara recovered it and passed it to Ava.

Stay close to the sidelines,
Coach Rader had said, and Ava stuck close to the left side of the court. One of the Mustangs came toward her, and Ava quickly looked to see if anyone was open—but nobody was. In the three seconds before the Mustang player reached her, she jumped up and took a shot, twisting her body
to the right to avoid colliding with the Mustang.

She watched the ball bounce off the backboard and sink right into the net—and then she landed. Hard.

Buzzzzzzzzzzz!

The final buzzer rang, and a cheer went up from the stands.

“We won!” Madison cried, running up to hug her, and Ava winced. When she'd landed, she'd felt her right ankle buckle underneath her and a shot of pain jolt through her body. The victory cheers rang hollow in her ears as the pain in her ankle made her head feel fuzzy.

Then the Cubs lined up to shake hands with the Mustangs, and Ava joined them, trying not to limp. Coach Rader approached her.

“Ava, I saw you come down hard on that ankle,” he said. “How's it feeling?”

“Fine, Coach,” Ava lied. She had just played her first game of basketball and loved it. There was no way she was admitting that her ankle hurt—what if it was really messed up, and she was out for the season? That would be so unfair!

She gritted her teeth and headed to the locker room without limping the whole way, but it was extremely painful. When she finished changing, she found her family waiting in the gym for her.

“Great game!” Alex cried, hugging her. “I think I might like watching basketball more than football.”

Mrs. Sackett was concerned. “Ave, it looked like you twisted your ankle when you took that last shot.”

“I'm fine,” Ava insisted.

Her father looked up from his phone. “Uncle Scott just texted. He's making a special sweet and spicy tofu for dinner to celebrate.”

“Oh, boy,” said Ava, and she and her dad exchanged sympathetic looks. While they had both gotten used to Uncle Scott's cooking since he moved in, neither of them would choose tofu as their way to celebrate Ava's big win.

Ava ignored her painful ankle all through
dinner and while she was doing her homework that night. But the next morning, her ankle was as purple as an eggplant and about the same size. When she stood up, she could barely put weight on it.

Alex was the first to see her as she made her way to the bathroom, clutching the wall for support.

“Oh no, Ave!” she cried, looking down at her twin's ankle. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“I didn't think it was that bad,” Ava admitted. “And I don't want to be benched for the season. I'm sure it'll get better soon.”

Alex shook her head. “Ava, you are being ridiculous,” she told her sister. Then she marched right downstairs.

Ava cringed, and not from the pain in her ankle. She knew what would happen once her parents saw it.

She got dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, but she couldn't even pull a sock over her ankle. She hobbled downstairs wearing only one sock.

Mrs. Sackett was already shaking her head. “Ava, let me see that ankle, please,” she said firmly.

Ava
sighed. “It's not that bad!”

Her mother gasped. “Ava, this is a serious injury! I am calling Dr. Rodriguez right now.”

Ava glared at Alex. “Thanks for telling her!”

“She would have figured it out anyway when you tried to leave the house wearing only one shoe,” Alex retorted, taking a bite of her cereal.

Uncle Scott came into the kitchen, yawning. His eyes got wide when he saw Ava's ankle.

“Whoa,” he said. “I know someone who makes a tincture for sprains and strains. I'll give her a call.”

“What she needs first is an X-ray,” Mrs. Sackett said, sounding a little stressed. She didn't always have patience for her brother-in-law's way of doing things.

Mrs. Sackett called the doctor while Alex headed off to the bus stop. Ava moped around gloomily until nine o'clock, when her mom helped her into the car and drove her to see Dr. Rodriguez.

Dr. Rodriguez was nice enough, with serious brown eyes behind his glasses. But the visit to the doctor's office took forever. First he examined her ankle and decided to send Ava for an X-ray in another wing of the office building.
Then Ava and her mom had to wait while he looked at the film.

Finally he called them back into his office.

“What we have here is a pretty serious sprain,” he said, and he held up a black fabric brace with Velcro straps. “You'll need to wear this for at least six weeks.”

Six weeks! Ava felt like screaming. That was forever!

“Will she need crutches?” Mrs. Sackett asked.

“No,” the doctor replied. “She can walk normally with the brace. This will protect her from further injuries.”

Ava felt a surge of hope. “So can I play basketball with the brace on too?”

“Maybe, in about three weeks,” Dr. Rodriguez answered.

This time Ava let out her wail. “Three weeks! But the season just started!”

Alex was walking to social studies class when she suddenly got a strange feeling that something was wrong with Ava. Like maybe her ankle was really hurt. That happened sometimes—she
could feel when Ava was really upset or really happy, even if she wasn't nearby. Tommy called it their “freaky twin connection.”

When she walked into the room, Emily, Lindsey, and Rosa were gathered around Lindsey's desk, talking. Emily noticed the strange look on Alex's face.