Twice the Talent (9 page)

She smoothed it out and started to read.

Walk Forward

Grapevine Right

Grapevine Left

Step, Tap

Step, Tap

It might as well be written in Elvadoran,
Ava thought. She flipped open her laptop and started typing,
Video of basic line dancing steps
.

“Yes!” Ava cried, as a list of videos popped up on the screen. There was one—four minutes long—“Basic Grapevine for Beginners.”

“Perfect,” Ava murmured, and she hit play. A
man and a woman wearing cowboy hats were facing the camera.

“To grapevine right, you need to start with your right foot,” the woman began.

“Right foot,” Ava repeated, and she started mirroring the steps on the screen. She stepped with her right foot, then put her left foot behind her right foot, and then . . . what were they doing?

“How did their feet end up there?” Ava asked out loud, and she started the video from the beginning.

She heard a whining, and Moxy pushed through her door, attracted by Ava's voice and the music. When she saw Ava dancing, she started to bark.

“Moxy, I am not some sheep you can order around!” Ava scolded. “Come on, I'm trying to dance!”

She walked back to the laptop and started the video again. Then she took a deep breath.

“Okay, start with a step to the right,” she muttered as she tried to follow along.

“Woof! Woof!
” Moxy barked.

Then Tommy stuck his head into the room. “Hey, Ave, Coach wants to know what you want to order—what are you doing? You look ridiculous.”

Ava paused the video. “I am trying not to make a fool of myself!” she cried, flopping down on the bed.

“Uh-oh. Sounds like a crisis,” Tommy said. “What's up?”

Ava launched into the story about how she had volunteered to take Kylie's place in the line dancing act.

“And I've realized I'm in way over my head. I can't do it!” she wailed.

“Come on, Ave, you know you can do anything you set your mind to,” Tommy said, sitting on the bed next to her.

“Usually I can. But not this,” Ava said. “It's like it's some weird Texas thing. I think you have to be Texan to do it.”

“But you
are
Texan,” Tommy said.

“Not really. We just moved here,” Ava argued.

“I don't mean that. I mean Dad. He was born in Texas. So that makes us, like, authentic half Texans,” Tommy pointed out. “In fact, you should probably ask Coach for help. He's a good dancer, and since he grew up here, I bet he knows how to line dance.”

“Maybe,” Ava said. She sat up and looked at the dancers paused on her computer screen.
“Right now, I don't think anybody could help turn me into a line dancer. Not even the Grand Wizard of Elvador.”

Tommy looked at her. “You sure you're feeling okay?”

Ava sighed. “I'm fine. Just spent two hours playing a board game with Kylie.”

Tommy stood up. “So, anyway, I'm supposed to ask you what you want from the Hungry Panda.”

“Beef lo mein, please!” Ava replied, and then she flopped back down on the bed as Tommy left.

Moxy nudged Ava's feet with her nose.

“Woof! Woof!”

“Forget it, Moxy,” Ava said. “I am done with dancing today!”

“Hey, Alex.”

Corey slid in front of Alex as she took books out of her locker Monday morning.

“Oh, hey,” Alex said, trying to sound casual and cool. Inside, she was doing a happy dance. She and Corey had only been bumping into each other since the Christmas party. She had been starting to wonder if he was avoiding her.

“So . . . ,” Corey began, looking at her briefly before moving his gaze to his shoes. “I was wondering, do you want to hang out today? After school? With me?”

Alex let the words sink in. She restrained
herself from jumping up and down and saying, “Yes! Yes!”

“Yeah, sure,” she replied. “Today works really well for me, actually, because I don't have a student council meeting and I don't have to do anything for the Variety Show and Ava doesn't have a basketball game,” she babbled on.

Corey nodded when she finally stopped talking. “Cool. Maybe we can go to the park or something.”

Alex smiled. “That would be nice!”

“Okay, so, um, I'll see you later,” Corey said, a little awkwardly, and then he walked away.

Alex practically floated to her first-period class. Her good mood lasted exactly until third period, when, before class started, Mrs. Bridges motioned for Alex to come to her desk.

“Alex, I need to see you and Max back here after school,” she said.

“But I—” Alex started to protest, but Mrs. Bridges held up her right hand.

“No excuses, please, Alex,” the teacher said. “This is serious.”

Alex sighed and nodded. “I'll be there.”

She walked to her desk, passing Max along the way. He avoided her gaze, and Alex suddenly felt angry with him again. Thanks to him, she'd
have to cancel hanging out with Corey. Why had she even bothered to help him in the first place?

When lunchtime came, Alex looked for Corey in the cafeteria. He and his friends were sitting at a different table from Alex's friends today, so she had to walk across the room to talk to him. He lit up with a smile when he saw her, which only made Alex feel more terrible about what she had to say.

“Corey, I'm sorry, but I actually can't hang out today,” she said, and his smile quickly faded. “I totally forgot. I have to work on my social studies project with Max.”

It was a lie, but just a little one. She didn't want to tell Corey about the cheating. That wouldn't be fair to Max, even though it was his fault they had to go talk to Mrs. Bridges after school.

“Oh,” Corey said. “So, maybe some other time?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Alex said.

As she walked over to her lunch table, she scolded herself.
I should have suggested another day!
she realized. Who knew when Corey would ask her again? Should she ask him?

“You look like a sad puppy,” Emily said when Alex sat down next to her.

Alex looked over at Lindsey. She was busy talking with Charlotte, so Alex lowered her voice.

“I'm just disappointed, because Corey asked me to hang out today after school, and first I said yes, but then I had to cancel because I found out I have to do something else,” she confided.

“Something better than hanging out with Corey?” Emily asked.

Alex sighed. “No. Definitely not better,” she replied, and she didn't say anything more. She hadn't told anybody about Max's cheating—not even Ava. How could she explain that she was covering for a cheater? A cheater who was causing problems for her with Lindsey and Corey? She wasn't even sure why she was doing it.

Alex couldn't wait until the day was over and she could get the meeting with Max and Mrs. Bridges over with. She'd walk away with a warning, finish up the project with Max, and then she'd be done.

Max was already sitting in front of Mrs. Bridges's desk when Alex entered the room.

“Close the door behind you, please, Alex,” the teacher instructed.

Alex obeyed and took a seat next to Max.

Mrs. Bridges took a deep breath. “So, I have
spoken with Principal Farmen, and she agrees with me that we need to have a meeting with your parents and consider putting you on academic probation if it happens again,” she announced, and Alex gasped. That sounded a lot more serious than a warning!

“Cheating is not tolerated in this school,” Mrs. Bridges said, looking at Max, and then she looked right at Alex. “Nor is helping someone else to cheat. Would you like to tell me what happened, Alex?”

Alex's mind was racing. There were more consequences to keeping quiet than she thought. If Alex told what she knew, Max could be in real trouble. If she didn't tell, then
she
could be in real trouble too. But she had a nagging feeling that whatever was happening with Max wasn't his fault. Even though he was totally messing things up for her, she didn't want to see him get in trouble.

“I don't know what happened,” Alex said. “I did my homework on Monday night, by myself. If Max had the same answers as I did, I don't know why.”

Which was all true, technically. She had a clue that Max had copied from her paper, but she hadn't actually witnessed it.

Mrs. Bridges kept her gaze locked on Alex. “So you have no idea how Max ended up with exactly the same answers as you.”

Alex shook her head. It was getting harder to avoid the teacher's direct line of questioning.

“I copied from Alex's paper!” Max suddenly blurted out. “She didn't have anything to do with it and didn't know about it, I swear. She left her social studies folder on a table in the library, and when she walked away, I copied the homework answers.”

Mrs. Bridges nodded as if that was what she'd been waiting to hear. “Thank you, Max. Alex, you may leave the room.”

Alex quickly got up and left. This time she didn't linger outside the door—she didn't want to embarrass Max more by eavesdropping on his punishment.

Poor Max!
she thought. But at least he had done the right thing and told the truth.

She walked down the hallway, wondering if Corey was at the park, and if it would be weird if she went to see if he was there. As she passed the auditorium, she heard country music playing. For a moment, she panicked. Was she supposed to meet Chloe and the others for a Variety Show
meeting? She quickly checked her phone and saw that the next meeting wasn't until Thursday. It must just be an act using the auditorium for practice.

Curious, she slipped inside—and saw Ava, with the rest of the Toe the Line dancers, practicing their routine.

For a weird second, she wasn't sure if it was actually Ava out there—or herself! Her twin was having a hard time keeping up with the other dancers, and twice she bumped into the tall boy standing on her left. Which was all very Alex, and not very Ava at all. Although to Ava's credit, she wasn't tripping over her feet, like Alex would have.

What is up with her?
Alex wondered, but the more she watched, the more she understood. It was a really complicated dance, more complicated than a cheerleading routine, even.

Then Alex remembered when Ava had talked to her about it, on the bus, and she had seemed a little unsure of herself—as though she were convincing herself to do it. If Alex hadn't been so wrapped up in all the Max and Lindsey drama, she might have given her sister some advice. Well, it was never too late. Alex waited until the practice was over.

“Good effort, Ava,” Carly said, and Alex saw her sister cringe. She knew—and she knew that Ava knew—that “good effort” really meant, “You stink, but at least you're trying.”

Alex waved Ava over when she climbed off the stage.

“Don't tell me you saw that,” Ava said.

“Most of it,” said Alex. “I can tell it's not easy.”

“That's an understatement,” Ava said with a sigh.

Then Alex had an idea. “Hey, you should ask Coach for help,” she said. “He's a good dancer, and he grew up in Texas, so he probably knows how to line dance.”

“That's what Tommy said,” Ava told her.

“If both of your siblings are giving you the same advice, you should probably take it,” Alex said.

Ava sighed. “Fine, I'll do it. I just wish I had never gotten into this in the first place!”

The next day at school Alex looked around anxiously for Max. She had no idea what had happened after he'd made his confession. Had he been suspended?

She finally saw him in the hallway on the way to social studies. His hair was a mess, there was a hole in the bottom of the T-shirt he was wearing, and his shoelaces were untied—so he looked pretty much the same as always. Alex couldn't tell if something bad had happened or not.

She wove through the crowd to talk to him, but Max saw her out of the corner of his eye and actually broke into a jog to avoid her. He obviously didn't want to speak to her. He quickly
darted into class. When Alex entered, she saw that he had his notebook open and was pretending to study something very intently.

Alex tried to approach him again at lunchtime, as he walked out of the lunch line. But he made a sharp turn in the opposite direction, and Alex didn't follow. He was clearly avoiding her, embarrassed by what had happened.

But Alex really wanted to thank him. Copying her homework—that had been wrong. But telling the truth to keep Alex out of trouble—that was really brave. She didn't want Max to walk around thinking she was angry with him.

This is exactly like my Lindsey problem,
Alex thought.
Max won't even talk to me!
Things were getting pretty frustrating.

Her twin noticed something was bothering Alex on the bus ride home.

“You've got that look on your face,” Ava said. “And you've only told me three things that happened to you today, when normally at this point you would be up to ten things.”

“Ha-ha,” Alex said drily.

“You look like you're trying to figure out a problem,” Ava said. “What's bugging you? The Lindsey thing?”

“Well, that, and then this thing happened with Max,” Alex said, and she told her sister the whole story.

“Wow, Al, and you're not mad at him?” Ava asked.

Alex shook her head. “No. It was brave of him to tell the truth, and anyway, I think there's a reason he's cheating and it's not because he's lazy. Tommy thought there was something up with him too, when we gave him a ride home last week, and he thought I could figure it out. But I haven't been able to.”

“Wait a minute. You know where he lives?” Ava asked.