Twin Dangers (2 page)

Chapter 3

The next morning, Sophie did not go to ballet class. The thought of facing her sister, facing Trey, facing anyone who saw her go ballistic yesterday was just too much to bear. Instead, she lay in bed in her frolicking-kitten pajamas and stared out her window.

The day was gray and cloudy, just like Sophie's mood. The snow outside made everything look blank and lonely.

Just like Sophie.

She already missed her sister. Ordinarily, who would be the first person to console Sophie after something like this? Emma. Emma might not have been very brave or very confrontational, but Emma made things all right. She just always made you feel better. A tear slipped down Sophie's cheek. She was sad about Trey but much, much sadder about losing her twin. She felt like a part of her soul had been torn away.

She heard a knock at the door and jumped. It was already eight thirty—she'd been rolling around in bed for two hours, all through ballet class. She considered ignoring the knock but thought for a second that it might be Madame Puant, and Sophie didn't want to deal with Madame's wrath. She stood up and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her dark hair was disheveled and sticking up everywhere, her brown eyes swollen. She wouldn't be winning any beauty contests today. But she couldn't have cared any less.

Sophie opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief, although she felt disappointed at the same time. It wasn't Madame Puant, thank goodness. But it also wasn't Emma. Sure, Sophie didn't want to talk to her sister, but she still wanted her to beg for forgiveness. Instead, Madeleine, Ophelia, and Kayley stood in the doorway.

Madeleine held out a wrapped croissant and a yogurt. “Since you missed breakfast, we thought we'd bring it to you.”

Sophie almost cried. Madeleine reminded her most of Emma—they were both unfailingly kind.

Ophelia pushed past her, and Kayley sauntered in too, loudly chewing gum. Sophie took the croissant and yogurt from Madeleine and smiled at her. Madeleine's smile back was warm and full of empathy. Sophie closed her door.

Kayley had plopped herself on the dressing table chair and sat playing with Sophie's hairbrushes and various containers of hair goop. Sophie swooped past her and smacked her hand. Kayley grinned, putting her hands up in an “I surrender” pose. Ophelia sat on the edge of the bed, legs crossed.

“So, freak out much?” Ophelia said, examining a fingernail.

Sophie knew that this was Ophelia's way of asking if she was OK. Ophelia wasn't good with emotions. Neither was Kayley, but that was mostly because she was lazy, not because they made her uncomfortable.

Madeleine jumped in. “Class wasn't the same without you.”

Without warning, tears began leaking from Sophie's eyes. She wiped them away and grabbed a Kleenex sitting on the dressing table. She blew her nose as Kayley awkwardly patted her thigh. Madeleine came over and wrapped her in a hug. Sophie cried for another good five minutes.

Once Sophie was cried out, Ophelia said, “Class is in twenty minutes. Do you want to tell us what's going on? Emma was in ballet practice, but she was even less talkative than normal, if that's possible. She just stayed by herself in the corner. She probably only came to see if you were there. And she danced like crap.”

Kayley threw a comb at Ophelia. “Well, she did!” Ophelia said.

Sophie sniffled. “It's nothing,” she said, her voice congested-sounding and hoarse. “Just complete and utter twin betrayal, that's all.”

She sat on the bed next to Ophelia. “Emma and Trey are going out,” she said miserably.

When Sophie looked up, everyone was looking at her with confused expressions. She realized she had only told Emma about her crush. Because she had trusted Emma the most.

“Yeah, and?” Ophelia said. “So what?”

Kayley said, “Are you afraid the other half of your brain won't give you as much time now, Sophie?”

Madeleine threw Kayley a dirty look. Kayley chewed her gum and looked down at the floor.

“Well, yeah, that's part of it,” Sophie said. “But it's way worse than that. I liked Trey, and Emma knew it. And she swooped in and took him!”

Kayley let out a low, long whistle. “Yeah, that's low.”

Madeleine knelt down and grabbed Sophie's hand. “That undoubtedly sucks, Sophie. And she shouldn't have done that.”

Sophie felt wary—Madeleine's tone of voice said she'd be adding something that Sophie probably wouldn't like.

Madeleine's brown-yellow eyes got big. “But, Sophie, isn't part of you a little happy for her? If your twin and best friend is happy? I know she's miserable without you.”

Sophie flung her hand away from Madeleine. “Good!” she said and stood up. She was energized by the anger, and it felt good. Madeleine stood up too, to avoid being run over. She backed up against the wall, looking slightly alarmed at Sophie.

Sophie marched to the closet and grabbed some clothes for school. “She should feel miserable. She's been awful! I would never do something like this to her.”

She started putting pants on, hastily, not caring what they looked like, as long as they weren't pajama bottoms. She stomped over to her dressing table and grabbed a ponytail holder, reaching around Kayley, who leaned back out of the way.

Wrapping her hair in a messy bun, Sophie turned to face all of her friends. “I'll just say it. She is going to be sorry for this. I will never forgive her. She's dead to me.”

Chapter 4

Sophie grabbed her books and marched out of the room into the always-dark hallway. Her anger started to sputter out. For the billionth time in two days, she felt tears in her eyes.

No way could she make it through an entire day of academic classes.

The academy was so small that everyone was with everyone else all day. She couldn't avoid Emma and Trey completely, but she could make a darn good effort.

She would have to go to afternoon ballet practice—Madame didn't look fondly on students who missed those classes unless they were deathly ill. Sophie was sure she was already in trouble for missing the morning practice.

She trudged to the nurse's station and walked in. Nurse John was there, tending to another student. She did a double take—it was the same girl that she had run into. Chloe something or other. Sophie hoped the girl wasn't seeing Nurse John because of their encounter earlier.

Sophie tried to catch Chloe-or-whatever's eye to mouth “sorry” again, but Nurse John blocked her view. Soon he'd be coming over to her. She'd have to rearrange her face to look sick. She looked down at the floor and held her stomach.

Before greeting Sophie, Nurse John asked, “Did you have breakfast?”

He was convinced all ballet dancers didn't eat enough. There were some, Sophie knew, that didn't. And Ophelia had almost killed herself through just that sort of habit. But most dancers Sophie knew ate like horses. They just had too much physical activity to do and couldn't survive without eating.

Sophie's stomach growled. She realized she hadn't touched the croissant or yogurt her friends had brought her. Nurse John heard the growl and pressed his mouth in a thin line. Sophie knew the speech was coming—his standard “ballet dancers have to eat” speech—but she was too excited about the upcoming breakfast to groan. Even though she was depressed about Emma and Trey, a plateful of eggs and hash browns and toast sounded just about right. Nurse John was all about the protein/starch/carb combo. He turned his back, and Sophie sat down on one of the beds, feeling a little bit better emotionally and a lot hungrier too.

She glanced across the room and noticed the red-haired girl was gone. She shrugged to herself. She'd just have to tell the redhead that she was sorry the next time they had class.

While she waited for breakfast, Sophie started to feel bad about how angry she'd been with Emma. And about her morning outburst.

Madeleine had been right. There was one tiny section of Sophie's heart that was happy for Emma. Because she knew, deep down, that Emma wouldn't have dated Trey unless there was some real feeling there. And that the whole thing was probably eating Emma up inside.

Which meant that Emma was torturing herself with horrible guilt when she should have been enjoying her first boyfriend.

Sophie sighed. Of course she would forgive Emma. She was her sister.

The smell of fantastic food wafted over to Sophie. Her stomach growled in response. Nurse John set down the food, and Sophie dug in, half enjoying every bite and half lost in thought.

She needed to do something special for Emma, something that said Sophie forgave her. Because she really did want Emma to enjoy having a boyfriend for the first time. And Trey had never once acted like he liked Sophie back—she had no hold on him.

Sophie decided that she would take the rest of the day before ballet class to let go of the idea of her dating Trey and to let her love for her sister take over. Her excitement for Emma's happiness could overpower the jealousy. Then, in ballet class, she'd go give Emma a gigantic hug. Everyone would see then that Sophie cared more about her sister than someone else. And maybe that would make Emma feel better.

A gigantic weight seemed to fall off Sophie's shoulders. It was a good plan. And without all that anger, Sophie felt light as a feather. She finished her breakfast happily and then waited out the rest of the day for ballet class.

Sophie had fallen asleep. And that was not a good thing.

She glanced at her clock: 3:27. Ballet class was in three minutes.

Bolting out of bed, Sophie threw on the first pair of pink tights she could find and found a stained leotard to put on. She wrinkled her nose. Well, she wouldn't be the best-smelling person there, but she could bet she wouldn't be the worst, either.

She hurriedly fixed her hair into a tighter bun and then grabbed the bag with her ballet shoes and warm-up clothes.

The bad news was, she would be late to class. Madame considered anyone late who wasn't five minutes early.

The good news was, she would get a warm-up by sprinting up the stairs.

When Sophie arrived, all the students were already at barre doing warm-ups. She threw her bag in the corner and grabbed an open barre space. It wasn't one she normally used, but her place was taken. Sophie tried to look over the sea of ballet dancers to find Emma and Trey or even Madeleine, Ophelia, and Kayley, but she could only see the backs of their heads. She caught Madame giving her a dirty look, so she concentrated on warming up her muscles.

Plié, grand plié, relevé in first, relevé in second … The familiar exercises felt good. Sophie let her muscles relax into them. She forgot about Emma and Trey and her friends and just worked on perfecting her technique. After about twenty minutes, Madame had the students move the barres out of the room and gather for center work, then pas de deux practice.

As she came back in the room after putting a barre away, she ran into Emma. Sophie gave her a big smile, but Emma looked down at her sister's shoes.

“Emma—,” she started.

“I don't want to talk to you!” Emma said, a tear spilling over her cheek.

“Emma, what's wrong?”

Emma swiped her cheek and shook her head.

“You know what's wrong!” she whispered urgently. Sophie watched as Emma's sadness turned to anger. “How could you?”

Sophie was completely taken aback. She knew she'd overreacted about Trey, but when all was said and done, she was still the injured party. Anger flared in Sophie, but she tamped it down and remembered that what she wanted most was for Emma to be happy.

She softened her eyes and put her hand on Emma's arm. “I'm sorry I yelled at you in front of everyone. I forgive you. I do.”

She smiled at Emma and leaned in for a hug.

But Emma stepped back like Sophie's hand was a hot iron. “Well, I don't forgive you!” she hissed, a fire in her eyes that Sophie had never seen before.

“Excuse me?” Sophie said. It was one thing for Emma to be happy. It was another for Emma to not even feel bad about betraying her.

Emma slitted her eyes and walked away. Sophie stood there, baffled, until Emma stomped back toward her. Madeleine, Kayley, and Ophelia stepped behind Emma. Sophie could see that both Ophelia and Kayley had looks of disgust on their faces. Madeleine looked confused and a little sad.

Emma pointed her finger at Sophie. “I know what I did was wrong. But what you did was way worse!”

Meanwhile, Madame slammed her cane to the ground and said, “Divide in two groups, dancers.”

Sophie shook her head. “What are you talking about? I said I was sorry for yelling at you!”

“Don't play dumb,” Emma said. “You know what you did. And all because a boy liked me and not you!”

Sophie's head snapped back like she had been slapped. Bewildered and hurting, she looked at the other girls. Kayley and Ophelia gave her dirty looks and turned their backs.

Madame Puant said, “OK, group one …” and listed off a sequence of dance moves Sophie scarcely heard.

Madeleine leaned in close to Sophie. “I am having a hard time believing what you did too. That doesn't seem like you. But you were so mad this morning … I just hope you can find it in your heart to come clean and make things right.”

“Madeleine, for the sake of being thorough, what is it I did?”

Madame shouted, “Girls!” and she continued with her counting.

“It's one thing to say that someone's dead to you, Sophie,” Madeline whispered. “But it's another thing to tell them you're going to kill them. And your own sister!”

She turned on a heel and walked away.

Sophie stood there, feeling like she was in the Twilight Zone. And wondering what in the hell everyone was talking about.