Take Two (11 page)

“We're on
page 24
,” Tess said to me, and smiled. “Payton, can you read The Tin Man's lines? Charlie isn't here to be The Tin Man.”

“I'm subbing for the Lion,” Sydney announced. “Since Glinda isn't in this scene. It would be cool if she were, though. I could come down all beautiful and sparkling and dance across the Yellow Brick Road. . . .”

As Sydney tried to insert herself into every scene in the play, I listened as everyone read their lines. And then I jumped in with mine. It was fun being part of the reading. I tried to do my best Tin Man imitation.

“Oh, wait,” Reilly said, slapping his head. “I lost my spot. Where was I?”

I repeated his last line, which I remembered because of the way he had said it—really cutely.
Ah.

“Dude, I wish I could remember lines like that,” Reilly said. “I'm going to be memorizing these lines for a year.”

He looked so frustrated.

“Read them over and over out loud,” I suggested. “Record yourself on your MP3 and listen to it over and over. Walk around and see if that helps you memorize.”

Everyone looked at me.

“Um,” I said, kind of embarrassed. “My sister, Emma,
taught me that so I'd stop bombing my history tests and stuff.”

“Emma is so smart,” Tess said.

“So, like before you were born, do you think she sucked up all the genes of genius, leaving you with none?” Sydney asked me.

Nick stuck up for me. “Payton's not dumb.”

“No offense, Payton. I didn't mean it like
that,
” Sydney said, innocently, even though she totally did. “Just that, you know, it's weird how twins are so alike but so different.”

“Yeah, that's true,” Tess agreed. “Especially identical twins. Do you like being a twin?”

I was used to this. Twins get the questions about being a twin all the time.

“Well.” I shrugged. “I don't know what it's like not to have a twin. But really, it's pretty cool. When Emma's not being annoying.”

“And when she's not dressing in things like that T-shirt she was wearing today,” Sydney said.

“Oh, our mathletes T-shirt?” Tess turned to Sydney. “I helped design that! Isn't it funny?”

Heh. Sydney was at a loss for words.

“Speaking of clothes, did your mom ever dress you guys alike?” Tess asked.

“When we were little,” I admitted.

I shuddered at the memory of some of our baby pictures. Now our parents are really into letting us have “our own
identities,” and since we're so different, it isn't a problem. But when we were little, my mom did go through the dress-alike phase.

The problem was when we were babies you couldn't tell us apart. Later, we would argue over who was who.

“I'm the one smiling adorably,” Emma would say. “You're the one eating her toenails.”

“No, that's you,” I would fight back. “And in the other picture where one of us is flashing her diaper? That's you, not me.”

But after the baby times, we pretty much always dressed differently. And obviously, you could totally tell our clothes apart now. That is, when we weren't switching in the JC.

“Payton, when you guys were little, did you have a secret language?” Reilly asked me. Reilly smiled at me and—
ahhhh!
—his blue eyes crinkled! His perfectly white teeth shone like a spotlight!

He looked at me like
we
were sharing a secret language. A secret language of romance!

“Hello? Earth to Payton?” Sydney's irritating voice snapped me back to reality.

“Oh.” I turned right. “Not really a secret language. Well, some words that we made up and didn't tell anyone about.”

“Me and my brother have a secret language, too!” someone said loudly. It was Jason, who had taken out his earphones and was leaning forward.

“What does it sound like?” Nick asked him.

“‘Blurp!' means ‘Watch out, our mom is coming,'” Jason said. “‘Floop! Floop!' means ‘Dad's coming.'”

Everyone cracked up.

“And we have nicknames for each other,” he said. “I'm Booger and he's Butthead.”

“Nice.” Reilly laughed. “Hey, Payton, do you guys have twin nicknames?”

“Yeah,” I said, without thinking. “I used to call Emma MeeMa.”

Everyone cracked up. It had been pretty funny. I'd called Emma that until kindergarten when, well, people made fun of us for it.

“What did Emma call you?” Nick asked.

“Wait, wait, let me guess,” Sydney said. “If Emma is MeeMa, you must have been . . . PeePa!”

“No, wait.” Nick laughed. “I bet it was PeePee!”

Traitor.

“PeePee!” Jason laughed.

“It's
not
PeePee,” I said loudly over everyone's laughter. “Or PeePa. Yeesh, it was PooPa!”

As soon as I said it, I realized that was a mistake. PooPa wasn't exactly a whole lot better.

“PooPa?” Sydney said. “That's perfect! We can nickname you Poopy from now on!”

Sydney gave her giggle, which was her way of saying to the boys that she was just kidding, even though I totally knew she was trying to get me. She was very good at playing innocent, while still crushing me like a little bug.

“Poopy!” Jason cackled. “Pooooooopy!”

“Jason, remember we're in the library. So shhh,” Tess said gently, saving me. Whew. Let's move on.

“I shoulda been twins,” Reilly said. “No, I shoulda been quintuplets. Five Reillys would be awesome.”

Ah. The girls all sighed happily, thinking of more Reillys.

“It must be freaky being a twin,” Sydney said. “I'm glad there's only one me.”

“So am I,” I blurted out. Um, oops. “I mean, you're one of a kind!”

Everyone laughed. Sydney awkwardly laughed, too, but gave me the squinty evil eye. Uh-oh. She was going to crush me.

“Maybe we should go back to rehearsing,” I stammered nervously. “I mean, you guys should practice. Um, not that you need a lot of practice. You're all good actors.”

“You're good at acting, Payton,” Sydney said. “Like you totally had everyone believing you were Emma when you guys traded places.”

“I missed all that,” Reilly said. “You acted like your sister?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sydney said. “They switched places. Everyone totally thought they were each other.”

“It was an emergency thing,” I said. “We're not going to do it again. It was kind of a disaster.”

“They got in so much trouble,” Jason sang out. “Emma's punishment is she has to tutor my brother. And Payton's going to take me backstage today to show me the sound effects and stuff. Right, Payton?”

“Well, we're not really doing the backstage thing today,” I said to him. “The janitor is fumigating.”

“What?” he said, and his voice got louder. “But my mom
said
. She
said!
”

Yeesh! And he was the “smart, well-behaved” twin? This was not going to turn into a major tantrum, was it? No wonder Emma couldn't deal with both of them.

“Looks like Payton is going to get a Fail from Counselor Case.” Sydney giggled to Reilly.

“Hey, Jason,” Nick said. “I make some of the sound effects in the computer lab. Want to do that with me?”

“Yeah!” Jason jumped up.

“Well, you guys have a good reading,” Nick said. “Jason, Payton, and I are taking off.”

“Do you need me?” Tess asked.

“No, you need to rehearse,” I said. “But thanks.”

“Bye, Poopy!” Sydney waved as she moved her chair closer to Reilly.

Grrrr.

I picked up Jason's Gameguy and followed Nick and Jason out the library door.

“What sound effects do you make?” Jason asked him.

“Storm and wind sounds when Dorothy gets stuck in the tornado. That one's pretty intense,” Nick said. “I'm working on a lion roar for The Cowardly Lion at the end. It's going to be so loud it echoes.”

“Sweet!” Jason said.

They talked nonstop as they walked down the halls and into the computer lab. Nick turned on a computer and we all pulled up chairs. I watched as Nick showed Jason how to find sounds and morph them in different ways. Jason was totally into it.

“Here, you make your own sound,” Nick said to him.

“Thanks,” I whispered to Nick as we watched Jason pressing buttons. “You saved the day.”

“No problem,” Nick whispered back. “Hey, I'm just glad someone appreciates the tech stuff. Most people just want to be on the stage.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I never really thought about the backstage stuff. Or the underneath-the-stage stuff. I'm an expert on that part, now.”

“Maybe you'll get off early for good behavior,” Nick said.

“I hope.” I sighed.

“Until then, behind-the-scenes people rock,” Nick said, and held up his hand. We high-fived.

“Attention! Attention!” Jason announced. “Presenting . . . my sound effect.”

He raised the volume and hit a key.

Ppppffffffft.

The computer made a loud and disgusting fart sound.

“You made a fart?” I asked him.

“Yeah, isn't it awesome?” Jason asked. He hit the button again.
Pfffffft.

Nick and I looked at each other and started laughing.

“I'll save that one,” Nick said. “Maybe we can use that someday.”

“No way!” Jason said gleefully. He looked at me. “I know you're all grossed out at what I made.”

“Actually, I see the possibilities,” I said thoughtfully. “Like if someone acted like a diva onstage, then you could set off your sound effect . . .”

I leaned over and clicked the key a couple times.

Pfffffft. Pfffffft.

I pictured Sydney prancing onstage dressed as Glinda and then a fart noise going off. Heh.

I snorted.

“You're pretty cool!” Jason looked at me admiringly. “Your sister would have been mad at me, I bet. She'd be all,
that's gross and inappropriate
.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “She would. And she'd be right. But it's still kind of funny. What if you did a fart remix?”

Nick leaned over and taught us how to make a fart remix. We were laughing hysterically when—
Wham!
—all of a sudden the computer lab door slammed open. I spun around in my seat.

Emma was standing there, holding Mason by the arm.

“Confess!” she commanded.

“Um,” I said. “It was just a fart noise. We were having a little fun!”

“NOT the fart noise,” she said, and marched over with Mason in tow. She leaned down to look at Jason. “Confess!”

“Uh-oh,” Jason said.

“We're busted,” Mason said, and nodded.

Busted? Nick and I looked at each other.

“THAT”—Emma pointed at Jason, sitting in Nick's computer chair—“is not Jason. That is Mason. Isn't it? Confess! You traded places! I realized it when JASON was having an intelligent conversation with Ox!”

“Ooh!” I squealed. “You talked to Ox?”

Emma shot me a look. Oh, yeah, she should tell me about that later.

“Okay, okay,” Mason—formerly-known-to-me-as-Jason—said, slumping in his computer chair next to me. “We confess. We switched.”

“Why'd you guys switch?” Nick asked.

“I hate math,” Mason said. “And I wanted to do the Drama Club stuff.”

“And I love math,” Jason said. “Although we had to do fractions today. Yeesh, I learned fractions when I was four. Baby stuff.”

“Are you saying I'm dumb?” Mason leaned forward from his computer chair.

“Maybe,” Jason said.

“Yeah, well this is way cooler than your stupid math!” Mason turned to the computer keyboard.

Pffffft. Pffffft
.

“What was that?” Emma looked repulsed.

“My fart sound effect,” Mason said proudly.

“That IS cool,” Jason said admiringly.

“You spent the tutoring session teaching him to make fart noises?” Emma turned to me and glared.

“Hey!” I said. “I'm watching him to
help
you! YOU'RE supposed to be the tutor, not me.”

“Heh, Emma, I made this sound effect just for you.” Mason laughed. “You're our tutor. Get it? TOOTer. A fart? A TOOT!”

Pffffft.

“Did you know,” said Jason, “that the speed of the gasses in a fart can reach twenty miles per hour?”

He and Mason cracked up. I bit my lip and looked over at Nick, who also was trying not to laugh.

“I've lost control.” Emma put her face in her hands.

Pffffft. Pffffft. Pffffft.

I snorted. But that's when I saw it. The gecko was crawling out of Jason's—no, wait—
Mason's
sleeve.

“Oh, look,” I said, pointing to the clock. “It's time to return the boys to Counselor Case. I'll walk you down, Emma.”

That way I could distract her from remembering the gecko.

“Okay,” Emma said weakly.

“Thanks for your help, Nick,” I said to him. “That was, strangely, fun.”

“No prob.” He waved. “See ya, Jason and Mason. Whichever you are.”

The four of us walked out of the computer lab.

“Don't explode,” I whispered to Emma. “Let's just return them to their mother and not say anything about switching.”

“We can't do that,” she whispered back. “You have to tell your mother about the switch, boys,” Emma said. “It's important to be honest.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “I can't wait to tell her about the fart noise Payton taught me.”

“You can't,” Jason said. “We'll get in trouble. I'll have to pretend I made the fart noise. You'll have to pretend you learned fractions. She'll probably quiz you on them, though. And you won't know anything. Mom will be pretty mad.”