Trading Faces (27 page)

MIDDLE SCHOOL, AFTER LAST PERIOD

Cell phone! Oh no, my cell phone was ringing!

I opened my tote bag and scrounged around in a panic. I felt my brush and mirror. My raspberry lip gloss. Ouch, sharp pencil.

And, phew, my cell phone. I changed the ringer to vibrate. And not a moment too soon because the principal was walking toward us . . . toward us . . . and whew. She walked right by us.

My phone went
Bzzzzt.

“Good job, Payton,” my twin sister, Emma, muttered from next to me. “Aren't we in enough trouble without you breaking the no-cell-phones-on-during-school rule too?”

Why yes. Yes, we were in enough trouble. Considering we were heading to our after-school
detention.

“Plus, didn't Mom and Dad take away our cell phones? Are you even supposed to have it?” Emma went on and on and on. . . .

I sighed as I walked down the hall. We passed a
WELCOME GECKOS
! poster that was peeling off the wall. Someone had drawn a mustache and earrings on the gecko, the school mascot.

Only a little more than a week ago I'd been so psyched to be at this new school. My own locker! New people! Cute guys! Different teachers! Switching classes! But then, we had switched more than classes. We had switched places. And the whole identical twins trading places thing? Hadn't worked out so well for us.

We passed two boys walking the other way. One turned around and laughed. “Hey, look!” he said. “It's those TV twins!”

They both laughed.

My face flamed red with embarrassment. The whole weekend I'd tried to prepare myself for comments, but it had been a seriously long day.

“I wonder if they know who is who today,” his friend called out, obviously so we could hear him.

“Who is
whom
,” Emma muttered as she walked next to me, lugging her ginormous backpack.

I rolled my eyes at her.

“What?” Emma said. “If they're going to be insulting, they could at least be grammatically correct.” And then she turned around to call to the guys. “It's ‘whom'! W-H-O-M!”

“Oh my gosh,” I said, grabbing her backpack handle and dragging her around the corner. “Shush!”

“But he was being inaccurate,” she protested. “And he was trying to make us look silly, but I showed him, didn't I? Ha! Did you see the look of embarrassment on his face after I pointed out his error?”

Augh! He wasn't embarrassed about his grammar, he was embarrassed for my sister. Emma was so entirely clueless sometimes.

“Just let it go,” I moaned. “Isn't it bad enough that we're known as identical twins who switched places, fooled everyone, and were busted and filmed making complete idiots of themselves in front of the entire school last week?”

“ ‘Who' is a subjective pronoun,” Emma muttered. “Duh.”

Sigh.

Even though last week was only our first week in our new school, we were already kind of famous. But not in a good way. Being called the TV twins sounded cool, until you knew the whole story. We hadn't been on real TV, just the school videocast shown live on a humongous screen at our first pep rally. When, unknown to us at the time, we were on camera arguing about Emma being a boring brainiac. And about me, well, not doing so great with the whole popular thing. And also arguing about how stupid the other one was.

“I wish we could start middle school over again,” I said. “We need a do-over.”

“Tell me about it,” Emma said. “I'm going to detention. Me! Emma “The Brain” Mills! I've only stayed after for mathletics, or the spelling bee, or to help the sixth-grade math teacher understand our honors homework. But detention?”

“It was
your
idea to switch places,” I reminded her again.

“Because you needed me to help save your reputation after you embarrassed yourself in front of your so-called friends,” Emma shot back. “And look where that got us. Right into the principal's office and detention
and
being grounded.”

Ugh. My sister was right. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, switching places. Emma and I looked so much alike we'd thought it would be a good break from our lives. Which weren't going so great.

“Detention! I think I'm going to hyperventilate. I'm going to pass out,” Emma was muttering. She unzipped her hoodie.

“Emma! Your sweatshirt!” I whispered, trying not to attract any more attention from people passing by.

“What? All this stress is making me hot. I'm not interested in perspiring,” Emma replied.

“Emma, look at what you're wearing,” I said, tilting my head toward her shirt so she'd get the picture. Under her sweatshirt Emma was wearing a T-shirt that said
BEE THE BEST SPELLER IN SIXTH GRADE
! It was bright yellow and had a hole in the side. She'd worn that thing all last year and it still made my eyes bleed.

With Emma's newfound sort-of sense of style, even
she
would be embarrassed by it.

I smiled at the thought of Emma having even a small sense of style. Up until last week Emma's idea of style was to throw on sweats, tie her hair up in a ponytail, and wear a T-shirt from one of her gajillion competitions, advertising her brilliance. Even for the first day of school!

But I'd wanted to start the school year looking trendy and cool. So I'd spent the past summer at camp doing chores for this girl, Ashlynn, who would “pay” me with designer clothes. I called them my “summer slave clothes.”

The designer clothes had impressed Sydney and given me temporary access to popularity. But very temporary, because then I'd totally embarrassed myself. Emma had stepped in to save me and we'd switched places. She helped me redeem myself with Sydney and her friends.

It worked for a couple days, and then? Twin Fail.

But one good thing? Emma had discovered that looking comfortable and cute wasn't such a bad thing. I waited as she opened her mouth to thank me for saving her from being seen in that T-shirt in public.

“Please tell me you're not concerned with what I'm wearing right now or how I look?” Emma hissed at me.

Well. Kind of. Her hair was really disastrous, since taking off the sweatshirt had caused a static attack. I reached into my tote bag and scrounged around. Mirror, lip gloss, ouch! Sharp pencil. Yeesh. And then there it was—my brush.

“That is the least of our problems right now,” Emma said. “I can't believe you are even thinking about my appearance!”

I quickly dropped the brush back into the tote bag.

“Besides, this is the perfect shirt to wear,” Emma muttered. “It will remind Mrs. Case that I am the spelling bee champion and not someone who gets in big trouble.”

Well, at least it would be harder to mix us up, with Emma's static-head and holey T-shirt. My hair was still looking good even after a bad day. My brownish blond shiny hair was my best feature. Emma also had brownish blond hair, but it was a teeny bit less shiny than mine.

And I was proud of my outfit. I'd spent a lot of time choosing my outfit today. Since it was our first day back after our horrible humiliation, I wanted to make sure that when people pointed and stared at me, at least I looked cute.

I was wearing:

A blue long-sleeve shirt

(summer slave clothes)

A lighter blue tank

(from when Emma had gone on a shopping spree for me)

Jeans

(summer slave, Tragically Couture label)

Sneakers

(mine. I was done wearing Ashlynn's too-big shoes with their too-high heels.)

Bracelet with the
P
on it

(mine)

I was so busy admiring my outfit that I didn't notice someone rounding the corner until she practically ran me down.

“Whoa!” I said. And looked into the face of Sydney.

“Oh, it's just the twins,” Sydney said dismissively.

Ugh. It's The Sydney. She was wearing a green-and-yellow Geckos cheerleading uniform and holding pom-poms that were bigger than her head.

“I can't believe you twins!” Following Sydney, as always, was her friend Cashmere. “You guys could have injured Sydney, and that would have been a disaster. Sydney is going to
cheerleading practice
.”

Sydney was cheerleading? Since when?

“Didn't you hear?” Cashmere said, seeing the look on my face. “Sydney's on cheer squad! Daphne Yee broke her ankle, and Serra Rocco moved to California. Sydney was the second alternate! Everyone knows she should have made it in the first place.”

“Oh, Cashmere,” Sydney giggled, and faked a modest smile. “Let's go. Can't be late for cheerleading practice!”

Sydney did a “Rah!” move with her arms. I could hear Cashmere's voice as they sauntered down the hall. “Did you see Twin #2's outfit? It was sooo cute. I so want those jeans.”

“Shut it, Cashmere,” Sydney growled, and they walked on down the hall.

“Ugh, I
don't
appreciate being called Twin #2. Cashmere and Sydney obviously know my name is Payton,” I grumbled. Sydney and Cashmere had ignored me completely all day. Well, except for giggling and whispering about me.