Sweet-and-Sour Summer Page 2

  chapter 2

  Ding-dong!

  “Manda! Hurry up!” Molly urged her sister on Saturday morning. “Peichi and Natasha are already here and we’re gonna be late if we don’t leave, like, now!”

  “Five minutes—just give me five minutes,” replied Amanda’s muffled voice from deep inside the large, messy closet she shared with Molly. “I can’t find my other sandal. And I still have to curl my hair.”

  Ding-dong!

  “Coming!” yelled Molly, rolling her eyes at Amanda. “Your hair is fine. Come on!” Molly raced downstairs to answer the door.

  “Sorry, guys,” Molly apologized as she swung open the front door. “Amanda’s still not ready,” she explained. “Big surprise.” Peichi and Natasha giggled. Amanda had been late before because of her fashion obsession!

  Just then, Amanda appeared at the top of the stairs, hopping as she pulled on her other sandal. “Found it!” she announced proudly. “Let’s go!”

  Peichi and Natasha smiled at each other as the four girls walked out the front door. While Molly and Amanda were identical twins, it was easy to tell them apart. They both had bright green eyes, freckled faces, and long brown hair, but that was where the similarities ended.

  Molly usually wore her hair in a simple high ponytail, while Amanda loved experimenting with different hair-styles. The twins also had different tastes in clothing. Molly preferred to wear anything casual and comfortable, while Amanda kept up with the latest fashions. Today Molly was wearing her favorite jeans, orange canvas boys’ lowtop sneakers, and a Windsor Warriors softball T-shirt. Amanda was wearing green-and-white capri pants with a white peasant top and strappy sandals.

  “We called Shawn this morning to wish her luck,” Amanda told Natasha and Peichi as the girls walked toward Windsor Middle School. “She sounded really excited—and a little nervous!”

  “You should have seen Elizabeth last night,” replied Natasha. “She was so hyper! She bought new shoes yesterday afternoon and came downstairs to show me. I’ve never seen her so excited.”

  “I was pretty hyper, too,” Amanda giggled. “I still can’t believe I’m going to Spotlight!”

  Spotlightagain, Molly thought. Is that all she’s gonna talk about until she leaves?

  Fortunately for Molly, Amanda was soon distracted by the excitement of the big meet. The bleachers in the gym were quickly filling up with excited people from different schools who were showing support for their teams. Molly, Amanda, Natasha, and Peichi carefully climbed the bleachers to stake out a good spot.

  “Why are the bleachers so hard?” Peichi complained as the girls sat down. “They always make my bottom fall asleep!”

  Amanda glanced down at the dozens of cheerleaders warming up on the gym floor and smiled to herself. Ican’t believe I fried out for cheerleading last fall, Amanda thought. It seems like such a long lime ago!

  Though she’d felt disappointed when she hadn’t made the cheerleading team, now Amanda was glad. Angie Martinez was a cheerleader, and she’d been really nasty to Amanda ever since they’d met at the beginning of sixth grade. But Shawn and Angie had become close friends, and it had been painful for Molly and Amanda to watch Shawn, their oldest and best friend, drifting away. No matter what they did, they were unable to stop it. And they couldn’t figure out why Shawn was friends with Angie. But there was one thing the twins didn’t know: Shawn had started wondering the same thing—though she hadn’t said anything to anyone else. She and Angie had had a big fight recently, and even though they had made up, things were still a bit awkward—not the same as before.

  Shawn looks awesome as always, Amanda thought as she watched Shawn warm up. Shawn’s red uniform with white trim set off her cocoa-colored skin perfectly.

  Just then, Shawn spotted the Chef Girls in the bleachers and waved. Then she grabbed her right foot and pulled it behind her, stretching out the muscles in her thigh before the start of the competition. This is it! she thought excitedly. All thosepractices and drills—finally it’s showtime!

  “Girlfriend! What’s up?” shouted a loud voice that rang out over all the commotion in the gym. Suddenly, Shawn felt a pair of hands clamp across her eyes from behind. She immediately knew who it was—Angie.

  “Guess who?” cried Angie with a shrill laugh.

  “I don’t need to guess.” Shawn said as she ducked out of Angie’s grasp. “Hey! How are you? Are you psyched?”

  “Oh, yeah. Windsor is going to rock this meet,” Angie bragged confidently, as she shot a dirty look at a passing cheerleader from another school. “No doubt.” Angie hopped up and down in place, her long, blond ponytail bouncing behind her.

  “All right, ladies, let’s get together,” Coach Carson called out. She scanned the Windsor cheerleaders, making sure everyone was warming up. “Where’s Elizabeth?”

  Shawn glanced around. She’d seen Elizabeth in the locker room when they were changing, but that was at least fifteen minutes ago. What could be taking Elizabeth so long? Shawn wondered. She knows what a huge deal this meet is.

  Suddenly, the locker room doors that led into the gym burst open, and Elizabeth sprinted over to the Windsor cheerleaders. Her face was red and she looked extremely nervous, but something else stood out even more.

  She wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  “Coach,” Elizabeth said breathlessly. “Coach, I can’t—I can’t find my shoes.”

  “What?” exclaimed Coach Carson, shocked. “What do you mean? Did you leave them at home?”

  “No!” Elizabeth said quickly. “I know I brought them. They’re brand-new—I just got them for camp. I carried them here in the box!”

  This is serious, Shawn thought. Elizabeth can’t cheer without her shoes!

  “Okay, then,” Coach Carson barked. “They’ve got to be in the locker room. Everyone, get back in there and help find those shoes.” With a determined look on her face, Coach Carson led the squad back into the locker room. But after searching for several minutes, it was obvious that Elizabeths shoes were not there.

  “Elizabeth, you must have left them at home. They’re certainly not here,” Coach Carson said with an exasperated sigh as she pushed her short blond hair off her face.

  “Yeah, maybe you forgot them! Like that time when you forgot to wear your uniform to school before that basketball game,” Angie sang out.

  “I did not forget!” Elizabeth retorted, on the brink of tears. “No one even told me we wear our uniforms to school on game day. And I didn’t forget my shoes today! I left them right here on this bench while I went to the bathroom. And when I came back, they were gone!”

  “Well, they’re not here, and they’re not in the gym,” said Coach Carson, throwing up her hands. “And we have to get back out there! The competition starts in five minutes, and the host school always goes first. Look, Elizabeth, I’m afraid you’ll have to sit out. There’s nothing else we can do. Everybody else, fill Elizabeth’s hole out there. We’ll have to cut the Windsor Winners routine since we won’t have Elizabeth’s tumbles. We’ll substitute Ready for the Warriors? instead.”

  The team groaned. Windsor Winners was their best routine, and it depended on Elizabeth’s unbelievable gymnastics skills—at the end of the routine, she did seven back handsprings across the gym floor.

  Together, the team left the locker room and filed out onto the gym floor. Elizabeth quickly broke away from the group and ran over to the bleachers. She sat down and put her head in her hands.

  “Hey, what’s going on with Elizabeth? asked Molly, nudging Amanda in the side. The girls looked down at Elizabeth sitting on the bench while the rest of the team finished warming up.

  Natasha frowned. “I’ll go see what’s up.”

  Molly, Amanda, and Peichi watched as Natasha hopped down the bleachers, carefully dodging the other fans, and sat down next to Elizabeth. When Natasha put her arm around Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s shoulders started to shake.

  “Ohmigosh, ” Amanda said softly. “Is Elizabeth crying?”

  Molly nodded. “I think so,” she replied.

  “I wonder what happened,” said Peichi, looking concerned.

  Just then, fast-paced rock music started blasting out of a boom box. The Windsor cheerleaders took the floor as the crowd started screaming. Even Amanda found herself swept up in the excitement of the big competition and forgot Elizabeth for the moment.

  “Go, Shawn!” Molly and Amanda yelled at the same time. They turned to each other, giggling. “The twin thing!” Molly said, nudging her sister again. That’s what the twins called it whenever they said or thought the same thing at the same time.

  The whole gym was ready for a great show, and the Windsor cheerleaders promised to provide it.

  But something was...off. There was an open space in the formation, right in front, where Elizabeth should have been. Some of the girls looked distracted—even Shawn kept glancing at where Elizabeth sat, crying—and their timing was slow. Sloppy, even. The last routine was the worst. The assistant working the boom box accidentally played the Windsor Winners music, and Coach Carson had to run across the floor to play the correct CD. The routine looked terrible.

  But one cheerleader held everything together—Angie. She had a bright, beaming smile on her face, and her flawless moves were full of energy. Amanda hated to admit it, but Angie looked great out there.

  As the Windsor cheerleaders finished their last routine, the crowd broke into polite applause. Amanda and Molly didn’t want to say anything about the routines looking bad, but Peichi always spoke her mind.

  “What happened out there?” Peichi asked the twins in a low voice. “The cheerleaders are usually way better than that!” Molly and Amanda just nodded in agreement as the next squad ran onto the floor.

  A few hours la
ter, it was clear that the judges agreed with Peichi. Windsor placed dead last—fifth out of the five squads. Natasha, who’d been sitting with Elizabeth for the whole competition, came back up to the twins and Peichi.

  “Hey,” she said in a low voice, glancing around to see if anyone nearby was listening in. “You’ll never believe this. Elizabeths shoes disappeared right before the match. That’s why she couldn’t cheer. No one knows what happened to them, but Elizabeth thinks someone stole them.”

  Peichi’s mouth dropped open, and Molly and Amanda shook their heads in shock.

  “I asked if she wanted to hang out with me, but she’s totally bummed. She just wants to go home with her aunt,” Natasha continued. “But the rest of the cheerleaders are going to Pizza Roma, and Shawn says we should come, too.”

  “What do you think?” Amanda asked Molly.

  “We should go,” Molly responded as Peichi nodded. “If Shawn wants us to. She probably feels terrible about how things turned out, too.” The girls gathered their stuff as Molly called out, “Shawn! Meet you there!” Shawn looked up from the gym floor and nodded. She didn’t look very happy.

  After the gym had emptied, Coach Carson called the Windsor cheerleaders together for a pep talk. “We’re all disappointed about today,” she began. “And probably the most frustrating part is that I know—and you know, too—that this squad should have placed first or second, not fifth. When you’re all on the floor, doing our best routines, you ladies are amazing. It’s natural to be thrown off by everything that happened this morning, but a big part of being a truly great cheerleader is to let every distraction go and do your best on the floor. And the only one who did that today was Angie.”

  Hearing this, Angie grinned smugly.

  “So listen up, ladies. Don’t get too down. Go home, relax, and learn from this experience. In two weeks you’ll all be at camp, learning so much, and I know we’ll rock this meet next year. Right?”

  “Right!” chorused the girls.

  When Coach Carson finished, Elizabeth was the first one to leave, and she didn’t even change out of her cheerleading uniform before bolting out of the gym.

  A few minutes later, Shawn and Angie were leaving the gym with Jenn, Ashley, and Jessica, when Angie stopped suddenly.

  “I forgot to ask Coach something,” Angie said. “I’m gonna see if she’s still in her office. I’ll meet you guys at Pizza Roma.” She hurried back to the locker room.

  Jenn shrugged. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “I guess I’ll wait for Angie,” Shawn said, as she walked with the other girls toward the sidewalk. “We’ll be there in a little bit.”

  “Okay. See you in a bit,” Ashley said, waving at Shawn.

  The June day had turned cloudy and gray and suddenly it didn’t feel like summer anymore. Shawn was tired from the disappointing match. She thought about Molly, Amanda, Natasha, and Peichi at Pizza Roma and wished she were already there, laughing with them, eating a slice, and putting the meet out of her mind.

  That was when Shawn noticed Coach Carson crossing the street. Good, thought Shawn. Angie should be out any minutenow. Shawn waited for five more minutes, but Angie never showed. That’s weird,Shawn thought She decided to go back into the locker room to find her.

  By now the gym was completely deserted. Shawn was always surprised by how vast the gym seemed after everyone had gone home from a big meet or game. She quietly walked into the locker room, which also seemed empty. She was about to call Angie’s name when she saw something that shocked her.

  Angie was sitting on a bench with a pair of brand-new, white gym shoes and a black permanent marker. The shoes were a mess—the tongues were ripped out and the soles were cut. Angie was scribbling all over them.

  Holding her breath, Shawn quickly ducked behind a row of lockers so Angie wouldn’t see her.

  Angie must have stolen Elizabeth’s shoes to keep her out of the meet!Shawn realized. I’ve gottagetoutof here before she sees me!

  Silently, Shawn crept out of the locker room. Once she had reached the gym, she took off running for the front of the school, where she stood on the sidewalk, stunned by what she had seen.

  This is so bad, Shawn thought. Poor Elizabeth. I can’t believe Angie would do something so wicked—she musthave really wanted to be the star and ruin Elizabeth’s chance to shine at the meet.

  Suddenly, Angie bounded up to Shawn, startling her.

  “Hey, girlfriend!” Angie cried. “Thanks for waiting. I’m starving! Let’s go get some pizza!”

  “Sounds good,” Shawn said automatically, trying to act natural as she and Angie started walking down the street.

  Angie doesn’t know that I know, she thought. This is so bad. What am I gonna do?

  chapter 3

  Monday after school. Natasha and Elizabeth walked home together. Elizabeth was still so upset that she couldn’t stop talking about the cheerleading competition.

  “It had to be Angie,” Elizabeth said angrily. “She’s the only person on the squad who, like, hates me. What is her problem,anyway? I never did anything to her!” She paused to take a deep breath.

  “Angie’s just a jerk,” Natasha replied simply. “Who knows why? She’s been awful to Amanda ever since they met. And Amanda and Shawn have been friends forever.”

  “I don’t see how Shawn could be friends with someone like Angie,” Elizabeth said.

  Natasha sighed. “That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out all year.” She quickly changed the subject. “Do you want to hang out? We could make some popcorn.”

  Elizabeth smiled at Natasha. “Thanks, but I have a fon of studying to do.

  “Me, too, Natasha groaned. ”Talk to you later.”

  When Natasha went inside, she found her mother sitting in the living room, the lacquered coffee table in front of her covered with travel brochures, maps, and guide-books. “Sweetheart, I’m glad you’re home. Daddy and I need to talk to you,” she said with a big smile as she noticed Natasha in the doorway. “David!” she called to Natasha’s father, who appeared from the den.

  “What’s all that?” Natasha asked, her heart sinking as she saw a thick book about France on the table. She had been hoping that her mother would change her mind about the vacation.

  “Sweetheart, guess what? We’re going to France—just the two of us!” Mrs. Ross sounded so excited that Natasha had to smile back at her, even though she was thinking, So it’s really going to happen.

  “The two of us? What about Dad?” Natasha asked, glancing at her father. He was looking out the window.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to stay in New York and work, sweetheart,” Mr. Ross said. He was smiling, but his eyes looked sad. “I can’t get away from my job for a whole month to go with you. But I know you two girls will have a wonderful time gallivanting around Paris!”

  Natasha didn’t know how to respond. She wanted to be as excited about the trip as her mother was, but the thought of leaving her father behind made her feel so sad. She took a deep breath.

  “Isn’t there, um, any way that we could all vacation together?” she ventured. “Like, if Mom and I go to the Cape like we usually do, and Dad comes up on the weekends?” Immediately after she spoke, Natasha knew she’d said the wrong thing. Her mother looked down and sighed deeply. Oh, great, Natasha thought. Now Mom’s upset.

  Her dad tried to make things right. “Now, Natasha, I’ll miss you too, sweetheart,” he said gently. “But this vacation is a wonderful opportunity! Your mother and I are going to a lot of effort to plan this special trip for the two of you.”

  “Sorry, Mom,” Natasha said quietly. “It will be an awesome vacation.” Her mother looked up and smiled again.

  “Natasha, come sit next to me,” Mrs. Ross said, patting the couch. “There’s so much we have to plan! Besides all the wonderful sights in Paris, I’d love to take one of these afternoon painting classes in the French countryside. How does that sound? Would you enjoy that?”

  “Sure,” Natasha said, sitting next to her mother.