Switched (10 page)

“For
sure,” Olivia said distractedly. She was already thinking about how she needed
to get started on ideas for the next meeting on Friday.

Friday!
she thought with a
jolt. “I can’t do it!” she blurted. “The meetings are on Fridays, and I have
cheerleading practice on Fridays!”

“I
know,” said Ivy, nodding calmly.

“Please,
Ivy. I mean, I know I messed up, but if I don’t show at the practices I’ll
never make the squad!”

“I
know
,”
Ivy repeated.

“I
really, really, really, really,
really
want to be a Devils cheerleader,”
Olivia said. “You—”

“Olivia,”
Ivy interrupted, “I’m going to go to your cheerleading practices
for
you.”

Olivia
was shocked. “You’re kidding,” she said at last.

“I’m
dead serious,” Ivy replied, and she looked it.

That’s
a terrible idea!
thought
Olivia. She shook her head briskly. “Talking to a jock at lunch and fooling
Charlotte is easy compared to cheering, Ivy. Girls train all year for tryouts.
I mean, cheering is totally hard.”

“Who
made the squad in sixth grade?” Ivy demanded.

The
waitress set their food down on the table. “Besides,” Ivy went on, “it’s not as
if it would be for the actual tryout. You’ll still get to make the squad all on
your own.”

Olivia
hesitated.

Ivy
leaned forward, her burger in one hand. “Olivia, you got me into this mess,”
she said in a low voice. “Now you have to get me out of it.”

“But—”
Olivia began.

“The
only butt,” interrupted Ivy, “is going to be yours, in the seat, at those
meetings.” She took a big bite of her burger.

“But I
thought you hated cheerleading,” Olivia persisted.

“I do,”
admitted Ivy with her mouth full. “But I hate party planning more.”

Olivia
thought about it while she started eating her salad. It
was
her fault
that Ivy was on the planning committee, and she owed it to her sister to make
things right. “I’ll do it,” she said at last, “but only if you’ll practice with
me every day after school. We’re going to train together.”

“Absolutely,”
said Ivy without hesitating.

“I
mean it,” Olivia said seriously. “You’ve got to be squad material if you’re
going to pretend to be me.”

“You
bet,” Ivy agreed.

While
Ivy clearly wasn’t fazed, Olivia felt like someone was shaking a pom-pom in the
pit of her stomach. There was just so much that could go wrong. “Is this what
you felt like yesterday after we talked on the phone?” she asked in a small
voice.

“Worse,”
Ivy answered.

Olivia
took a deep breath.
Here we go
, she thought. Then she looked up, all
business. “Okay,” she said. “That means we only have four days next week to get
you into shape. I’m starting you on a strict program for the rest of the
weekend. Give me a pen.”

“You’re
giving me homework?” Ivy asked incredulously, pulling a pen out of her bag and
handing it over.

“Sort
of,” Olivia answered, starting to scribble a list on a napkin. “You have four
cheerleading movies to rent and watch before Monday.”

“I
cannot believe you made me watch a movie called
Go Team Go
,” Ivy said.
She and Olivia were standing in the hallway after first period Monday morning. “It
may have been the gravest eighty-two minutes of my life. That Veronica girl was
seriously stupid.”

“You
were supposed to watch the
cheers
, Ivy,” Olivia said. She swung her
ponytail. “Anyway, where should we practice this afternoon? I’ve told my
parents I have practice every day after school for the next two weeks.”

“Since
school’s not an option,” Ivy said, “let’s use my backyard. My dad just landed a
big project, so he won’t be home early again any time soon.”

“Great,”
Olivia said.

Over
her sister’s shoulder, Ivy spotted Brendan coming down the hall. Instinctively,
she edged behind Olivia.

“What
are you doing?” Olivia asked.

Ivy
hesitated. “Hiding,” she whispered.

To Ivy’s
horror, Olivia turned around to look.

“Oh,
my gosh.” Olivia spun back around. “You should see the look on Brendan’s face!”
She gave Ivy’s shoulders a squeeze. “I’ll leave you two lovebugs alone,” she
said and hurried away.

“Hi,
Ivy,” Brendan said, glancing down at his boots.

“Hey,”
gulped Ivy, her heart beating wildly.

“How—how
was your weekend?” he asked.

“Good,”
Ivy answered, unable to come up with anything more detailed.

He
laughed awkwardly and looked away the moment their eyes met. “Thanks again for
coming with me to the mall,” he said.

“You’re
welcome,” Ivy answered lamely. She knew her answers must sound seriously dim,
but she was just too excited to think straight.

Brendan
started pulling the cap on and off a pen he was holding. “So, er . . .”

Suddenly
Ivy realized that Brendan Daniels was nervous. She could almost hear his heart
pounding. It made him even more gorgeous.

He
dropped his pen cap by accident, and it clattered to the floor. They both knelt
down to pick it up. Ivy’s hand brushed against his.

“Sorry,”
they both said.

Brendan
picked up the cap. “So, what I wanted to ask you is . . .” he began, still
kneeling awkwardly.

Ivy
leaned forward.

“Will
you go with me to the All Hallows’ Ball?” Brendan finished.

Ivy’s
heart stopped. She stared at Brendan, the boy she’d been in love with for three
years but only talked to for the first time on Friday. Then her heart restarted
with a roar. Brendan was watching her intently as her mind flooded with
questions.
What am I going to wear? What if I have to dance? What if I look
stupid?
She was lucky she was already on the floor, or she might have
fallen over.

Finally,
Brendan stood up. “It’s okay,” he said quietly, nodding in resignation. “I
understand if you don’t want to go. I—I just hope we can still be friends.”

Ivy leaped
to her feet. “No!” she cried. “I mean, yes!” She shook her head as if it were
surrounded by bees. “I mean, I can’t dance!”

Brendan’s
face lit up like a full moon. “Neither can I,” he said. Then he cocked his head
and asked, “But have you ever tried dancing with someone else who can’t dance?”

Ivy
shook her head.

“It’s
not so bad,” Brendan told her. “Look.” He took Ivy’s hands and placed them on
his shoulders; then he put his hands gently on her hips.

Ivy
felt like she was touching one of those static electricity things at the
science museum. Energy coursed through her, and the hair on the back of her
neck stood on end.

Neither
of them moved.

“What
are we doing?” Ivy murmured at last.

Brendan
looked deep into her eyes. “We’re not dancing,” he whispered.

They
stood there like that forever, or at least until Ivy heard the bell for second
period ring. “Then what happened?” Olivia asked, bending forward and putting
her palms down on the cool grass. She could feel the muscles stretch in the backs
of her legs.

Ivy
pulled her foot up behind her. “I was late for art,” she replied coyly.

Olivia
thought maybe Ivy was blushing, but it might have been the sun. Finally she
gave up trying to tell. “Well,” she said, hopping up and down on the balls of
her feet, “I don’t know if that’s like the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard
. . . or the
weirdest
.”

“Shut
up!” Ivy cried.

“Not
dancing?”
Olivia
giggled. Her sister was
so
smitten!

“Stop
it!” Ivy said. “It was very ...sweet.”

“I may
not have known you long,” Olivia said with a grin, “but I already know that ‘sweet’
is not a word my sister would normally use.”

“Sweet,”
her sister repeated tenderly.

Olivia
grabbed Ivy’s hand playfully. “Well,” she said, “you certainly have reason to .
. . CHEER!” She raised both their arms into the air.

Ivy
groaned.

Olivia
silenced her with a double clap. “Okay, let’s get started!” She paced in front
of her sister like a drill sergeant. “What’s the most important thing to
remember when you cheer?”

Ivy
thought for a second. “Don’t get a wedgie?”

“No,”
Olivia said. She spoke slowly and carefully, “Never stop smiling!”

“Right.”
Ivy frowned.

“Let
me see it,” Olivia commanded.

“Do I
have to? Nobody’s even watching,” Ivy complained.

“Exactly,”
Olivia said.

Ivy
huffed and contorted her mouth into a crooked smile that looked like a
four-year-old had dragged a marker across her face. She raised her eyebrows in
defiance.

“I bet
you don’t know the
second
most important thing to remember either.”
Olivia paused for dramatic effect. “Never, ever touch another cheerleader’s . .
.”

Her
sister’s black-lined eyes widened expectantly.

“Poms!”

Ivy’s
mouth burst into a huge grin.

Olivia
shouted, “Hold that smile!” and rushed to show Ivy the first cheer. She’d
specifically picked one that she thought her sister would like.

“Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust, Hate to beat you, but we must. When you’re up, you’re
up. When you’re down, you’re down. When you’re messing with the Devils, You’re
up (
clap, clap
) side (
clap, clap
) down (
clap, clap
)!”

Olivia
finished with a big smile, her fists raised, her ponytail bobbing. “Okay,” she
said, “now you try it!”

Her
sister skulked into position.

From
the neck up, Ivy was even worse than Olivia had feared. She was a total
mumbler, and her smile kept sliding off her face.

From
the neck down, though, Olivia almost couldn’t believe what she saw. Ivy hit
every handclap in perfect time; her jumps were high; her splits showed great
flexibility; and she even threw in a back flip at the end that she stuck
perfectly.

Ivy
looked at her expectantly.

Olivia
put on her best poker face and said, “Let’s try another one.” This time, she
did a much more complicated cheer. The girls on her old squad had called it the
Washer-Dryer because it involved so much tumbling. It ended in three
consecutive round-offs.

Ivy
did it perfectly on her first try—except that she did four round-offs. When she
finally came to a stop, her back was less than a foot from the wall of her
house.

“Wow!”
said Olivia.

“Told
you so,” said Ivy, returning with a smirk on her face and her arms crossed.

“If we
can get your yelling and smiling up to speed, we might just get away with this,”
Olivia admitted.

“Can’t
I just lip-synch?” Ivy asked, kicking the ground.

Olivia
wrinkled her nose. “Sorry, but no.”

By the
end of the hour, Olivia had taught Ivy four cheers, which was one more than
Olivia had planned for. Ivy was a really quick learner. To end the session,
Olivia put her hands on her sister’s shoulders and said, “Tonight, I want you
to bury your head in your pillow and yell your head off. Okay?”

“I’ll
do my best,” Ivy agreed. They hugged good-bye.

Olivia
skirted the side of the house and bounded down the long driveway. She’d
promised her mom she’d help make dinner to celebrate the unpacking of the final
moving box.

She
felt so much better. For the last three days, Olivia had been worried sick
about how in the world she was going to train Ivy
and
be ready for
tryouts herself. But today’s practice had changed all that. With a partner as
good as Ivy, they’d both be in stellar shape! She skipped into the cul-de-sac
at the end of the driveway.

“Hello,
Olivia,” a familiar voice said coolly.

Charlotte
Brown was standing in the next driveway, which led up to a peach-colored
bungalow. Olivia had totally forgotten that she and Ivy were next-door
neighbors.

“Hi,
Charlotte,” Olivia said tentatively.

“Did
you have fun at Ivy’s house?” Charlotte asked.

Good
thing we didn’t practice in the
front
yard,
Olivia thought. “Yeah. It was great,” she said vaguely.

Charlotte
shook her head. “I don’t get you, Olivia,” she said. “You’re a good
cheerleader. You could really have a future with us. But”—she shrugged—“if you
want to be a gravedigger, that’s your choice.” She turned and started trotting
away up the driveway. “Just don’t expect any of us normal girls to be in your
cult!” she called over her shoulder.