Trading Faces (24 page)

“At least that went well,” Emma said as we walked out into the hallway. “At least she agreed we could do our own live VOGS special report. She didn't even sound mad at us.”

“Yeah,” I said. “She's probably the only one who isn't. It's going to be way hard to face everyone today.”

“So we have five minutes at the end of the day to redeem ourselves,” Emma said.

“It's going to be a long day until then,” I said.

We reached our lockers.

“Well, Mrs. Burkle did say it was the most exciting live journalism she'd seen in a long time,” Emma said.

“And the most embarrassing,” I added. I opened my locker and started getting out my books.

Emma was looking at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Your tote bag.” She pointed inside.

“I organized a little last night,” I shrugged. Okay, maybe a lot. I'd gotten a few ideas from being Emma. “I put my books in order of my class schedule. And I'm going to use different color file folders like you do. For now, blue is Language Arts . . . and red is Social Studies. I'll have to buy the other colors when we're not grounded. Do you think yellow should be Art or—?”

“Whatever works for you,” Emma said. “It's your system. Wow,
you
have an organizational system! I'm impressed.”

I smiled. It was nice to impress Emma.

Emma reached into her backpack and got some things out. Including something blue and shiny that she was sticking up on her locker door.

“Hey, what's that?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” Emma said.

“Yeah, if nothing equals cute locker decorations,” I said. I peered in. Emma had just put up a locker-sized collage of blue and silver.

“That's really cute,” I said.

“I borrowed some of Mom's scrapbooking stuff late last night. I couldn't sleep,” Emma said. I watched as she put up some math symbol magnets—and a mirror. She checked her lip gloss and closed her locker.

“You are so Pay-tified!” I said. “I love it!”

“Well. Okay. Thanks,” Emma said, looking a little embarrassed. “I'm going to homeroom. I can get some extra study time.”

“Wait,” I said. “Good luck today.”

I held up my hand for the twin handslap. And we went off our separate ways.

I walked down the hall. I put my hands in my hoodie pockets, and in one I found a little blue sticky note.

It's great to be Emma,

but I'm “gray”-tful you're Payton!

:)

Aw. I smiled.

“Hey, it's one of those psycho twins,” a boy said as he passed me.

My smile faded. I walked faster, my head down.

“Blah blah blah twins . . . blah blah hilarious . . . blah blah . . .” I tried to block out everybody's voice, and somehow I made it to homeroom.

The room got quiet as I walked in.

I kept my head down and walked quickly to my seat. Sydney was in her seat, and I avoided eye contact.

“Mills, Payton?” Mrs. Galbreath called out.

“Here,” I said.

“Are you sure?” I heard Sydney whisper. “Maybe it's
Emma
Mills.”

I cringed. The homeroom teacher kept on with her attendance.

I stared straight ahead. Unfortunately, the view was Sydney's shiny, perfect hair. I thought back to how badly I'd wanted to be friends with her. In a way, that had kind of started all of this.

“This is all because you wanted to be popular,” Emma had hissed at me. Well, wait.
She
wanted to be popular too. It wasn't just me! We'd both wanted to be popular.

Sydney tossed a note to the girl sitting across from
her. The girl read the note and glanced at me. Then she laughed nervously.

Okay. I don't want to be that kind of popular
. I was over scrubbing bathrooms and slaving for clothes, and I was over being nervous around Sydney, I decided. What I really wanted was some good friends.

Well. At least I had one true friend: Emma.

“Class, I need to step out for a minute,” Mrs. Galbreath said. “Please study quietly at your desks.”

She stepped out of the class. One second later the spitballs started flying. A crowd of groupies flocked to Sydney's desk.

I pretended to be fascinated with my math book.
La, la, la, not listening to them
.

“So. Payton.”

Oh, no. Sydney had turned around and was facing me. As were the other girls, including Quinn.

“I feel so betrayed, Payton,” Sydney said. “I was being a good friend to you, and you weren't even you. That is so wrong.”

Everyone around her was like,
Yeah, so wrong
.

“I'm sorry,” I said miserably. “I was just—”

“And I can't believe you thought that I would actually fall for it!” Sydney said. “Puh-lease. I knew all along.”

What?

“Yeah,” some girl echoed. “I mean, that Emma is in my science class, and she's a freaky brainiac.”

“I know, right?” Sydney said. “Total geek. I mean, have you seen her sweatpants?”

“But you have to admit, your shirt is so way cute,” Quinn said. “Emma did good there.”

Huh?

“Um, what?” The words popped out of my mouth.

“You—I mean, Emma—picked out that shirt Sydney's wearing, when we went to the mall,” Quinn said to me. “The saleslady was all like, ‘Wow, Emma has mad cool taste.' ”

Emma? My twin?

“And this!” Quinn continued, pointing to her necklace. “Isn't this cute? And all of Emma's new clothes when she was pretending to be you. Didn't Emma tell you that?”

Um, no. I thought back. I had assumed Sydney had picked out all the new clothes.

Emma did?

“Quinn! Jeesh! Shut it!” Sydney said, giving her a dirty look. “That is so not important.”

Quinn's face fell.

“What is important,” Sydney announced loudly, “is that Emma is a
loser
. And Payton is a
poser
.”

Everyone looked at me. I felt like the whole world was looking at me. I felt my face turn bright red. I felt my heart pounding in my chest.

“Class!” The homeroom teacher walked back in. “People are out of their seats! I'm shocked! Return to your seats immediately!”

Sydney's friends scattered back to their desks. Sydney flipped her hair and turned back around facing front. But not before mouthing one word at me:

Poser
.

I shrank down in my seat. My brain was a whirl. What would Emma do?

Doesn't matter. I'm Payton. What would Payton do?
Payton would hide. As soon as homeroom was over, I walked quickly out of the classroom. And straight to the nurse's office.

“Name?” the nurse asked me.

“Payton Mills,” I said.

“Have you been here before?” she asked, looking me up on her computer.

Um. Sort of. Under a different name
.

“I guess not,” I said.

“Problem?”

“I'm just—sick,” I said.

“Your face
is
beet-red and flushed,” the nurse announced. “And very sweaty. Likely a fever. Go lie down on the cot.”

“Um, can you tell me when it's eighth period?” I asked. “I . . . I'll feel better by then.”

“You know when you're going to feel better?” The nurse eyed me suspiciously.

Uh.

“Nurse! Nurse!” A teacher came running in, dragging a boy with her. “A student cut his finger!”

“It's just a paper cut,” the kid said. “Jeez.”

“We have a bleeder! We have a bleeder!” the nurse announced dramatically. “Everyone to a cot!”

The kid looked embarrassed but otherwise fine. I, on the other hand, was embarrassed and not fine. But at least I was forgotten. I took my sweaty red self over to the cot and lay down. I pulled the blanket over my face. I was just going to hide out here until it was time for our VOGS apology.

I wiggled around until I got more comfortable.

Mmmm . . . I had to admit that these capris I was wearing—which Emma had picked out at the mall—were
pretty soft and comfy. Trendy and comfy. No more uncomfortable Summer Slave clothes, I decided.

Well, except for the yellow cami—that was really cute. Oh, and the gray sweater was a little itchy, but totally worth it. And when my feet grew a little bigger, I was definitely going to wear those platforms, and—

Zzzzz

Zzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

NINTH PERIOD

Finally, it was last period. I sat down in math class and looked at the clock. I had twenty minutes of Math, and then it was off to the VOGS studio.

“Oh, look, it's the diarrhea twin. Is it really her or is it her sister?” Jazmine announced as she walked in.

I heard Hector laugh, but I didn't look up from my book.

“I think I should win a middle-school journalism award for my exposé. I'll just put it in my display case next to all my other awards.” Jazmine's voice carried across the room.

I ignored Jazmine, as I had all day. She must have spent all night thinking of put-downs for me. Sure, Mrs.
Burkle had given her a talking-to about putting us on camera without us knowing; sure, she wasn't allowed to be anchorperson as a consequence. That didn't seem to be bothering Jazmine, who was probably just eating up the attention. I mean, the incident had practically made her famous in school.

I, on the other hand, was infamous. And in nineteen minutes I would be more so.

I watched Jazmine talking to Hector and Tess, and for a moment I felt a pang of envy.

Whatever,
I told myself.
I'm Emma. I don't have time for friends. I'm all about the studying
.

“You know what would be weird?” a girl sitting next to me said to her friend. “I wonder if they ever switched places on their boyfriends.”

“Awesome,” said the guy next to them. “The guy would have like two girls.”

“Ew,” the girl said, giggling.

Doesn't anyone have a life? Ugh. I continued studying, like
those
people should.
If
x
is a square root and
y
is Pi
 . . . Augh! I couldn't concentrate.

I thought about what the girl had said. . . .
If they ever switched places on their boyfriends?
Well, we'd never had boyfriends, now, had we? But I'd almost had a chance. Ox
was almost going to maybe have been my boyfriend . . . even if he thought I was really Payton.

Oh, let's face it. I'm not ever going to have a boyfriend. Who'd want to date boring Emma?
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh! Before this switch, I'd liked myself! I was smart, confident, intelligent, focused.

But . . . before the switch, I was also stressed out and, well, pretty much having no fun. And no Ox. I hadn't known what I was missing.

Now I was missing Ox. Who would never talk to me again.

I'd seen him twice today in the halls. But each time I'd seen him coming, I'd walked quickly the other way. I mean, what could I say to him? And worse, what would he want to say to me?

I remembered how we'd talked about ox trivia. And how he'd smiled at me a lot. It was like he got me. Emma me. Not Payton me. Or spelling-bee/mathlete/competition me.

Just me.

Sigh.

The math teacher came in. I couldn't concentrate on a word he said. Instead I watched the clock. Seventeen minutes . . . sixteen . . . ten . . . five . . .

And then it was time to go.

I took a deep breath, got up, and handed my math teacher the pass. And went to the media room to meet Payton.

I walked into the media room. The studio was busy with people on the equipment, but I didn't see Payton anywhere. Mrs. Burkle came over to me.

“Emma!” she said. She sounded a little too cheerful. “You have ten minutes till airtime. This is so very exciting! Our first special report! I'd dreamed of having the opportunity to break into regularly scheduled classes. But I didn't know it would happen so soon in the year!”

She walked away gleefully, directing the camera people around.

“She's picturing good ratings,” one of the camera people said to me. It was Nick, the guy who sat behind me in homeroom.

“I'm glad someone is happy about this,” I said to him miserably.

“She's probably thinking it will get her a raise. It's like our own school reality show,” Nick said. “Starring the Switching Twins. She'll probably put it on YouTube.”

Gee. Great
. I usually liked to please my teachers, but this wasn't what I'd had in mind.

“Nick!” Mrs. Burkle sang out. “Camera two needs you!”

Nick rolled his eyes and walked away.

Just then Payton walked in, all out of breath.

“Hey,” she said, “I almost couldn't get here. My PE teacher didn't believe I was really excused. ‘How do I know I can trust you?' she said. Ugh.”