Triple Trouble (11 page)

That would include Quinn and Tess, hard at work. I'd texted Tess earlier, and she told me they were already at the gym decorating and setting up for tonight.

“I knew the SuperTwins would need me,” Sydney said. “Nick, have you met them?”

“I met Asher,” he said. “He's in my French class, but I haven't met his brothers.”

“Hey!” Sydney suddenly yelled. “SuperTwins! Get over here!”

I wasn't surprised when the triplets hustled over.

“Boys. This is Nick. If you haven't met him, he's in charge of the VOGS cast today,” she said. “He'll film you at your most flattering, right, Nick?”

“I guess you could put it that way.” Nick grinned. “So, you psyched for your performance today?”

“Yep,” two of the triplets said in unison. The third one said it a split second later. “Yep.”

“We're going to rock Multipalooza,” one said. “Get it all on video. It'll be worth something.”

“Soon,” a triplet added.

“I can't wait to see you play,” Sydney cooed. “I bet you're amazing.”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” one of the triplets said, and turned to Sydney. “Some of our equipment needs to be loaded into your car. So you can go take care of that.”

“What?” Sydney asked him.

“The amps, the mike,” a triplet said. “You can load it into the car you're traveling in.”

“I'm a
groupie
, not a roadie,” Sydney said. “Yeesh. I'm not lifting anything.”

“Do it yourself,” Emma said.

“We're the talent. We can't risk injury,” a triplet said, and held up his hands.

“Maybe that muscley dude will do it,” a triplet said, pointing to someone.

I saw Emma's eyes light up and turned to look. Yup. Ox was walking toward us.

“He
is
muscley,” Emma agreed, smiling.

“Hi,” he said to everyone. Then he turned to Emma. “Hey.”

“Ox, you're not on VOGS,” Sydney said. “Why are you here?”

“He's here to help with equipment and things,” Emma told her.

“Oh, good, we need a roadie,” one of the triplets said.

“We need the amp and the mike brought over,” another said. “And fast.”

Ox raised an eyebrow at them.

“He's here to help with the VOGS equipment,” Emma said. “You have Sydney and Cashmere to help you out.”

“I'll do it!” Cashmere said brightly. “My brother always tells me that my arm muscles are stronger than my brain muscles!”

She flexed her arms.

Nobody even touched that one.

“People!” Mrs. Burkle said, heading our way. “People of our first remote VOGS ever. Huddle!” We all gathered around her. “Thank you, chaperones and drivers. There will be three vehicles in the caravan. Students, report to your assigned vehicle as follows:

“Car Number One: Dexter, Oliver, Asher, in your mother's car.

“Car Number Two: Sydney, Cashmere, and Lakiya. You'll be in my car.”

That was one car I was glad I was not in.

“In Car Number Three: Emma, Payton, Ox, Nick . . .”

Ooh! Ooh! Also eek and yay! It was like a double date in our car. Maybe it would be a big SUV with three
rows of seats. I could sit with Nick in the back, Emma and Ox in front of us. Nick and I could hold hands. It would be romantic.

Emma and I smiled.

“ . . . and . . .” Mrs. Burkle kept talking. Wait,
and
? And who?

“Mason Case-Babbitt and Jason Case-Babbitt. You'll all be in with Coach Babbitt and Counselor Case.”

Emma and I stopped smiling.

A silver minivan pulled up in front of us. The door rolled open to reveal Mason and Jason sitting inside.

“Get in!” Jason called out. “We're road trippin'!”

“Woot! Our car rocks!” Mason hooted.

“And smells!” Jason said, wrinkling his nose. “Ew, what stinks?”

“I took my shoes off to get comfortable.” Mason stuck his sock in the air and wiggled his foot around.

Emma and I looked at each other and simultaneously sighed. So much for the double date.

“I call you sit in the backseat with Mason and Jason,” I whispered to Emma.

“I call we put Mason and Jason in the trunk,” Emma whispered back.

ON THE WAY TO MULTIPALOOZA

“I want to sit next to Emma! We can talk about math!” Jason said, leaning forward from the backseat. He slid over in his seat and patted it.

“I'll sit next to Payton,” Mason said from the middle seat. “She won't talk about math with me! Wait, I want to sit next to Ox, too. Ox, did you see the game last night?”

“Good, because I want to sit next to Nick,” Jason said. “Nick, can we shoot a movie in the car?”

“Don't you boys want to sit together?” Payton asked them, trying to sound cheerful.

“We can't,” Jason said. “We have to sit in these
stupid seats with these stupid kid seat belts. Like we're babies.”

Ah, they were sitting in booster-style seats in each row.

“Mom keeps us separated as far as possible in the car,” Mason said.

“Mason has to sit closer to Mom so she can make sure he doesn't get in trouble,” Jason said.

“No punching, kicking, or poking,” Mason sighed.

“Well, if I sit next to one of you guys, that rule has be enforced,” Ox said. “I don't want to get hurt.”

I smiled at Ox. One of the best things about Ox was that he looked so tough, but he was really sweet.

“I won't! I won't hurt you,” Mason said, banging on the seat next to him. “Sit here!”

“Looks like you're sitting there,” I told Ox. I was about to slide into the middle seat when Jason yelled from the backseat, “No, Emma! You're back here with me so we can do math equations! Pleeeease?”

Well. It was hard to say no to math equations. Plus, sitting next to Ox for a whole hour in the car would be distracting. Today was going to be intense, helping my sister with the VOGS cast and being on sensory overload with multiples. Not to mention trying not to think about tonight's dance.

I got in on one side of Jason, and Nick got in on the other. Payton slid into the seat in front of me on one side of Mason, Ox into the other.

“Everyone buckled?” Coach Babbitt started the car. Our car inched out and got into a line with the triplets' car and Mrs. Burkle's van. And we were off!

Off to Multipalooza!

“Let us know if you need anything,” Counselor Case said.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Jason said.

“Don't even start,” Coach Babbitt told him. “You just went.”

He turned on the radio.

“It's Seventies Flashback Saturday here at WTLY,” the announcer said.

“Oh man, not the old-people station,” Mason groaned.

“Don't defame my music,” Counselor Case said. “Oh, one of my childhood favorites!”

She turned the radio up louder.

“Agh! What is that horrible noise?” Jason yelped, holding his ears.

“Noise?!” Counselor Case gasped. “It's a song from one of my favorite movies,
Grease
.”

“You
don't
want to insult your mother's favorite
movie,” Coach Babbitt warned. “I learned that the hard way.”

“I know all the words to this song,” Counselor Case said cheerfully. Then she started singing along.

“Maaaa, stop. You're so embarrassing,” Mason groaned.

“
I'm
embarrassing you for a change?” Counselor Case said. “Finally! Hey, did you know there are hand motions to this song? It's called the hand jive!”

She started doing a clapping-and-waving-her-hands-in-the-air thing.

“Payton and Nick, you may want to learn the hand jive,” Counselor said. “I wouldn't be surprised if your drama club performs
Grease
someday. Bertha Burkle is a fan.”

“MA! You're torturing us.” Mason shrunk down in his seat.

“Oh,
you've
never ‘tortured anyone,' right, Mason?” I teased him. “It looks too complicated for you guys anyway.”

“It's not too complicated for us!” Jason protested. “Mom, show us.”

“I'll learn it, too. In case I ever audition for
Grease
,” Payton said, leaning forward.

“I dare everyone in the car to try it,” Coach Babbitt said.

“Oh, sure, that's because
you're
driving, so you can't,” Ox pointed out.

Counselor Case patted her hands on her lap twice, clapped twice, and did some more hand movements that ended in her doing thumbs-up over her shoulders. Then she repeated it faster.

Everyone tried to follow, clapping and patting and thumbs-upping.

“Wow, Emma, you're good!” Counselor Case said.

Me? Doing well at a form of dance?

“It's simply a matter of two moves to a four-four beat,” I said modestly. “Ox, you're doing very well yourself.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I try.”

The song ended, and everyone laughed.

“They did the hand jive at the school dance in
Grease
,” Counselor Case said. “It was so romantic with Danny and Sandy until someone came along and stole Danny from Sandy on the dance floor—”

“Hey, Mom,” Jason interrupted. “Isn't that another one of your favorite songs on?”

“No, but it's one of mine,” Coach said. “I'm cranking
this up and can't hear you back there. Kick my seat if someone bleeds.”

“Good save, Jason,” Mason nodded. “Get the parents out of our business.”

“Speaking of kicking,” Jason said. “Ox and Nick, I hope you guys don't get kicked out today. You're not even twins, and you're trying to get into a twins festival.”

“What do you mean?” Ox asked. “Nick and I are twins.”

Ox turned around and gave me a quick wink.

“You are?” Mason asked. “Who are your twins?”

“Each other,” Ox said. “Fraternal, obviously.”

“Yeah, I'm older,” Nick said, playing along. “Six minutes.”

“No WAY!” Mason said. “I didn't know that. You guys look so different.”

“You think?” Ox asked. “Sometimes people get us mixed up. They think I'm Nick.”

“They call me Ox,” Nick agreed. “Sometimes they just call us Oxnick, if they don't know who is who.”

Bzzzzrpt!

I had a text from Payton.

lol

“Wait a minute, people can't mix you guys up. You
look different,” Jason said suspiciously. “Plus you have different last names and live in different houses.”

Payton started to crack up first, then we all started laughing.

“You aren't twins,” Mason finally caught on. “You're tricking us.”

“Had you going,” Nick said. “But when I was a kid, I wished I was a twin.”

“You did?” Payton asked him.

“Yeah, I had an imaginary twin,” Nick said. “His name was Captain Hero.”

Now all of us, especially the twins, laughed.

“You really want to laugh at me? Or should I bring up
your
nicknames from that age, Emma and Payton?” Nick said.

“I'm not laughing.” I put on a straight face, and Payton quickly did the same.

“What were your nicknames? Tell us! Tell us!” Mason and Jason begged.

“No way,” I said.

“I'll tell you Jason's nickname,” Mason offered.

“Hey!” Jason protested. “Then I'll tell them about
your
imaginary friends. Mason made us into quadruplets. The other two were action figures.”

“They were cool dudes,” Mason said, offended. “Grayson and Fason.”

“Fason?” I tried not to laugh.

“Fake Mason,” Mason said.

“Or Fake Jason,” Jason said.

“You were just making fun of him,” Mason said. “So he obviously was
not
Fake Jason. Actually, Fason didn't like you.”

“He didn't? What did I do?” Jason said. He actually sounded upset.

“Guys!” I said. “Guys! We're not arguing about imaginary friends.”

“I was never mean to Fason,” Jason continued. “But I'll be mean to you.”

“Then I'll tell your nickname—” Mason threatened.

I looked to see if their parents were noticing, but they were too busy singing along to the oldies.

“Twin fight,” Payton said. We knew how those went.

“Guys, enough,” I said. “Look, stop fighting and I'll tell you Payton's and my nicknames for each other when we were little.”

Ox and Nick both grinned. They already knew them, unfortunately, from a time Payton and I overshared.

I sighed and told them.

“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA” Mason and Jason immediately forgot about their fighting. “Who was who?”

“I was MeeMa,” I said. “Payton was PeePa.”

Mason and Jason were laughing so hard, we all started cracking up.