Triple Trouble (15 page)

“Payton! Wrong way! Payton! Turn around!”

I didn't recognize those voices. Boy, people were really rooting for us.

“Payton!” I said. “Turn around!”

“I haven't gone anywhere yet!” Payton shrieked. “I'm too dizzy!”

That made no sense. But whatever.

“Just breathe and walk!” I yelled.

Suddenly I heard shouts.

“Emma! Turn around! Wrong way!”

Oops. I must have gotten mixed up while talking. I turned 180 degrees and step-by-step, I was walking! And then I was practically jogging! I could do this!

“Emma! Watch out to your left!” someone yelled. I heard other people being told, “Left! Right! Get back up!” But I just focused on my name and veered to the right.

“No, Emma! Go left!”

“Payton! Go right!”

What? I was getting mixed messages. I stumbled left, then I confidently went forward.

“Payton, right! Right, Payton!”

Were they telling my twin to go right or was she
doing
it right? I hoped it was the latter, because I HAD to be near the finish line—

Wham!

I collided with something and fell backward on my rear end.

“And the winning team is . . . ,” the announcer was saying. “And second place is about to cross the line . . .”

Ergh. We'd lost. I pulled up my blindfold and saw—Payton. She was sitting on the ground next to me, with her blindfold off.

“We crashed,” she said. “Into each other.”

“I don't get it,” I complained. “I was following the crowd's directions!”

“So was I,” said Payton. We helped each other up and wobble-walked toward our friends on the sidelines.

“I guess the triplets won this one,” Payton said.

“Or not,” I said, starting to smile. All three boys were lying on the field. I stepped over one of them.

“What happened?” I looked down innocently.

“I couldn't make it past twelve,” one triplet admitted. “And my brothers were too dizzy and gave up.”

Gave up?

“So nobody wins!” I exclaimed. “Team Mills and Team SuperTwins are tied zero-zero!”

“Ha!” I said to Payton as we continued on. “They must have looked so embarrassing. At least we got somewhere!”

“Yeah,” Payton said. “And Nick was filming, so they got that all on tape!”

We reached our friends.

Who were, for some reason, looking at us and laughing hysterically.

“What's so funny?” I asked.

“You two are . . .” Cashmere tried to talk. “You both are . . .” She couldn't finish, she was giggling so much.

“We're what?” Payton and I said at the same time.

“You're wearing the wrong T-shirt!” Sydney was doubled over laughing.

Huh?

“We're wearing matching Multipalooza shirts,” I said, confused.

“Turn around,” Ox said, grinning.

Payton turned around, and that's when I saw it. On her back, in black letters, it read:

EMMA

“Oh no,” I groaned. “Mine says PAYTON, doesn't it?” I craned my neck and looked. Yes. Yes, it did.

“We didn't see that there was anything on the back of the shirts!” Payton wailed.

“You two mixed
yourselves
up. You didn't even know which one of you was which!” Ox said, trying not to crack up. And failing.

“I could barely keep the camera from shaking, I was laughing so hard,” Nick said, gasping for breath.

Mason and Jason simply rolled around on the ground, laughing.

Okay, fine. Let's move forward, shall we?

Challenge #2: Multipaloo-Trivia

This next one, we've got locked up.

I'd been on a game show recently—in Hollywood! I'd done quite well. Sure, I'd been covered with green ooze at the end, but still! This time, I planned to do even better. Payton and I
had
to win this one.

“Welcome to
Multipaloo-Trivia
!” the announcer said into a microphone. “We have our panel of contestants lined up.”

Now
this
felt like a real competition. We were onstage, in seats facing the audience, like at a spelling bee or a Mathletes competition. It felt like home to me.

“Emma,” Payton whispered. “This feels really weird being up here, with all these people staring at us.”

Apparently, it didn't feel like home to Payton.

“Payton,” I whispered. “You've been onstage for plays and even off-Broadway. You'll be just fine.”

“But they couldn't see us so close up. Don't sneeze
or sweat.” Payton tilted her head. What was she talking about? I turned around and—

Yikes! An enormous movie-theater-style screen had come down behind us, and yes, there we were. Live and in color. Perhaps HD. As the camera panned across the panel, I could see two of the triplets' smug grins, large and supersized. I planned to wipe those smiles right off their faces. Oh, and then I saw Payton's giant face and then the side of my head, looking at the screen behind me.

Oops. Live camera. I spun around and smiled at the audience. A nice, confident, winning smile.

The announcer announced, “Let's give a cheer for Team Number One: Dexter and Oliver—the SuperTwins!”

Dexter and Oliver stood up and waved.

From the audience, Sydney and Cashmere (and okay, maybe one or more other naive girls) squealed at them. Asher was standing next to Cashmere, and he gave her a high five.

Then the announcer continued.

Team #2: Random Twins!

Team #3: The Mills Twins!

Team #4: Oh boy. It was two of the black-curly-haired triplets Payton had interviewed. Gia, Ria, and
Mean Girl. Mean Girl gave me a squinty look. I gave her my competition stare. Oh, it's on, Mean Triplet. It's on!

Payton and I waved at the audience. I could see Ox give me a thumbs-up and Nick with his camera on. Mason and Jason were jumping up and down.

“We'll ask you questions, and whoever hits the buzzer first gets a point!”

I took a deep breath. I focused. I went into competition mode.

Question #1: How many twins live in the United States today?

I hit the button.

“Four and a half million!” I answered.

“And that is correct!” the announcer said. “One point for the Mills Twins! Next question: What is the scientific study of multiple births called?”

BAM!

“Gemellology,” I said. “From the Latin
gemellus
for ‘twin' and the Greek
logos
for ‘science.' ”

Correct!

“What is the name of the classic movie twins who—” Uh-oh.

Slam!
Mean Triplet beat me. “Parent Trap!”

“Yay, Lia!” Gia or Ria cheered her on.

Team #4 was obviously my competition. I was ready for the next question.

Bam!
Mine.
Slam!
Mean Triplets.

The rest of the game was a blur. Questions were fast and furious.

“And the final tally is: Team Number One has five points,” the announcer said. “Team Number Two has ten, Team Number Four has sixty, and the winners are . . .

“With eighty-five points . . . Team Number Three! The Mills Twins!”

Oh. Yeah. I could conquer two sets of triplets today. If you were gonna mess with the Mills twins, you were going down.

“Um, Emma?” Payton piped up. “Can you stop with the victory awkward-dance? We're about to be on film.”

The VOGS crew ran over and started filming us. I smiled my best competition smile at the VOGS camera.

“Twins, one; boy-band-wanna-be triplets, zero,” I said. Payton and I did our twin hand-clap-slap.

Heh heh heh.

Okay. No time to rest on our laurels.

“The momentum is in our favor,” I said to Payton. “The next competition is
OURS
! Woo-hoo! Woo—”

“The next competition is the Three-Legged Race,” Payton interrupted me.

Woo . . . uh-oh.

IN COMPETITION

“Let's see if you twins can even walk without falling over!” The triplets were shouting smack at us at the starting line of the Three-Legged Race. I was leaning over, wrapping a rope around one of my legs and one of Emma's.

“Who told the triplets we were totally uncoordinated?” Emma grumbled. “I bet it was Sydney. Maybe Jazmine James filled them in about my vestibular disorder.”

“Or maybe it was that the triplets first saw you walk into a door, then fall, and smack your head against the ground?” I reminded her.

“Okay, the rope is tied,” I said, pulling it tightly. “Let's practice. We have to wrap our arms around each other and coordinate.”

We both stood up. I was facing one way, Emma was facing the other. We waddled around . . . in a circle. Wait a minute.

“Aren't we supposed to be facing the same way?” I asked. Before Emma could answer, we toppled over onto the grass. I looked up to see the tech girl filming us, and Nick laughing behind her.

“Cut!” Nick said. “Um, you tied both of your left legs together.”

“You're supposed to tie my left leg and your
right
leg,” Emma said.

Oops.

“We're doomed,” I told Emma.

“Don't give up,” Emma said. “Don't ever give up. But first, get up.”

Two of the triplets, along with about a hundred other people, were already tied together, practicing walking in unison. We struggled to untie ourselves, then retied us together the correct way. When I stood up, Emma put her arm around me, and we got ourselves balanced.

“Participants, line up!” a referee yelled out.

Emma and I stumbled to the starting line.

“Start with your left, then pace yourself to a rhythm,” Emma said. “Like, twinkle, twinkle, little star; left, right, left, right . . .”

“Twin-kle, Twin-kle!” I brightened up. “Our twin song. We're going to twin-kle like stars!”

The triplets team walk-hopped up and stood next to us in line.

“Did you tie the correct legs together this time?” one of the triplets asked us.

Rats, they saw that.

“Ignore them,” Emma whispered. “They're just trying to throw us off. Stay cool under the pressure.”

“On your marks,” the announcer called out. “Get set . . .”

“We go left first, right?” I asked Emma.

“Right,” Emma said.

Right? Right leg first or right that I was correct? I opened my mouth to ask Emma, but before I had a chance—

“Go!”

I jumped forward on my right foot. The rope pulled tightly, and Emma gave a little yelp as we lurched sideways
and oof! I fell right on top of Emma. I looked up to see the triplets smoothly blowing right past us, with the rest of the hundreds of people.

Triplets:1, Twins:1

We were all tied up.

It all would come down to the Tug-of-War.

Challenge #3: Tug-of-War

The tiebreaker.

The Multipalooza Twins Versus Triplets Challenge would come down to a tug-of-war. We all walked toward the field where our Tug-of-War was scheduled to take place.

Nick was already there setting up his video camera. Ox, Sydney, and Cashmere were standing near him.

“Emma! Payton! Emma! Payton!”

I turned around to see Mason and Jason bouncing up to us. They were both face-painted to look like lizards. They were also holding balloon sculpture swords.

“Looks like you guys are having a good time,” I said to them.

“Guess what? Guess what?” Mason said, jumping all over in excitement. “I won a cake in the Cake Walk!
And a goldfish in the Ping-Pong Ball Throw! I named him Mrs. Slurples!”

“I didn't win anything,” Jason said, frowning. “He's winning everything.”

“I've been there,” I said to Jason empathetically. “Emma is always winning things and not so much me.”

“Well, Payton and I are both going to win in a few minutes—together,” Emma said emphatically. “Mason and Jason, your dad is waving you over.”

“We'll be cheering you on!” Mason said. “Be a winner—like me! Not Jason!”

Jason trudged off the field.

“Emma,” I said. “I'm not entirely clear on how this is going to work. Even if it's only two triplets against us, there's no way we can win.”

“When I feel like all hope is lost in a competition, I think of ways to psych out the other competitors,” Emma said. “Like when Jazmine James answered ‘parabola' in Mathletes, and I said, ‘Sorry, but it's inverse parabola.' ”

Well. Emma certainly had more practice in competitions than I did. I'd have to trust she knew what she was doing.

“Oh, look!” Emma said. “Ready to be humiliated?”

The triplets walked up to us, grinning.

“We're going to pull you into Loserville!” a triplet replied. “Multipla-losers!”

“You don't stand a chance, Twin-kies,” another said. “Get it, TWIN-kies?”