Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? (6 page)

“Actually, they made us square dance in gym last year,” Logan offered. Lindsey glared at him.

Ava looked over at Kylie, but she was still talking to Owen about the book. She hadn't even heard the awkward conversation.

Why is Charlotte acting so mean?
Ava wondered, feeling uncomfortable. She couldn't figure it out. Did she not like Lindsey, Emily, and Rosa?

“You know, Ashland is a really cool place. You should give it a chance,” Lindsey said.

Ava was amazed that Lindsey was still talking to Charlotte, and even more amazed that she was still trying to be nice.

Ava opened her eyes wide at Charlotte, trying to signal her to back off. But Charlotte didn't take the hint.

“Is that one of your little cheers? Rah, rah, go Texas?” Charlotte asked sarcastically.

Lindsey gave Emily a disgusted look. Then they both glanced at Ava, as if Charlotte's rudeness were her fault.

“Let's go throw out our trash,” Emily said abruptly.

“Definitely,” said Lindsey. She and Rosa followed Emily away from the table. They whispered as they walked.

Ava knew they were talking about Charlotte. She wanted to tell them that Charlotte wasn't like this. That she'd been so nice to Ava this morning. But she didn't run after them. Because what did she really know about Charlotte? She usually was a pretty good judge of people. But Charlotte totally confused her.

Alex focused all her attention on the purple gel pen on the kitchen table.

The pen. Think about the pen. Nothing but the gel pen,
she told herself.

She stared at it with laser vision. Keeping her body completely still, she coaxed her mind to transfer energy into the pen, to send her life force into the pen.

She pressed her palms together, as if in yoga class.

The mosquito bite behind her knee itched.

She ignored it. She had to use her telepathic powers to make the pen write. Or float. Or move. Or something.

She squeezed her eyes tightly, willing the pen into motion.

But the pen just lay there. Motionless.

Alex blew out a huge breath. And even that didn't move the gel pen.

She chewed her lip, contemplating what she was doing wrong. Sibyl's website said people with the Power could move objects. And it was only a pen. It wasn't an elephant.

Maybe I need Ava,
she thought. Sibyl had said something about their Power being stronger together. Now she wished she'd listened more closely. She also wished she'd bought the psychic's book. After all the research she'd done, she was now convinced that Sibyl wasn't a fake.

She was also convinced that she and Ava shared some kind of power, or connection, or psychic wavelength. More than the “twin-speak” her dad liked to joke about. She wished Ava were here to try moving the pen with her.

At that moment, her phone buzzed, startling her. Could it be Ava? Had Alex mentally summoned her again?

Alex looked at the screen. No. It was a text from Charlotte Huang, the new girl.

Wanna come to my house Friday after school? U & Ava. It'll be fun. Just the 3 of us. Cool?

Cool! We are in!

She'd only really spoken to Charlotte this afternoon. They had English together and were paired up on a grammar activity. They'd spent more time talking about fashion and jewelry than diagramming sentences. Alex loved Charlotte's sense of style. And Charlotte had complimented Alex's silver bead necklace. She seemed to think that Alex would fit in living in New York City. How amazing was that?

“We're home!” Mrs. Sackett announced, pushing open the kitchen door.

Moxy bounded down the steps from where she'd been asleep in the upstairs hallway. She rushed to greet Mrs. Sackett.

Alex craned her neck to see over her mom's shoulder. Ava still wore her football uniform, minus the pads. Her curls were sweaty and matted to the sides of her face. A film of dirt coated her skin, and she smelled awful. But she was smiling.

“You won!” Alex leaped off her chair.

“We did! Twenty-one to sixteen!” Ava cheered. “We're moving on!”

Alex slapped her sister a high five. “I wish I'd been there. I can't believe Ms. Palmer scheduled an extra student council meeting this week. Were you awesome?”

Ava shrugged. “Pretty awesome. Three field goals.”

Mrs. Sackett petted Moxy and surveyed the kitchen. “Alex? What about starting dinner? Didn't you get my text?”

“I set the table and put water in the pot for pasta,” Alex said.

“What about making the salad?”

“Yeah, that. I meant to do it, but I was trying to move this pen with my mind,” she explained.

“I don't even know what that means.” Mrs. Sackett began pulling lettuce and cucumbers out of the fridge.

“How'd that work for you?” Ava smirked, plopping into a chair. She rolled the pen with her finger.

“It takes practice. I think we need to do it together,” Alex said.

“Right now, you need to wash and cut theses veggies,” her mom said. “I'm going to take Moxy out.” She clipped a leash on the dog. “Ava, you need to shower.”

“I'm too tired to move,” Ava complained.

As Alex walked to the sink, she told Ava about Charlotte's invite. “I can't wait to see her closet. She brought all these cool clothes from New York City. We're all about the same size. She said we can share them,” Alex reported.

“I don't want to share her clothes,” Ava said.

“I bet she has other fun things for us to do.” Alex scrubbed the cucumber with the vegetable brush.

“I don't want to go,” Ava said.

“Why not? She seems so sweet,” Alex said.

“No, she doesn't. At least, not all the time. I can't figure her out.” Ava told Alex about how Charlotte had acted at the lunch table.

“You guys must not have understood her jokes. I'm sure it didn't go down like that.”

“I was there. It was bad,” Ava insisted.

“Emily and Lindsey just don't know her. Maybe they're intimidated, because she's sophisticated and from New York. I think we should go,” Alex declared. “She wanted it to be the three of us.”

Ava shrugged. “I'll give her another chance. But something is odd with her.”

Alex pulled the wooden cutting board from the cabinet. Then she spotted the shopping bags on the floor. “You and Mom went shopping? Without me?”

“Don't get all jealous. We stopped at the mall, so I could get Coach a birthday present. Nothing else,” Ava assured her.

“What did you get?” Alex asked.

“The most amazing gift ever.” Ava stood and reached into the bag. She pulled out a football-shaped spatula. “He can use this to flip pancakes. Or burgers.”

“Oh, I don't think he'll have to choose.” Alex raced to her hiding place in the laundry room and returned holding her football-shaped spatula. “He can use one for pancakes and the other for burgers.”

“You didn't!” Ava cried. “You got him the same one.”

Alex nodded. She stared at the twin spatulas for a moment. True, it was the perfect gift, but . . . still . . .

“We're psychic, Ave,” she said in a low voice.

Ava snorted. “Matching spatulas do not make us psychic.”

“It's more than that. Much more.” Alex sat beside her sister. “I didn't believe at first, but the evidence is there. All these sites talk about telepathic abilities in twins. And all this stuff has been happening lately. Reading each other's minds, wearing the same outfit, picking out this present. I feel it. Don't you?”

“I feel tired. And sweaty. And hungry,” Ava admitted. “I don't feel psychic.”

“You just need to give it a chance,” Alex encouraged her. “Madame Sibyl says our Power is stronger together. We have to tune in to each other.”

“So let me get this straight,” Ava said. “I have a math test tomorrow. You're saying I can skip studying tonight, and if I think hard enough, you'll be able to mentally send me all the correct answers?”

Alex laughed. “Nice try. I don't think it works that way. And even if it did, I'm not doing it. We should use our Power for good.”

“Acing my math test would be using it for good!” Ava protested.

“No, I mean it. I think we could do good things,” Alex insisted.

“Like what?” Ava asked, as their mom opened the door and Moxy ran for her water bowl.

Alex scooted back to the cutting board. “I don't know yet. First, you have to be open to the idea. Are you?”

Ava pulled the cap off the gel pen. She scribbled on a paper napkin, then held it up.
NO!

Alex sighed. She felt the Power. She really did! As she continued chopping, she focused her energies on Ava. They needed to be united to make it work. To do good and important things.

She
needed
to make her sister believe.

Alex rested Emily's signed copy of
The Power
on her lap on Friday afternoon.

“Do not get any food on it,” Emily warned.

“Promise.” Alex carefully speared with a toothpick the mini cubes of orange cheese her mom had packed for lunch. Mrs. Sackett's lunches were so much worse than Coach's. But Coach hadn't been around this week. He was on the field or in his office tucked inside the high school locker room, completely focused on the big game. He hadn't even had time to make her favorite hummus-and-vegetable wrap.

As everyone at the lunch table talked about Lindsey's party, Alex flipped through Sibyl's book. Yesterday she'd begged Emily to bring it to school. As she skimmed the pages, she decided that it wasn't half-bad. Sibyl described so many feelings that Alex had also had. The more she read, the more Alex was sure she could do psychic things.

They
could do them. She needed Ava in this.

She raised her eyes and found Ava across the lunchroom, eating with Kylie. Charlotte wasn't there.

I'll talk to Ava tonight,
she decided.
I'll go to the park and shoot baskets if that's what it takes to get her to try to move the pen with me.

Alex knew she was getting a bit obsessed. She got this way about things. She'd hear about something that interested her, and then she'd research it to death on the Internet. She'd make charts and graphs of her new knowledge. She'd compare prices or reviews or whatever was important. She'd think about it nonstop until the next thing came along.

And now, all she could think about was the Power.

“Guys! Guys!” Rosa hurried over to the table. Her eyes were red and puffy, and Alex was sure she'd been crying. “Have any of you seen it? It's silver. You know it, right? Did you? Did you see it?” Her words tumbled out in between sobs.

“Whoa, Rosa, sit down.” Lindsey guided her onto the bench. “What happened?”

“It's lost. Or stolen,” she choked out. Her shoulders trembled.

“Ro, you're not making sense,” Emily said.

“Take a deep breath,” Alex offered. That was what her mom always told her.

Rosa sucked in some air. “My bracelet. The silver one I always wear,” she began.

“The one you got for your confirmation?” Lindsey asked.

“Yes, that one. My parents gave it to me. It's really special. My mom got it from her mom when she was confirmed in Mexico,” Rosa explained. “I wore it to school today. I'm totally sure of it. But now it's gone!” Tears welled up again in her big brown eyes.

“Did you look for it?” Corey asked.

“Of course I looked for it. I've looked everywhere,” Rosa said. “I've covered the whole school.”

“Well, where's the last place you saw it?” Xander asked.

“If I knew that, I'd know where it was!” Rosa snapped. Then she dropped her head into her hands. “Sorry. I'm just so scared. I can't tell my mom I lost it.”

“Don't worry. We'll help you look for it,” Lindsey said, wrapping her arm around Rosa's shoulder.

“And Alex can use her Power,” Emily put in.

Alex gulped. What was Emily suggesting?

“What's she going to do?” Lindsey asked, wrinkling her nose.

“You know how on the news you always hear about psychics finding lost pets?” Emily said.

“Not really,” Xander said, smearing cream cheese on a bagel with his fingers.

Emily rolled her eyes at him. “Well, they do. All the time. Psychics find things that the police can't find. They use their minds and their powers. They conjure up an image of the missing thing. They can see
exactly
where it is,” Emily reported, as if she were an expert on psychic treasure hunting.

“Really?” Rosa's dark eyes grew wide and hopeful. “Can you do that, Alex?”

Alex's stomach tightened. The cheese cube she'd just eaten lodged in her throat like a stone.

“Of course she can,” Emily answered for her. “She and Ava have psychic powers.”