Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? (7 page)

Alex shook her head. “I don't think—”

“Oh, come on, Alex. You heard what Madame Sibyl said. And then you willed Ava to come over here, and you mentally told each other to wear the same outfit,” Emily said.

“I know, but—” Before Alex could explain that she couldn't make a pen move yet, and she was still trying to convince her sister to try to even use her powers, Rosa flung her willowy arms around her and gave her a hug.

“If you could find my bracelet, Alex, I would be so grateful. I mean it. I need you to try. Please!” Rosa cried.

Alex awkwardly patted Rosa's back as the stone in her throat expanded.

Rosa pulled away. “So?”

Can Ava and I really do this?
Alex wondered, unsure how to respond. Once more, all eyes were on her.

“You can do this,” Emily said, as if she were the one who read minds. “I know you can.”

“It would be so good if you found Rosa's bracelet,” Lindsey added.

This is the good thing!
Alex realized.
This is how we can use our Power for good.

“Sure,” she told Rosa. “We'll help you.”

Rosa grinned and hugged her again. Alex had never felt very close to Rosa, but from how tight her hug was, Alex could tell how much she wanted this to work. “Will you do it now? Picture where it is and all?”

Alex glanced across the room at Ava, who was showing Kylie something in a book. Strangely, she felt more confident that she could find Rosa's bracelet than convince Ava to do it with her.

Ava rested her chin on her hands and listened to Kylie.

“The book is about teamwork. They're called the Souls, so even though they sound separate, they do come together,” Kylie explained.

“In the academic bowl at the end, right?” Ava asked.

“Exactly!” Kylie grinned. “You're going to kill it on the in-class essay.”

Ava had finished the book for English class last night and she understood it, but she'd had Kylie retell the story. Kylie made the plots and themes so much easier to understand. Plus, she did great voices and accents.

“You should be a teacher,” Ava told her. “Or an actress.”

“I could teach acting. Or act like I'm teaching,” Kylie teased.

“Or you could—” Ava began.

“Ava, I need you.” Alex had appeared behind her.

“What's wrong?” Ava asked, swiveling to see her better. Alex chewed her lip.

“It's kind of private.” Alex glanced at Kylie.

“Are you okay? You can tell Kylie, too,” Ava said.

“I need you. Alone,” Alex urged. She shrugged at Kylie. “Sorry, but—”

“No worries. I can take the hint. I'm going to find Mr. Antonucci for extra social studies help.” Kylie stood.

Ava waved and turned to Alex. “What's going on?” she demanded.

Alex eyed a table of boys nearby and Mr. Fifer, the music teacher, patrolling for trash. “Come to the bathroom with me.” She tugged Ava's hand.

“You're scaring me,” Ava said, following Alex to the girls' bathroom. They bypassed the one nearest the cafeteria. Instead Alex dragged her to the one all the way by the library. Once inside, Alex peered underneath each stall, making sure they were truly alone.

“Okay, now I'm petrified,” Ava admitted, leaning against a sink. “Are you in trouble? What happened?”

“Rosa lost her silver bracelet,” Alex said.

“And?” Ava couldn't believe they were hidden away because of a bracelet. “Did you take it?”

“Of course not! But we're going to find it.”

“I'm still not getting this. You want me to help you look for Rosa's bracelet?” Ava asked. The sink dripped behind her. The gray tile smelled of cleaning supplies.

“You and me. Together. With our Power,” Alex said quietly. “Like we do when we read minds.”

“We don't read minds,” Ava scoffed. She couldn't believe her sister was getting so hung up on this stuff. Alex was usually the logical one.

“I think we can.” Alex gave her a really intense look. “I promised Rosa we'd try. That together we could see where her missing bracelet is.”

Ava blew out her breath. “We could just look around the school.”

“She did that. Listen, Ave, everyone is counting on us to do this. And I really think we can. This is the good thing I was telling you about,” Alex explained. “This bracelet is important to Rosa. You kind of owe it to her to try.”

“The bell's going to ring in a few minutes,” Ava said. This whole idea was too weird.

“We'll try really quickly. Come in here.” Alex pulled Ava with her into a narrow stall. They squeezed on either side of the toilet. “I think it will work better if we're really close together.”

“It stinks in here, Al.” Ava felt silly standing with her sister in a stall. “What if someone walks in?”

“They'll think it's a twin thing,” Alex replied.

“Going to the bathroom together? Oh, that's great.” Ava blew out her breath. Then she sucked it back in. It really did stink.

Alex grasped both of Ava's hands over the toilet. “Close your eyes.”

Ava closed her eyes. “You owe me big-time.”

“Shhh. Now think about Rosa's bracelet. It's silver. It used to belong to her mother when she was a girl,” Alex said.

Ava thought about a bracelet. She had no idea what Rosa's looked like exactly. “Is it working?”

“It doesn't happen that fast,” Alex said. “Really concentrate on the bracelet. I will too. And try to form a picture in your mind of where it is right now.”

The squeak of hinges alerted them to the opening of the bathroom door. Ava's eyes shot open. Alex motioned frantically to the toilet.

“What?” Ava mouthed.

“Get up!” Alex pointed to the sides of the toilet seat. School toilets had no lid.

Ava groaned. Gross! Then she heard the footsteps. And voices she didn't recognize. Ava leaped onto the toilet seat. Her sneakers balanced on either side of the bowl.

She tried not to look down.

Tried not to think about falling into toilet water.

Alex kept a grip on both her hands. Ava felt ridiculous. If any of those girls opened the stall door, what would they possibly think? She looked as if she were doing a circus routine!

“Is that a new lip gloss?” one girl asked. She sounded as if she were over by the mirrors.

“Yep. Super-sparkle shine. And it smells like grapefruit,” said another.

Alex gave her hand a hard squeeze. “Think about the bracelet,” she mouthed.

Ava tried. She really did.

The lip gloss girls left, and a pair of scuffed navy flats walked in. The girl headed toward the farthest stall.

Bracelet,
Ava reminded herself. How long would she have to stay perched on a toilet? She heard the girl using the toilet. Ava stared with disgust into the toilet water below.

“Anything?” Alex mouthed.

Ava shook her head. Alex frowned.

They listened to the sink water run and the whir of the hand dryer. The girl left.

Ava hopped down. “I'm out of here, Alex. I tried. I really did.”

“This wasn't a good place to do it,” Alex conceded.

“Oh, you think?” Ava couldn't help being sarcastic. Then she caught sight of Alex's distraught face. “Look, I'm sorry it didn't work.”

“I know it can, though. I think the two of us should focus on the bracelet all day. In all our classes. Even if we're not together physically, we can connect mentally. Will you try to access the Power today? Try to find the bracelet?” Alex sounded so desperate. Ava rarely heard her like this.

“Sure. Whatever,” Ava agreed, hoping to make Alex happy. “But why are you so into this psychic stuff?”

Alex shrugged. The bell rang and they pushed their way through the now-crowded hall. “Don't you ever wonder about the mind and how it works? Especially our minds and our connection? I want to test it out.”

“It's so like you to be using us as a science experiment,” Ava teased.

“Yeah, and it's more than that,” Alex admitted. “I kind of told everyone we could do it.”

Ava stopped walking. Sometimes she thought Alex would say anything when faced with a crowd. “This is going to end badly,” she warned.

“You don't know that,” Alex countered. “Think positive thoughts. We can access the Power together.”

Ava nodded, but she didn't feel very positive. She could barely remember the plot to the book she had to write an essay on in two minutes. How was she going to conjure up a missing bracelet with her mind?

Alex spent the afternoon thinking about Rosa's bracelet.

Her head was starting to pound. She had no idea where it was.

In English class, she waited until Charlotte walked to the front of the room to get their discussion questions. Then she closed her eyes and tried again.

Rosa's bracelet. Rosa's bracelet.

She smelled freshly baked cookies. Was that a clue? Maybe the bracelet was in the cafeteria kitchen! Maybe Rosa had accidentally left it on her tray when she turned it in.
But do they actually bake the cookies in the cafeteria?
Alex wondered.

“Alex? Are you asleep?” Charlotte whispered.

Alex blinked. “No, just thinking.” Then she noticed the plate with two cookies that Charlotte was holding. “What's that?”

“Ms. Palmer brought in cookies today and said we could each have one.” Charlotte passed Alex a cookie and the paper with their discussion questions.

Alex inhaled the buttery scent of the treats. Great. She was no closer to finding Rosa's bracelet. “Okay, let's do this.” She started looking over the questions, but she really didn't feel like talking about
Animal Farm
right now, and she could tell Charlotte didn't either.

“I had to take another placement test during lunch. That was
not
fun,” Charlotte said. “You and Ava are still coming over today?”

“Definitely,” Alex said. “Ava has football practice and I have to help the cheerleaders, but we can come over after.”

Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “I didn't think you were one of them.”

“Them?” Alex thumbed through the book when she noticed Ms. Palmer watching them.

“The cheerleaders,” Charlotte said.

“I'm not. I wanted to be, but I'm way too uncoordinated. You should see the crazy-hard flips they do. So I help them with fund-raising and advertising,” Alex explained.

Charlotte raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything. “So after that, we'll hang out? I live right nearby. I can meet you at the front of the school.”

Alex took a bite of cookie and chewed thoughtfully. She also wanted to grab Ava and try calling up the whereabouts of the bracelet again, and she thought it made sense to do that on school grounds, where the bracelet was lost. But if she intercepted Ava as she came out of the locker room, they could try before meeting Charlotte.

“We're good, right?” Charlotte sounded nervous.

“All good,” Alex assured her, glancing up at the clock. As soon as classes were over, she planned to hurry to the library. She wanted to check Madame Sibyl's site. Maybe they weren't doing it right. Maybe they shouldn't hold hands. Or maybe they needed to be in a dark room. She needed more information.

But the library doors were locked after school when she pulled on them. A handwritten sign on notebook paper said
LIBRARY CLOSED FOR STAFF MEETING
.

Alex wished she could pick up wireless Internet and search on her phone, but the school constantly changed the passwords so kids couldn't log on to the network.

She headed toward the gym. The cheerleaders' voices rang out as she opened the door: “One, three, five, nine, who do we think is mighty fine?”

“Did you find it? Say yes!” Rosa ran over to Alex before she'd stepped fully inside.

Emily, Lindsey, Annelise, and all the other cheerleaders gathered around. The air crackled with their anticipation.

“Not yet,” Alex admitted. Her phone buzzed, but she ignored it. “I'm really trying.”

“I am in
so
much trouble.” Rosa groaned. “If I can sneak up to my room, maybe my mom won't notice. At least for today.”

“Don't stress,” Emily told Rosa. “I know Alex will find it.”

Alex wondered how Emily was so sure. Emily was always the most optimistic of her group of friends, but still . . . the bracelet could be
anywhere
.

“Alex, let's talk posters,” called Coach Jen, as Alex's phone buzzed again. “Lindsey, I want you to lead the squad through the syncopation sequence. Slow it down. Hit every beat.”

Some girls grumbled.

Coach Jen wagged a finger at them. “Don't give me that. At least we're in the air-conditioning. Remember how hot it was outside this morning before school?”