Times Squared (8 page)

“It was an accident!” I blurted out. “Totally harmless!”

“Harmless?” Mrs. James looked sternly at me. “Someone could have been injured!”

Huh?

“They were just foam swords,” Reilly said. “They didn't hurt or anything.”

“I was aiming for Reilly,” Sam said to Mrs. James, looking guilty. “I didn't know your daughter was going to jump in front of me.”

Mrs. James was glaring at the boys.

Oh, phew, it wasn't me.

“You hit my daughter in the face with the sword,” Mrs. James said. “And right before a math competition.”

Sydney giggled. Jazmine glared at her.

“What? It was a little funny,” Sydney said.

“Not funny,” Jazmine said.

“You need a sense of humor,” Sydney whispered so Jazmine could hear her.

“You need an IQ,” Jazmine shot back.

Yeeps. I edged away from that, um, discussion, and closer to Mrs. James. I relaxed a little bit knowing our switch hadn't been busted.

“Our hour is coming to a close,” Mrs. James was saying. “We are to proceed to our next destination, where we will meet up with the rest of your classmates.”

No more math lessons? Aw, too bad so sad.

“However, it is several blocks away, so we will continue our math lessons as we walk,” Mrs. James said. “Coordinate geometry or logarithmic equations?”

“Logarithmic equations!” Jazmine said.

The rest of us groaned. We walked in a group across the street.

“Find the logarithm of the ninth root of three,” Mrs. James ordered.

“Hmm . . . ,” Jasmine said. “It's definitely a fraction. One-fourth?”

“Oh, this is painful,” Sydney said. “Look at what we're missing. Shopping. Fun restaurants. A TV station!”

“Sports restaurants!” Reilly added. “Sports-stuff stores!”

“Comic stores,” Sam said miserably. “Candy stores.”

We all sighed as we passed a candy store.

“We're probably going to a math store next,” Reilly said.

We marched along in silence. I tried to keep up and not get run over by the crowds pushing along the sidewalk. Or trip over other tourists who were pulling rolling suitcases.

“Hey, Payton,” Sydney said.

Or walk near Sydney. I walked even faster.

Sydney caught up easily. “Look, there's another group over there.” I could see some of our classmates on the other side of the street, with one of the dad chaperones in the geeky Gecko cap.

“So?” I asked.

“There's Ox,” Sydney said. “Do you think he knows? Somebody's definitely going to tell him. Do you think he's going to get really upset? Do you think he's going to go punch Nick out?”

What the heck was she talking about?

“No, he won't punch Nick out,” she continued. “Emma's not worth it.”

“Sydney, what are you talking about?” I asked her.

“Duh, how your sister, Emma, was cuddling up with
Nick on the Ferris wheel?” Sydney said. “How he had his arm around her? I know Emma and Ox aren't officially boyfriend and girlfriend but—”

“Augh!”
I yelled out. Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh omigosh omigosh! I had not even thought of that! People saw me and Nick on the Ferris wheel except . . .

I was supposed to be Emma!

“And aren't you so mad at her too?” Sydney went on. “It's pretty obvious you had a crush on Nick. And now your very own twin sister is stealing him.”

“No!” I blurted. “That's not what's happening! It wasn't—”

“You're in denial,” Sydney sighed. “It
is
shocking. I mean, who would have thought your brainiac geek of a sister was such a guy magnet?”

Okay, okay. How was I going to explain this one? Maybe I should just tell her it was me. I mean, the whole thing was an accident.

But how could I prove that? And after the mix-up switch-up, we should have told a teacher or something. Sydney could totally use this to get us in trouble. Or she'd hold it over my head so I would be worrying that she could tell on us at any time.

I was so confused. Plus feeling kind of dizzy and
pukey still from the Ferris wheel. I needed to text Emma. She would know what to do. I pulled my phone out of my bag. I realized it was turned off so I clicked it on.

“We are here!” Mrs. James announced.

SIDEWALKS OF NYC

“New York, New York!” Tess sang out, raising her hands to the skies. Which were drizzling rain down on us as we walked along the sidewalk.

My mood felt like the weather. Dismal.

“You've got a great voice,” said one of the eighth graders in my group. I didn't know her.

“Thanks.” Tess blushed. She looked at me and Nick. Neither of us had said much since leaving the toy store.

“Emma! Nick! Cheer up! We're in the Big Apple!”

“Big Apple?” Mrs. Nicely turned back to check on us. “Did I hear the mention of food? Good timing, I say,
because our next stop is the pretzel stand on the corner ahead.”

“Pretzels, yay,” I said, attempting to sound enthusiastic.

“Pretzels, yum,” Nick said, sounding suspiciously like me.

“Sheesh!” Tess sighed. “I don't know what's wrong with you two, but if you don't snap out of it soon, I'm hanging out with . . . excuse me, what's all you guys' names again?”

“Katelyn.”

“Adam.”

“Russ.”

The three eighth graders slowed down to join us.

“Yeah,” Tess repeated. “I'm hanging out with Katelyn, Adam, and Russ. What are we talking about?”

“We're quizzing each other on factorization and common multiples,” Adam said. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Tess was the winner of last year's mathathon,” Nick informed them.

“And you chose drama over math?” Katelyn frowned.

“Ugh,” Adam said. Russ nodded. The three of them sped up and left us behind.

“Drama versus mathletes?” Tess said, loudly and
dramatically. “We're all Geckos! Can't we just get along?!?”

Okay. Even I had to smile at that.

A few minutes later we were sitting around some modern statue eating steaming pretzels in paper wrappings. Mrs. Nicely was on a nearby bench, surrounded by bags from the toy store. We all had our slickers on and hoods up.

“Will somebody
please
tell me what is going on?” Tess demanded, taking a bite of pretzel.

“It's nothing,” Nick said. “I just thought . . . well, I totally misunderstood a situation.” Nick did not look at either of us. He looked—sad.

Maybe if
I
talked about the Ferris wheel deal, I could figure out why.

“So,” I began, “here's
my
problem.”

“If it's math-related, I can't help you,” Nick said. He had yellow mustard on his cheek. I did not get the pretzel/mustard combination, but whatever.

“No,” I sighed. “You're actually part of the problem. You two know that Payton and I switched places by accident, right?”

They both nodded. Boy, it was weird to be talking about twin switching with someone other than Payton,
but Tess and Nick had told me they'd known we'd traded places right away.

Which was why Nick had looked so cozy with my twin on the Ferris wheel.

Wait. Shouldn't Nick be in a good mood after that ride with Payton?

“When I
accidentally
got stuck in Payton's group, Sydney noticed . . .” my voice trailed off. Sydney noticed what? I had
thought
Sydney and everybody had noticed Payton and Nick acting like they like
liked
each other. Like more than just friends.

But now that Nick was acting weird, what was I going to say?
Sydney's telling people that it was I, Emma, who was flirting with Nick, instead of Payton, and she is going to make sure Ox finds out about it, when really it was Payton and Nick who were so happy on the Ferris wheel together . . .

But Nick didn't seem so happy now. This was way too confusing. If this were a math equation, it would be like (N + P) – (N + E) + (E + O) + (S + O) = (E – O) + (P – N).

“Sydney noticed what?” Tess broke into my overthinking. “That you two switched places! Oh no, is she going to tell on you? Like Jazmine did when she busted you two the first time?”

“No, that's not what Sydney's going to blab . . . ,” I started to say, but got cut off by a shriek from Mrs. Nicely.

“Children!” she said, jumping up. “We are due at the theater in exactly six minutes! Where did the time go?” She grabbed all her bags and took off at a brisk walk.

I noticed one of the mathletes (Russ?) check his GPS and announce: “We have eleven blocks to go. That's one point eight three blocks per minute. Time equals distance divided by rate.”

“We'll make it in time if we hurry,” Katelyn(?) said. “Taking into account variables like the traffic signals and taxi aggression.”

Reality check! Those people already had their math brains churning, while I was once again distracted by personal problems.

“Let's go,” I sighed, dropping my wrapper in my backpack until I could properly dispose of it. I had eaten the whole pretzel without even noticing.

Tess, Nick, and I caught up with the rest of our group and headed full speed toward the theater. By the time we were finally there, I was out of breath—I'm a mathlete, not an athlete—and had put Nick's grouchy face, Payton's problems, and all evil nemeses (a.k.a. Sydney and Jazmine) out of my head.

Ox I'd deal with later.

Now it was back to the me I should be. Mathlete Emma. Focused Emma. Academma.

“Hi, Payton!” a drama Gecko said to me as we joined another group at the theater entrance.

I was too winded to correct her. By the time I'd caught my breath, I was inside the theater and following Mrs. Nicely to our seats.

“Please turn off all electronic devices,” our chaperone announced, reading from a sign on the wall.

My cell phone! I'd completely forgotten about it. Quickly I pulled it out of pocket number three and texted Payton.
Find me!
I punched in the message fourteen times so she would understand the urgency. I shut my phone down and slipped it back into its proper pocket. No one had noticed.

Whew.

I flopped down into a theater seat. I looked around for my twin's group. They weren't here yet. Good. Then Payton would still be outside and receive my text. Texts.

Gah.
This was just too much drama for an elite mathlete like me. I closed my eyes and began calculating the products of my favorite prime numbers.

OFF-BROADWAY THEATER

“We are here!” Mrs. James had announced.

Where was here? I looked up from my phone. We were at a theater! I could see the sign for the play that Burkle's friend was going to produce!

“A real Broadway theater!” I said.

“Off-Broadway,” Mrs. James sniffed. “Off-off-Broadway.”

Still! It was so cool! It wasn't that far off Broadway for one thing!

Brzzzzt! Brzzzzt!

My cell phone started going crazy and interrupted me. I looked down to see fourteen text messages. Fourteen?
I clicked and saw they were all from Emma!

?!?!?!

“Cell phones off!” Mrs. James said to me. “Immediately! No cell phones in the theater.”

“But—”

She glared at me until I turned it off. We all filed into the theater. And I forgot about my cell phone.

“I call front row!” Sydney squealed, and darted down to the front.

“Group! Be seated,” Mrs. James said. We all followed her to the front row. I tried to go slowly but somehow I ended up stuck between Sydney and Jazmine James.

But now I would ignore them! I was in a real Broadway theater! And who knew? Maybe I'd be an actress on a stage like that someday!

My dreams were interrupted by an elbow in my waist.