Take Two Read Online Free

math?

Payton
    Three
    AFTER SCHOOL
    â€œGive me an M !” Emma said to me.
    I gave her a look. We were both at our lockers putting away our stuff and getting ready for our after-school activities. Emma had mathletes starting in a half hour, and she was heading to the library to wait until it started.
    â€œGive me an A !” she persisted. “Give me a T and a H ! Go, mathletes!”
    â€œEmma, shush,” I said. “Haven’t we had enough people staring at us today? Besides, mathletes don’t have cheerleaders.”
    â€œMathletes have everything,” Emma said, putting her usual six thousand tons of books into her backpack. “We have intelligence, enthusiasm, and new scientific calculators. Woohoo!”
    She punched the air awkwardly. Sydney had no worriesabout Emma joining cheerleading, that was for sure.
    â€œHey, are you those two twins from TV?” some boy passing us asked.
    â€œNo,” I replied. “Today, we are not even remotely related.”
    I slammed my locker shut.
    â€œPayton,” Emma said. “I’m sorry if my enthusiasm for academics embarrasses you. Things have been such a downer lately, I just lost myself in a rare moment of happiness. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
    Oh. I felt really bad.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I said guiltily.
    â€œHah! Tricked you! My master manipulation skills are ready to take on that Jazmine James,” Emma said. Now she not only punched the air, but she did an awkward jump. “Mathletes rock! Goooo, mathletes!”
    Augh. Sometimes, she just had no shame.
    â€œGoooo, Emma.” I sighed. Please, just go, so people will stop looking at us.
    Emma waved good-bye and left, to my relief. However, I did kind of understand why she was so excited. Not because of doing math, of course. But because I was excited to go to Drama. From detention to Drama Club! Here’s the thing. Last week when I was pretending to be Emma, I’d gotten to go live on air for our school’s first videocast. And I’d loved it. So being onstage seemed like something I might like, too.
    Not that I thought I was going to get a big part in a play or anything, of course. But it would be cool to get a small role andhave a couple lines to say. Emma could be the Mathletes Twin, I could be the Actress Twin!
    I smiled at the thought of it.
    And then my cell phone started buzzing. I saw a text was coming from Tess. She’d texted me a couple times, even though she was one of Jazmine James’s sidekicks. Emma called Jazmine her “archnemesis,” but even she agreed Tess seemed kind of nice.
    i m walking in2 drama! i m saving u a seat!
    I smiled and shut my locker. I walked down the hall to the auditorium, feeling more confident since I knew I had a seat saved for me. I walked into the auditorium and saw that the front rows were filled with people facing the darkened stage.
    I scanned the room, looking for Tess. I spotted Nick. I was a little surprised he wasn’t at mathletes, since he was a math brain. But since he was the camera guy for VOGS (Videocast of Gecko Students), I guess it wasn’t too surprising he would be at drama.
    He saw me, too, and waved. Nick was so nice and easy to talk to that even Emma had been able to talk to him. I’d once thought they would be the perfect love match. He looked kind of her brainiac type, with a little messy longish brown hair and green eyes. But then Emma had totally surprised me—and everyone else—by liking Ox.
    I looked around some more and saw Tess. Tess was pretty easy to spot since she was seriously tall with long blond hair. She was sitting in the middle of second row, so I made my way over there.
    â€œExcuse me,” I said to the person sitting on the end as I climbed over her legs. “Excuse me.”
    And then someone didn’t excuse me, and I tripped over her legs.
    â€œOwww,” she whined dramatically.
    It was Sydney. And she was so