Double Vision by Tia Mowry

kids always sat. And today Cassie was right there in the center of the action. She was chatting and laughing and waving her French fries around, clearly having a great time with her new friends.
    I bit my lip as I watched her playfully bump shoulders with Megan. Maybe I was reading toomuch into this whole situation. Maybe it all really was a coincidence. Maybe I should be happy that my twin was finally settling in.
    â€œCome on, Liam!” Bianca’s voice broke into my thoughts. “I’m freezing, and you’re obviously not.”
    Bianca was hugging herself and glaring at Liam as he looked down at his lunch, his expression sort of angsty.
    â€œSorry,” he muttered, still not meeting Bianca’s eye. “I need to keep it, that’s all.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I asked Bianca.
    She turned to me with a frown. “Liam won’t let me borrow his sweater,” she complained.
    Liam’s bright-red sweater, which clashed pretty dramatically with his brown-and-green-striped polo shirt, was tied firmly around his waist.
    â€œHere, you can borrow mine,” I told Bianca, fishing out the cardigan I’d tossed in my bag that morning. “I don’t need it.”
    â€œThanks!” Bianca accepted the sweater, immediately looking much happier. “I’ll give it back as soon as I can get mine out of my locker.”
    â€œNo hurry.” I smiled distractedly, my gaze already wandering back toward my sister.
    As we left the cafeteria a few minutes later, Liam grabbed my arm, holding me back.
    â€œThanks, Caitlyn,” he said quietly, sounding unusually serious. “You know—for the sweater thing?”
    â€œSure, no biggie.”
    â€œNo, really.” He glanced around to make sure nobody was looking our way. “See, I didn’t want to tell Bianca where other people might hear me—you know, after yesterday and all. But I, uh, tripped and ripped my pants in the lunch line.” He tweaked the sweater aside just enough for me to see a hint of Superman peeking out through a tear in his khakis. “I couldn’t be a laughingstock two days in a row.”
    â€œOh!” Now I understood. Talk about bad luck!
    Or was it? Suddenly something else was starting to make perfect sense, too. Horrible, awful sense.
    As Liam hurried to catch up with Bianca, I stood there in shock. Cassie’s words from yesterday started running through my mind in an endless loop: Who could possibly have predicted he’d have something like that on underneath?
    My twintuition had been right! Cassie must have had a vision about Liam ripping his pants and decided to use his, um, unusual fashion sense to win over her snooty new friends.
    â€œHow dare she!” I whispered.
    It took a lot to make me mad, but right now I was ready to chew metal and spit nails. How could Cassie have done something like this? What had Liam ever done to her? I wanted to find her and give her a piece of my mind.
    But I forced myself to take a few deep breaths. Getting mad at Cassie never got me anywhere. She had what she wanted now—popularity—and no amount of yelling and ranting from me was likely to get through to her. This wasn’t the time to get mad. It was time to get even.
    After all, two could play at this game.

13
CASSIE
    THE NEXT MORNING I must have tried on every outfit I owned, struggling to decide what to wear. It was Friday, and now that things were going so well with Megan and the gang, I was fixing to get myself invited to their weekend plans.
    Well, it was mostly going well anyway. Megan was already starting to feel like a real friend. We actually had a ton in common: we liked a lot of the same stuff, from fashion to movies, and we laughedat each other’s jokes. Most of the minions seemed to accept me, too. If Megan thought I was cool, that was good enough for them.
    Then there was Lavender. She was going to be a tough case, I could tell. Oh, she