Go! Fight! Twin! by Belle Payton Page B

really get you into big trouble. It’s not worth it.”
    Alex nodded. “Even if you don’t get caught. That’s why I confessed to Coach Jen about trading places. I couldn’t take the guilt. Tommy did get caught, and it sounds way worse than if he’d just gone and told Coach the truth.”
    They heard Tommy’s door open, and the shouting grew louder. Then they heard feet stomping down the stairs, and the front door slammed.
    â€œI think that was Tommy!” whispered Alex.
    Ava just nodded. “This is bad, Al,” she said.

CHAPTER
Eighteen
    Ava lay awake past midnight that night, thinking about everything that had happened. Tommy hadn’t returned. She could hear her parents in their room talking. She lay awake, listening to the night sounds outside. Then at last, at about 12:20 in the morning, she heard the kitchen door open and knew Tommy was finally home. There was a cathunk of the refrigerator door being opened. Cathunk as it closed. Dishes, silverware clanking. In her parents’ room, the talking had stopped. Were they asleep? Or listening to the sounds of Tommy making himself a midnight snack?
    She thought about going to see her brotherbut then changed her mind. She heard his footsteps coming up the stairs. The door of his room closed. Then the house was quiet.

    Sunday morning Ava woke up early, but Tommy’s room was empty, his bed a rumpled heap of sheets. She headed down to the kitchen, but it was empty too. Her mother had left a note on the kitchen table saying she was out for a long run. Through the window over the sink, Ava could see Coach outside in the backyard, hammering something on the battered old door of the shed.
    She texted Tommy.
    Where are you?
    He did not reply for a full five minutes. Then:
    I’m practicing. At the church.
    Ava ate a quick bowl of cereal and went outside to see Coach.
    â€œMorning,” he said shortly, without pausing in his hammering. He had added a crosspiece of wood to the back of the door of the shed and was hammering it into place. In his baggy, faded jeans and black, faded-to-gray T-shirt, Ava thought her dad looked like a teenager. He could be Tommy’s twin, at least from the back.
    She sat on an overturned bucket and watched her dad finish his task. When at last he began picking up his tools, she said, “Hey, Coach? Want to go for a walk with me?”
    He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Sure, honey. Where to?”
    â€œJust . . . not far. I want to show you something.”
    He held her gaze for a moment, as though sizing up her earnestness, and said, “Let me put these tools away. I’ll meet you in front in five.”
    They set off in silence, Ava leading the way down the block. It was early enough that they didn’t meet any neighbors, and only one vehicle passed them, a beat-up old pickup truck stacked high with fat sacks of grain. Ava didn’t know what Tommy had told Coach about his concertand his scheme. Did Coach know she had been Tommy’s accomplice? Was he angry with her, too? Knowing Tommy, he would have told Coach only whatever was absolutely necessary, but knowing Coach, he had gotten to the truth by asking just the right perceptive questions. She kept quiet.
    A few blocks later Ava saw the church, a pretty little building with weather-beaten white siding and a simple steeple. The sign out front said that the next service was at noon, and it was just past nine.
    As they drew closer, Ava could hear some very unchurchlike music: jazzy, syncopated rhythms and an upbeat melody. Next to her, Coach stopped and stood still. Ava looked up at him. He had the strangest mixture of emotions playing across his face—like the toy kaleidoscope she had owned and loved as a little kid. You twisted it and wild colors and patterns morphed and emerged and changed into other patterns. Passing across her father’s face, one after another, Ava could see anger change to pride, then