Under Their Skin by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page B

drawers.
    â€œIf we’re lucky, Ava and Jackson keep journals, and they have separate ones for here and at their mom’s,” she muttered.
    â€œYeah, right,” Nick said. “Anything like that, they’d keep on their laptops, and I’m sure they carry their laptops back and forth between their parents’ houses. Just like we do.”
    There wasn’t a laptop sitting on Ava’s desk. Nick was pretty sure he would have noticed if there’d been one in Jackson’s room.
    All the same, he went over and peeked into the drawer Eryn had just opened. Pencils, pens, paper clips, and Post-it notes lay in a compartmentalized plastic container.
    â€œShe’s neater than you,” Nick observed. “Everything’s perfect.”
    â€œOr it’s fake,” Eryn said, scowling. “Mom and Michael want us to think she’s perfect.”
    â€œMom and Michael didn’t wantus to be in this room, so why would they fake anything about it?” Nick asked.
    Eryn turned her head toward Nick, but her eyes didn’t really focus. She squinted even more fiercely than usual. Then she shook her head as if that might help her think straight.
    â€œOr Ava is trying to act perfect for Mom and Michael,” Eryn suggested. “This whole situation is crazy. Don’t you feel it? Doesn’t it seem like nothing in this room is real ? Like it’s all . . . staged?”
    Like how the pictures of Ava and Jackson look like the fake photos put in frames for sale? Nick thought.
    â€œAnd don’t our rooms back at Dad’s look ‘staged’ right now because we’re not living there this week?” Nick asked. “Don’t we always leave our rooms neater when we’re going to be gone for the week than we do when we walk out every morning just to go to school?”
    He found himself warming to the topic. He had a whole two weeks of experience as a stage manager—he knew about this.
    â€œAnd think about how Mom always makes us clean up our rooms before we have friends over,” he said. “Are you saying that looks staged too?”
    Eryn stubbornly pursed her lips.
    â€œThis is different,” she said. “There’s nothing here that’s personal.”
    Nick yanked open the drawer below the one with the pens and pencils. A manila envelope lay on the very top. It was facedown, but Nick could see the smear of a postal mark on the back.
    â€œLook, a letter,” he said. “Letters are personal.”
    Eryn picked the envelope up, flipped open the flap at the top, and let the envelope fall as she pulled out two flat sheets of paper. One seemed to be some sort of heavy embossed certificate. Eryn began reading aloud from the other.
    â€œâ€˜Dear Ava, Thank you for your participation in our production of The Ugly Duckling. We appreciate the dedication of all our actors and actresses . . .’ Nick, this is just a form letter and a stupid certificate,” Eryn moaned. “And it just proves that she had a role in a play. Like me.”
    â€œDoes it have the name of her school?” Nick asked. “That would be something.”
    He bent over to pick up the manila envelope Eryn had dropped.
    â€œNo, it’s from some community theater,” Eryn said. “So she and Jackson could be at any school around here.”
    Nick saw the words Maywood Children’s Community Theater , on the return address of the envelope just as Eryn said that. Eryn was still talking—something about how maybe she and Nick could get Mom and Dad to let them try out for the community theater, as a way to get to Ava and Jackson. But no, Mom and Dad would probably say no to that and just not say why, because . . .
    Nick stopped listening to Eryn. Instead he started tapping her on the arm to get her to stop talking. Because he’d found something even more important.
    â€œEryn, Eryn—shut up and look