CHAPTER I: Carnival!

The message ended with a "beep", leaving Viola in a state of shock.

"Oh, crap! I forgot about that!" she gasped, slapping her forehead.

How could she have forgotten that? It was going to take all her efforts not to be discovered in a place where there were so many people and there was so much going on.

"Wait, your mom's in Junior League?" Duke asked, surprised.

"Yeah, how do you know that?"

"So is mine, I gotta go too!" he exclaimed.

"Ah..." she groaned "I can't deal with this right now, I have soccer to worry about!"

Duke looked a little hurt at the expression on his roommate's friend. Knowing he was going too, couldn't he at least pretend to be a little excited? Or at least not so pessimistic? They were friends, right? They could surely spend some time together and it wouldn't be so boring. Sure, the Junior League parties and carnivals were usually the least exciting, most excruciating events he had to go to, but Toby and Andrew had promised to go, so it was them four after all!

"It's not gonna be that bad" he said, then he added, slightly more enthusiastically: "Olivia's gonna be there! It's the perfect opportunity for me to lay some groundwork!"

"Oh... Olivia's gonna be there" Viola repeated, fully acknowledging for the first time how hard it was going to be for her to pretend to be two people "And my sister, and Monique, and you, and my mom. Great!" she fell on the bed, suddenly overtaken.

She really hated carnivals. She did, ever since she was little and she'd wanted to bungee jump and her mom had forbid it, forever. The guy on duty knew both her and Sebastian, and he was generously bribed each year to avoid the Hastings twins from throwing themselves tied only to a rope. She made a face at him and he answered with a similar gesture.

"Do you know that guy?" Toby asked.

"Yep" Viola answered, rolling her eyes.

"Care to share the tale?" Andrew smiled.

"When Viola and me were ten, we decided to try and bungee jump. The thing is, my sister was about to do it, when suddenly my mom started screaming and crying and making a scene. She told that guy to never let us on again, and she pays him every damn year to prevent that from happening again" she explained easily. Actually, she'd imitated the way Sebastian usually explained it to the people around him so it turned out pretty convincing. She didn't even stutter.

"You're almost seventeen. Does that apply even now?"

"I know Viola's gonna try it this year, as she always does" she assured them.

Duke was getting curious about Viola. She seemed different from her brother, almost like another type of rebel, like she wanted to be anything but the lady her mother wished her to be.

Olivia appeared then, and Duke forgot his line of thought. As soon as he saw her, his mind went totally blank. It should be forbidden to be as hot as she was. Just look at that gorgeous blonde hair... those light eyes, the face...

"I'm working at the kissing booth. See you there?"

The information wasn't directed towards him, but that didn't matter. Kiss! He'd pay everything he had if he could get one single kiss from Olivia.

"Where are you going?"

Duke realized he'd started to follow Olivia like a zombi. He turned around briefly.

"Where do you think I'm going?"

Viola saw Monique in her aquamarine dress and the alarm sign shot inside her mind. No chance! She gave a quick excuse to Toby and Andrew and ran into the first cubicle she could to change. The dress Yvonne had picked out for her was just perfect: red, like the color of Illyria, not too movement-limiting and the right amount of rack showing. She didn't want to look like a slut. She mentally made a note to thank her amazing friends when she saw them, because she would probably need their help to pull of what she had to do off.

The faces of the people who had seen her go in as a boy and exit as a girl clearly stated that either they believed she was on meds or they just had a very weird hallucination.

Viola ran to the tent where her mother, dressed up in her fancy skirt and jacket, greeted her with sugary sweet words and stupid statements about her being excited for being a debutante. She played along, but just when she was about to get some peace, her mother told her to warn her brother and to run the next shift at the kissing booth. Great! Kissing!

As she went out, she stampeded on a woman, and then on a guy... as she lifted her eyes, her apologize froze... Duke! If he discovered her, she was done for. And surely enough, he creased his eyebrows and asked:

"Wait... do I know you?"

"No" the voice came out false and high pitched, perfectly coordinated to how she was feeling.

She turned around to run the other way, and Duke half made the move of following her.

Duke felt someone slamming into his chest. He looked down to find a pretty girl beginning to apologize, but upon seeing her the `sorry` smile died on her lips and her eyes widened. Eyes the color of the sea... round eyes, expressive eyes... beautiful eyes... where had he seen them before? They were incredibly familiar... as if he lived with them everyday, yet he didn't exactly know from where.

"Wait... do I know you?"

The girl's face now showed despair and... fear? Was that a twinkle of fear on the left corner of her greenish eyes? Why would she be afraid? Was she hiding something?

"No" the voice came out wrong, even he could hear.

She quickly turned around and ran in the other direction. He made he attempt of following her, but changed his mind and started marching towards the kissing booth. Who knew at what time was Olivia's turn? Would this strange girl have a turn too... Wait! Wake up, Duke, she's just somebody you ran into, you don't really know her...

Viola felt two strong arms holding her back and she turned to look into the cocky face of Justin Dreyton.

"Hey, Viola! I've been calling and calling! We need to talk!" he exclaimed, happy to see her.

"Justin, we already talked, all the talking is done!" she answered angrily.

"Come on... don't be like that because of a stupid soccer issue... can't you be a girl for five seconds?" he groaned half-joking.

"Five seconds? Okay! First of all it's not a stupid soccer issue and you're a jerk! Oh, look at that" she added with a mocking voice "time's up "and she slapped him right across the cheek.

Duke was waiting in line. He was nervous. Very nervous. He had kissed a girl before, yeah, but... why did he keep thinking about that other girl, the one he bumped into before? He saw Olivia with a pained expression as a dorky looking kid stayed for one second too long with his lips stuck to hers. She started to hyperventilate.

Olivia couldn't hold her breath much longer. The lips she had right now against hers were little less than awful... sticky from sugar candy and liquorice... please... somebody save her... and next was Duke... please, no! Anything but kissing the jock! Please! She felt immense relief as the next girl placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to thank her savior but found something oddly strange with this girl. As if she'd known her from before. As if she was somebody else.

"Do I know you?"

Viola's voice came out just as it had come out when she'd answered that same question phrased by Duke.

"No"

And ironically enough, he was standing right there, with a pained expression on his face... a deeply desperate expression. How could... ugh! That was just bad timing!

"I can't catch a break" he groaned.

Duke saw the girl's face grow a little offended and tried to mend it. Then the child behind him said something and that made him even more nervous. Oh! This was... he closed in to kiss her, and found her lips soft and delicious... a jolt of pleasure was sent through his body, almost like it'd been expecting this, with this girl exactly. But that was just plain stupid... he didn't know this girl... did he?

"I think that was worth one ticket" he said, without really opening his eyes.

She seemed to be in the same state because she closed in again.

It was the way her mouth moved, the way it was perfectly synchronized with his... until a strong hand pulled her back.

"Viola, what the hell is this!" exclaimed a voice he knew and hated all too well "Sorry, Dufus... you're making out with my girlfriend!"

"Ex-girlfriend" she pointed out.

Duke flipped.

"Wow... you're... you're Sebastian's sister?"

He couldn't believe it! Of course her eyes were so obviously familiar, because they were his roommate's too! Now it made sense! For a second, he thought, he might have been rooming with a girl for a week without having noticed.

"And you're about to die!" exclaimed Justin, slapping his chest.

"What are you gonna do, drown me in your tears?" he snorted.

"I did not cry during that game, I had something in my eye" he answered back, embarrassed.

Viola saw the testosterone filled environment and tried to push them back. Didn't work. Justin was too much the possessive jerk to let her snogging someone else go undeterred. And he hated the guy to the guts... excellent! Result: they both got expelled from the carnival... and she had to say with her mother for the rest of the day.