The bleachers are uncomfortably hard and rigid , sitting and watching the team practice while trying to complete my homework, stopping the wind from taking my homework every two seconds. When I heard that Alena was watching the practices I decided I would to. Incase she tried anything. So far she merely observed but I knew that was dangerous. Harriet had flipped sides, unaware of Alena's master plan, she decided to do the sportswomen thing and let her watch when she found out she never intended to join the team. 

Lying skank. I angrily erased my answer and penciled in the correct one. How could this be happening. I turn my head as my sister calls another formation. She is giving away all their secrets. She wouldn't listen when I tried to tell her and now she is only hurting herself. I look around wishing there was a distraction. Spotting the coach to the side I grin. Harriet loves Coach P but everyone knows she can talk you to death at any subject she finds interest. 

Smiling I hop over to the bleacher right next to Alena, ignoring her eyeing me in annoyance as I wave coach over she smiles coming over.

"Harper, so nice you are coming to support your sister."

"Yes, I am her number one fan.' I grin "But you know Alena here was just asking me if I knew anyone into sports medicine who can coach her through getting her arm better once the cast comes off and I knew you would have the perfect advise, you can even show her your certificate in your office!"

"-I don't think that-"

"-Absolutely, Alena you are more than welcome, come along and I will explain on the way!"  I simply grin at the bird Alena flips me behind coaches back. A part of me hating how attractive she looks despite her enemy status. I am satisfied when Coach only makes it back with a bad tempered  Alena once Harriet has stopped their tricks and is on fitness. Which is pretty much torture. 

As coach heads towards the girls Alena scowls in my direction. I merely grin and lean back as she sits down in her original spot. I wish I had sunglasses for this moment. 

"That was a new found torture." Alena seems to forget that I am enemy number one as she mutters under her breath.

"Don't mess with my sister."

As if remembering her face hardens as she glares at me "I thought you hated 'Barbies' so you shouldn't care about whether Harriet is Captain or not."

"Harriet is different." 

"How." I watch Harriet, leading the team with a smile on her exhausted face, doing her best to be a motivator, a leader and a friend and she is great at it. She shines on the field. When we were younger and she first started struggling in school we never knew if we would graduate together because the teachers wanted to hold her back a year. But after having a tutor daily, a grueling summer school she passed the grade. I remember how unhappy and down she was. I would wait on the stairs as she finished her lessons or came back home. Her back was bent, her pigtails looked sad and droopy. She barely managed to smile when my mom tried her best to make her favourite meals. Btu she did it so that we could be in the same grade together, even if being held back a year was the easier option.

It was the first time a difference between us was so drawn out, I couldn't help her but I could feel her pain. After that summer my parents gave her what she always wanted. Cheer lessons. After that no matter how many tutors or teachers picked out her learning issues. Well, it didn't matter because at the end of the day she had cheer. It was her saving grace. It still is. It is one of the only times I see her completely in her element. She does not have to concern herself with whether she fits in, whether she is smart enough. She just belongs. 

So Harriet is different from those Barbie's. She cares so deeply and means so much to me that I will do anything if it means my sister can feel valued. 

"Why did you chose Avery Prep?" I ask instead, my thoughts are not her business. "You could have stayed at Fern fields and done something with that team."

"I didn't have a choice." I frown in her direction when her honey voice turns hard and frustrated. "I am leaving." Waiting for no one she disappears around the school building and even though today I won the battle I do not think it is over. 

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"I need your help." I have a red vine hanging from my teeth as I lay on my bed sideways, reading as I hang over the edge. Harriet's upside down profile fills my vision. She is wearing her lazy clothes, which are still prettier than my usual holy shorts and stained t-shirt I have on. They are floral and pretty.  "This stupid class is giving me a headache." I flip over as the bed dips and a pamphlet it dropped in front of my face. 

I skim the page before nodding. I quickly try explain it to her until she gets it. When she does she quickly does it in front of me to confirm she has it before flopping down next to me. "Want to watch a movie?" I ask her, knowing she can never resist a good chick flick. 

"No," She sighs "I have to go to bed soon because we have morning practice early tomorrow- and before you ask Sarah is picking me up so you do not have to get up early." I nod in appreciation. "But you can read to me."

Complying is easy, so I read to her as she drifts further into sleep. I wake her gently, leading her to her bed and tucking her in. I am not sure where mom is, last time I checked she had been scrolling through our financial documents for tax purposes. She always gets stuck in and demands all our slips- which is fine because the only time I actually use money is to buy books or if I am running out of comfortable clothes- or there is a cute item on sale. Harriet on the other hand- well lets just say that last year my parents confiscated her card for a whole three months. Hopefully this year she is better. Pulling the comforter to reach over her shoulders I switch her mini rainbow fairy lights on. Plugging in her phone. I know she has already set the alarm for tomorrow. 

Coming out her room I meet my dad who is halfway up the stairs and on his way to his office, arms laden with files and his laptop bag. Catching my eye he grins nodding his head towards his office.

"Up for a chat?"

"Sure." I was only reading so I follow him into his man-cave kind of office. Flopping on the long leather sofa as he sits at his desk and starts shifting his files. "What are those for?" I ask nodding towards the two neon orange files he carefully places to the side. 

"There was a chemical spill at one of the factories, so it is just the data sets."

I frown, there is rarely anything super dangerous happening at the factories, he runs ones that make everyday stuff and also a few mining kind of ones but nothing chemical?" Was it dangerous? What happened?"

He gives me a small grin over his glasses, trying to reassure me, but there is a tightness behind his eyes that tells me it is more serious than he lets on. " It was nothing, Sugar bug. Just some workers who didn't follow protocol."

"What spilled?"

"Hydrazine." He sees I have no idea what that is and setting his glasses aside he steeples his fingers on he desk "At one of the Pharmaceutical factories, but Everything is fine, a bit of bleach and water and the situation was dissolved. No one was injured as the spill happened and our alarm system alerted us so we could go in prepared."

"What will happen to the employees who-"

"Harper," His voice is sharp, he knows how I get about people being fired. When we were younger we had a nanny who used to leave us alone while she went out to the shops and when my parents found out they were furious, after many tantrums on my part my parents lay down the rules. I was not to interfere with their employees. "Lets not go there, how about you tell me about school instead, your mom says you are watching Harriet's practices now?" His voice changes at the end to slight amusement. 

I really hate that I have to but Alena is not letting up. I have to be more creative every time and short of standing in front of her with a board or blindfolding and kidnapping her I was running out of ideas. "I am just a supportive sister." I say through gritted teeth as I kick back onto the couch, Irritated by the whole situation. 

"Your support normally means competitions and games, what is going on?"

And because I need to tell someone and because I know my dads level head will not make him burst into school and demand Alena be expelled I spill, it feels like a weight lifted off my shoulder with every sentence as my dad listens and doesn't interrupt. 

"And she is just-urgh- ridiculous!" My dad is smiling at me and it makes my blood boil "Why are you looking at me like that!? Can you not see that I am loosing my mind right now!?"

"Short of the time Spencer broke your collective woodland creatures I have never seen you this worked up before." He made me so mad when he did that, I didn't talk to him for two weeks.

"It is just, well I thought Alena was, different." I cringe when I say that because even I know how dumb that sounds "At the party and the competition, she seemed less- well just less-cheerleady I guess."

"And you liked her?" I know he means as a friend, because he can't know I mean as more, but my cheeks are on fire as I nod. "Sounds like something happened."

"What?" This was not the angle I thought he was going. 

"Well you said she broke her arm and between the last time you saw her and now, something must have happened for her to switch schools twice in a year and be unable to actually compete."

"But why does she have to be so-" I stop myself before I can get myself grounded for my mouth. I think dad knows my restraint as his eyes sparkle in amusement. 

"When I was younger, you know I moved schools a lot right?" I nod, his parents were in the military and he moved around with them, sometimes even going to home school. "I wanted to be the top of everything to prove myself, to show that my circumstances didn't define my ability. So every new school I went to I would find out who was the top learner and beat them, I would push them out of debate teams, take the spot of valedictorian, only to move a week before the ceremony. I kept it up until Junior year when I arrived at the school and for the first time, someone called me out on my bullshit."

"Mom." His deep azure eyes are sparkling with a look he gets when thinking about my mom. 

"You know the story after that." He grins "You get what I am saying?"

"That I need to knock Alena on her ass?"

His laugh is booming as he shakes his head "Oh Harper," Scratching the nearly balding spot on his head he leans back in his chair " Why don't you try a different tactic, since your sabotage is running out of steam?"

"I was thinking of kidnap-"

"-No." His head  is bobbing in disagreement. "I meant invite her out for ice-cream?" 

"What if she doesn't eat ice cream." 

I think my dad is done with me and I only wish Harriet was here so we could annoy him with twin vigor. My mom chooses that moment to walk into the room. "Thank goodness, take your daughter away." Dad says dramatically running a hand over his face. 

"I just came to get your slips." She kisses his head and throws an arm over the back of his chair as he rustles in his draws for his slips. "What you guys talking about?"

"Ice cream." I sigh, sitting up and watching my parents "Mom, how did you knock dads ego down?"

She half chokes at the question while dad bursts out laughing at her bewiled face. "What kind of a question is that?"

"Please just tell me."

She seems to contemplate for a while while my dad keeps rustling in the draws. I draw a pillow closer waiting as the slip pile gets bigger and bigger "Well, I guess I just used my wit and charm."

"Well thanks a bucket." I grouch, fully prepared to quit the room. Their advice is useless.

"Harper, if you are trying to knock someone's ego, you have to call it as it is."

"Great." I have been doing that, everyday I have been doing that and Alena is not phased. Sighing I mutter goodnight and wonder off to my room. Not for the first time wishing I had a dog so I could talk to it and not be bothered about sucky advice.