The Twinning Project (7 page)

“Look, Tom, your mom is very upset.”

“You think?”

“For her sake, how about a truce?”

“How about you move out?”

“She doesn't want that.”

“You want
me
out,” I said.

“Not true. I just want to get along with you.”

“Then leave me alone.” I didn't want to talk to him. I turned my back on him.

After a while, I heard him get up. He said, “This is my most private number. You can always get me on it.” He walked out of my room.

He'd left his card with a number written on it. I crumpled it and threw it in the wastebasket. Then I changed my mind and took it out. I might want to send him a virus text someday.

When I got into bed, my cell beeped. It was a text from Merlyn.

Come back to school tomorrow
.
Be cool.

Could I trust her?

NEARMONT, N.J.

2011

 

K
IDS
were surprised to see me. On the bus and in the hall, they grinned and nodded at me. Nobody liked Britzky. Sometimes I nodded back, but mostly I tried not to react.
Be cool.

Teachers ignored me in class except for Mrs. Rupp, who shook her head at me before ignoring me for the rest of the period. I kept my mouth shut even when she started with her timeline again. I didn't see Merlyn in the class, so I couldn't find out what she was up to. Or collect the money she owed me from performing in the park.

At lunch, Alessa said, “So what happened?”

“To who?”

Big sigh.

Why are people always big-sighing me? She lifted a carrot chip out of her salad and put it in her mouth. She ate very little, and she ate it slowly and delicately, as if she wanted to chew things to death painlessly. I think fat people must do their serious eating in private.

“Don't play with me, Tom. How did you get back into school after only one day's suspension?”

“I don't know.” That was true. I could tell she didn't believe me. I wondered why I wanted her to believe me. I showed her the text from Merlyn.

“You came back on this?” Her eyes were wide. “You crazy? What if she's playing you?”

“What if Dr. Traum asked her to do it?”

“Teachers don't ask . . .” Then she stopped, as if there was something she didn't want to tell me. I could sense her mind changing directions. “Maybe he needs a really good first violinist.”

“I'm not that good.”

“I think you are. And so does he. The first day he showed up at school, he was more interested in the violins than anything else. That was just last week.”

“He's only been here a week?”

“Yeah, one day the school psychologist and the orchestra teacher both quit, and the next day he showed up and took both jobs.”

“Like he knew I was coming . . .” I said. “Weird.”

Alessa pushed her big moon face close and whispered, “You're right. There's something very weird about him. Like he's from another planet.”

Bang!
I was suddenly on the cafeteria floor. I jumped up, my fists ready. I'd been slammed down hard. But except for Alessa, no one was anywhere near me.

Everybody was watching. Alessa said, “Are you okay?”

“What happened?”

“It was like a big invisible hand knocked you down,” said Alessa.

Mrs. Rupp, who was on cafeteria duty, hurried over. “What are you up to now, Tom?”

I said, “I'm up to October first, two thousand and eleven.”

“Don't you dare mock me, young man,” said Mrs. Rupp. She walked away.

Alessa said, “What's with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don't have to be nice, but can't you ever just, you know, be chill?”

“And let them think they got to me?”

She nodded at that and went back to slowly murdering carrots.

I had the feeling Alessa knew something she wasn't telling me.

The flu symptoms were gone. They had completely disappeared the moment I fell on the floor. Had something happened to Eddie? Was it over now? Why did I think that?

NEARMONT, N.J.

2011

 

A
T
orchestra, Dr. Traum didn't say anything about my coming back to school after only a one-day suspension. He must have gotten Merlyn to write that text. Why? I pretended nothing had happened. When you're inside a mystery, you have to be cool.

Dr. Traum was nice. Too nice. He asked Alessa and me to stay after practice. He handed us sheet music. “Three Beethoven duets. Look them over and pick one for the winter concert.”

I looked at the sheets. They were easy. The music I was playing for my private teacher was much more advanced. I was still mad about missing my last lesson.

“They're really hard,” said Alessa.

“You'll have to rehearse. Together.” Dr. Traum was smiling. I thought he winked at Alessa.

On the way out, Alessa said, “Let's start rehearsing today. At my house. Uh-oh.”

Britzky and his parents were coming out of the principal's office. I figured they were his parents because they were huge and ugly like him. He pointed at me. “That's him,” he said to his parents. To me he said, “It's not over, Canty.”

“It is for you, Bratzky.” I liked saying the name Eddie had given him. Made him seem smaller.

Alessa started dragging me away. “You have a death wish, Tom.” But she was smiling. I let her steer me out the door and into her mom's car. The speakers were blasting a song called “Tough Girlz,” and Alessa's mom was drumming on the steering wheel. She had a crewcut, dyed blond, and she was wearing really tight clothes and lots of jewelry. She seemed happy that Alessa had a friend, but her eyes narrowed when Alessa introduced me.

“Weren't you suspended? It was on the PTO e-mail alert.”

“It was a misunderstanding,” I said. “Todd Britzky forgot he agreed to store my science experiment in his desk.”

Alessa gave me an elbow in the ribs, but she didn't say anything.

They lived in a fancy new house across town. Alessa's mom put out fruit and diet soda in a big sunny room with music stands. “Would you like cookies and milk, Tom?” She shot Alessa a look as if to say, Not for you.

“No thanks. This is great.”

She tiptoed out as if we were already playing.

“That was such a lie about the science experiment.”

“So?”

“How do you lie like that?”

“You want lessons?”

She laughed. “Did you ever hear the expression ‘chip on his shoulder'?”

“Yeah.”

“You've got a whole tree on
your
shoulder.”

“You want to play?”

While she tuned her cello and warmed up, I noticed she didn't use her right arm very well. Her shoulders were tight, and she was mostly pushing the bow with her forearm. Bad technique. Dad was always big on getting your muscles loose so the music would just flow out of you into the strings.

“You have to relax more,” I said.

“What?”

“Your shoulders are all bunched up, so you're not using your entire arm.”

“That's how I play.”

“You could play better.”

“Why are you picking on me?” She sounded angry.

“I'm helping you.”

“You could do it in a nicer way.”

“Like how?”

She looked at me. “You really don't know how, do you?” She sounded sorry for me.

“Can we just play?”

It certainly wasn't like playing a duet with Dad. Alessa tried hard. She threw plenty of energy into her bow, but her left hand was sloppy, and I had to keep slowing down. It was tough. Before it was time for me to go we got through the first duet, but not always together.

NEARMONT, N.J.

2011

 

G
RANDPA
was peering down at Eddie. “How do you feel?”

Lousy,
he thought, but he said, “Okay.” The moment he said it, he felt better. He stood up. “Where am I?”

“You're on EarthOne now.”

“Where?”
said Eddie.

“I told you it was a lot to take in. There are two Earths. One is about fifty years older than the other one.”

“How could that be?”

“Many years ago, the scientists on another planet began an experiment. It was called the Twinning Project,” said Grandpa. “They created dozens of sets of two planets around the universe, usually starting one planet fifty years before the second one. The idea was to keep track of their evolution, see what went well and what didn't, and make changes whenever necessary.

“We're not sure what happened in the case of the Earth twins—maybe we weren't paying attention—but things got out of control. Wars, famines, genocides. Then the atomic bombs in 1945 really shook us up.”

“Us? Who's us, Grandpa?”

“Good catch, Eddie. I was one of the scientists. And your dad was one of the monitors sent down to keep track of the Earths.”

Eddie felt a wave of excitement. “Tell me about Dad.”

“Later. We have to get you to Tom's house now.”

NEARMONT, N.J.

2011

 

U
SUALLY
, I conk out as soon as my head hits the pillow, no matter what's going on, but tonight I couldn't sleep. I had the feeling that something, somebody, was in my room.

I got up and turned on all the lights.

I turned all my electronic devices on and off and back on again.

I looked out the window. I looked under the bed. There was only one place left.

I guess I was a little scared of opening the closet.

“Okay,” I said loudly. “My Taser's on stun. Come out and nothing will happen to you. Otherwise, you're barbecue.”

My closet door opened, and someone who looked like me stepped out.

He looked like me, but he was wearing clothes I'd never wear: a button-down blue shirt, chinos, and sand-colored desert boots. But he looked like me. He was either me or my identical twin.

Eddie?

Tom?

He walked over and stuck out his hand. I shook it. It was a real hand.

I thought I made you up.

Made me up?

He grabbed my shoulder and knee, spun me around, and dumped me on the floor.

I was lying on my back.

Why'd you do that?

To show you I'm real.

This real?

I looped my legs around his ankles and dumped him.

We started wrestling. He was stronger and quicker, but we each seemed to know what the other was about to do, and my mind worked faster than his.

Then the Lump started banging on the wall, and we stopped, flopped back on the floor, and lay there side by side, breathing hard.

You're good, Eddie.

Almost as good as you, Tom.

It's like I'm fighting myself.

We couldn't stop staring at each other.

How'd you get here?

Slip.

Slip?

“Can you talk out loud?”

“That better?”

“Yeah. What's ‘slip' mean?”

“It's how we travel between the two Earths.”

“What's it like?”

“You feel sick for a couple of hours. Fever, chills, aches and pains. Then you land. Hard. And then you're okay.”

“I felt that. I thought I had the flu.”

The Lump's voice boomed, “Turn the TV off, Tom. Go to sleep.”

“Go to hell, Lump,” I said, but not loud enough for him to hear.

Eddie and I started laughing so hard, we had to cover our mouths and stick our heads under the blanket.

It was great. We were up all night.

 

 

 

 

NEARMONT, N.J.

2011

 

I
TOOK
Eddie's picture with my cell phone, showed it to him, then printed it and gave it to him.

Neat little camera.

We were back to talking in our heads so the Lump wouldn't hear.

It's a cell phone.

A phone?

I can listen to my tunes, see movies, play games, send a text.

What's a text?

A text is a message.

Where are the wires?

You don't need wires.

Cowabunga!

LOL.

What?

Stands for laugh out loud. Never mind.

I showed him everything in my room: the HDTV, the TiVo, the Gameboy, the xBox, and the DVD player, which I hardly use anymore. He got so interested in my laptop that we never got to the really interesting stuff, the trackers and hackers and jammers and booby traps and screamers. Or my best stuff—the TPT SafecrackerPlus and the CloakII, even though I could never get it to work.

I showed him the YouTube of me greasing the jock bully in my last school. He watched it twice, holding his hands over his mouth so the Lump wouldn't hear him laughing. Eddie had a laugh like bells ringing that made me want to laugh along with him.

Eddie and I flopped on the bed. We couldn't stop grinning at each other. It was so fun.

He pulled a pink rubber ball out of his pocket and began squeezing it. When he noticed me looking at it, he said,
It builds up your hands and forearms. You should try it.

He flipped it to me.

It might be good for the violin.

I wish I could play a musical instrument.

Maybe I can teach you. You going to stay for a while?

That's the plan, man. But you're splitting.

Where?

We're switching places tonight.

In your dreams.

I'll be you, and you'll be me.

Why?

Because of the aliens.

What aliens?

The bad guys who are after us.

That's not real. I made it all up.