The Twinning Project Page 5

  “Who told you that?” snapped Mom.

  The Lump said, “I figured it out.”

  “How?”

  “Everything’s out there if you know where to look,” he said.

  There was a long pause. I could hear the Lump chewing and Mom breathing hard. I was breathing hard, too. Mom? She was still Mom, but . . .

  Finally, Mom said, “That’s enough. Let’s see what happens.”

  “You need to do something before it’s too late.”

  “What does that mean?” She sounded angry.

  “It means something’s going on with him. He’s out of control. You ever hear him talking to himself in the backyard?”

  “You eavesdrop on him?”

  “Not like he eavesdrops on us.” There was static and a thump. “Look at this.”

  “What’s that?”

  He’d found my transmitter under the table. “It could have been a bomb.”

  Crunch, and then silence.

  TWENTY-ONE

  NEARMONT, N.J.

  2011

  MOM waited while I brushed my teeth, and then she tucked me in as if I were a little kid. I liked it and I hated it. She sat on the edge of the bed and hugged me. “Are you okay, Tommy?”

  “Yeah.”

  She held me tight. “What are we going to do with you?”

  “Send me to military school.”

  “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “The Lump.”

  “I really wish you wouldn’t call him that.”

  “How about Pigmeat?”

  She took a deep breath. “With your grandfather in a nursing home,” she said, “we need the rent Keith pays. And I feel better with a man in the house, especially when I travel.”

  “I hate him,” I said.

  “Please, Tom.” She put her face so close to mine I could feel the tears on her eyelashes. “I can’t go on like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “I had to leave the conference, fly home. I’m going to lose my job if it happens again.”

  “Some job. Selling pills so people can get dates.”

  She leaned away from me. “Who told you that?”

  “Dad.”

  “He never said that.”

  “He did. Just before he disappeared, he said it was sad that you quit being a nurse to peddle pills.”

  “He never understood,” said Mom. She looked both sad and angry. “He was never around. God knows what he did.”

  “You don’t know what he did?”

  She shrugged. “A private man, your dad.”

  “He was a great dad.”

  “When he was around, he was a great dad. And a great husband,” she said. “I always thought he had another life, a secret life.”

  “Like a superhero?”

  Mom smiled. Sometimes I forgot how pretty she was. “Could be. He was very strong. And so smart. Like you. And he hated bullies.”

  She looked dreamy. She was off-guard. So I jumped in with the question I’d been waiting to ask. “What about my biological mother?”

  She jerked back as if I’d hit her. “What are you talking about?”

  “I heard what the Lump said.” When she opened her mouth, I said, “Tell me the truth.”

  Her mouth snapped shut. She blinked a couple of times. Finally, she took another deep breath and nodded. “Your birth mother died when you were born.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Your father made me promise. He said he wanted to do it himself when the time was right.”

  “When was that going to be?” I made my face very hard so I wouldn’t cry.

  She was crying. “He was getting ready to tell you when he died.”

  “Disappeared.”

  “All I can tell you, Tommy, is I’ve loved you as much as if you had come out of my body.” She reached out to hug me.

  I squirmed away. “Get out!” I shouted.

  “I know this is very hard for you . . .”

  “You don’t know anything.” I jumped out of bed, pushed past her, and ran out of the house.

  TWENTY-TWO

  NEARMONT, N.J.

  1957

  EDDIE’S grandpa was silent on the ride to Scout camp, which was okay with Eddie. He felt good dozing in the front seat of the big Dodge. The radio softly played the country-western tunes Grandpa liked, “A White Sport Coat,” “I Walk the Line,” and “Hound Dog,” Eddie’s own favorite. He loved Elvis.

  Eddie came fully awake when the car turned off the highway and bumped down a dirt road into the woods. It stopped at a clearing.

  “Where are we, Grandpa?”

  “Where we need to be.” He turned and faced Eddie. He looked very serious. “You’re going to have to trust me, son.”

  “I’ve always trusted you, Grandpa.”

  Grandpa nodded. “You’re going to take a trip, Eddie. By yourself.”

  “To Scout camp.”

  “No. To another planet.”

  Eddie laughed. “Altair IV?”

  “What?”

  “The Forbidden Planet. The movie we saw. Remember Robby the Robot?”

  Grandpa shook his head. “This is no movie, Eddie. This is real. You’re going back to the planet where you were born. You’re going to meet your twin brother, Tom.”

  Eddie just stared at him. The old man was no jokester. “Tom? My twin brother?”

  “This is going to be a lot for you to take in, but try to follow me. Twelve years ago, when you and Tom were born, you were separated. For your safety. Tom stayed on EarthOne, you came here. Now it’s time.”

  Eddie’s head hurt. He was confused. “Time for what?”

  “To meet each other. To switch places. To learn about each other’s home planets. To get ready for the rebellion to save the Earths.”

  “What about football? I’m the captain.”

  Grandpa smiled. He reached out and ran a hand through Eddie’s short hair. “We need captains, too. Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

  Grandpa got out of the car. He was carrying Eddie’s food sack. When Eddie went to get his duffel, his grandpa said, “You won’t need that.”

  Eddie followed Grandpa deeper into the woods, to a clearing.

  “Just stand there,” said Grandpa. “Against that tree. Here.” He handed Eddie the food.

  “What’s going to happen?” Eddie asked. He felt a little panicky. He ordered himself to swallow it down. Hang tough. Pretend it’s a game. You’re waiting to get the ball.

  “You’re going to feel lousy for a couple of hours. It’s not easy slipping through space and time. But you’ll be fine, and I’ll be there to meet you and tell you what to do.”

  Grandpa glanced at his watch. “Here we go.” He hugged Eddie harder and longer than he ever had before. When he stepped back, his eyes looked teary. “Happy trails, son.”

  He took a small black box out of his pocket and adjusted the dials. He pressed a button.

  Eddie felt himself slipping away.

  TWENTY-THREE

  NEARMONT, N.J.

  2011

  Eddie? You there?

  He’d always been there for me before. Sometimes weeks would go by without us talking, but when I called, he’d show up.

  One time I Googled “imaginary friends” and read about how they were normal and even helped some kids learn to think and speak. But then I read stuff that said imaginary friends could be a sign of being off your rocker.

  I’d been to doctors a few times about my behavior at school. They told Mom I was “acting out” because I was missing Dad and that when I understood that he was dead and not just disappeared, I would get better.

  Eddie? I really need to talk to you.

  Sometimes the doctors prescribed pills for me. I got good at cheeking them, even when Mom or nurses were watching. A couple of times I even spat them into the Lump’s beer and watched him drink it. The pills never seemed to affect him.

  Right now I was feeling lousy, like I was
coming down with the flu.

  I couldn’t even find the double stars.

  Eddie? She was your mom, too.

  The flu was getting worse. My body ached from being squeezed on all sides. It was hard to breathe. I felt like I had to go to the bathroom even though I didn’t.

  I waited until all the lights were out before I went back into the house.

  I couldn’t sleep. My stomach felt like the inside of a washing machine. My eyeballs ached. Chills. I tried to ignore them. I played a game of Ambush III against myself. Everybody died. I got tired of the game. I couldn’t concentrate. Too many questions in my head. Mom wasn’t my mother. Why hadn’t Dad told me? What was he waiting for? What else didn’t I know about myself?

  I tried to clear my mind by surfing the tech blogs. I hacked around until I found the company memos on the CloakII, which I had put together from a kit I got online. It was an invisibility machine. I never got it to work. The company was also having trouble with the CloakII. I read on a national security blog that the army was working on a machine just like it that could bend light so that soldiers would be invisible. The big problem with the machine was that it distorted the light waves for only a few seconds before you became visible again. I had worked on the CloakII off and on for almost a year.

  Suddenly, I felt as though I were upside down, which made me nauseous. I thought about Eddie, and when I thought about Eddie, I felt as though I were whooshing through space.

  Then I hauled out my violin and played a few bars from dueling violins before it made me too sad thinking about Dad. I played solos from The Lord of the Rings songbook Grandpa gave me a few years ago, “Into the West” and “Gollum’s Song.” They really need a piano accompaniment, but Grandpa can’t read music anymore and Mom’s the only other piano player I know. She’s too busy.

  “Sounds good.” The Lump had walked into my room and sat down on my bed. “From Rings, right?”

  “What part of knocking is too hard for you?”

  “The part where you tell me to buzz off.”

  That’s the worst, when he tries to act friendly.

  I ignored him and played “Evenstar.”

  “I saw those flicks three times,” he said. “People said I looked like Gimli.”

  “The dwarf?”

  He nodded.

  He was right. He was a big, ugly red-haired version of Gimli. “Too bad. Up until this minute, Gimli was one of my favorite characters.”

  “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?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  NEARMONT, N.J.

  2011

  KIDS 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?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  NEARMONT, N.J.

  2011

  AT 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 he
r 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?”