“Frankie!” I sit up. “Could the Forest of Thermodynamics wait until morning?”
“Forest of Relativity,” he corrects. “Not Forest of Thermodynamics.” He snort-laughs. “How ridiculous would that be?”
“Get out,” I say sternly.
“Wait!” he cries. “I didn’t even come in here to talk about the board game!”
“I don’t care. Get out.”
He stands up but doesn’t leave. I switch off the light and roll over, trying to fall back asleep. But a few seconds later, I hear Frankie whisper, “Psst. Kennedy. Are you awake?”
I groan. “I said leave.”
“But I figured it out!”
I sigh in bitter surrender. “What?”
He turns the light back on. “Why I’m exactly the same in both universes.”
I seethe quietly. For some reason, he takes that as a sign for him to continue. “You see, time is like a domino effect. Every tiny choice affects everything around us in small, subtle ways. And I thought it was really strange that everyone else in this family seems to have been affected by your decision in some way. Mom has a different role at her firm. Dad has a totally different job. You go to a different school. Why am I exactly the same?”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “So?”
“So,” he repeats, thrusting the notebook into my hands and pointing at some dotted line between two complex-looking diagrams, like I’m supposed to make sense of it. “I’ve been thinking about it all wrong!”
I stare blankly at him.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what variable I am when in actuality I’m not a variable at all!”
His face lights up as he waits for my reaction to what he obviously sees as a huge breakthrough. Except I have no idea what he’s talking about.
His face falls. “Don’t you get it?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“I’m a constant!”
“A what?”
“A universal constant! I don’t change from dimension to dimension!”
“Is that a thing?”
His face falls. “I don’t know. But it really only leads me to one logical conclusion.”
“That you’re weird?” I intone.
“No.” He smiles a handsomely devilish smile. “That I’ve achieved enlightenment!”
I roll my eyes, thrust the notebook back at him, and shut off the light. “Go to sleep, weirdo.”
“But I’m Yoda!” he whines in the darkness.
I roll over and close my eyes. “Go to sleep, Yoda.”
Then I Become a Scapegoat
Lucinda Wallace lives in the same subdivision as Sequoia, on the other side of town. Fortunately, Mom seems to be over the whole grand theft auto incident and lets me borrow my her car.
When I knock on the door of the two-story mini-mansion, a middle-aged woman appears on the other side. She’s dressed in skinny jeans, an angora sweater, and so much bling I fight the urge to shield my eyes from the glare. I mean, the woman is practically dripping with diamonds.
I don’t recognize her but she certainly recognizes me, which means she must be Lucinda’s mother.
“Hello, Mrs. Wallace,” I say in a light and friendly tone. “How are you today?”
“What are you doing here, Kennedy?” she asks tersely. Her hostility takes me by surprise and I instinctively step back from the door.
I clear my throat. “I came to speak to Lucinda.”
Anger flashes over her face. “She doesn’t want to speak to you.”
Her answer confuses me. “Why?”
“Because none of this would have happened to her if it weren’t for you.”
I stand there, completely aghast. What is this woman talking about? “I…” I stammer. “I don’t think that’s a fair statement.”
The woman takes a step toward me, her body blocking the entrance to the house. I take another step back. She’s a slight woman with a body that’s clearly seen the inside of a Pilates studio more than once, but there’s something about her presence—her whole demeanor—that’s surprisingly intimidating. Maybe it’s the weight of all that bling.
“Fair?” she asks. “You want to talk to me about fair? My daughter has been expelled from the Windsor Academy. There’s no way she’ll get into a good college. She’ll have to attend community college.” The way her nose wrinkles, you would think she was talking about picking up after her poodle. “While you are sitting pretty on your little top-of-the-class throne. Are you happy now that she’s out of the way? Are you relieved to have one less person to compete with?”
“Of course I’m not happy,” I reply. “Lucinda is my friend.”
Mrs. Wallace snorts. “Friend. Some friend you turned out to be.”
I shake my head, completely stunned by this woman’s attack. Does she honestly blame me for Lucinda’s expulsion? But I had nothing to do with it. It’s not like I convinced her to buy the stolen test.
Wait. Did I?
“I … I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
“Everything has to do with you!” she barks, causing me to flinch. “Don’t you get it? Ever since you came to this school, she’s been competing with you. Talking about how smart Kennedy is. How accomplished Kennedy is. How easy Kennedy makes it look. How Sequoia likes Kennedy better. The teachers like Kennedy better. Everyone likes Kennedy better. Kennedy. Kennedy. Kennedy. She pushed herself too hard because of you. Because she was trying to keep up.”
“The Windsor Academy is a very competitive school,” I say shakily. “I don’t think it’s reasonable to place all the blame on—”
But she doesn’t even let me finish. “You know what I heard? I heard you weren’t even accepted right away. That’s why you didn’t start until the ninth grade. I heard you were wait-listed.”
Her words are like a series of bullets shot right into my chest.
Pow. Pow. Pow.
I struggle to stay upright and keep my expression neutral, but I must not succeed because Mrs. Wallace’s lip curls into a snarl. “That’s right,” she continues maliciously. “Wait-listed. And if I could go back in time and make sure you never got off that list, I would. Because I’m convinced that my daughter would have been better off if you had never stepped foot in that school.”
Then she slams the door in my face.
I stand motionless on the front steps, feeling like the air around me has gotten too thin. The earth’s atmosphere has disappeared.
Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.
Is all of that true? Did Lucinda really cheat because of me?
Is she gone because I’m here?
I think about my other life. All of those times I lay in bed scrolling through Sequoia’s SnipPic feed, analyzing her life. Idolizing her life. And who was in almost all of those pictures before I hit my head and bounced into this universe?
Lucinda.
As soon as I woke up in this life, she had disappeared from the photos altogether. Which means maybe Mrs. Wallace is right. Maybe this is my fault.
Or maybe it was only a matter of time. Maybe Lucinda would have gotten expelled in either version. After all, this happened because someone sold her a stolen test and she got caught. What if the time line is just off? What if she just hadn’t been caught yet in the other universe? Maybe she would have eventually disappeared from Sequoia’s SnipPic feed in that life, too.
If anything, this is Dylan’s fault. If he is the one selling the tests—and every bone in my body is telling me he is—then he’s the one to blame for Lucinda’s expulsion. Not me. He’s the one who should be standing on that front porch getting reamed by the frightening five-foot-one Mrs. Wallace and her army of jewels.
I need to get to the bottom of this. I need to get what I came here for.
The answers.
The story.
And right now, Lucinda is my only lead.
I’m going to have to come up with a new plan.
I take a few steps back and glance up at the
house. There’s a tree that leads to a second-floor window. I could climb it, but there’s no guarantee that the window is open. Or that it’s anywhere near Lucinda’s room. For all I know, they could be keeping her locked in the basement. Plus, if I knock on the window and Mrs. Wallace is the one who opens it, she’ll probably push me right out of the tree to my death.
Just then, I hear a low rumbling sound and I quickly duck behind a hedge. I watch as the garage door of the mini-mansion groans open and a Range Rover backs out. I peer through the leaves of the hedge, trying to determine if Lucinda is inside.
She’s not.
After the car is safely down the street, I take a deep breath and approach the front door again. I ring the bell and wait.
A few seconds later, I hear the sound of quiet footsteps padding on hardwood floors. Then the door swings tentatively open and Lucinda’s head pokes out. She’s dressed in flannel pajamas and her dark pixie-cut hair is mussed, like she hasn’t bothered brushing it for days. But she’s still the same girl I saw in those photos. And the sight of her makes my chest squeeze.
I study her face closely for a reaction, expecting to see the same hate and blame and rage that I saw in her mother.
But it never comes.
Lucinda crosses her arms, flashes me a wicked grin, and says, “It’s about time one of you losers came to visit me.”
Then I Walk into a Crime Scene
Lucinda grabs us sodas and leads me up to her bedroom. When I walk in, I worry that maybe she’s been robbed or the CIA has been looking for some top-secret document in here, because the place is a disaster.
She must notice my stunned reaction because she lets out a low belly laugh. “Pretty awesome, isn’t it?”
Oh God. Has she lost it? Has the expulsion caused her to truly crack?
“It’s … nice,” I say stiffly.
She grabs a throw pillow and tosses it at me. I’m so unprepared, it hits me squarely in the face, nearly causing me to spill my drink. “C’mon, Crusher. You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me. I’m fine. In fact, I’ve never been better.”
Glancing around her room, I highly doubt that.
She falls onto her unmade bed and starts swinging her arms and legs like she’s making a sheet angel.
“I feel free!” she announces to the ceiling.
I take a tentative sip from my soda. Not because I’m thirsty but because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.
“Your mom seemed to imply that you were—”
“My mom is nuts,” Lucinda says, sitting up abruptly. “She’s the crazy one who needs to be locked up. She blames the school. She blames the teachers. She blames…”
“Me,” I finish.
Lucinda giggles. “Yeah. She really blames you.”
I swallow. “Do you?”
She grabs another pillow and sends it flying in my direction. This one I’m ready for. I duck and it hits a picture frame on the wall, bringing it clattering to the floor. Lucinda barely even blinks an eye. “Of course not, Crusher! Don’t be ridiculous. I mean, you and I have always been competitive, right?”
I take another sip and clear my throat. “I guess.”
“It’s just how we are. You and I battle it out and Sequoia sits on the sidelines and cries a lot.”
I can’t help laughing at that one. “She does cry a lot, doesn’t she?”
“If the girl were a space on the Monopoly board she’d be Water Works.” She takes a long pull from her soda, finishing what looks like half of it in one gulp. Then she burps and guffaws proudly at the sound.
“Anyway, I don’t blame you. It was my own fault. But actually, I’m kind of glad things went down the way they did.”
This surprises me. “You are?”
“Yeah. I’ve never been happier. Or more relaxed. That school”—she pauses, deliberating on her next words—“it was toxic. At least for me. It turned me into a person I didn’t even recognize anymore. There’s so much freaking pressure to not only do everything but excel at everything. That whole 89 percent Ivy League acceptance rate they push in your face, it’s like poison being pumped right into your veins. If you don’t get into an Ivy League, you’re basically chalked up as a failure and they forget your name. It’s ridiculous.”
She takes another gulp of her soda and releases another loud belch. “Of course my parents didn’t help either,” she goes on. “I felt like I was already carrying around a thousand-pound boulder, and then I’d get home from school and my mom would be like, ‘Hey, here’s a rhinoceros to put on top of the boulder.’ It’s no wonder I cracked. It’s no wonder I bought that test. I just couldn’t hack it. But now…” She glances around her room with a sudden air of calm. “Do you hear that?”
I listen and then shake my head. “Hear what?”
“Nothing,” she whispers dreamily. “No Achiever app beeping every five seconds with a new task. No calendar reminders going off for club meetings that I have absolutely no interest in. It’s so quiet. So peaceful.”
“But what will you do?”
She shrugs and throws her hands in the air. “I don’t know! And you have no idea how amazing that feels!”
She’s right. I have no idea. Although I can’t imagine that not knowing what you’re going to do with your life would feel anything but terrifying.
“That place was killing me a little bit every day,” Lucinda goes on. “I just couldn’t feel it. It was the frog in the pot of boiling water. You know, the temperature rises so gradually, the frog doesn’t even know he’s burning to death … until he’s dead. So, yeah, in a way, I’m glad I got caught with that test. It was a wake-up call. It was someone screaming, ‘The water! It’s too hot! Get out of there!’”
I squirm in my seat. Everything Lucinda is saying is starting to make me uncomfortable. I’m reminded too much of that first conversation I had with Dylan outside the dean’s office, when I was waiting to try to get my spot back, and he was waiting to …
Actually, come to think of it, why was Dylan sitting outside the dean’s office that day? I still have no idea. He seemed to freak out when I accidentally brought it up at his literary magazine meeting.
I make a mental note to return to that later and focus back on Lucinda. “Can I ask you about the stolen test?”
She finishes her soda and crushes the can between her fingers. “Shoot.”
“Do you know who sold it to you?”
She rolls her eyes. “Dean Lewis asked me the same thing. She drilled me for hours, offering me all sorts of bargains. They’ll let me back in if I give up the name. They’ll make sure my future isn’t completely destroyed if I cooperate. Jeez. I thought I was in a bad cop movie. And no, I have no idea who sold me the test. Not that I would have taken her deal if I had. By then, I was so done. So ready to leave her office and never step foot on that campus again.”
I reach into my bag and pull out my notebook and pen, jotting down a few things.
“What are you doing?” Lucinda eyes my scribbles.
“Oh,” I say awkwardly. “I forgot to tell you. I’m starting a school newspaper and I thought this would make a good story.” I see panic flash in her eyes and quickly add, “Not about you! About the guy stealing the tests and selling them to students.”
“What makes you think it’s a guy?”
I avert my gaze to my notebook. “I don’t. I’m just speaking generally. So would it be okay if I asked you a few more questions?”
She shrugs and leans back against her headboard. “Go right ahead. I’ve got nothing else to lose. But you should probably keep my name out of it. You know, so my mother doesn’t hire the mafia to off you.”
I force a smile even though I think we both know she’s not fully joking. “No problem.” I tap my pen against the page. “So, if you don’t know who’s selling the tests, how did you arrange to buy one?”
“Oh, that’s easy. There’s an email address.”
This gets my attention. “An email address?”
“Yeah, you send an email to [email protected] with the name of the class and the date of the test you want and then you get a response telling you where to leave the money.”
I scribble furiously, my heart starting to pound as the adrenaline rushes through my veins. This is what I loved most about writing for the Southwest Star. That thrill you get when you know you’re close to breaking a story. It’s a feeling like no other. “And where did they tell you to leave it?”
“In a book in the library,” Lucinda says, grabbing one of her pillows and hugging it to her chest.
“Which book?”
“Which test?” Lucinda fires back.
My eyes widen. “You bought more than one?”
I notice a flash of something in her eyes—guilt maybe?—before she covers it with a shrug. “Yeah, so?”
“I…” I hesitate. “I didn’t know that. What were the two … or more books?
“Just two,” she confirms. “The Count of Monte Cristo and Madame Bovary.”
I write the names down in my notebook and then tap the pen against my teeth. For some reason those two names together ring a bell in my mind. Like they’re connected somehow. “Do you think those titles have any significance?”
Lucinda’s forehead crinkles. “Like what?”
“Like because Madame Bovary cheats on her husband and—”
“And I’m a big fat cheater, too?” Lucinda snaps, her gaze hardening. She must hear the terseness in her tone because a second later she breaks into hysterical laughter, throwing her head back. “See! There it is again. The monster returns! Sometimes it’s like second nature. I can’t even hear myself.”
I laugh, too, although mine comes out more like a nervous stutter.
“Anyway,” Lucinda goes on, back in her normal voice, “no, I don’t think the titles have any significance. I think you give the culprit too much credit.”
I stare down at my notes again. I’m not sure I agree with her. This criminal seems smart. Organized. Why would he choose a random book? Plus, the email address obviously means something, too.
I underline the book titles and the email address, reminding myself to look more deeply into them later.
In Some Other Life: A Novel Page 21
