The Boy Who Knew Too Much

by Commander S. T. Bolivar, III

  Carter the Clone was grinning away. “Did you see the wallpaper I fixed?”

  Mattie hadn’t, but now that he thought about it, Munchem was starting to look less, well, less like a zombie movie set.

  “Let’s get tutored!” Carter yelled.

  “Yay!” Mattie tried to match the excitement but failed. He sounded sullen. Actually, he sounded like Carter the Original.

  Carter the Clone typed their password into the videoconferencing account and adjusted the settings. The computer screen flashed twice and their father’s face appeared.

  “Boys!” Mr. Larimore boomed.

  “Hi, Dad!” the boys boomed back.

  “Carter,” Mr. Larimore said and the camera lurched drunkenly. “I must say I am quite impressed with the talking points you sent me.”

  Talking points? Mattie cut his eyes to Carter the Clone, who had such a pleasant smile he looked angelic…or brain-dead.

  “I’m so glad you enjoyed them! I worked on them before breakfast. It was a great way to start the day!” Carter the Clone had a pen poised above his notebook. His legs were crossed. His hair was combed, which suddenly made Mattie remember his hair. He hadn’t brushed it this morning. He raked one hand through it and felt the strands stand up with static.

  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Larimore continued, flipping through the pages. “I appreciate the effort you took to outline potential business discussion topics. I’m glad you put thought into this, Carter. Mattie?”

  Mattie sat up. “Yes?”

  “You would do well to think on this,” Mr. Larimore said. “Your brother showed a great deal of initiative by preparing these talking points. Do you know what initiative is?”

  Mattie was still sitting up, but he felt as if he’d shrunk. “No.”

  Mr. Larimore’s eyes went bright. “Initiative is drive! Initiative is ambition!”

  Put like that, Mattie thought, initiative seemed more like a way to show up other people.

  “It’s something you used to have, Mattie,” Mr. Larimore continued. “Do you remember when you won all those service awards at school?”

  Mattie did. It made his parents really proud, and it made Mattie feel really good. Although, now that Mattie thought about it, Carter had been pretty irritated. He called Mattie fairy tale princess names for a month. At the time, Mattie just figured that was Carter. Now he kind of wondered if Carter was eaten up with the same ugly feeling eating up Mattie at this very moment.

  “Yes, I remember the awards ceremony,” Mattie said at last. “I worked really hard for those medals.”

  Mr. Larimore rolled up Carter’s list of talking points and tapped it against the camera. “Well, initiative is like that. Sort of. You get the point, right?”

  Mattie nodded. Actually, he didn’t, but it seemed safer and easier to agree. Plus, it made Mr. Larimore happy.

  “I’m really glad to see you shaping up, Carter.” Mr. Larimore studied Carter the Clone and Carter the Clone smiled even wider. Mattie began to chew his thumbnail. If he found the real Carter—when he found the real Carter, would Mr. Larimore be disappointed? Mattie was worried he might be.

  “This is why I sent you two to Munchem,” their father continued. “That Rooney guarantees his results! Now, let’s get started. Today, we’re going to discuss the law—because if you know the law, you can make the law work for you. There is tremendous power in knowledge, especially if other people don’t know the loopholes you know.”

  Mattie perked up. Maybe it was because he couldn’t stop thinking about the real Carter or maybe it was because loopholes made him think of hidey-holes and hidey-holes made him think about where Carter might be hidden.

  Either way, Mattie leaned forward as an idea walked into his mind. “Dad?”

  “Loopholes!” Their father pointed to a purple pie chart on the first page. “You have to know your loopholes!”

  “Dad,” Mattie repeated and his father stopped pointing and squinted at his computer screen.

  “What?”

  “If you had to hide something,” Mattie said slowly. “If you had to hide something really, really important, where would you put it?”

  “Offshore account—or maybe Switzerland.” Mr. Larimore’s mustache twitched from side to side as he considered this. “The Swiss are a lovely people. They really know how to mind their own business—especially when it comes to offshore accounts.”

  “Offshore accounts?”

  “We’re getting to that next week.”

  “Oh.” That didn’t sound like fun at all. Mattie tried again: “Where else would you hide something?”

  “Plain sight.” Mr. Larimore’s mustache twitched from side to side again. “Where everyone sees it, but no one notices it.”

  Where everyone sees it, but no one notices it. That made about as much sense as the offshore account explanation. Mattie slumped again. He took out his notebook and pen and wrote down things like “utilization” and “speed tests,” which didn’t make sense either, but they were at least fun to say.

  “I’m proud of you, Carter,” their father said when they finally finished. “Now get your grades up and we’ll be in perfect shape!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Mattie concentrated on putting his notebook away so he wouldn’t have to see his father grin and grin. Carter was now the kid Mr. Larimore had always wanted, the kind of kid Mattie had always strived to be and Carter had never wanted to be and now was.

  Or rather the clone was.

  And their father didn’t even notice the difference. No, that wasn’t right. Mr. Larimore did notice. He just liked the cloned version of Carter better. It made him happier.

  Mr. Larimore was happy. Carter the Clone was happy. Maybe even Mattie could be happy. Carter the Clone wasn’t just the son the Larimores had always wanted, Carter the Clone could also be the brother Mattie had always wanted.

  “And I want another set of talking points for next week,” Mr. Larimore continued. “From both of you.”

  “Yes, sir!” the boys said.

  “Good. That’s what I like to hear. Your mother’s getting ready for that dinner of yours and we’ll see you soon.” Mr. Larimore held up one finger and pointed it at the camera. “No screwups, right?”

  “Right!” the boys said, and the computer screen went blank as their father signed out of his account. Mattie waited by Rooney’s desk while Carter closed down the computer. The end-of-term dinner was right around the corner. Mattie needed to study for his finals, write his essay, and find his brother. Mattie sighed and Carter the Clone clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Don’t be glum, chum!” he said with a grin.

  Mattie stared at him. If he hadn’t already known Carter the Clone was indeed a clone, that statement would have totally given it away.

  “Everything’s going to be great now that we’re both good,” Carter told him as they left the headmaster’s office.

  Mattie smiled weakly. Carter wasn’t so bad, actually. In fact, if Mattie didn’t know Carter the Clone was indeed a clone, Mattie might actually like him. Mattie blinked. Had he really just thought that? He had. And it was kind of true. He did like Carter the Clone. He just wanted his brother too.

  Mattie followed Carter the Clone down the dusty gallery filled with equally dusty oil paintings and wondered how this had become so hard. In the movies, the bad guys were always bad, the robots were always evil, and the right thing was always easy to spot.

  Mattie knew the right thing was to find his brother. But Carter the Clone would make their parents happier than the real Carter ever would. The clones were polite. They knew what to say and when to say it.

  Wait a second, Mattie thought. The clones knew all sorts of things about the people they were impersonating. What if they knew more than that? What if—

  “Carter?”

  “Yes?”

  Mattie tried to sound casual as they turned toward the dining room. The air smelled like Windex and tomato soup and somewhere down the hall the light
s flickered. He knew what he was about to ask and he knew what it would mean for his Good Kid image.

  Honestly though? Mattie didn’t care about his Good Kid image anymore. He wasn’t sure being a Good Kid had anything to do with actually being good. Because the good thing to do—the right thing to do—was to save Carter, and saving Carter was going to involve a lot of bad things.

  Stealing? Possibly.

  Sneaking around? Most definitely.

  Lying? Without a doubt.

  But, right now, it was going to involve misleading poor Carter the Clone. Mattie faced him. “Where do you think teachers hide stuff?”

  AT LONG LAST, I NOW WELCOME YOU TO Mattie Larimore’s Great Beginning—only it isn’t so great. It’s a rather small decision that ended up having much bigger consequences. Great beginnings—and horrible beginnings—can be like that. They don’t feel great or horrible at all. They feel natural, maybe even inevitable, and you only realize their importance after they’ve passed.

  Or, in this case, you only realize their importance after Mattie Larimore’s Big Book of Bad becomes an international movie phenomenon.

  “Where would teachers hide stuff?” Carter the Clone repeated. He stopped at the dining hall’s double doors and leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Like when Dad was talking about loopholes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Uh…um…” Mattie faltered under Carter’s stare. The clone was studying him suspiciously, and Mattie realized he never should’ve opened his mouth. He shoved his hands in his pockets and pretended to be very interested in how the hallway light was flickering. “Oh, you know, why not?”

  Carter nodded as if this made perfect sense, and Mattie slumped with relief. “I don’t know,” Carter told him.

  “But you have to know!”

  “Why?”

  Mattie swallowed. Did something just flash in Carter’s eyes? Did the clone know what Mattie was up to? “I just thought you might,” he said at last.

  “Oh.” Carter shrugged. “I know lots of stuff, but not that. See ya.” He opened the dining hall door and almost crashed into Marcus. Mattie cringed. The clone had been standing on the other side. Lately, it seemed like Marcus was always around and always listening.

  Was he reporting back to Rooney?

  “Hi, Mattie,” Marcus said.

  “Hi,” Mattie squeaked and scurried past him. It didn’t do any good, though, because every time Mattie looked up, he saw Marcus watching him, studying him.

  “Why is Marcus staring at you like you have something he wants?” Caroline asked as she sat down next to Mattie.

  “I think he knows I know,” Mattie whispered to her.

  Caroline jammed her fork into her salad. “That’s not good.”

  “No,” Mattie agreed. “I have to find Carter—the real Carter. He has to be somewhere we would never think to look. Do you have any idea where that might be?”

  Caroline brightened, and then frowned. “I don’t know where that would be. I mean, that’s kind of the definition, isn’t it? Somewhere we would never think to look.”

  Mattie nodded. Over at the eighth-grade table, Carter and Marcus scraped their chairs back. Carter took his tray to the trash, but Marcus kept his eyes on Mattie.

  “Look away,” Caroline whispered, furiously jabbing at her salad.

  “I can’t,” Mattie whispered back. It was like Marcus had some sort of tractor beam in his eyeballs that kept pulling Mattie in.

  Then Marcus walked around the eighth-grade table and Mattie sighed with relief. Marcus was leaving. He was going to class. He was—

  Walking right toward them!

  This was how it was going to end!

  Marcus looked straight at Mattie and cracked his knuckles. He made his hands into fists and then…he kept walking.

  Caroline winced as Marcus passed. Mattie felt like wincing too. Actually, Mattie felt like passing out. He wouldn’t, of course. Marcus might come back and kick his unconscious body into next week.

  “Do you think he heard?” Mattie whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Caroline breathed as the dining hall doors slammed shut. “I don’t know where Carter is, and I don’t know how we’re going to find him, but we better do it fast.”

  “But how are we going to find him?” Mattie wondered as he helped Eliot clean the windows during their afternoon applied mathematics class. “Carter could be anywhere.”

  Before Eliot could answer, Mr. Karloff walked past them in a gust of cologne and cleaning spray. “Remember, students! This is real-life math! Math you will need in the real world!” Mr. Karloff stopped at the whiteboard, his hands on his hips. “How many fingerprints do you see? Count them up and wipe them away!”

  “I love this class,” Eliot said as he scratched at a bit of grime caked in a corner. “I just tell him I saw thirty-six fingerprints and he takes my word for it.”

  Mattie considered the window. There were far more than thirty-six fingerprints on the glass. He turned to his friend. “I need you to focus,” Mattie said. “What if it were Caroline? What if she were cloned?”

  Eliot paused to consider this. “Would I get to program her?”

  “Eliot!”

  “Fine, I wouldn’t like it either.”

  Mattie dipped his sponge in the bucket again. Unlike Mrs. Hitchcock’s classroom, which was always hot, this classroom was always cold, like a cellar on a summer day, and Mattie’s fingers were numb. “I don’t even know how to find Carter. I mean, he could be anywhere, right? We didn’t even know Munchem had a basement until last month. What if there’s some other hidden room?”

  Eliot nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So we have to think like kidnappers. If you stole someone, where would you keep him?”

  Eliot thought about this. “You think there’s more space in that basement?”

  “No!” Mattie stopped scrubbing and looked at Eliot. “Well, I guess there could be. Wherever they have Carter would have to be really well hidden—or maybe it’s close to the school. Maybe it’s in some shed or something. Bad guys love sheds. They’re always locking people up in them.”

  “It would have to be soundproof.” Eliot was quiet for a moment. “Mattie, what if they’re not keeping Carter hidden away?”

  “Huh?” Mattie eyed Mr. Karloff as the teacher circled the other side of the classroom. His father’s words about hiding something in plain sight suddenly looped through his head, but he wasn’t any closer to figuring out what that could mean.

  “How many fingerprints?” Mr. Karloff called out to the class. “What happens when you multiply the fingerprints by four more hands?”

  Mattie had no idea. He did, however, know that many fingerprints on her windows would enrage his mother. Mattie glanced back at Eliot. “What do you mean?”

  “Um, what if they’re not keeping Carter? What if he’s already gone?”

  Mattie opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, but nothing came out. Before, all he could think about was hiding places and now all he could think about was how his life might turn out if Carter was already gone.

  If Carter were gone then Mattie wouldn’t have anyone to argue with. He wouldn’t have anyone to give him advice about the proper care and feeding of parents. He wouldn’t have Carter.

  And it would be Mattie’s fault.

  Mattie swallowed hard. “You think he’s dead?” Mattie bellowed the last word. He bellowed it with all his might and with all his breath and, for a moment, he sounded exactly like Mr. Larimore. Mattie didn’t mean to be so loud, but he was startled.

  And scared.

  “What’s going on over there?” Mr. Karloff demanded. He crossed the room in quick, choppy strides. “What are you two doing?”

  “L-lead!” Mattie stammered. “I think there’s lead in the paint.”

  Mr. Karloff’s face screwed up with confusion. “Of course there’s lead in the paint.”

  “Wait.” Eliot put down his rag and leaned away fr
om the window. “Lead paint can give you cancer.”

  Mr. Karloff nodded. He put one hand on Eliot’s shoulder. “The best things in life always do, son. Now back to work!” he shouted.

  Mattie leaned in closer to Eliot. “My brother isn’t dead. You don’t know that. We saw Maxwell get up and walk around after they cloned him—and Hitchcock said they don’t put them down or whatever. Rooney has to be keeping them somewhere.”

  Eliot studied Mattie’s face for a moment and then nodded. “So what’s your genius idea for finding him then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Eliot said.

  “Just one? You’re way ahead of me.”

  “Like, how does Carter the Clone know all the same stuff the real Carter knows?” Eliot looked at Mattie. “You said it was like he knew who you were before, right? Like he knew you two were supposed to be brothers?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think he remembered how we were down in the basement. I mean, he knows about the machine, but only because Headmaster Rooney made him take out the wrenches. I don’t think Carter actually remembers we, you know, put them in there.”

  “That’s weird.”

  Mattie nodded. “It’s like he has some memories, but not all—or maybe he just remembers the really important stuff?”

  They stared at each other. They had no idea. They didn’t know how the clones had the same memories as the students they replaced. They didn’t know where Rooney was keeping Carter. They didn’t even know how many fingerprints they were supposed to be counting.

  Mattie was beginning to think he didn’t know anything.

  “Okay,” he muttered, trying to piece together what he could. “Where would you keep bad students? It would have to be somewhere soundproof and secret, but easy to get to because they have to eat, right? Right. And that leaves—”

  Eliot sprayed the closest window with more cleaning solution and rubbed until the glass squeaked louder than Beezus. “Wait. Where’s the one place students are never allowed?”