Will You Be My Friend?

by P. J. Night

  Suddenly Beth saw another rider out of the corner of her eye, drifting toward her, edging her closer to the cliff side of the bike path.

  “Look out!” she cried, not completely sure whether she had actually screamed or just screamed in the vision in her head. But either way she found herself bouncing and rolling toward the cliff.

  The other bike came closer, pushing Beth right over the edge. She tumbled toward a canyon below—

  —and yanked her hand from the photo with such force that she stumbled backward and fell.

  So real, she thought. What kind of power do these pictures have?

  Fighting the pain in her rib, Beth climbed back onto her feet and touched the third photo.

  Her mind spun in confusion. Nothing made sense. She couldn’t put a coherent thought together. Then everything went black as if she had suddenly lost her vision. She stumbled helplessly, banging into walls and crashing into furniture. She quickly let go of the photo and returned to the room she was in.

  There was something so exhilarating about this exercise that despite the unpleasant memories some of the photos contained, Beth felt compelled to touch each one.

  She touched the fourth photo and her mind went almost completely blank. She stared at the wallpaper in a tiny room and began counting the flowers in the pattern. When she reached one hundred, she started again.

  Beth took her hand off picture number four and touched picture number five. She found herself in a crowded, noisy school cafeteria. Looking up, she spotted a banner for the school basketball team. It read: “Go Glenside Tigers!”

  Beth was stunned that for some reason she was experiencing a memory of going to Glenside Middle School.

  That’s when a tall, skinny girl with long, straight brown hair stepped up to her.

  “Hey, Lizzie,” said the girl. “Do you want to eat lunch with me today?”

  Beth looked up and recognized the girl as Alice, Chrissy’s cousin, the one who went to Glenside, who thought that Beth looked like some girl named Lizzie, the Lizzie whose memory Beth was now obviously experiencing.

  She let go of the photo, trying desperately to put the pieces together. It still all made no sense.

  One more photo. No point in stopping now.

  She touched the sixth photo. Nothing happened. She took her finger away, then touched the photo again. Still nothing.

  Why doesn’t this one trigger any memories? she wondered.

  “That one’s you,” said a familiar voice coming from behind her.

  Beth spun around and saw Elizabeth.

  “Elizabeth!” Beth cried, throwing her arms around her friend. “I am so glad to see you!”

  “I planned to be here when you woke up,” Elizabeth said. “Sorry about that.”

  “Where am I?” asked Beth.

  “My room,” Elizabeth replied simply.

  “What do you mean, your room?” Beth asked. “Are we still in the hospital? This doesn’t look like a hospital room.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “This is a special room in the hospital that my mom set up for me,” she explained. “She spends so much time here that she wanted me to be able to stay over and still feel like I had my own space. My mom suggested moving you in here because she thought that you would be more comfortable, since you and I get along so well.”

  Beth was about to ask Elizabeth about the photos, but Elizabeth wasn’t finished. “Listen, Beth, I want to apologize. I’m really sorry that fight between me and my mom woke you up last night. I really wish you hadn’t seen that.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Beth. “I didn’t see you. I saw someone who looks exactly like me.”

  Elizabeth smiled and lifted her hand up to her head. In one swift motion she pulled a black wig off. A mane of auburn hair tumbled down around her shoulders. She pulled a washcloth from a drawer in her vanity and wiped the pale makeup off her face, revealing freckles, tons of them, just like Beth had. Then she kicked off the high platform shoes she’d been wearing and put on a pair of slippers, making her exactly the same height as Beth.

  And for about the millionth time since this whole craziness began, Beth found herself staring at someone who looked exactly like her.

  “Lizzie?” gasped Beth.

  “No. It’s still me . . . Elizabeth,” Elizabeth answered. “And that was me you saw last night, Beth. And the night before. And yes, I look exactly like you! Or, to be perfectly accurate, you look exactly like me!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Beth stumbled back, away from Elizabeth. She bumped into the side of the bed and sat down. Her head was spinning.

  “I—I don’t understand,” she mumbled. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s time you knew everything,” said Elizabeth. “Especially now that you have seen and experienced the photos.” She gestured toward the wall of photos.

  “About twenty-five years ago my mother performed an experiment on me,” Elizabeth began.

  “Wait! Twenty-five years ago?” said Beth, completely bewildered. “But you’re my age!”

  “Just listen,” Elizabeth said softly. “It will all make sense in a moment. You see, although my mom is a really good doctor, she has a bit of mad scientist in her too.

  “Twenty-five years ago, when I was twelve, my mom performed an experiment on me that she hoped would increase my intelligence. It didn’t. Instead it froze the growth mechanisms in my body at the cellular level.”

  “What?” asked Beth, trying desperately but failing miserably to comprehend what she was hearing.

  “I became permanently twelve,” answered Elizabeth. “And I would remain twelve years old for as long as I lived. Now, at first I didn’t mind the idea of being a kid forever. But as my friends all grew up and moved on with their lives, I didn’t. I stayed the same.”

  Beth recalled what Elizabeth had said over lunch the day before: Most of the friends I’ve ever had have left. They’re not here anymore. I get lonely sometimes.

  Elizabeth continued: “So then, about twenty years ago, my mother tried to give me a gift to make up for what she had done to me. She created a clone using my DNA. Since my DNA had been permanently altered to stop me from aging, the clone was twelve years old—and, like me, would stay that way forever.

  “And because the clone was made from my DNA, it had my memories embedded in its genetic structure. These memories were deep, hidden beneath the surface of everyday awareness, but they were there.”

  “That explains a lot,” Beth said, thinking back to the dream she had the night before she headed to Glenside. She had wondered how she could have such vivid memories of a childhood she had no real recollection of and never really experienced.

  “Clone number one was Liza, and we had lots of fun together. But one day at the beach, she escaped. I guess she got tired of spending all her time with me and wanted to move on with her life, but she had no idea that she couldn’t. She would always remain the same. She’s probably still wandering around out there somewhere, alone, unable to grow up.”

  Beth’s brain was having trouble processing all this, yet one word jumped out and gnawed at her: “escaped.”

  Had Liza been held captive against her will? Beth wondered.

  Elizabeth continued. “Clone number two, Betty, had what we’ll just call a biking accident. Sad, but fortunately clone number three, Bess, was right there to take her place. But it turned out that number three was defective, so I got rid of her.”

  Got rid of her! thought Beth. How? What does that mean?

  “Number four, Liz, was just too boring, so I got rid of her, too,” said Elizabeth.

  Suddenly Beth understood what she had seen when she touched the photographs a few minutes ago. Number four had been boring, just counting numbers in her head all day. Number two had had a bike accident. When she touched the photos, she experienced their memories.

  “And clone number five was Lizzie,” said Beth, the whole crazy picture finally coming into sharp focus. “The Lizzie I’ve been searching
for. I saw her in Glenside when I touched her picture just now.”

  “Yup,” said Elizabeth. “She ran away from me too. Just a few weeks ago. Which brings us to clone number six.”

  “Me,” Beth said. “I’m number six. You gave each clone a nickname based on your name—Elizabeth.”

  “Good thinking, Beth,” said Elizabeth. “You’re a smart one. We’re going to get along great.”

  “And that’s why nothing happened when I touched the sixth picture,” said Beth. “Because it is of me. Instead of seeing through someone else’s eyes, I just saw my own experience, which at that moment was simply me touching that picture.”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth. “And because some of the clones ran away, I asked my mother to do something special for number six. My mom and her assistant implanted a homing chip in your body so that I could find you if you ever escaped.”

  “So it was no accident that you tracked me down and ran into me that day near Glenside,” said Beth, feeling the skin on her arm for a chip. “You tracked me, and followed me to the school so we would meet. You needed a new friend.”

  “Yes,” answered Elizabeth. “Your ‘mother,’ Nancy Picard, was proving difficult. She was supposed to take care of you until I had need of you, but when the time came, she didn’t want to give you back. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get you, but you made it so easy when you went off that day by yourself. It was only a matter of getting you to the hospital and under my mother’s care. It was me who shook the ladder that day and caused you to fall.”

  Beth grew frightened. She wondered how far Elizabeth would go to get what she wanted.

  “But I still don’t understand why I don’t have any memories,” remarked Beth.

  Elizabeth nodded. “When you were created, you were twelve years old. Any memories you had from the time you were ‘born’ in the lab to the time my mother’s assistant took you away for safekeeping were erased with a drug. Until I needed you, you would have no idea who you were or where you came from.”

  “My mom was your mom’s assistant!” Beth said, the whole terrible truth dawning on her.

  “Yes, your mom was, and still is, a brilliant research scientist,” Elizabeth explained. “She worked closely with my mom on developing and refining the clones. When she agreed to take you home for safekeeping, she signed a contract saying that she would return you when the time came.”

  “So the day we moved into the new house was the day she brought me home from the lab,” said Beth.

  Beth hugged herself tightly. She no longer cared about the pain in her rib. Everything she knew about her life was wrong. She now understood why her mother had acted so strangely the other day when she left. She knew that she would never see Beth again, that Beth now belonged to Elizabeth, and like Elizabeth she would never grow any older.

  Of course she had no memories of her childhood. She had never had a childhood. She came into existence at twelve and would always be that age.

  Elizabeth put her arm around Beth.

  “Will you be my friend?” Elizabeth asked.

  Beth wanted to run, to flee the building, to get away and never come back. But because of her homing chip, she knew that Elizabeth would find her, maybe even “get rid of her.”

  “S-sure,” said Beth. “I’ll be your friend.”

  “Great!” said Elizabeth, smiling brightly and pulling her phone out of her pocket. “We’ve got twenty-one more games to get through and all the time in the world to play them!”

  EPILOGUE

  FIVE YEARS LATER . . .

  “What do you mean you’re bored, Elizabeth?” Beth asked as the two girls walked through a park.

  “Don’t get upset, Beth,” said Elizabeth. “It’s been great fun having you as my friend for the past five years. It’s been so cool living like twin sisters, which we are, in a futuristic sort of way.”

  “Strange” would be the word I would use, rather than “cool,” Beth thought. But as usual, she kept her thoughts to herself.

  It had taken Beth a few years, but she had finally gotten used to watching other people grow up and get older while she and Elizabeth remained forever twelve years old.

  They did have fun together, but for all intents and purposes Beth was a prisoner, unable to leave or come and go as she pleased, and that fact was never far from the front of her mind.

  “I just think that having another friend to hang out with us would be great,” explained Elizabeth.

  “But what happens when the new friend grows up and we don’t?” Beth asked. “Sooner or later, anyone else is going to outgrow us.”

  “Not a problem,” said Elizabeth.

  A wave of fear shot through Beth.

  Oh, no. She’s talking about another clone, about Elizabeth number seven. What if she’s planning to get rid of me like she did some of the others?

  The pair approached the hospital. They had been sharing Elizabeth’s room there for the past five years. Beth had started to think of the place as home, although she missed the house that she had once lived in with a woman she called “Mom.” She missed Nancy Picard, whom she had not seen since that day at the hospital, right after her fall from the ladder.

  Once inside, Beth and Elizabeth made their way toward their room. Elizabeth reached out and grabbed the doorknob.

  “Ready to meet our new friend?” she asked.

  Ready as I’ll ever be, Beth thought. She simply nodded.

  Elizabeth opened the door and the two girls stepped into the room. Standing inside was a girl who looked to be about seventeen.

  Beth stared at her. There was something so familiar about this girl. Beth was certain that they had met.

  “Beth, meet Tina,” said Elizabeth. “Tina, this is Beth.”

  Tina had short blond hair and two different-colored eyes, one blue and one hazel.

  “Chrissy?” Beth asked in shock. “Is that you?”

  Beth had not seen Chrissy since the day she left to go to Glenside. Five years had passed, so this girl would be the right age.

  “Um, maybe you have me confused with someone else?” the girl said. “My name is Tina, short for Christina.”

  “Give us a second, Tina,” Elizabeth asked.

  “Sure,” Tina replied.

  Elizabeth pulled Beth out into the hallway.

  “Chrissy!” Beth cried. “You kidnapped Chrissy!”

  “Slow down, Beth,” said Elizabeth. “Nobody kidnapped anyone. That’s not Chrissy, that’s Tina. And I thought you’d be pleased, since she looks so much like your old best friend.”

  Slowly the truth dawned on Beth.

  “A clone,” she whispered. “Tina is Chrissy’s clone!”

  “Exactly,” replied Elizabeth, smiling. “When I told my mom that I was bored with just having you for a friend, she agreed to make me a new one. But rather than another clone of me, I thought we could clone someone that would make you happy—Chrissy.”

  “But why didn’t she recognize me?” Beth wondered.

  “Well, just like with all the other clones, my mom gave her a drug that erased all her memories before the point of cloning. Of course she’s aged a bit, but she’s still a clone of your best friend. And now the three of us will be great friends. Come on! Let’s go get to know her. I’ll bet you’ll come to like her as much as you liked Chrissy.” With that, Elizabeth bounced back into the room.

  Beth sighed as she followed Elizabeth. She had no choice but to follow. She was glad that she wasn’t going to be eliminated, but she was as sad as always. She would never know how long her waking nightmare would last. Her best guess was forever.

  The middle school bus came so early in the morning, and took so long getting to school, that one of Cora Nicolaides’s parents usually drove her and picked her up. Her dad was working from home today, so it would be his turn for pickup that afternoon. Cora took her time as she walked to the carpool section of the parking lot after school. Her dad was usually a little late, and besides, she was deep in thought. It
wasn’t the dance that was on her mind this time—or at least not the actual dance. It was a problem from her math class. Her math teacher, Mr. Ferris, always made a big deal about how helpful math could be in real life. That afternoon he had come up with a problem that was obviously meant to be “timely.”

  The Dance Committee is setting up square tables for the eighth-grade dance. Each table seats four, and the committee may use as many tables as it needs. Tables may be pushed together, but no table arrangement may seat more than twelve. (Why? Because Mr. Ferris says so.) Show three different ways that sixteen couples could be seated for the dance.

  Cora wished Mr. Ferris had written “thirty-two people” instead of “sixteen couples,” but this was the kind of math question she liked. She was walking slowly along, staring at the ground and imagining different table arrangements, when someone suddenly crashed into her.

  “Whoa! Sorry! I didn’t see you.”

  Startled, Cora looked up at the boy who had just bumped into her. He was a little older than she was and incredibly handsome. He had dark, wavy hair, an olive complexion, and eyes that were almost black. He was several inches taller than Cora, and he was smiling down at her. His smile was pretty incredible too.

  “I—I’m the one who should be sorry,” Cora stammered. “I was thinking about a math problem.”

  “And I was going too fast,” said the boy. “Tell you what. We can both be sorry. How does that sound?”

  Cora smiled shyly back at him. “Sounds good.”

  “I guess I just proved that haste really does make waste,” said the boy. “Wait—that didn’t come out right. It’s never a waste to bump into a cute girl.”

  Cora could feel herself blushing.

  “But,” he continued, “I did drop all these postcards I’m supposed to be rushing to the post office.”

  Now Cora saw that a pile of cards was scattered all over the ground. “Let me help!” she said. “Seeing as I’m so sorry and all.”

  “Thanks—that’d be great. By the way, my name is Evan.”

  “I’m Cora. Do you go to school here?”