Case File 13 #3
Page 16
Mom’s eyes lit up. “Please tell me it’s a cruise. I’ve always wanted to go on one.”
“Even better,” Dad said. “Listen to this. During winter break, while everyone else is cold and wet, all five of us are going to take part in an archeological exploration of a newly discovered pyramid, smack-dab in the middle of a Mexican rain forest. And the kicker is . . . it’s cursed!”
And so, our friends live to fight another day. And fight they will. For, like you, they cannot sit back and wait for adventure to come to them. They seek it out, drink it like cool, life-giving water. They thrive on it.
No doubt, they will soon come across something else not of the world most people see. And when they do, I will be here documenting it for your reading pleasure. Because you too will be back. You’re just that kind of person.
And speaking of seeing, I’ve been staring into the looking glass more and more lately, and a disturbing thought has occurred to me. What if the face I see there is not my reflection at all, but I am a reflection of it? What if I am the dark doppelgänger trapped in a world I cannot escape?
Try not to think about that next time you see yourself in the mirror.
Sincerely,
B. B.
Normally, I would thank all the people who have helped me make my book—my agent, my editor, my family, the amazing artist who does the cover.
Except last week something weird happened. They all disappeared. It’s like they went on a big vacation without me. In their places are these evil twin “humans” who look like them but act almost exactly the opposite.
Mike “Shotgun” Bourret, who shoots down all my best ideas; Andy “Rhyming” Harwell, who thinks I should write all my books in verse; a bunch of mean people that write all over my pages in red ink, Ann “You missed a comma” Lyon, Heath “That’s so lame” Moore, Lu “This is a plot?” Staheli, Shelly “That was romance?” Holmes, Rah “My kid could write better” Eden, and Robby “You get an F” Wells; Douglas “Stick figure” Holgate, who clips out magazine pictures and calls them a cover; Sarry “You’ve got page numbers be happy” Kaufman, who barely gave me page numbers; Rose “You’re lucky to get a book” Brosnan, who told me to stop complaining and write something else; a bunch of hooligans by the names of Killer E, Big Nick, Scott “Two Face,” Naughty Nat, Jake the Snake, and Nick the Blade, who took my advance and spent it all on candy; and Jenny “Gray Bar” Savage, who claims to be my wife but keeps me locked in the basement slaving away on more stories to earn bread and water.
And these ingrates: Jamie “Maze Runner” Dashner, Kim “Too Cool” Tidwell, Syd “The Enforcer” Schoepf, and Rebel “Just Rebel” Benson, who are all demanding payment for using their names.
About the Author
Photo by Erica Thurman
Recently, J. SCOTT SAVAGE took his family on a much-needed camping trip to an undisclosed forest. The trip must have been restful because he is now getting twice as much done. In an odd twist, he also now claims to have eight children: Good Erica, Evil Erica, Good Scott, Evil Scott, Good Jake, Evil Jake, Good Nick, and Evil Nick. His wife, Jennifer, was recently spotted at Disney World and Disneyland on the same day. And Pepper barks twice as much. This is the third volume in his Case File 13 series.
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Credits
Cover art © 2014 by Doug Holgate
Cover design by Sarah Nichole Kaufman
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Copyright
CASE FILE 13 #3: EVIL TWINS. Text copyright © 2014 by J. Scott Savage. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Douglas Holgate. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Savage, J. Scott (Jeffrey Scott), 1963-
Evil twins / J. Scott Savage.
pages cm.—(Case file 13 ; #3)
Summary: “Nick, Carter, and Angelo bring their monster expertise on a camping trip to the woods, where they accidentally unleash creatures that have the power to copy human appearance exactly”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-213337-3 (hardcover bdg.)
EPub Edition March 2014 ISBN 9780062133397
[1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Imaginary creatures—Fiction. 4. Shapeshifting—Fiction. 5. Monsters—Fiction. 6. Camping—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S25897Evi 2014 2013032820
[Fic]—dc23 CIP
AC
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14 15 16 17 18 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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