by Rob Reger
Hopped around the room screeching with excitement and freaking out the cats for a bit, then made a few modifications and was about to try the device on Raven when the Oddisee’s clock started to chime—which it hasn’t done since I don’t know when. Probably the last time there was a lunar eclipse or something. And then my mirror, my big antique mirror that Mom says has been in the family forever, started to creak like it was going to fall off the wall. So I jumped up to go hold the mirror steady, which meant that I was standing in the duplicator’s fieldframe when the clock chimed 13. And then Mystery got spooked, yowled, leaped onto the Oddisee, and was scrabbling around on it, so I reached over to shoo her off, and then CRASH the mirror went and fell on me. Glass everywhere, and I didn’t dare open my eyes because there were shards in my hair. Finally got it all shaken out—looked up—and THEN I saw her—ME—HER!!
Long black hair…black dress…MY face…MY voice saying, “What the hagflax…”
But I wasn’t talking…SHE was.
Time slowed down into weird split-second moments of wild emotions as the two of us stared at each other:
Moment of horror—
Moment of terror—
Moment of anxiety as I questioned my own sanity—
Moment of horror again as I thought about how I would explain this to Mom—
Moment of instinctive, protective, territorial rage that any other human had dared to enter MY room—
Moment of glee as I thought of all the cool pranks I could pull off with an identical twin—
ANOTHER moment of glee—
And then, “OK,” we both said, and then we both started laughing.
ME: Um, this is gonna sound dumb, but are you, by any chance, ME?
OTHER ME: Uh, maybe. Emily Strange, right?
ME: Last I checked, yeah. Four cats, favorite color black, wicked bad? Etcetera?
OM: That’s me all right. Hey…mind if I just…[Reaching out to me cautiously and pinching me on the arm.]…Wow. You’re…real?
ME: Yeah. Are YOU?
OM: [Pinching herself on the arm.] Really Really Real, man.
ME: OK, what the jimjim happened?
OM: Oddisee chimed 13…
ME: Then the mirror crashed on me…
OM: On ME…[Both of us starting to laugh again.] So, wow, it works! I CAN duplicate people!
ME: Great, who’s next?
Then…it’s a little embarrassing to write about, actually, but…I mean, I’ve certainly never done anything like this in my life, but I guess we were both kind of exhilarated about what had happened, and…OK. Let’s just get right to it. We had a knockdown, bang-up, roll-around-on-the-floor GIGGLEFEST.
Right in the middle of the above-mentioned gigglefest, as the two of us were jumping like crazy on the bed and freaking the cats out and generally hyperventilating, Mom opened the door. I guess we didn’t hear her knock, what with all the hysterical laughter. “Hey, E,” she was saying, “sorry to bug ya…Sabbath’s been eating something green, and it’s all over the kitchen floor.”
I bounced off the bed and was trying to catch my breath to introduce my twin when Mom spotted her still standing on the bed and promptly screamed a bloodcurdling scream.
Crabs! I rushed over and tried to calm her down and remind her what we promised the neighbors about screaming, but she was all like “AIIIEAIIEIIIAIIIEIIIE” and whipping her hands in the air like she does when she accidentally touches something dead, and the Other Me was sitting on the bed laughing like a crazy girl, and I could see the terror in Mom’s eyes and her total inability to process what she was seeing, and I suddenly felt kind of panicked, and hustled her downstairs to have a chat.
ME: Patti, it’s OK, it’s really nothing to worry about.
MOM: Please tell me…it was a…hologram?
ME: Uh…no, she’s really really real.
M: Cuz, E, you’ve done some pretty crazy stuff, I mean, it took me a while to wrap my mind around Raven being a…GOLEM, and I STILL have nightmares about her…
ME: Really? [Intrigued.] Good nightmares or bad nightmares?
M: [Starting to cry.] Emily…my nightmares are ALWAYS bad.
ME: Oh…sorry.
M: And that…girl upstairs? What is she, another golem, who looks like you, but has the mind of a…dead possum or something?
ME: Um, no…she’s…actually…
M: —Don’t say it—
ME: Me.
M: [Weeping freely.] No. Nope. Uh-uh, I can’t deal with that.
ME: But Patti, just THINK what the two of us could accomplish together!!!!!!
M: [Horrified expression. Fresh outburst of hysterical sobbing.] But…but we just moved here and the neighbors already hate us and NOW YOU WANT TO TELL ME THERE’S TWO OF YOU?????
ME: Oh, so I’m that awful.
M: [Sniffling. Backpedaling.] Oh no, E, it’s not that, you know you’re the…uh, jewel of my existence and all, but…uh, it’s just that having two of you may destroy me.
ME: Well, I don’t know what else to tell you. You want me to say I’ll go turn off the hologram machine and she’ll disappear?
M: Yes, please.
ME: [Sighing. Wishing Mom could be excited for me on the day of my greatest achievement.] Is it enough if I just say you won’t see her again?
M:…OK, but you gotta promise me on this one.
ME: Fine. I promise to pretend there’s only one of me.
Cannot believe she made me promise. She never makes me promise.
Anyway, am now hanging out in the basement trying to put all this down on paper and get a grip on it. Am feeling another new emotion: mad at Mom. Believe it or not, have never in 13 years been mad at Mom. Reeeeeeally wish she could find the space in her brain to accept there being two of me. I mean, I’m ALSO having a hard time believing it’s true, but in a different way. I keep worrying that I’ll go back up to my bedroom to find out that Other Me has evaporated, or never happened at all.
I guess I could have tried to hide the truth from Mom, or make up some story instead of telling her straight out what happened, but it just didn’t occur to me.
Interesting.
Anyway.
Will go find the Other Me and let her know the developments. And see if she wants a Raven for herself.
Later
Man! I reeeeeeeeally like having an Other Me around. Here are the top reasons so far:
She and I have both taken to calling each other “OtherMe,” said quickly, so as to sound a little like “Emily.” My First Nickname!!! (That I’ve liked. Much better than
a. Halloween Girl
b. Darkness
c. Wednesday
d. Doomsday
e. Lilith Spookypants
f. Deathily
g. Vampira
h. Freak
i. Loner
j. Riot Nrrrd
k. Gothilocks
l. Goth Moth
m. Gothy McGothGoth.)
2. Can communicate essential ideas with a minimum of actual speaking.
3. Unlike conversations with other people, I don’t actually mind speaking to OtherMe. Have already said more to her in our first few hours together than I’ve said to most people. Ever.
4. Work on science projects ought to go twice as quickly.
5. New possibilities in advanced prankery opening up.
6. Can finally, at last, TRULY be in two places at once. Lifelong dream come true!!!!
7. Perfect built-in alibi for future mischief.
8. Cats will now have all the human real estate they need for cozy nighttime snuggling and can knock off fighting over my warm spots.
9. Am enjoying strange and blessedly false sense of being “normal” because I’m “socializing.”
10. Am enjoying seeing myself as if through someone else’s eyes. Am pleased to say I am pretty much exactly as I should be.
11. Am looking forward to 50% fewer days spent in school.
12. Can now commence setting high scores on all my vi
deo games in cooperative mode.
13. Finally have a reason to avoid getting any hideous, scarring wounds to the face. Will start wearing protection when I work with hot splattering chemicals!
Later
Here is the Plan for Mom, as worked out by Me and OtherMe. It’s so simple, it’s downright Zen. We have hung up a sign on my our bedroom door reminding Mom to protect herself from what she obviously prefers not to see.
OtherMe felt this should be enough on our part, but I reminded her of Mom’s screaming hysterics, and we agreed that we will take turns leaving the bedroom, in the interest of family harmony.
We have also agreed to take turns on the Oddisee, since sitting in the same chair and trying to work on it simultaneously was NOT quite as harmonious as you might think it would be. OtherMe may be an exact duplicate of me, but she doesn’t necessarily want to type the right-hand letters for me while we code.
Later
We have not been able to duplicate Raven, or tapeworms, or balled-up spiderwebs, or anything else. Looks like circuits took some heat damage during last duplication. Not to worry. We will work out the kinks and get Raven duplicated some other night.
Oddisee—Cam shot of Me and OtherMe!!
Later
Sun is coming up, but neither of us really wants to go to bed because we are having so much fun discussing fascinating topics like:
Do we have the same thoughts? (Pretty much.)
Can we communicate telepathically? (Would like to say yes. Truth is…not so much.)
Can we make AnotherMe? (Experiment pending; duplicator temporarily out of commission.)
What happens if one of us gets hurt—does the other one feel it? (After several fun and painful experiments, the answer seems to be no.)
What happens if one of us dies? (Experiment pending, ahhhahhaah.)
Will we look the same in a year? 13 years? 100?
If we go to school on alternate days, will we learn different stuff and grow into different people?
Do we want to grow into different people or stay the same?
What kind of different people would we want to grow into? (MANY very fascinating and creative answers!)
Assuming Mom eventually accepts us the way we are, will she like one of us more than the other?
What about the cats?
Where ARE the cats and why haven’t they been upstairs all night?
Where do we go from here????????? (Rubbing hands together, much planning.)
June 7
good nightmares interrupted, 1; near-death experiences, 1
Woke up about fifteen minutes ago, in the middle of the day, to find OtherMe wrapping me up in a rug. No, for real. And I’m glad I did all those experiments with liquid-liquid extraction last summer, cuz I knew right away I’d been drugged with ether.
Could barely croak out Raven’s name. It’s a frabbling good thing I built her with such sensitive hearing. She was there in a flash, and OtherMe jumped and dropped the rug, looking pretty disoriented.
OTHERME: What…where…who…
ME: [Croaking weakly.] What’s going on, OtherMe?
OM: Hhhhh…hmmmm…
ME: Why am I in this rug?
OM: Why ARE you in this rug?
ME: Did you drug me with ether?
OM: No, I didn’t drug you with ether. What, I’m gonna drug you with ether, as if you weren’t MY OWN SELF? [Long pause as I asked myself the same question. And it seemed we both took a moment to consider question #5, above.] Sure…OK, yeah, I remember drugging you with ether. But it wasn’t you, it was…uh, hey, remember that golem I created, we created, last year, out of that decaying Tasmanian devil? The one that didn’t work out? The one that tried to eat the cats, and took a swipe at Patti, and smelled like putrid salami? The one we had to drug with ether, and wrap in a rug, and incinerate?
ME: [Not liking where this was going.] I remember that one.
OM: Well, I was having this dream about that golem, and in my dream I said to myself that I needed to cancel the experiment. So…I guess that’s what I was doing. Um…sorry about that.
Raven had unrolled the rug/Emily burrito, and I was starting to recover from the ether. I wasn’t feeling super happy about all this, or about the interruption to my nice nightmare about winning the jackpot on the tickle-torture game show by outlasting all the other contestants under the nefarious automated tickle-arms of Gregor the Tickling RoboCockroach, or about the disgusting smell of ether in my nose, or about the incredible headache the ether left behind.
And I’m NOT AT ALL happy about the fact that OtherMe might subconsciously see ME as an experiment, let alone an experiment that might need canceling.
She apologized about sixty-six times and then went back to sleep.
Later
OtherMe feels super bad about the whole sleepwalking episode and has offered to let me have the entire night to myself in the room while she spends quality time with Mom. Sounds good to me!!
Am now feeling more sympathetic about the whole unfortunate sleepwalking business. Have had similar episodes in the past, like the time I dreamed that Sabbath asked me if we could go to the beach, so I put him in his cat carrier and strapped it to my skateboard. Turns out, I did this in real life as well as in my dream. We were halfway down the block when his yowls (and the pain of broad daylight) finally woke me up. Am hoping there are no further sleepwalking incidents, or at least none that threaten my life. Will spend the day working on some kind of apparatus to wake me if I am being rolled up in a rug and dragged to the incinerator.
Quite a bit later
Have completed a sort of headgear contraption I can wear while sleeping that will sound a gut-wrenching alarm if moved. SERIOUSLY gut-wrenching—I used sound waves that nauseate the human gut, thinking I would hardly get accidentally murdered if everyone around was vigorously vomiting. I (brilliantly) programmed a completely random code to disarm it—because, after all, OtherMe knows all of my usual passwords. Can’t risk a sleepwalking episode that involves successful disarming of alarms!!
I now have my first official secret from OtherMe. I feel kind of bad about it, but it’s all in the name of safety.
Just realized that I am ravenously hungry. OtherMe has obviously forgotten to smuggle up my food for the night. Will have to sneak downstairs and forage for myself.
Later
Am back with a sandwich I made very quietly in the kitchen while Mom and some of her new Silifordville acquaintances were sitting in the next room watching late night horror B movies. I snuck around behind the couch and ate my sandwich while eavesdropping. None of it was interesting except when Mom bragged to her friends about what OtherMe was out doing for the night, which involved a midnight shred at the skate park, a good rummaging through local junk-shop Dumpsters, and general unsupervised catting about town.
Man, that stuff sounds fun. And she told me she was going to stay in and spend quality time with Mom!
Am a little jealous.
Of myself.
How ridiculous!
Later
Am feeling unusually cooped-up in my room tonight, even though there are lots of lovely projects to keep me busy. Have already tried halfheartedly to get the duplicator working again. Lost interest after like 5 minutes and picked up the guitar instead. Played for maybe 7 minutes and put it down again. Tinkered with some modifications on my favorite slingshot—3 minutes. Then messed around with the Oddisee—13 minutes. Brainstormed Master Prank—2 minutes. Tried to psychically beckon OtherMe back from her nighttime jaunts—2 hours, 34 minutes. So far, unsuccessful.
Later
It’s almost daylight, so I am going to bed. Still no sign of OtherMe. Have put on my protective headgear and set the alarm. Caught a look at myself in the mirror, and I can tell you, I look pretty special-needs with this thing on. The cats must have thought so too, because they all ran when I snuck downstairs to get them. Had to catch each one individually and tiptoe them up to the room, being careful not to wake Mom. Do not
know WHAT their damage is tonight.
Headgear for my special needs. Let’s hope I don’t actually special-need it!!!!!!!!
June 8
headgear alarms tested, 1; alarm codes forgotten, 1; eardrums bruised, 4
I woke up out of a lovely nightmare about sinking in licorice-flavored quicksand when the headgear alarm went off right by my ears. Just Like I Built It To Do. But I couldn’t get it to stop because A) I didn’t know who, where, or what I was; B) I couldn’t think of the random code I programmed; C) OtherMe was kneeling on my arms, vigorously vomiting; D) I was vigorously vomiting. I tried my hardest to throw her off the bed, then realized we were both already on the floor. Friking vetbats! It’s not that easy to wrestle someone who is exactly as strong and heavy as you are, AND is dreaming that you are some kind of Transylvanian mermaid intruder thirsty for her lifeblood, AND is covered in vomit. Raven had to pull her off me, pry apart the screaming headgear with a crowbar, and throw it out the window. Cats were all yowling and hissing. Lots of barf to mop up. OtherMe was extremely sorry. No one was pleased.
I may need to look into other sleeping arrangements.
Later—nighttime
It’s my turn to leave the room. Finally!! Packed myself a sandwich and called for the cats, but I guess they are still freaked out by the headgear-alarm debacle, cuz they would not come near me. Am going downtown and undergroundtown to revisit the most interesting part of Silifordville—its sewers. Will write more later.
