by Eric Bower
“But, I’m . . . I’m W.B.,” I wheezed, not knowing what else to say.
I coughed again. My voice sounded as raspy and croaky as a frog with bronchitis. My face was caked with dirt and dust. No wonder they didn’t recognize me. I barely recognized me.
My mother swung her broomstick at me. I ducked, and quickly backed away.
“I told you that someone was watching me!” the W.B. on the horse told my parents.“I was out here, bonding with Geoffrey, when suddenly he appeared at the fence! He told me that if I didn’t give him all of our money, food, and dangerous inventions, that he’d do something terrible to us!”
“What?” I choked, ducking again as my mother continued to swing the broomstick at me. “I didn’t say any of that! I wouldn’t mind a bit of food though.”
Geoffrey whinnied angrily at me, bucking his legs and snorting. In all the time that I’d known that horse, I’d never seen him react that way. He looked angry, and worse than that, he was giving me the appearance of being a dangerous stranger who did not belong at the Baron Estate. P once told me that animals are excellent at detecting when a person is evil, and I suppose that’s usually true. But the horse had it all backwards this time. Maybe I should have bonded with him before. Why did I have to lie to my father about talking to that horse?
“You’ve upset Geoffrey!” my father bellowed. “Now it’s personal! Upset my son? Fine. Upset my wife? Well, that’s still not nice, but I can live with that too. But upset my horse? Then we have a problem! Go away and never come back, or I’ll shrink you to the size of a bug and then squash you!”
Perhaps because of how angry he looked, or perhaps because I knew he could actually do what he’d just threatened to do, I turned and ran away.
As I was running through the Pitchfork Desert, it suddenly occurred to me what had happened.
For me to explain it to you, I’ll have to jump back in time, back to the end of my last adventure with my family . . .
Several Weeks Earlier,
While Sitting in the Baron Estate Kitchen
“I have never seen anyone eat a banana cream pie that fast,” Rose said, shaking her head in wonder. “Did you even take time to chew it, or did you just force it down your throat like a pelican?”
I held in a burp as I shrugged.
“I was hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“What’s your point?” I asked, holding in another burp.
Sometimes Rose asked the silliest questions.
We were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, and just as I was about to ask her what time she thought we would be having dinner, I heard yelling from outside.
“W.B.! Rose! Come out here!” my mother called, “We have something exciting to show you!”
Rose looked at me and winked. I burped. She rolled her eyes as she slipped on her red cowboy boots and dragged me outside.
We took three steps out the back door before we froze in utter shock.
“What?” Rose said.
“Huh?” I said.
“Hello, Rose and W.B.,” my mother said.
“W.B. and Rose, hello,” my mother said.
My mother was standing in front of the work garage. And standing beside her was my mother. There were two Ms. They were identical, right down to the work clothes and little round glasses. I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles to make sure I wasn’t seeing double. Sometimes my eyes just needed a good rubbing in order to see properly. I looked again. Nope. I still had two mothers.
“How are you doing this?” Rose whispered.
My mother looked at herself and both of her laughed.
“Excellent question, Rose,” one of my mothers said, before pulling out a little device that looked like a mechanical loaf of bread with two buttons on it. “Sharon and I have invented something new and fantastic. It is perhaps the most fantastic thing we’ve ever invented in our whole inventing careers. It will change the world forever.”
Up to that point, my parents had invented a flying house, an invention that makes things bigger, an invention that makes things smaller, a horseless carriage, a coal powered underwater ship, a rocket that could fly to the stars, a giant magnet (which we aren’t allowed to talk about), and yet this was the first inventions of theirs that had left me speechless.
“Huh?” I said, looking from my mother, back over to my mother, and then back to my other mother again. I was starting to feel dizzy, as though I might fall over at any moment, which I then did. Rose had to help me to my feet.
“We have invented the Doppelgänger Device!” one of my mothers said proudly.
“I wanted to name it the S.A.Y.S. Device, or the Same-As-You, Stephen Device, but your mother wouldn’t let me,” said my other mother, who was clearly my father.
“Mr. Baron?” Rose gasped. “Is that really you?”
“I’m pretty certain that it is,” said my father, who looked and sounded exactly like my mother. “Allow me to explain how this new device works. It’s really quite simple! All you need to do is point the Doppelgänger Device at a person and press this button. Then, you point the Doppelgänger Device at yourself and press this button, and it will transform you into the other person.”
“Wow . . .” Rose breathed.
“Wow indeed,” said my mother (who was actually my mother), who then pointed to a small, circular glass panel on the underside of the invention. “The Doppelgänger Device also keeps track of every time that it’s copied a person. All you have to do is look into this little glass panel, and it will show you who has been copied, and how many times they’ve been copied. We felt that we needed something to record that information, so we can tell if it’s been used by someone other than us. Otherwise, a clever criminal could cause a lot of trouble with this invention.”
I finally found my voice again. It was right where I had left it, in the back of my throat.
“How long does it last?” I asked. “This isn’t going to be permanent, is it? Not that I’m complaining, but it would make M’s birthday a bit confusing.”
“It isn’t permanent,” my father said, using one hand to brush back his long hair. “It only lasts for a few hours, six or seven at the most. I’m tinkering with a way to reverse the effects of the Doppelgänger Device immediately, but so far, there have been some problems.”
“What sort of problems?” Rose asked.
My father bit his lip nervously.
“Let’s just say that I’m glad I tested it on a tree before I tested it on myself.”
It was the Doppelgänger Device! It had to be! Someone was staying at the Baron Estate and posing as me! They must have knocked me over the head and thrown me onto the train to get me out of the picture, so they could then pose as me! Lefty and Lefty Also were right! The crazy hobos were brighter than they seemed, even though they were tone-deaf, and had a baffling lack of understanding when it came to personal hygiene and modern plumbing.
But who would want me out of the picture? And why? And how did they know about the Doppelgänger Device? And what was their final plan?
I wondered all those things as I crossed the desert and entered Downtown Pitchfork. I thought of the strange feeling I’d been getting lately, the feeling that someone was watching me. They must have been pointing the Doppelgänger Device at me so the device could copy my body. They were also probably studying my behavior, so they’d be able to do a good imitation of me once they got me out of the way and started to pose as W.B.
Though to be honest, it isn’t particularly difficult to do a good W.B. impression. Trip a lot. Bonk your head. Eat some pie. Congratulations, you’re me.
I didn’t know what to do next, so I went to the hotel where Shorty and her parents were staying. Maybe my friend could give me some advice. She had already saved me once before, when Benedict Blackwood was about to use my head for target practic
e, and I knew that I could count on her.
But when I got to the hotel, the owner informed me that Shorty and her folks had gone to another hospital in a neighboring town, and that she didn’t know when they would be returning. I left her a note to give to Shorty, and then, trying my luck, asked the hotel owner if she would mind if I waited for her to return, maybe spending the night and having a warm bath and a few hot meals on their bill. The owner, very politely, lifted me by my suspenders, and booted me out of the room.
I had a few coins in my pocket from dancing, but it was barely enough for me to afford a good meal. I thought about finding a crowded street corner and dancing again, to see if I could make enough money to afford a hotel room for the night. But when I tried, I found that the people on the busy streets of Pitchfork were done being generous to the funny looking boy with the bad haircut. They mostly just stared at me. One old lady threw mushy tomatoes at my head.
Then I was hit by an idea, as well as another tomato.
“I’ve stopped dancing,” I told the old lady.
“I don’t care!” she retorted, tossing her last tomato at me before waddling away.
There was one other person in town who I could still go and see. She probably wouldn’t be able to help me, but I find that when I’m in trouble sometimes it helps to have a friend to talk to.
Even if that friend was currently in jail.
I walked into the Pitchfork jailhouse. It was the second time that I’d been there. The first time was when Shorty and I had rescued my parents and Rose Blackwood, who had been locked in the jailhouse by Benedict Blackwood and his evil gang. I can’t say that I missed the place. It had a bit of charm, I guess, if you consider holes in the roof, mysterious puddles on the floor, and a smell that reminded you of unwashed dogs to be charming.
There was a deputy asleep in the corner with his feet up on his desk, his hat pulled down over his eyes. His snores echoed throughout the little jailhouse, which, at the moment, only had one prisoner: Rose Blackwood.
She was sitting on the bench of her jail cell, and the first thing I noticed was that she was blushing. Her cheeks and nose shone as brightly as her freshly polished boots, and she was giggling. Then I noticed the person standing outside of her cell: Deputy Buddy Graham.
He was blushing too.
I watched them for another few moments as they continued to laugh softly and blush like a giggly pair of overripe strawberries, before Rose caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye.
“W.B.?” she asked with a frown. “Is that you? You look awful.”
“You sure do,” Deputy Graham said, as he brushed his red hair back from his forehead. “Kid, you look like someone just rolled you in all the way from Mississippi.”
“Actually, it was Texas, but that doesn’t matter. Rose, do you remember the Doppelgänger Device?”
Rose rolled her eyes.
“Are you seriously asking if I remember the invention that transformed your father into your mother for six hours? Of course I remember it. Why?”
I explained to her what I’d seen, how I was knocked over the head and thrown onto a cross country train, how I threw myself out of the train to escape the awful singing of the merry travelers, and how I had returned to the Baron Estate to find another W.B. posing as me.
My explanation probably sounded like the ravings of a madman. In fact, if it had been anyone other than Rose Blackwood listening to my explanation, they likely would have thought that I’d simply taken one too many lumps to the head.
Which I probably had. But that’s another story.
“Who do you think it was?” she asked, when I’d finished explaining.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could help me figure that out.”
Rose started to speak, but then she looked over to Deputy Buddy. The sheriff’s son seemed terribly confused.
“This must all sound really crazy to you,” she said to him.
“I honestly didn’t understand half of what the kid said,” Buddy Graham admitted. “He must be really smart, just like his parents. My dad always told me that the Barons were geniuses.”
“W.B. isn’t smart like his parents. In fact, he’s a little bit d—” Rose began, but then she stopped and cleared her throat when she remembered that I was standing right there. “I mean, he’s a different kind of smart. Some people are book smart, which means they’re very educated, like Mr. and Mrs. Baron. And some people are street smart, which means they have good instincts, like you and your father. And some people are people smart, which mean they’re a good judge of character, like me. And then there’s W.B.”
“What kind of smart am I?” I asked.
“Umm . . .” Rose said, searching her mind for an answer. “You’re . . . uh . . . I suppose you could be described as . . . umm . . . say, that’s a very nice shirt you’re wearing, W.B.”
Deputy Buddy quickly nodded his head.
“She’s right. Underneath all the dirt and soot and cow plop, you can tell it’s a really fine quality shirt.”
So apparently, I’m shirt smart? Great. I’m sure that’ll come in handy one day.
“Thanks, guys. I’m going to need your help. M and P have already chased me away from the house. They think I’m some sort of sneak who’s been creeping around the Baron Estate. I’ll need you to convince them that I’m the real me, and that the other kid is a fake me.”
“But if there are two of you, then how do we know for certain that you’re the real W.B.?” Deputy Buddy asked.
I was about to answer him, but suddenly I lost my balance and fell backwards, knocking my head against the brick jailhouse wall.
“OW!”
I clutched my head and tried to stand up straight, but I was feeling a bit woozy from the bump on my head, so I stumbled forward, tripped over a bench, and somehow ended up getting my head stuck between the bars of one of the jail cells.
“Yup,” said Rose as she slowly nodded her head. “That’s the real W.B. I’d bet my big toe on it.”
He’s Staring at His Hand as Though It’s a Ham Sandwich
It turns out that even though Rose and Deputy Buddy appeared to be getting along quite well, Sheriff Graham and the other people of Pitchfork still believed that she was responsible for the explosion at the fair. That meant she had to stay locked up in the jailhouse.
“I know that you would never do anything like that, Rose,” Deputy Buddy told her. “But it won’t be so easy to convince everyone else. My dad is still in the hospital because of the exploding pie.”
“Do they need to plug up the hole in his head where the pen used to be?” I asked.
“Yup, though they’re having a lot of trouble finding a pen that’ll fit the hole as well as the other one did.”
“Why don’t they just sew up the hole and forget about the pen?” Rose asked.
Buddy and I both looked at her as though she was insane. Forget about the pen?
Psssh. There were some things that women just didn’t understand . . .
“Anyway,” Deputy Buddy said to Rose, “unless we can prove your innocence, I can’t let you out of here.”
He looked awfully sorry. Strangely enough, Rose looked a bit sorry as well.
“I understand,” she said. “You’re just doing your job, Buddy.”
For a moment, we all stood there, feeling sorry for Rose and her awful predicament, when suddenly my brain sneezed.
“Idea!”
Rose and Deputy Buddy looked at me as though I’d just . . . well, as though I’d just jumped in the air and shouted “Idea!” Which I had. I don’t get great ideas often, so it’s sort of a shock to my body when I do. It felt like my brain had been tickled until it sneezed.
I guess my father was right. Having your brain tickled wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unless of course it starts a sneezing fit.
“I have an idea,” I told them. “Rose, you’re a terrible baker, maybe the worst baker in the history of the world. Your cakes and pies are so gross that we couldn’t even get the wild desert dogs to eat them. They’re so foul that the flies avoided them, and flies eat cow plop.”
“Thanks, W.B.,” she said sarcastically. “And you wonder why I think you’re only shirt smart . . .”
“You thought her pie was bad? Really? I thought it was delicious,” Deputy Buddy said, looking quite surprised. “In fact, it’s quite possibly the best pie I’ve ever tasted.”
Rose blushed again as she fluttered her eyelashes at the deputy.
“You’re very sweet,” she said.
“He may be sweet, but your pie wasn’t,” I insisted. “In fact, every pie you’ve ever baked has tasted sourer than a rotten lemon. There’s nothing sweet about your pies other than the sweet relief you feel after spitting them out.”
“Do you have a point, W.B., or do you just enjoy insulting me?”
“I . . .”
Wait, did I have a point?
Oh, that’s right.
Yes. Yes, I did.
“You couldn’t possibly have baked the winning pie,” I told her. “And you know it. Someone must have used the Doppelgänger Device on you as well, and posed as you at the Pitchfork Fair, before entering the exploding pie in the contest. I was wondering why I saw you at the fair dressed in two separate outfits, first in your regular clothes, and then in your stupid looking dress and funny clown makeup . . .”
I trailed off as I realized that Rose was still wearing her stupid looking dress and clown makeup. I coughed into my fist and looked down at my shoes, hoping that she hadn’t heard the last thing I’d said.
She had.
“First of all, W.B., Buddy happens to think my dress and hair and makeup look nice. And secondly, why didn’t you say something earlier about seeing me dressed in two different outfits at the fair?”