Parallelogram Omnibus Edition

by Brande, Robin

  I know, I’m a really awful person.

  Halli opened the door to the second house. And a wave of warm, moist, earthy air met me in the face.

  It was a jungle. And an orchard. And a tomato patch and a vegetable garden and a farm, all contained in a two-story house the exact size of the one we’d just left.

  What took a long time for my eyes to adjust to was the verticality of it all. Plants weren’t just growing in pots and tubs and other containers sitting on the ground, they were also vining down and climbing up, and hanging from boxes and poles that went all the way to the second-floor ceiling. I had no idea how someone would harvest those pea pods I saw way, way up at the top, or how someone thought it would be safe to have bananas growing high above where we walked. It made me want to duck and hurry on.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “The greenhouse. Don’t you have things like this?”

  “Maybe some people do—I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

  Halli picked up a woven basket with a handle, and handed me another one just like it.

  “Look around,” she said. “Take whatever you like. We’ll go back and cook it up or make juice or soup out of it or whatever you want.”

  I wasn’t about to go through that fruit and vegetable megamart and just start picking things off their stems. I waited to see how Halli did it.

  She went first to the peach tree in the far corner, picked a few of those, then kept on going down the fruit plants. Kiwi, apple, strawberries off their ground-hugging vines, then Halli pulled a cord above her and the column of plants above started moving. As soon as the bananas were within reach, she picked one of those.

  “Want one?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And for Halli it all seemed perfectly normal.

  She threw me a banana and picked another, then sent the column back on its way.

  “Vegetables?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  It was like being in the lunch line at school, only the food here actually had colors found in nature.

  Halli gathered up big green leaves from a bunch of different plants—I only recognized the lettuce. Then she picked a tomato, a cucumber, some sweet peas (same trick with the cord, making the peas up at the ceiling come to her), and pulled two small carrots out of the dirt by their frilly green heads.

  “It smells so good in here,” I said.

  Halli took a deep breath. “I know. I like to sleep in here sometimes.”

  “You do?”

  She pointed to a pad, pillow, and blanket under one of the planting benches. “I don’t do it very often. Red doesn’t really like it in here—I think it’s too warm for him. You notice he didn’t follow us.”

  I looked around. She was right.

  “But he’ll sleep in here with you anyway?”

  “Poor boy,” Halli said, “he hates to be alone. Think we have enough here?”

  I looked at the two baskets. Halli had piled a lot of the greens in mine since hers was so full of the fruit.

  “I think so.”

  We were about to leave when finally something penetrated my attention: a sound, so soft I hadn’t consciously noticed it until now.

  “What is that?” I asked, pointing at the ceiling. Halli looked up to see which plant. “No, the sound—is it music?”

  “A combination of music and timed oscillations,” Halli said. “The plants really seem to love it.”

  “What’s the music?” I asked. “I mean, does it have a name?”

  “Something by Mozart,” she said. “I’m not sure which one this is.”

  I grabbed her arm. “You have Mozart.”

  “Had,” Halli said. “He’s been dead a long time.”

  Now I was getting excited. “Shakespeare? Did you have him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And . . . Beethoven?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about . . . “ My brain was freezing up in all the excitement—why weren’t these names coming to me? “How about Isaac Newton?”

  “I think so.”

  “And Albert Einstein?”

  That one seemed a little harder. “I . . . think so,” Halli said. “We can check the histories. After dinner.”

  But one more name, coming from the opposite direction. “Who’s the President here right now?”

  “Nye.”

  “What’s he look like?” Maybe since Halli and I were the same person, just with different names, it was the same for the President of the United States. Then I could just work backwards and figure out when all the names started changing.

  But Halli blew that theory away by answering, “She. It’s Angela Nye. Tall, dark hair—”

  “Wait a minute—your President is a woman?”

  Halli gave me a strange look. “Of course.”

  “That’s so cool! Is she the first one, or have there been others?”

  “Can we talk about all this later?” Halli asked. “I have to eat something—now. I hiked down a mountain today.”

  “I know—you’re right, I’m sorry—but just tell me: have there been others? How many female Presidents?”

  “I don’t know, three or four . . .”

  “Three or four? Are you kidding me?”

  Halli groaned and butted me lightly with her head. “No talk—EAT!”

  20

  I learned two important things about my parallel self today: one, she gets very crabby when she’s hungry. Two, she’s an excellent cook.

  I have eaten vegetables before. Not often, usually not voluntarily, but I have been known to do it. I prefer them nuked and covered with melted cheese—ideally as part of nachos. But I can honestly say that if I could have vegetables picked from Halli’s greenhouse every day, prepared the way she prepared them tonight, I might be willing to give up microwaved or cheese-smothered veggies forevermore.

  And then dessert: all those fruits cut up and arranged so their colors complemented each other, then topped with a granola-y kind of thing and lots of cinnamon.

  “Do you eat like this all the time?”

  “Sure,” Halli said. “What’s the point of eating otherwise?”

  I gave up all thought for a while and just enjoyed the food. Forgot where I was—in a different state, in a different universe, in a house that my genetically-same but totally-different grandmother had left to my own genetically-same but different alternate self, eating heavenly food I had just seen hanging from the ceiling in a greenhouse that really was a house. With a big yellow dog lying near my feet snoring happily away because both of his girls were in the same room. If he really thought of us as two separate girls.

  That’s something I keep wondering about—how does Red see us? And smell us? Does he view us as two distinct entities, or are we like the split photons in that experiment I was telling Halli about? Maybe when Halli is alone she seems like one particle, but when we’re together she just seems like the same particle split into two, and so that’s why Red is always so happy to see me—another member of his pack, like Halli said. Or a new toy—his regular girl, times two. I have no idea. I wish dogs could talk in Halli’s universe—it would make it all so much easier.

  After we’d properly stuffed ourselves and carried our dishes to the sink, I noticed the silver boxes on her counter again.

  “What are all those?” I asked.

  She pointed to each one in turn. “Grinder, chopper, juicer, dehydrator, brewer, blender, heater, presser, mixer—”

  “Do you use all of those?”

  “Practically every day,” Halli said.

  There was a noise coming out of one of them—if I remembered right, it was the dehydrator. I asked her what she was making.

  A mischievous smile lit up her face. “I’ve been waiting to tell you. Are you ready? Sit down.”

  Halli sat across the table from me and clasped her hands in front of her. “I have a surprise. Wait—” She jumped up again. “
I’ll be right back.” Red followed her into the living room, then followed her back a few moments later.

  Halli laid out a map in front of me on the table. It looked like it had already been on a trip or two—it was ripped at the edges and had been folded and refolded. Halli smoothed it down, then pointed to a spot a little to the right of the middle.

  But before I could concentrate on that, my eyes strayed to the caption on the bottom of the map. Alps.

  “See this?” Halli asked. “This is one of the greatest places in the world. I haven’t been there in two years—last year Ginny and I went to India later than usual, and so we never had a chance to get up there.”

  “To the Alps.”

  “Yes,” Halli said with a smile. “To this one specific hut. It’s always been my favorite—wait a minute, I’ll show you.”

  She ran back into the living room, lifted something off one of the bookshelves, and ran back to the kitchen.

  “Here,” she said. “Look.”

  The item in her hand looked like a flashlight, but the light that came out of it seemed to splash a bluish glow all over the map.

  And suddenly the map came to life.

  Not flat lines anymore, but mountains and trails and trees growing out of the paper in 3D—a holographic map that made everything look so real I was surprised I didn’t hear the little streams flowing.

  I gazed up at her in happy astonishment. “Can I borrow this for a second?”

  She nodded and I scooped up the light. I held it out in front of me as I jogged through the living room, shining it on as many maps as I could reach. Some never changed, but a lot of them—maybe a third—leapt into form as soon as the light reached them. Mountains and cities I felt like I could reach out and touch.

  Halli followed me in. “That’s new,” she said. “Maybe the last five or six years. They’re called holomaps.”

  That explained why some of the older-looking ones stayed flat. What an amazing technology. It might even make me interested in geography.

  “I love it here,” I said.

  Halli laughed. “I’m glad. Now can I show you? About the Alps?”

  We returned to the kitchen and Red settled down once more. All this jumping up and room-changing—it interfered with a dog’s sleep.

  “So,” Halli said, “usually by this time of year there’s snow up in this region already, but I got a comm today—a weather report. They’re having an unusually warm autumn this year, and they expect it to last another few weeks. So I’m going.”

  “To the Alps.”

  “Yes.”

  “When?” I dreaded hearing the answer.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? I had just met her, and already she was going away! But she had no reason to change her plans just because I had shown up—I understood that. I couldn’t be selfish. But still, tomorrow?

  I smiled bravely. “I hope you have a great time.”

  Halli laughed. “Audie! What are you thinking? You can come with me!”

  Poor Halli. She had no idea how things worked in the real world—in my real world.

  “I can’t go,” I told her. “I have school, I have my mom—we could never afford it anyway—”

  Halli just folded her arms and waited.

  And then my brain caught up with hers.

  “Ohhhhhh . . .” I smiled. “I can just meet you there.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I can’t,” I still realized. “I have to go back to school tomorrow. I can’t spend all day in meditation.”

  “You won’t have to,” Halli said. “They’re eight hours later over there. Their day is our night.”

  I did a quick calculation. If I came right home from school, I’d be available by 3:30. Which would be 11:30 at night there. No good.

  But—if I went to bed early and got a few hours sleep, then set my alarm for, say, 2:00 in the morning, that would be 10:00 AM there, which could be really nice. I’d have to start getting ready for school by 6:30. But that gave me four and a half solid hours of checking out the Alps with Halli. The Alps. I’ve never even dreamed I could go there.

  As Halli and I discussed some of the logistics, it all sounded too easy. It wasn’t possible that people could just pack up and go mountain climbing on a day’s notice—mountain climbing in Europe. At least it wasn’t possible for me—was it?

  “But what if something happens?” I asked.

  “Like what?” Halli said.

  “I don’t know, like what if I can’t find you? What if it’s too far away or something?”

  “Then we’ll figure something out.”

  “But what if I oversleep and I miss our connection?”

  “Then we’ll try again later,” Halli said.

  “Will there be other people there?”

  “Probably a lot,” Halli said. “The Alps are very popular.”

  “Well what if someone sees me just popping in? Or what if I disappear again accidentally?”

  “We’ll take precautions,” Halli said.

  “But what if—”

  “Audie, stop! I’ll take care of everything—I promise. Don’t you want to come with me? Tell me the truth.”

  “Yes!” I said. “Of course! Are you crazy? I’d love it! I just don’t see how it’s all possible.”

  “Did you think traveling to another universe was possible?” Halli asked.

  “Well, yeah—sort of. At least theoretically.”

  “And now you’ve done it,” Halli said. “So trust me—traveling to the Alps is possible, too. Let’s just try it. I promise you’ll have fun.”

  We went back to discussing more details—times to meet, clothing, food—when another thought occurred to me.

  “What will we tell people?” I asked.

  “About what?”

  “About who we are—I mean in relation to each other. Twins?”

  “Oh, uh . . .” For some reason Halli seemed uncomfortable with that. “Maybe we should just say we’re cousins.”

  “Cousins? Nobody’s going to believe that—look at us! We’re identical.”

  Except for my lank hair and sallow skin and weakling little body. But I didn’t feel it necessary to point out the obvious.

  “Why can’t we just tell everyone we’re twins?” I said.

  Halli hesitated. “It might be . . . a little complicated. We’ll just have to see.”

  I didn’t understand the issue, but I didn’t want to argue with her, either. I was happy she was even inviting me. She could tell people I was her cousin, her sister, her brother, whatever.

  As we wrapped up our plans, I felt a twinge of guilt. “Poor Red. What are you going to do with him?”

  “What do you mean?” Halli asked.

  “I mean where will you put him while you’re gone?”

  “Nowhere. He’s coming with us—aren’t you, boy? I’d never leave you behind.”

  Red thumped his tail wildly. If I had one I would have thumped it, too.

  “That’s great! But how will you get him there?”

  “We call them airplanes,” Halli said, and not at all sarcastically. She probably thought I’d never heard of them.

  How stupid of me. People took their pets on flights all the time. She could just put him in a kennel down with the baggage. Although I’ve heard dogs don’t really like that.

  “—a seat away from any cats,” Halli was saying to Red. “I’ll let you have the window.”

  I wasn’t sure I heard that right. “You mean he gets . . . a seat? Like, right next to you?”

  Now it was Halli’s turn to be confused. “Where else would he be?”

  I just couldn’t picture it—dogs riding next to their owners, getting their own little bags of pretzels or peanuts. That’s something I would have loved to see.

  But not enough to get stuck on some long, tedious flight to Europe. If everything worked out, I’d be traveling much more quickly—straight from the comfort of my bedroom onto some slope in the middle of the Al
ps. If I could perfect that—figure out the physics exactly, and then teach it to other people—think about how famous I’d be! Instant flights to Europe—oh, and by the way, it’s the Europe in the next universe over. Think of it!

  The authors of that textbook were right: Physics is phun.

  21

  The sun was fully in my eyes before I even thought about waking up.

  I looked at the clock.

  “No! No no no no no . . .” I stumbled around my room, shoving books and homework into my backpack. And there was the camcorder, just sitting there on my desk waiting for me to play it back. Come on, couldn’t I just—

  No. I practically had to pry my brain away from even the thought of it. Because I knew once I started watching, even if I could fast-forward through any of the boring parts, if there really was something on there—like me, let’s say, DISAPPEARING OR SOMETHING—then I’d probably want to replay that sequence about a hundred million times, and then I’d never get to school. And I needed to get to school. I’d already slept through all of first period and half of second. I was in deep trouble.

  And why did I oversleep? Because I’d been up all night talking to Halli. Because we had a trip to the Alps to plan, people. And because I’d been smart enough to turn off my alarm clock and silence my phone so there wouldn’t be any annoying sounds to pull me back into this world. So smart, I am. Which is why now I was racing around like a loon.

  It was a good thing I was already dressed—same jeans and flannel shirt I’d worn over there. Do a quick toothbrushing, roll on some deodorant, stick my hair in a ponytail, out the door.

  As I grabbed my backpack, I took one last longing look at the camcorder. Couldn’t I just bring it with me? Watch the film over lunch? Not have to sit there all day at school and torture myself wondering what it showed?

  But my high school is a notorious den of scoundrels and thieves, and I couldn’t risk it even a little bit. That camcorder held the only evidence anywhere of what might be happening as I bridged over into Halli’s world. The idea that I might lose it somehow, or someone might rip it off? Not worth it. The camcorder stayed, I went.