NEARMONT, N.J.
2011
I’ve got to tell you something, Tom.
What?
Something big’s going to happen tomorrow.
You’re telling me!
Right. A showdown with Britzky. And I’ve got this plan to . . .
No. Here, Eddie. On EarthTwo.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, Tom. A spaceship. Mrs. Rupp said the wrong people conquered space.
That’s it! Sputnik.
Tom? Tom?
FORTY-FOUR
NEARMONT, N.J.
2011
GRANDPA was pedaling hard on a stationary bike when Eddie arrived. He was the only person in the assisted living facility’s little gym. His T-shirt was drenched with sweat. Eddie could hear music howling out of the little white things in his ears. Ear buds, Alessa had called them.
He started right off telling Grandpa about his plan.
“What?” Grandpa pulled out the buds. “I’m listening to ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’ Guns N’ Roses. Really gets your blood boiling.”
He swung off the bike and walked to a rack of weights. “I believe in lighter poundage, more reps. How about you?”
“More weight for football, less for basketball and baseball.”
Grandpa started pumping his biceps. “So, how’s it going?”
“Pretty good. I’m going to run for class president. And I’ve got this idea . . .”
“Excellent. Give you a chance to eyeball for more monitors.”
“What do they look like?”
Grandpa stopped pumping and lowered his voice. “Like humans. They have bright green eyes that allow them to transmit video back to Homeplace.”
“Homeplace?”
“That’s what we call our planet.”
“Is that where you and Dad are from?”
He nodded.
“What’s it like?”
Two old ladies came into the gym and stood near Grandpa. They bent over and touched their toes and peeked at him. He started pumping again and grinned at them.
Grandpa winked at Eddie and said loudly, “Thanks for coming, sonny, whoever you are.” He started talking to the old ladies. It was as if Eddie had disappeared.
Eddie got lost on the ride home. His mind felt as fuddled as it had during the slip. He’d wanted to run his idea past Grandpa. Now he really had to talk to Tom.
He tried for an hour in the backyard. He might have stayed out all night if Keith hadn’t heard him shouting in the garden and told him to come in and watch the game.
FORTY-FIVE
NEARMONT, N.J.
2011
ON the school bus, Eddie said to Alessa, “Do me a favor? Send Britzky a whaddyacallit. Tell him to meet me at the fountain at three.”
“What for?”
“A showdown. It’s like High Noon, Shane, 3:10 to Yuma. You see that?”
“With Russell Crowe?”
“No, it was Glenn Ford,” Eddie said. “Can you send it?”
“Get serious, Tom. You’re on probation. And you’re running for office. Fighting’s not allowed.”
“Who says I’m going to fight him?”
“Oh, right. You’re calling him out for a poetry slam.” She sounded sarcastic. “Like you can make a rhyme at any time.”
Eddie laughed. “I’m a poet and you don’t know it. Please. Trust me. Just send it. And send it to a few other people.”
“Why?”
“So he can’t back out.”
By the time he got off the bus, he could feel the pressure building, like before a big game.
In the halls, kids were gawking at him, talking fast, wishing him luck. They seemed jittery, but he felt calm. Loose. Gimme the ball, he thought. I’ll sink one at the buzzer.
Somebody said, “Crank up the old grease gun, Tom,” and somebody else said, “Put the Brutzky on his butt and I’ll vote for you for anything.” A few kids glared at him—maybe they were friends of Britzky—but not too many.
“How does everybody know about it already?”
Alessa held up her telephone. “You send it to a few people and it goes viral.”
“Viral? Like a virus—a disease, right?”
Spreading disease by telephone. What was wrong with this planet?
He enjoyed going through the halls with all eyes on him. Game Day. That was kind of like a dream, too. I miss football. Can’t wait for hoops to start.
A couple of times during the morning, his mind flashed back to last night, to Grandpa, to Homeplace, to the questions he didn’t get to ask about Dad. Grandpa said he raised us to be rebel leaders. He wondered what Dad would think of his plan.
He pushed it all out of his brain the same way he pushed out everything before a game. Concentrate, Captain Eddie. Having something to push out always helped him focus on the game.
“So do you have a plan?” said Alessa.
“About what?”
“C’mon, Tom, stop playing. The showdown’s getting closer. The whole school is going to be there. Everybody.”
“That’s my plan.”
FORTY-SIX
NEARMONT, N.J.
2011
BRITZKY was waiting at the fountain, his sleeves rolled up like he was ready to fight.
But his eyes didn’t look ready, Eddie thought. He was scared. “Glad you’re here, man,” Eddie said. “I’m gonna need your help.”
Britzky’s eyes got buggy. “What’re you talking about?”
“I need a bodyguard in case anybody gets a bad idea. I need somebody I can trust to cover my back.”
Britzky’s mouth fell open. He stared at Eddie. “You trust me?”
“You’re on my team, Britzky.”
“Todd. My name is Todd.”
“I know you can do it, Todd.”
Eddie climbed up on the fountain. Hundreds of kids were there. Teachers, too. It was bigger than any pep rally in his school on EarthTwo. He felt terrific. Like going from the school gym to Madison Square Garden.
He raised his arms. People quieted down.
He thought about Dad, how he would say it. They mostly talked sports, but Dad had loads to say about thinking for yourself and doing the right thing.
“Okay, everybody, listen up. I know you came here to see a fight, but my friend Todd Britzky and I have something more important to do.”
Silence.
“We’re declaring tomorrow Tech Off! Day.
“Tomorrow, for one day, no phones, computers—any of that stuff. People are going to have to talk to each other.”
At first, Eddie could tell, they thought it was a joke. Kids shrugged, screwed up their faces, rolled their eyes. The way their thumbs were going, they must be sending messages to each other. One kid tried to climb up the fountain to take a close-up picture of Eddie with his phone, but Britzky blocked him and stared him down.
“I think we all kind of forgot how to talk face-to-face, work out problems, stuff like that, because we spend so much time pretending we’re talking—on the phone, on the Facepage, Tweeter, you know. I’m not saying throw away your cell phones and stuff, I’m just saying take a day off from them. Just one day. Twenty-four hours. Tech Off! Day.”
He spotted Alessa looking up from the crowd. Her eyes were a little squinty, as if she was trying to figure out if he was sincere. He looked right at her.
“I got this idea because I couldn’t do what everybody else could do on the computer and phone. At first I felt like a total dumbbell. But then I started listening to people while I looked at their faces, and I figured out what they really meant about things. That’s why Todd and I are friends instead of enemies.”
Britzky turned to look up at Eddie. His eyes were shiny. He thrust a huge fist into the air. “Tom Canty for president!”
The crowd cheered and whistled. They raised their fists. They started shouting, “Tom Canty for president!” until Eddie raised his arms for silence. It took a few minutes.
“That’s it. I think everybody should ju
st turn your head to the right and look the nearest person in the eye and shake their hand and say, ‘Hi,’ and say your name to them. C’mon, even if it feels goofy. Try it.”
For a moment, no one moved. Then Merlyn loudly said, “Hi, I’m Merlyn,” and laughed and shook Dr. Traum’s hand, and the basketball coach grabbed Mrs. Rupp’s hand, and Hannah the green-haired girl grabbed raccoon eyes’ hand. It started as goofing around, Eddie could tell, but then teachers and kids got into it, and they started talking about it. Of course they held up their phones and took pictures of shaking each other’s hands, but hey, it was a start.
They clapped and cheered as Eddie climbed down. He grabbed Todd’s wrist with one hand and Alessa’s with the other and held them up for pictures.
Eddie shook Todd’s hand. “I’m really sorry about that stink bomb.”
“No problem, bro,” said Britzky. “You were sticking up for your bud. I’m down with that.” It took Eddie a moment to figure out what he meant, but then he thought it was great. He shook Todd’s hand again, and then put Todd’s and Alessa’s hands together until they shook.
Alessa started dragging Eddie away. “This is going to be huge. Maybe you should run for school president. For starters.”
At the edge of the crowd, they came face-to-face with Dr. Traum. “Very clever, Eddie. That’s not something Tom could do.”
The good feeling began to drain away. There was a growing cold spot in his gut.
As they walked away, Alessa said, “What was that all about? Why did he call you Eddie?”
Eddie shrugged. “Must have me mixed up with somebody else.”
PART THREE
Good Enough
FORTY-SEVEN
NEARMONT, N.J.
1957
I RODE Eddie’s bike to school, a red Schwinn that handled like a dump truck. No gears. To brake, you had to push back on the pedals. I should have walked. There were lots of other bikes in the racks near the fountain, and none of them were locked up. Didn’t they steal bikes back in the old days—I mean, these days? Who would want these old bikes anyway?
Kids in homeroom were buzzing when I got there. I wondered if they knew what I knew about what was going to happen today. But how could they?
Ronnie showed up in the same raggedy yellow sweater-shirt he had on yesterday, even a little dirtier. He tugged on my sleeve. “Hot skinny, boss. Get set for duck and cover.”
“What’s that?”
He shook his head. “Gee, Eddie, you really got conked. I hope you’re . . .”
“I’m fine. Duck and cover what?”
“In case the Commies attack. We hide under our desks.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Don’t you remember? To protect us from the hydrogen bomb. Blast, flash, radioactive fallout.”
“Wake up,” I said. “We’ll fry whatever we do. Everybody knows that.”
The way he looked at me, I realized nobody knew that. Except me.
The homeroom teacher clapped her hands. “I don’t want anybody bumping their heads. You all know what to do. Wait for the siren.”
The classroom loudspeaker crackled, and then a siren screamed.
The teacher yelled, “Duck and cover!”
Everybody dropped down and crawled under a desk. They put their heads down between their knees and their hands over the back of their heads. Even the teacher.
Everybody except me. Merlyn looked up and spotted me sitting up. She yelled, “Eddie’s not ducking!”
The teacher popped up from under her desk. “Eddie! Get down!”
“What for? It’s silly. The Russians are never going to attack.”
“We don’t know that,” she said.
I know that, but if I tell you how I know, you’ll think I’m nuts.
“Please, Eddie.” She was begging. “I know you hurt your head, but . . .”
“This is all a big trick to keep us scared and doing what the guys in charge want us to do.”
Dad had told me that.
“We can talk about that later, just please do this. For me. It’s the law. Nobody wants you to get in trouble.”
I didn’t move. I said, “I don’t do what I’m told if it’s stupid.” As soon as I said it, I realized that was me—Tom—talking. But I was supposed to be Eddie.
She waited a few minutes until the all-clear siren sounded, and then she marched me down the hall and pointed to a hard wooden bench outside an office with a glass door you couldn’t see through. The glass looked like frosty bubbles. There were black letters on the glass: DR. TRAUM, SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST.
Dr. Traum? Here? It could be a coincidence. Maybe it’s a common name. But Grandpa said that monitors can be in two places at the same time.
The homeroom teacher said, “I have to do this, Eddie. Rules.” She knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again.
“Just wait here, Eddie. I’m sorry.” She looked like she was sorry. She walked away with her head down.
It was funny. Teachers loved to turn Tom in, to get him in bigger trouble. They hated to get Eddie in trouble. I wondered what I could get away with here as Eddie.
As soon as she was gone and the coast was clear, I opened Dr. Traum’s office door.
It was a boring office, a big dark wooden desk with a wood swivel chair behind it and three hard wood chairs in front. The desk was piled with papers. Bookcases and file cabinets. On the walls were pictures of Mickey Mantle, the Rev. Billy Graham, Vice President Richard Nixon with his dog, Checkers, who looked like Buddy, and Dr. Jonas Salk, the guy who invented the polio vaccine. Dr. Traum was in every picture with his arm around the famous person. Both were smiling. The Dr. Traum in the picture was wearing a suit with wide shoulders and a skinny tie. He didn’t have a ponytail. But it was Dr. Traum all right. The pictures looked Photoshopped. He’s a phony on all planets.
I sat down in Dr. Traum’s chair and swiveled around a couple of times. This was too crazy. It had to be a dream. In a moment, I would wake up and hear the Lump eating like a garbage disposal, see Britzky slamming into Alessa, watch Mrs. Rupp waving her laser beam along her timeline.
I went through Dr. Traum’s desk drawers—more papers and envelopes and pens and stuff. In a bottom drawer were a couple of switchblade knives, a slingshot, and brass knuckles he must have taken from students. Wait another fifty years, Doc, you’ll be taking away guns and a TPT GreaseShot IV.
Fifty years. I checked the calendar behind Dr. Traum’s desk. Today was Friday, October 4, 1957.
Today’s the day, all right.
Sputnik.
I took a deep breath. I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. I felt juiced.
The school’s public-address system was on a table next to the desk. It looked like a Playskool setup, a microphone with a wire attached to a box with levers on it. Technology was pretty simple in 1957.
I flipped all the levers up.
“Attention, please. Attention, please. This is . . . um . . . Eddie Tudor speaking. The world is going to change today. The Russians are coming. But not the way you think. It’s nothing to be afraid of, but you’d better start learning about science, because the Russians are sending up the first satellite to orbit the Earth. It’s called Sputnik.”
It was fun. I was trying to think of more things to say when the door burst open. Dr. Traum rushed in and grabbed for the PA switch.
Behind him were the two thugs in white uniforms.
FORTY-EIGHT
THE UNION COUNTY (N.J.) HOSPITAL FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE
1957
I WAS strapped into a straitjacket and pushed into the back of a white van. One of the two thugs kept turning to glare at me. I recognized him. He was the one I’d nailed with the cell phone bomb in Washington Square Park on EarthOne.
“Think you’re hot stuff, punk?”
“Hot as pepper spray,” I said.
I thought he was going to jump over the seat, but the other guy, who was driving, grabbed his arm. “Let it go, Earl. Doc does
n’t want anything happening to the kid until he’s done with him.”
“Then we get him?”
“Yeah. We’ll teach him to be more of a human being.”
They both laughed and started talking about snatching the other kid. I figured they meant Eddie. Was there any way to warn him?
We drove for almost an hour on highways and back roads before we came to a high chainlink fence topped with barbed wire. Inside the fence was a large building that looked like a castle, with two gray stone towers and tiny barred windows. The sign on the metal fence read: THE UNION COUNTY HOSPITAL FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE.
It was the “snake pit” I’d read about online that had turned into a juvenile jail. I remembered more—a tornado had knocked off one of the towers in 1957. But that hadn’t happened yet.
The van pulled up in front of a stone guardhouse, and a man in uniform came out to talk to the driver, whom he called Duke.
I’d read that there was a secret tunnel from the asylum that ran under the fence to the guardhouse. After the tornado, some of the patients managed to get out of their cells and escape through the tunnel. They were recaptured, and they claimed it hadn’t been a tornado that knocked off the tower but a spaceship with aliens. No one believed them because . . . well, because they were patients in an insane asylum.
The fence swung open, and the van drove up to the front door. Duke and Earl pulled me out and pushed me inside the building, then down a long dim corridor and into a little concrete cell. They unstrapped the straitjacket.
The door clanged shut.
The cell had a cot and a hole in the floor for a toilet. The window had bars on it, but it was too high to look out of, and I was too tired to try to jump up.
It was still daylight. I stretched out on the bed.
I wondered why I didn’t feel scared anymore. I guess I thought it was a dream or a coma after all. Think about it: Two planets. Switching places with my imaginary twin. Going back in time, or at least sideways. You have to be crazy or unconscious. And the two Dr. Traums. Were they twins, too? Even the name sounded phony.
The Twinning Project Page 10