The Twin Powers

by Robert Lipsyte

  The team needs you, Cap’n Eddie. When his head came up slowly, I said, Don’t let us down.

  He looked at Ronnie. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

  “I didn’t trust anybody,” said Ronnie.

  “Veronica had her reasons,” said Alessa, giving Ronnie a squeeze. They looked like old friends. Old girlfriends. “I’m sure she’ll tell you someday.”

  Ronnie walked over to Eddie and put her hand out. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I was afraid you would hate me.”

  He took her hand and stood up. “How could I hate you? My sidekick. My best friend.”

  “Group hug,” yelled Alessa.

  I thought Buddy licked my leg but I wasn’t sure.

  “Freedom riders,” said Eddie. He was still holding Ronnie’s hand. He winked at her. “We’ll probably need a freedom driver.”

  “Yo, bro, way to go,” I shouted.

  I realized I was starting to talk like Eddie. He was laughing when he thought back at me, You have to talk like that?

  One

  NEARMONT, N.J.

  2011

  I DON’T fit in at school because I don’t do what I’m told if it’s stupid. I don’t keep my mouth shut when I have something to say. I don’t let bullies push me around. And I can’t just stand there and watch bullies pick on other kids. That’s how I got kicked out of my last middle school.

  I was in the cafeteria minding my own business but keeping my eyes unstuck, as usual. You have to stay alert. I was eating at one of the tables back near the trash cans. The zombies call kids who eat at those tables losers, dorks, orcs, humps, trolls, Goths, stoners—you know, because they can’t stand people who aren’t undead like them.

  I call us rebels.

  This was on a Friday before a football game, and there was a pep rally going on in the center of the cafeteria. I can’t understand why middle school kids play football. Jocks are dumb enough already. They don’t need their brains banged around more. The jocks yelled, their girlfriends danced, and the zombies clapped. At the rebel tables we pretended to ignore them.

  One of the jock bullies noticed that we weren’t clapping, so he walked over with that jock-bully walk, toes pointed in, shoulders rolling, and said, “Where’s your school spirit?”

  The rebels froze up and looked down.

  This is a problem. It takes a lot to get rebels to do something as a group. Rebels need leaders, but they have trouble following one. They’re rebels.

  The jock bully picked up a tray from our table and let the food slide down on a kid’s head. Spaghetti and chocolate pudding. The jocks and their girlfriends cheered, and the zombies clapped harder. The teachers pretended they were too busy on their BlackBerries to notice. Teachers let jocks get away with stuff. Maybe they’re afraid of them, too.

  I recognized the bully, a guy who was always slamming into kids’ shoulders in the hall. He wasn’t even a good football player. Typical.

  He picked up two more full trays and started strutting around the table, balancing them on his palms. He kept turning his head to make sure the jerks at the jock tables were watching. They whistled and pounded their feet as he circled my table deciding whom he would trash next.

  I waited until he was three steps away before I slipped out my TPT GreaseShot IV. It’s about as big as a pencil flashlight: the smallest cordless grease gun you can buy online. It has an electronic pulse and can be set for semi- or full automatic. I had only one chance and I’d never used the grease gun in combat before. I put it on full automatic.

  He was about a foot away when he turned his head again back toward the jock tables. That’s when I fired grease in front of his red LeBron X South Beach sneakers.

  The right sneaker hit the grease puddle, slid, and went up in the air.

  He went down in slow motion.

  It was funny. I was thinking, Too bad nobody’s shooting this.

  Too bad, somebody was.

  You can see it on YouTube.

  The two trays rose off his palms. He was howling like a dog as the veggie tacos, burgers, fries, and drinks avalanched onto his head. Then his left sneaker slid into the grease and he was lifted completely off the floor.

  Kids were screaming as he slammed down on his back, arms out. I’m not sure exactly what happened next because that part wasn’t on YouTube and I was moving out.

  I try not to hang around the scene of my paybacks. It’s a sure way to get caught—standing around looking like you’re waiting for applause.

  It didn’t matter. The YouTube clip shows that the person shooting the grease gun was wearing the same blue Bach Off! hoodie I was wearing that day.

  It was a zero-tolerance school.

  Two

  NEARMONT, N.J.

  2011

  Zero tolerance?

  I have to explain everything to Eddie. It’s not because he’s slow or because he’s a jock, even though he is slow and he is a jock. It’s because, even though our planets are similar in most ways, there’s one big difference: His planet is at least fifty years behind Earth. He calls his planet Earth, too, which is confusing. I call his planet EarthTwo because it’s younger than my Earth.

  Eddie and I are identical twins, born a minute apart. I’m the older one, like my planet.

  I beamed a thought at him:

  Zero tolerance means one strike and you’re out. You’re toast. Forked. Expelled.

  Not fair, Tommy. People deserve second chances. You had a good reason. You were protecting other kids.

  Tell it to the principal.

  Maybe I will. When I come to visit.

  Eddie says things like that to tease me. Well, the truth is I put words like that in his mouth to tease myself. It’s one thing to stand in the backyard having an imaginary conversation with your imaginary twin on an imaginary planet. It’s another thing to imagine the two of you together for real. How great would that be? A best friend who’s your twin brother? That’s not imagination. That’s being insane.

  So what’s up, pup?

  Eddie’s always coming up with these bizarro old-fashioned expressions. Sometimes I Google them. They’re always expressions that were cool in the twentieth century.

  No big deal, Eddie. I’ve been expelled before. I get to stay home for a few days, read, run some games, play my violin.

  It’s so groovy you can do stuff like that. I’d just practice my jump shot.

  I don’t even have a jump shot.

  I’ll show you. It’s easy, not like playing the violin or reading. So, what happens after a few days?

  Mom comes up with a new school for me, and I go back to the land of the undead.

  Think positive, Tommy. I know you’ll find a school that appreciates you. You are one special cat.

  Dad always said, “Nobody’s special.”

  Yeah, but Dad always said, “Everybody’s special.”

  I miss him.

  Me, too. That’s why we’ve got to keep remembering him.

  The back door slammed. “Who’s out there?”

  It was the Lump, Mom’s tenant. He acts like it’s his house.

  I must have been talking out loud again. Eddie and I usually talk inside my head, but sometimes I get carried away and treat Eddie like he’s real.

  Gotta go, bro. It’s the Lump.

  Give him a chance. Find the good in him. Get him on your team.

  That’s Eddie. A good guy. My opposite.

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  About the Author

  ROBERT LIPSYTE is an Emmy Award–winning TV host and former New York Times journalist, and has served as ombudsman for ESPN. He is also the author of many books for YA readers, including the classic The Contender, and has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for his body of work. Mr. Lipsyte’s previous book for Clarion is The Twinning Project which Kirkus Reviews called “A multi-world adventure starring a band of heroes that readers will want to join.” He lives in New
York City and Shelter Island with his wife, Lois Morris, and their dog, Milo.

  www.robertlipsyte.com