by Mark Elliott
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It’S DOUBLE TROUBLE. . . .
While it can be a drag to constantly be mistaken for your identical twin, in truth, there’s nothing better than having a sibling there with you during those first days at a new school.
But on day one of sixth grade, Ray Grayson stays home sick, and Jay Grayson is on his own. Well, no big deal. The kids seem nice enough, after all. But Jay quickly discovers a major mistake: No one at the new school seems to know a thing about his brother. Ray’s not on the attendance lists, doesn’t have a locker, doesn’t even have a school folder. Jay almost tells the school—almost—but then decides that this information could be very . . . useful. And fun.
OTHER FAVORITES FROM ANDREW CLEMENTS,
BESTSELLING AUTHOR WITH OVER 10 MILLION BOOKS IN PRINT!
Visit the author at AndrewClements.com
A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION
Cover illustration copyright © 2008 by Brian Selznick
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster
New York
Ages 8–12
0510
Meet the author,
watch videos, and get extras at
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com
More School Stories from Andrew Clements
FRINDLE
“A fresh, imaginative plot that will have readers smiling
all the way through, if not laughing out loud.”
—Horn Book Magazine, starred review
“A captivating tale—one to press upon children, and one
they’ll be passing among themselves.”
—Kirkus Reviews, pointered review
SCHOOL STORY
“A standout. . . .”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Practical as well as poignant.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Full of suspense, adventure, and action. Another wonderful
novel written by Clements.”—Library Talk, starred review
THE LANDRY NEWS
“Thought-provoking . . . Readers will cheer.”
—School Library Journal, starred review
“Another terrific school story by the inventor of Frindle.”
—Horn Book Magazine
“The story gallops along . . .”—New York Times Book Review
Andrew Clements is the father of identical twin boys, so he did not have to look far for inspiration to write this book. Lost and Found is not biographical or autobiographical, but when it comes to the subject of the tribulations and triumphs of twinhood, Mr. Clements is able to draw on more than twenty years of daily field observations. He has written more than fifty books for children, including the enormously popular Frindle and the bestsellers No Talking, Lunch Money, and The Landry News. Mr. Clements taught for seven years before moving east to begin a career in publishing and writing. The parents of four grown children, he and his wife live in central Massachusetts.
Mark Elliott is the illustrator of many picture books and novels for young readers, including No Talking by Andrew Clements and Dexter the Tough by Margaret Peterson Haddix. He lives in New York’s Hudson River valley.
Also by Andrew Clements
Benjamin Pratt & the Keepers of the School #1:
We the Children
Big Al
Big Al and Shrimpy
Dogku
Extra Credit
Frindle
The Jacket
Jake Drake, Bully Buster
Jake Drake, Class Clown
Jake Drake, Know-It-All
Jake Drake, Teacher’s Pet
The Janitor’s Boy
The Landry News
The Last Holiday Concert
Lost and Found
Lunch Money
A Million Dots
No Talking
The Report Card
Room One
The School Story
A Week in the Woods
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2008 by Andrew Clements
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition.
Book design by Russell Gordon
The text for this book is set in Bembo.
The illustrations for this book are rendered in pencil.
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First Atheneum Books for Young Readers paperback edition May 2010
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Clements, Andrew, 1949–
Lost and found / Andrew Clements ; illustrated by Mark Elliott. —1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Twelve-year-old identical twins Jay and Ray have long resented that everyone treats them as one person, and so they hatch a plot to take advantage of a clerical error at their new school and pretend they are just one.
ISBN 978-1-4169-0985-9 (hc)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4424-0615-5
[1. Twins—Fiction. 2. Brothers—Fiction. 3. Identity—Fiction. 4. Individuality—Fiction.
5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Moving, Household—Fiction. 7. Ohio—Fiction.]
I. Elliott, Mark, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.C59118Los 2008
[Fic]—dc22
2008007018
ISBN 978-1-4169-0986-6 (pbk)
Contents
Chapter 1: Alphabetical
Chapter 2: One, Two
Chapter 3: Twinless
Chapter 4: Twice as Thick
Chapter 5: Deal
Chapter 6: Through The Mirror
Chapter 7: Messy
Chapter 8: Home Boy
Chapter 9: Assignments
Chapter 10: Full-Time Job
Chapter 11: Weekend Warriors
Chapter 12: Flip Flop Flip
Chapter 13: Top Secret
Chapter 14: Not so Secret
Chapter 15: Rayness
Chapter 16: The Little Things
Chapter 17: Detection
Chapter 18: The Situation
Chapter 19: Trouble in Twinsville
Chapter 20: Game Over
Chapter 21: The End Begins
Chapter 22: Missing
Chapter 23: Gone
Chapter 24: The Real Jay Grayson
Chapter 25: Discord, Unison, Harmony
Promise, Harmony
Moments of Silence
For Douglas and Rose
lyn Paul, dear friends
CHAPTER 1
ALPHABETICAL
Jay Grayson was twelve years old, so the first day of school shouldn’t have felt like such a big deal. But when he turned the corner onto Baker Street and saw the long brick building, he had to force himself to keep walking toward it. And Jay knew exactly why he felt so tensed up on this Tuesday morning in September: He was a new kid at a new school in a new town. Plus, his brother had stayed home sick today, so there wouldn’t be even one familiar face in the whole school. He had to deal with this first day of sixth grade all on his own.
Jay’s mom had offered to come to school and help get him checked in. “I’m not some little baby, Mom.” That’s what he had told her. Which was true.
So as he walked through the front doors of Taft Elementary School with a small crowd of other kids, Jay tried to look on the bright side. He told himself, This could be a lot worse.
And by that, Jay meant that it could have been like nine months ago when his family had moved to Denver, Colorado, in the middle of January. Jumping into a new school halfway through fifth grade? Miserable. By comparison, this most recent move to Clifton, Ohio, had worked out a lot better—they’d gotten settled into their new house exactly one day before the start of the school year.
Clifton seemed like a nice enough place to live. Their neighborhood was just outside the Cleveland city limits. Jay’s brother had complained that the town seemed a little worn out, a little run-down. But that was what their dad had liked about it. “You should always buy a house in a neighborhood that’s got some room for improvement,” he said.
And Mom had said, “It’ll be all right for a while. And who knows? Maybe in a year or two we’ll move to a bigger home in a nicer area.”
Jay’s parents were working for an insurance company in Cleveland. And having them both gone all day was a new development. Before, his mom had worked part-time during school hours. This year both parents were going to be putting in a full day. Coming home to an empty house after school would be different, but the plan was that the two brothers would always come home together, and Mom and Dad would be there by dinnertime. And their office was only fifteen minutes away.
As long as the whole family could be together under one roof at the end of the day, Jay didn’t much care where they lived, and their new neighborhood seemed fine to him.
The school looked okay too. They had driven past the place yesterday afternoon. And the best part? Taft Elementary was only three blocks from their house. That meant no bus riding, no waiting in lines before and after school. Being a walker was the way to go. And on this cool September morning, the walk had taken Jay exactly twelve minutes, door to door.
Once he got beyond the entryway of the school, Jay began looking for his homeroom. He followed the signs to the sixth-grade hall, and a big banner on his right announced, IF YOU’RE IN GRADE SIX, AND YOUR LAST NAME STARTS WITH A THROUGH L, THEN THIS IS YOUR HOMEROOM! There was one other sixth-grade homeroom for all the kids whose names began with the letters M through Z.
Jay found his name on a slip of paper taped to a desk, so he shrugged off his book bag, sat down, and then watched his new homeroom teacher as she bustled around the room. Mrs. Lane—that was the name written in perfect cursive on the chalkboard. She seemed nice enough. Not too old, not too young. Not too stiff, not too perky. And as she talked with some kids, Jay decided that her voice was easy to listen to. Not too sharp, not too sweet.
Jay looked around and discovered that Mrs. Lane’s room was jammed with books. There were bins of books on every windowsill, bookcases along every wall, and there was a reading corner where the cushions and beanbag chairs were flanked by a pair of wide bookshelves that started at the floor and went almost to the ceiling. Jay wouldn’t have described himself as a bookworm, but he was always in the middle of a book, sometimes two or three. So the room looked good to him.
He felt a tap on his shoulder, and when he turned around, the guy behind him smiled and said, “I saw the name on your desk. You’re Jay, right?”
Jay smiled back and nodded. “Right.” The kid had broad shoulders, bright blond hair, and the bluest eyes Jay had ever seen up close.
He said, “I’m Alex. You weren’t here last year, were you?”
Jay shook his head. “We just moved to town—like, yesterday. From Colorado.”
The kid kept smiling, and Jay saw that one of his front teeth was half broken off. It was a jagged break, and it made his whole mouth look crooked.
He noticed Jay staring and said, “It broke off during a hockey game. And my mom says there’s no point getting it fixed until I quit playing hockey. Except that’s never gonna happen. The guys on the team call me Fang,” and Alex shaped his lips so only his two front teeth were showing. Jay decided it was a good nickname.
Jay wanted to ask him where the ice rink was, but the bell rang, and right away the principal’s voice came over the intercom. She welcomed everyone, then made four or five announcements, and then led the Pledge of Allegiance.
The intercom went silent, and the teacher looked around the room and smiled. “As a lot of you know, I’m Mrs. Lane, and I’m glad to see all of you this morning. You’re sixth graders now, so that makes you the big kids here at Taft Elementary. The other sixth-grade teachers and I are going to do our best to get you ready to move on to junior high, and this is going to be a great year for all of us. Now, you’ve each found your own desk, and until I’ve learned everyone’s name, I want you to use that same seat every morning. Right after the Pledge of Allegiance we’ll start promptly with attendance, because homeroom is only eight minutes long. So when I call your name, please raise your hand and say, ‘Present.’”
The teacher looked at her seating chart and then said, “Sarah Alton?”
“Present.”
“Tanya Atwater?”
“Present.”
“Ryan Bateman?”
“Present.”
“Kelly Bellamy?”
“Present.”
Mrs. Lane kept plowing ahead through the alphabet, and after eleven more names, she said, “Jay Grayson?”
And he said, “Present.”
Then the teacher said, “Alex Grellman?”
And Alex, sitting right behind him, said, “Present.”
Jay Grayson sat straight up in his chair, and then he almost raised his hand. Because Mrs. Lane had made a mistake. She had definitely made a mistake. She hadn’t called his brother’s name.
Because whenever the attendance was called off alphabetically like this, the teacher always said, “Jay Grayson” and then, “Ray Grayson.” Every time, it was Jay first, and then Ray. Always.
Because Jay and Ray weren’t just brothers. Jay and Ray were twins.
CHAPTER 2
ONE, TWO
The boys had been born six minutes apart—Grayson baby one, and Grayson baby two. Some twins look a little alike, and some twins look a lot alike, and some twins don’t look alike at all. But some twins look exactly alike. They look like two peas in a pod, two ducks on a pond, two spoons in a drawer. And Grayson baby one and Grayson baby two were that sort of twins, completely identical—all except for one tiny, faint freckle on the ankle of baby number one.
Sue and Jim Grayson were the mom and dad, and they thought it was great to get two kids at once. Their family doubled in one day. And when the babies turned out to be boys, that was great too—although both Sue and Jim had secretly hoped for one of each, a boy and a girl. But each child was born healthy and strong, and that was all that really mattered. And the new parents were completely happy.
In fact, they were so happy that they were also a little giddy, maybe a bit dizzy, sort of the way it feels after riding a roller coaster. And as they sat together two hours after the boys were born, each one holding a child, both parents began giggling and grinning about how wonderful it was to have two beautiful sons.
Then a nurse walked into the room and said, “Have you decided on their names? No? We
ll you need to do that before you leave the hospital. So the sooner the better.”
The parents giggled and grinned and giggled some more as they tried out name after name after name after name. And the boys looked so similar that Sue and Jim couldn’t resist giving them similar names. And two hours later they each signed both birth certificates. Baby number one was named Ray, and baby number two was named Jay. And Ray’s middle name was Jay, and Jay’s middle name was Ray. Less than five hours into their first day, the boys became Ray Jay and Jay Ray, the Grayson twins.
The picture-taking frenzy started the moment the twins got home from the hospital. Both pairs of grandparents were waiting, and all four of them went nuts. Granny Grayson said, “Can you believe how kee-yoot these two teeny-tiny sweet patooties are? They are just the yummiest little things. There, hold ’em up together, over that way, closer to the window. So I can see both their faces. Can you get ’em to smile at the same time?” Click, click, click.
Sue’s mom, Gramma Herndon, said, “Here, let’s get these old white hospital blankets off of my precious baby boys. And let’s put these nice new blue blankies around them, one for each. There—isn’t that better? Now, Susie, you hold one, and Jim, you hold the other, and I want you to stand over here next to the table. Closer together—a little closer . . . there.” Click, click, click.
About two weeks later the tiny outfits began to arrive in the mail. Both sets of grandparents, all the aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles, all the cousins and cousins-in-law—everyone wanted to join up and march along in the baby twins parade.
Little sailor suits arrived. Then came the little Superman pajamas. Then little cowboy outfits, little baseball uniforms, little train conductor hats and overalls and vests, along with tiny sneakers and slippers and sandals and cowboy boots. And everything matched, just like the boys.
Everyone who sent something said, “Now, you be sure to send me a picture of how the twins look wearing these things, all right? And be sure to write on the back of the picture which boy is which, because I sure can’t tell!”