The Twinning Project

Title Page

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

PART ONE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

PART TWO

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

FORTY-THREE

FORTY-FOUR

FORTY-FIVE

FORTY-SIX

PART THREE

FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-NINE

FIFTY

FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-TWO

FIFTY-THREE

FIFTY-FOUR

FIFTY-FIVE

FIFTY-SIX

FIFTY-SEVEN

FIFTY-EIGHT

FIFTY-NINE

SIXTY

SIXTY-ONE

SIXTY-TWO

SIXTY-THREE

SIXTY-FOUR

SIXTY-FIVE

SIXTY-SIX

SIXTY-SEVEN

SIXTY-EIGHT

About the Author

CLARION BOOKS
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003

 

Copyright © 2012 by Robert Lipsyte

 

All rights reserved.

 

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

 

Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

 

www.hmhbooks.com

 

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Lipsyte, Robert.
The twinning project / by Robert Lipsyte.
p. cm.
Summary: Tom and Eddie, identical twins and mirror opposites living on two different Earths some fifty years apart, must switch places and identities to thwart the alien scientists who threaten their planets.
ISBN 978-0-547-64571-1 (hardback)
[1. Space and time—Fiction. 2. Middle schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Twins—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L67TW 2012

 

eISBN 978-0-547-86757-1
v1.1012

To the newest star, Daniel Alex Nachumi

 

 

 

 

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.

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.

NEARMONT, N.J.

2011

 

F
ROM
the first day at my next new middle school, I could tell that the psychologist, Dr. Traum, was out to get me. It was hate at first sight. He looked at me so hard, I could feel the nasty rays off his big green eyes. He leaned across his desk and waved papers in my face.

“This is your third middle school, Thomas. Third. What makes you think you'll fit in here?”

I shrugged.
How should I know? And why would I want to fit into your stupid zombie school?

“Look at these test scores. Obviously, you are smart. Very smart. So why do you keep disappointing people?”

They love that word, “disappoint.” It's supposed to make you feel bad.

I never feel bad.

I
am
bad.

As if he was reading my mind, Dr. Traum sighed. It sounded like a bus sneezing when it lowers itself for disabled people. I'd been through this kind of conversation before.
Next he'll tell me he's going to give me a chance.

“I am going to give you a chance, Thomas.”

Against his better judgment.

“It's against my better judgment, of course. But I think there's good in you, Thomas, and we'll find it together.”

I looked right into his eyes. “I won't disappoint you,” I lied.

He leaned back in his chair and stared at me. He was wearing jeans and running shoes without laces and a T-shirt with some old-time rock band's name on it. The Clash. Old guys who dress like kids are the worst phonies in the world. And they're sneaky. They want you to think that because they dress like you, they're on your side. And that you can trust them.

You can never trust them.

Dr. Traum lowered his voice. “Did you ever consider that the boy who fell in the cafeteria because of you could have been seriously hurt?”

“No,” I said.

It was true. I hadn't thought about it. I didn't care. He was a bully. He deserved whatever happened to him.

“Was that because it just never occurred to you or because you didn't care?”

“Yes,” I said.

He didn't react to my not answering him. He was acting cool.

“One more thing.” He waved a paper. “Says here you blow a wicked fiddle.”

I hate it when old guys try to sound hip. I nodded. “I played first violin in my last school.”

“It remains to be seen if you are good enough for Nearmont Middle School. Just so happens, I run the orchestra here.”

Groovy.

NEARMONT, N.J.

2011

 

A
LESSA
was nervous when the new school psychologist called her into his office. She thought she was finished seeing shrinks. Mom and Dad had promised. As long as she stayed on her diet and practiced cello every day, there would be no more sessions and no more pills.

“Alessa!” He didn't look like any shrink she'd ever seen: a short, skinny white man in jeans and a T-shirt. A ponytail. He looked happy to see her, his big green eyes sparkling. “Thank you for coming. I'm Dr. Traum.”

He waved her to a couch along one wall and sat down on a hard chair next to it. She started to wedge herself into a corner of the couch, the way she did for the shrinks, then stopped herself and plopped down on her butt.