Chapter 34
After confirming with Mouse that his comment about the English essay was a joke (and that any homeschooling could wait until the current situation was resolved), I spent a little time chatting with him about next steps. Specifically, I asked what I could do with respect to solving the mystery of my evil twin, because the idea of just waiting around until my mentor came up with a solution didn’t appeal to me.
Mouse’s suggestion was that I make a detailed list of everyone I’d spoken to at the party, along with the relevant times. It wouldn’t be an ironclad alibi (especially since I was a teleporter), but it would lend support to my argument that the guy in the video wasn’t me. With those marching orders, I teleported home, taking the textbooks with me at Mouse’s insistence.
I popped up in my room. Almost immediately, I felt a mental bombardment as my mother and grandparents telepathically barraged me with questions. (Obviously Gramps had brought Mom and Indigo up to speed during my absence.) Tossing the textbooks on my dresser, I quickly gave them an overview of my conversation with Mouse and what I’d found out.
With their appetite for information sated, my family finally left me alone. I took advantage of the opportunity to grab a notepad and start jotting down everything I could remember about the people I’d interacted with the night before, starting with those in the receiving line. I went at it for about an hour, at which point Gramps sent me a telepathic message to come down for dinner. Thinking that I could do with a break, I washed up and went downstairs to eat.
On this occasion, the meal was light on conversation. It went without saying that I had a lot on my mind, and everyone seemed to eat mostly in silence in deference to me. Even Myshtal, who was typically effervescent, had little to say. I didn’t know whether my family had told her what happened or if she simply knew how to read the room, but I was grateful to her for leaving me to my thoughts.
After dinner, I raced back to my room to finish working on my witness list (for lack of a better term). Forty-five minutes later, I thought it was pretty much complete and was looking it over for the third time when my cell phone rang. It was Electra.
I felt a sudden degree of shame as I realized that I hadn’t really thought about my girlfriend all day. Given the circumstances, it could probably be forgiven, but I still felt that I’d been neglectful.
Embarrassed by my oversight, I quickly answered with a perfunctory, “Hello?”
“Did I misread the situation?” she asked without any kind of preface.
“Huh?” I mumbled in confusion.
“Well, I thought we ended the night in a positive place,” she said. “But then a whole day goes by without me hearing from you.”
“Sorry, babe,” I said, now recognizing that she was speaking tongue-in-cheek. “Something came up, and I’ve been dealing with it all day.”
Her tone immediately became more somber. “Is it serious?”
“Serious enough.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Yeah, but not over the phone. How about tomorrow?”
“Oh, um, okay,” she said, my response catching her a little off guard. It was clear that she had expected me to teleport to her asap so that we could talk, which is what I normally would have done. The fact that I had suggested waiting until tomorrow was a bit out of character for me and had thrown her off.
In truth, however, I was mentally exhausted. I had been dealing with the issue of my apparent double all day, and it had taken its toll.
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Electra continued, bringing my thoughts back to the present.
“Thanks,” I said, then hurriedly wished her goodnight and hung up.
Chapter 35
The next morning, for the second day in a row, I was awakened by the ringing of my cell phone. Still a little groggy, I started to sit up and noticed that there was a notepad on the bed next to me, and suddenly everything came back.
After getting off the phone with Electra the night before, I had taken a quick shower with the intent of going over my witness list again afterwards. However, the info wasn’t particularly stimulating and I had already scrutinized it a number of times at that point. Long story short, I fell asleep in the middle of reviewing everything for the umpteenth time.
Remembering what the info on the notepad represented jolted me wide awake. Grabbing my phone, I noted that the caller was Sarah – Smokey’s girlfriend. (Or rather, previous girlfriend.)
I answered the phone, but didn’t get a chance to say a greeting before Sarah blurted out, “Did you talk to him?”
“Excuse me?” I said, not sure what she was talking about.
“Smokey,” she stressed. “You said you’d talk to him for me.”
I was completely confused now. “I’m sorry but when did I say that?”
“Friday, when we spoke.”
“Friday?” I repeated, completely befuddled by this conversation. “You and I didn’t–”
The words froze in my throat as I happened to glance at my witness list and got a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Where are you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice on an even keel.
“At home,” she replied. “About to leave to catch the bus to school.”
“Meet me outside in one minute,” I practically ordered, then hung up.
*****
It took me even less time to get through my morning routine than the day before, with the only difference being that on this occasion I ripped a page from the back of the notepad and hastily scrawled a message saying that I was going out, then left it on the kitchen table. I then teleported to the embassy’s garage, which housed – among other things – a ten-year-old clunker that served as my car. I jumped behind the wheel, phased myself and the vehicle, then teleported.
The car and I popped up on a street in a well-kept, middle-class neighborhood. Making myself
