I slept fitfully, my slumber punctuated by dreams of me being tangled in giant spaghetti noodles and my other self laughing, and laughing… Then I’d wake up and straighten the blanket that was wrapped around my legs, and fall back asleep.
In the morning, everyone was gone. Chelsea, Taylor, and Amanda were at school, Donovan and Carmen at work. I ate breakfast late and read all afternoon. I thought and thought, while I ate a snack, about the best way to confront the other Taylor and convince her to give up the act.
My thoughts led in circles, however, and gave me a headache. So I watched some TV, ate a bowl of ice cream, and before I knew it, they were home. Despite having different starting points, all of them arrived within 20 minutes of each other. Miriam arrived with Chelsea, and they gossipped about me in the bedroom.
I heard Other Taylor come on and set her backpack down. She ate an orange and sat at the counter to do her homework. Out came the binders, the papers, the calculator, and a pencil. My eyes burned a hole in her hunched back, one she didn’t seem to notice.
Chelsea and Miriam, under the pretense of getting water, watched me over the counter. My face burned as they whispered in each other’s ear, and I held my book up to hide it. I wanted to hide or get away, but I could not think of any reasonable place to go. The woods, maybe?
I went upstairs to ask Carmen for permission. I knocked on the door and mentally prepared for her to say no. “Yes? What is it, Taylor?”
“Can I go for a walk?”
“In the cul-de-sac, yes.”
“No, I mean in the woods.”
“The woods? What do you mean?”
“The forest right across the street. That’s where the other Taylor ran off to. She has a camp there. I like to walk the trails there.”
“I guess so. Can I go with you? Let me get my tennis shoes on.”
As much as I wanted to talk to her without Taylor around, I needed to be by myself for a little while. My knees were still a little sore, but I could deal with it. “That’s okay. I’ll just be gone for a half hour or so.”
“No, I want to go with you.”
“Fine.” I sighed, but very quietly. She followed me downstairs, where I layered on my raincoat over a sweater and pulled on my boots (well, they were Taylor’s, but technically that made them mine).
We walked down the sidewalk. The clouds hovered above the earth, threatening rain, which hadn’t happened yet. A chill wind blew occasionally, making me wish that I had a scarf. Everyone stayed inside, except for us. We crossed the main road, walked past the wobbly fence, and into the woods we went. I led Carmen to the camp. She seemed as if she hadn’t been in a forest or park in a while. With every little sound, she jumped, and if a twig snapped, she looked into the woods like a bear was going to eat her.
Finally, we reached the campsite. A few leaves had blown over the shelter, and the ashes of the fire had spread beyond the circle of rocks, but otherwise it was the same as it had been two days ago.
Carmen seemed interested, though her fear was still present. She crouched and peered into the shelter. The sleeping bag and lumpy pillow were still there. She helped me kick some dirt over the ashes, and then grabbed the pillow and bag. I led the way back. As we crossed the log bridge over the creek, she slipped a little. I grabbed her jacket to steady her, but I accidentally yanked her to the side, making her even more off balance than she was before I tried to help. She fell into the water with a tiny splash; the stream was only around two feet wide. I, too, fell in, because of my sub-par coordination. The water was freezing cold and soaked me to the bone. I quickly stood up, trying not to slip on the rocky bottom. I scrambled to the bank and helped Carmen out. Our hair and clothes were bedraggled and soggy. I went after the sleeping bag, she after the pillow, so that we could go home.
The sleeping bag had filled with water and flowed downstream a little, but got stuck in a turn. The pillow just sank to the bottom. We wrung out a little of the water and rushed home. I’m sure the neighbors were curious as to what we had been doing.
As soon as we arrived, we plopped all the wet stuff into the laundry room and we each took a hot shower. I really enjoyed it, as I am always cold. The still-shattered mirror made the bathroom feel smaller than it really is, darker too because of the lack of reflected light.
I dressed for the second time that day in similar clothes. It felt so cold downstairs that I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and migrated back to the couch.
I would’ve sat on it, but Taylor was there, and I was doing my best to avoid her. Since dinner wouldn’t be ready for a while, I decided to take a nap. I went back upstairs, pulled out the trundle on Taylor’s bed, closed my eyes, and fell asleep after just a few minutes.
Amanda woke me up some time later. “Taylor!”
I sat up, squinting in the harsh light. “What? Why’d you wake me up?”
“Look outside!”
“Why? Do I have to? I was right in the middle of napping, if you couldn’t tell.”
“Just look!” She dragged me to the window and opened one of the curtain panels a few inches. Outside, covering the whole cul-de-sac, were news vans and reporters. They swarmed like bees. I heard both Carmen’s and Donovan’s cell phones ringing, and the sound of the doorbell echoed. Our neighbor left his house, and three journalists ran over to him. “Do you know the Thompson family?” one asked. The other wanted to know if he had seen the girl from another dimension, and the third asked a combination of both. My blood ran cold, and my heart fluttered. “How did they find out?” I angrily asked Amanda. “Did you squeal to the press?”
“No, never! I know when to keep my mouth shut.”
“Chelsea, then. The adults wouldn’t say anything. I saw her texting about me and Taylor, and I know she told Miriam.”
“That’s great. What are we going to do?”
“I really don’t know. What can we do? If we shoo them off, they’ll know for sure that I’m here. I guess we could say that Chelsea was doing it to get attention, that we have no portal mirror, and that I never came over. Chelsea won’t like it, but it’s better than having a bunch of nosy reporters poking around here, not minding their own business.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Yeah. Let’s go tell Mom. I’ll make sure all the windows are closed so that you can come down, too.”
She went downstairs, closed a couple curtains and blinds, then called me down to talk to Donovan and Carmen. I started to like Amanda, at least for now. She knew what she was doing.
I filled in the adults on what I thought we should do, and agreed. “If we tell them to go away, there’s nothing to see here, that’s basically telling them we have something to hide. If we agree to an interview but bluff our way through and say you’re not here, they’ll leave. I just hope that this has no lasting effects,” Donovan told everyone in a family powwow. “Taylor, why don’t you go upstairs. Go in your room and don’t move. I’ll bring them into the second living room. Carmen, I need you to sit at the top of the landing and make sure none of them go upstairs. The rest of you, stay with me. Stick to the story, and if you’re not sure what to say, give me a look, and I’ll fill in. Everyone ready?”
We all nodded and went to our stations. I forced the other Taylor to go upstairs to her room, not mine, and prepared to face a barrage of questions. I hoped that I looked okay. My hair was still wet, but clean. I hoped my face wouldn’t be plastered all over the gossip magazine covers the next day, some candid photo of me yawning or something.
Donovan let four reporters in, plus the cameramen, and locked the door. They were respectful, at least. They took off their shoes and thanked Donovan for letting their newspaper have the interview. Then they settled into newscaster mode, firing questions at everyone like bullets out of a machine gun.
“Donovan, when did you first find out about the Interdimensional Travel Unit that is installed in your house?”
“What sort of relationship do you have with the girl from another dimension?”
On and on it went. We answered the questions that we could, not at all truthfully, until Donovan set them straight: “We have had an ITU installed in our house. However, we deactivated it years ago, in order to avoid any mishaps. No girl has come through, nor will one ever. We have had a normal life and nothing as trivial as a dysfunctional ITU has changed it.”
“Wouldn’t a functional ITU change it more than a dysfunctional one?” Man, these reporters were sharp.
Donovan chuckled, but his heart wasn’t in it. He opened his mouth to talk, when suddenly we heard a crash from upstairs. “Donovan!” Carmen shouted. The four of us, closely followed by the reporters, ran up the stairs in time to see an athletic-looking anchorwoman and a cameraman snapping pictures of Taylor. Donovan raced toward them and escorted the shocked female reporter and cameraman downstairs. “Destroy the pictures you just took,” he demanded. “Right now. By the way, how did you sneak in? I find that breaking into people’s homes is illegal. If you don’t want me to prosecute you, you can delete those pictures and any video you took, and don’t even speak of what you saw.”
Other newscasters were videoing this conversation. Not good. I reached over and turned off the camera of the person closest to me. “Hey!” He said. “You turned off my camera!”
“Yeah, so? I don’t enjoy being filmed, and I doubt Donovan does, either, especially right now.”
Amanda overheard our exchange, and followed my lead, turning off the closest camera, thereby destroying the video. Meanwhile, Donovan kept threatening, until finally they deleted all the pictures and videos they took. I felt a cold wind and noticed that the back door was wide open. That must have been how they snuck in, while we were being interrogated. I can’t believe that I didn’t notice.
Finally, the reporters left, scared to death of what Donovan said. Of course, they had no proof, so he couldn’t be prosecuted. They piled into their vans and drove away to tell their superiors that there was no story to be found here.
Chelsea wiped imaginary sweat from her forehead. “I’m so glad that’s over. I’m too tired to cook dinner; what kind of pizza would you guys like?”
“Pepperoni!” Taylor and I said at the same time. I glared at her.
“I don’t care,” Donovan said. “I’m up for anything.”
“Veggie,” Chelsea proclaimed. “And can Zahra come over?”
“No, Chelsea. It’s your telling your friends that got the reporters here, remember? Give me your phone.” Carmen stuck out her hand, a ‘mom look’ shadowing her face.
“Sausage and mushroom!” Amanda said, completely missing the serious conversation.
Carmen stuck Chelsea’s phone into her pocket and went to order the pizza. “One medium pepperoni, one medium vegetable, and one small sausage and mushroom. Oh, and one order of breadsticks.” She gave the address and concluded the transaction. “They’ll be here in half an hour. Why don’t we play a game while we wait? Amanda, go pick a game we can all play.”
We ended up playing Twister, with Donovan manning the spinner. One by one, everyone dropped until Taylor and I were left. I could see in her eyes that she wanted badly to win. I, of course, wanted to win, but not as much as her. In the next move, we were right next to each other. Chelsea and Carmen had gotten up to get drinks; Donovan and Amanda were otherwise occupied; so she pushed me over. My balance was already off, and her pushing me did not help. I fell over, barely catching myself. “Hey! That’s not fair!”
“The ends justify the means,” she told me quietly.
“Does not.” I replied at my normal volume.
She stuck her tongue out at me (what a childish thing to do!). I rolled my eyes and walked away. Was I this annoying? I made a mental note to act more adult-like, to distance myself from her. Actually, watching my other self in these situations was interesting to me. I knew that I would do exactly the same in her situation, but I thought I was better than that.
Then the doorbell rang. “Pizza! Pizza pizza!” Amanda yelled as she opened the door, revealing a teen awkwardly holding the heavy pizza bags. He repeated the pizza order and Donovan paid him. The delivery guy walked a couple steps, then turned around to ask, “This the place where the girl from another dimension lives?”
Donovan looked shaken. They destroyed the footage; so how else would people have learned about it? “Girl from another dimension? Nah, we just have twins.”
“Oh. Thought for sure this was the house. The report must’ve got it wrong.”
“What report?”
“Was in the Independent. Little article on the Web site I read.”
“That’s interesting. I’ll have to take a look at it. Have a good day.”
“You too, mister.”
Donovan shut the door and turned to us. He turned on his phone. “The Independent, huh? Let’s take a look. Yeah, here it is: ‘Scientists Baffled when a Girl from Another Dimension Turns Up’. He scanned through the article, then handed the phone to me. I read it, and found it to be very factual, though a bit misinformed. I handed the phone to Taylor to let her read. “What are we going to do? We could pose as twins, but that’ll work only until someone digs up your adoption papers or birth certificate.”
“Our best option,” Donovan replied slowly, “is to find a portal and get you back where you belong. After that, no one will poke around here, and our lives will go back to normal. Hopefully.”
“Have you noticed the condition of my bathroom in the last week or so?” Taylor asked. I knew she was going to blame me for the broken mirror.
“No, why?”
“Because after this hooligan pulled me through the portal, she broke the glass with a soap bottle holder. There’s no more mirror and so no more portal.”
“Did not! That was you, you little liar!” I guess I can be childish sometimes.
“Well, to whoever did it, that's not okay. Now, both of you are sick here. Forever.” Donovan sighed.
“Thanks a lot,” I told her. I imagined us living here together for at least another two years, and by the look of horror on Taylor’s face, I could tell she had done the same.