Doppelganger (5 page)

Getting to school wasn't too hard. I just stood out on the corner with a bunch of other kids my own age, and pretty soon a bus came by and picked us up. I was a little nervous when I first showed up and some of the kids started talking to me, but after a while I began to relax. It was kind of like a warm-up for the rest of the day.

Some guy asked me where I was yesterday, and I told him I was sick. Another asked with what, and I said it was my stomach. And blahbitty, blahbitty, blah. It's surprising how easy it is to fake it with most people, especially if they think you're who you appear to be and don't know any better. You just sort of keep your mouth shut for the most part, and spend the rest of the time agreeing with whatever the other person says. “You bet!” “You're right!” “Totally!” People like it when you agree with them. And if anybody notices anything different about you, you just say something like, “I'm just really tired,” or “I don't feel so hot today,” or “I think I'm coming down with something,” and people pretty much let it slide. Besides, most of the stuff
people talk about is meaningless anyway. Any moron can talk.

Pretty soon the bus dropped us off, and I found myself being ushered along with the crowd into a big brick building with a sign out front that said “Bakersville High School—Home of the Sharks,” which I thought was pretty funny since we weren't anywhere near the ocean that I could tell.

I'd seen plenty of high school movies and TV shows before, so the scene inside wasn't too strange. The kids looked pretty much the same, all standing in clusters here and there along the hallways, talking, laughing. Even though it was first thing in the morning, it was a Friday, and people were excited for the weekend.

As I walked down the hall, kids kept saying “Hi!” to me as I passed, patting me on the back, or giving me a little punch on the arm. The girls were especially friendly. They kept giving me these smiles and saying “Hi, Chris,” in this weird singsongy voice that made me feel a little prickly in a good sort of way. When Chris told me everybody liked him, I hadn't believed him, but it seemed now that he'd been right, and for the first time it felt good to be Chris Parker. So good that by the time I found Josh and Steve with a bunch of other jocks, I was brimming with confidence.

“What's up,” Steve said, grinning and holding out his hand. I held out my hand too, and he grabbed it and did some weird little move that involved clapping and snapping and something else that I couldn't catch in time.

“What's up,” I replied. That's another little trick I figured out—if someone says something to you and you're
not sure how to respond, just repeat it back to them. Half the time they don't even notice.

“Missed you yesterday, Parker,” Josh said. “Coach was mad. You better lay low at practice.”

“Planning on it,” I said.

“Hey, where's your jersey?” Steve said, giving me a little shove. One of the things I've noticed about human males, especially the jocks, is that they're always touching each other. They make a big deal about not being “queer,” but between the shoving and punching and slapping, not to mention the headlocks and butt smacks, it's like they can't keep their hands off each other.

I quickly realized the rest of the guys were all wearing their football jerseys.

“In the wash,” I said, hoping it would stick.

Steve shook his head. “I do
not
want to be you at practice today.”

Great
. The last thing I needed was to call attention to myself.

I stood around with the other guys for a while and half listened to them talk about football. From what I could gather, they were wearing their jerseys because of the game against Waterbury tomorrow, but I was more interested in finding Amber. Shouldn't she have met me by my locker? Isn't that what high school girlfriends are supposed to do?

By the time the bell rang for first period, any confidence I'd gained had vanished. I suddenly realized I had no idea where I was supposed to go. Fortunately good old Josh saved the day.

“Let's go, Parker. We got history.”

“You're right,” I said, and followed him down the hall.
After about a dozen steps he stopped, then I stopped, and we both just sort of looked at each other.

“Aren't you going to get your books?” he asked, gesturing toward the bank of lockers behind me.

Oops
, I thought, following his gesture. This could be bad.

“Um,” I tried to stall. “Ah, screw it,” I suddenly said, and sort of shrugged my shoulders like I was tough and all, and to hell with school.

Josh just sort of shook his head and snorted. He pushed by me, went up to a locker, and banged twice. It opened to reveal a pile of books.

“Come on,” he said. “You know how Johnson can be. Not that it matters—we're just going to be watching a video like we do every other day.”

“All right,” I said. I went up to the locker and peered in. There was a picture of some girl taped to the inside door that looked like it had been taken out of one of the magazines in Chris's closet. I looked over Chris's books as students continued to rush by on their way to class.

“Hurry up,” Josh barked, “we're going to be late.”

Finally I just grabbed the whole stack and followed Josh down the hall. We made it to class just in time, taking the last pair of seats as the bell rang. Mr. Johnson called the class to order, and I was off—my first day of school had officially begun.

Fortunately history turned out to be U.S. history, something I'd learned about already. Of course, it wasn't a high school book I'd studied back at the cabin, but based on the questions Mr. Johnson asked us, it wasn't that much harder. In fact, I don't mean to brag, but I seemed to know more
than most of the other kids in the class did. It was early in the year, and we were in the middle of the Revolutionary War. After a bit of discussion, the lights were turned out and we watched a video, while Johnson graded papers at his desk.

The video was a documentary on the Founding Fathers. It turned out I'd seen the whole series three times already on public television, so I used the period to go through Chris's notebook and try to get a sense of what was going on. Fortunately his schedule was taped to the inside. History, study hall, science, phys ed, math, English—it all seemed pretty run of the mill. The only class that really raised a flag was Spanish 2, right before lunch. The only Spanish I knew was what I'd learned watching
Sesame Street
.

The bell rang and everyone headed out. Josh and I parted company, and I followed the door numbers until I found my next class.

The day went on like this. I kept a low profile, and nobody really called on me or anything. Even Spanish turned out not to be too bad. The teacher, Mrs. Olson, spoke mostly in English as we worked on conjugating verbs. At one point, though, she turned to me, rattled something off in Spanish, and waited. I just repeated it back to her and then held my breath as she gave me a sort of funny look and a few kids snickered. There was a long pause.
Uh-oh
, I thought.

“That was excellent, Chris,” she said at last. “Really, a good job.”

“Gracias,”
I said, and smiled.

In spite of that, I found the period to be pretty stressful, so when the bell rang and everyone headed off, I went up to speak with her.

“I was wondering if it was too late to drop the class,” I asked.

She frowned a little and shook her head. “It's still early enough in the year,” she said, “but I wouldn't advise it. Remember, most colleges require at least two years of a language.”

“Well,” I said, “somehow I don't think I'll be going to college.”

“Now, Chris,” she said, “I know you've had your struggles in school, especially in my class, but you shouldn't give up. I hear a lot of talk about how you're due for a big football scholarship. Just stick with it. You've got a bright future ahead of you.”

Yeah, really bright
, I thought. “Thanks,” I murmured. I suddenly wanted to disappear, to shrivel up and blow away or crawl into some dark hole. I wondered if that culvert Chris was in had room enough for two.

“Besides,” she said, “I've never heard you speak so fluidly as you did today. It was beautiful—I think you may be turning a corner.”

“Maybe,” I said.

I turned and left the room, resisting the urge to break into a dead run and keep on going right out the front door. Instead, I ducked into the boy's bathroom and splashed some water on my face. All of a sudden, I wasn't feeling so good.

“Keep it together,” I said, looking in the mirror, watching the water drip off my face.

That was when I saw it.

It started with just a little twitch in the corner of my right eye. As I leaned in to check it out, both eyes swelled
to watery, yellow bulbs, both pupils drew into slits, and there I was, staring into doppelganger eyes. I jumped back and gasped.

It only lasted a moment before fading with no more than a ripple.

A toilet flushed, sending my heart into my throat. I dried my face with my shirt as one of the stall doors opened and a tall boy with a shaved head came out.

“Come on, Parker,” he said, barely looking at me as he headed for the door. “You're going to miss lunch.”

I followed him to the cafeteria and went to the end of the lunch line. It was pretty straightforward—get your tray, get your food, swipe your card, find a seat. I fumbled a little before finding the right card in Chris's wallet, but pretty soon I was through the line, looking desperately for a seat amid the sea of students. Steve flagged me as I drifted by.

I sat down, nodded to everyone at the table, and began picking at my food. It wasn't that I didn't have an appetite. I did. I hadn't had that much to eat these last few weeks and it was all starting to catch up with me. But suddenly I didn't feel like eating. It's like I couldn't swallow right or something. Meanwhile, Steve started going off on all the kids around us, making nasty comments about this guy's face or that girl's tits or which freshman he'd like to bang. Really gross stuff. I tried to ignore it for a while, but toward the end of lunch I just sort of lost it.

“Dude, will you shut up?” I said. I was practically yelling. I knew I shouldn't have said it, but I was still feeling pretty lousy from my talk with Mrs. Olson, not to mention freaked out by what I'd seen in the bathroom. A few heads turned.

Steve seemed pretty taken aback. He kind of shrank for a second.

“What's your problem?” he snipped. Then he looked up over my shoulder. “Oh, I get it,” he said. He picked up his tray and left. So did everyone else.

“Feeling better?” a girl's voice said behind me.

Even before I turned, I knew it was her. I'd never heard her speak, but it was like I just knew. I looked up and saw her standing there in a cheerleading outfit, looking down at me. Her red hair was pulled partway back and hung around her like a fiery halo, and she was smiling, but in a weird sort of way. Her lips were tight, like she was trying to hold in a secret.

“Hi,” I said, a bit hoarsely. I moved over and she sat down. As soon as she did, the smile dropped. I reached forward to take her hand and saw her flinch. It was almost imperceptible—I don't think anyone else noticed—but it made me pull back.

“I was looking for you this morning,” I said.

“Funny,” she said. Ouch. I could almost feel the ice crystals creeping up my legs from the bench we shared. I decided to just shut up.

“Where's your jersey?” she asked after a bit.

“Forgot it,” I said. That goddam jersey.

“Great. At least we would have been matching. Now I look like even more of a dork in this thing,” she said, giving a tug at her uniform. “And I swear just about every guy in school has checked out my ass today with this stupid skirt as short as it is.”

“Can't say as I blame them,” I said, trying to smile. I figured it was the kind of thing that Chris might say. I must
have been right, because she gave me a nasty snort and rolled her eyes.

“So,” she said, after a little bit, “we still going out tonight or what?”

I froze as soon as she said it.

She sensed my hesitation. “If you don't want to, that's fine with me. I'd just as soon not go. But Cheryl's been bugging me all week. Says she even got a DJ. I think it's that jerk who graduated last year. Oh, what's his name?”

“I don't remember,” I said.

“Well, who cares, anyway.”

“I do,” I said. “I mean, I wouldn't mind going.” I should have taken her up on her offer to bail, but for some reason, I didn't.

She looked at me and rolled her eyes again. “All right, whatever,” she said. “Just pick me up at nine. You know how I hate getting there early.”

“How about you pick me up?” I suggested. I didn't know how to drive, let alone where she lived. “My father needs the car,” I explained.

“You mean I get to drive?” she said. “How enlightened of you.”

The bell rang. Everybody around us started moving. She leaned in and fixed me with a glare.

“All I can say is, it better not be like last time.”

“You mean last time wasn't good?” I asked. Big mistake on my part. As soon as I said it, she recoiled in disgust. I think if she'd had a knife, she would have stabbed me.

“You're a bastard,” she said. She got up and left.

Way to go
, Chris, I thought as I watched her walk away.

 

The last class of the day was English. The teacher, Ms. Simpson, was young and pretty, and you could feel the energy rise in the room the moment she walked in.

“All right, everybody, get out your
Macbeth
s and turn to act two. We're going to pick up where we left off yesterday.”