Jake and Lily (5 page)

E
ven before Poppy said Grandma was out there, I knew he was talking about more than stars. When Poppy stopped talking, we just lay there in the snow, looking up. After a while I started to feel what Poppy felt. I started to feel comfortable, at home, like the world was our room, like the stars were our ceiling.

On the ride home Poppy told us about entanglement. He said entanglement shows that everything in the universe is connected. He said that light is made up of particles called photons. “Sometimes,” he said, “photons come in pairs. It’s called entanglement.” He looked at us squeezed into the shotgun seat. “You could call them twins.” I jabbed Jake in the ribs. Poppy said if twin photons are
separated, they still act as if they’re together. You could put them on opposite ends of the universe and it wouldn’t make any difference. “If you tweak one photon,” he said, “the twin on the other side of the universe will twitch.”

I jabbed Jake again, hard this time.
“See?”

Jake squawked. “Ow!”

I was so busy thinking about entangled twin light particles that we were on the porch at home before I remembered something. “Poppy!” I said. “You said you found yourself in two places. Where’s the other one?”

He didn’t say a word. He took a step back. His grin got bigger and bigger under the porch light. When it seemed his grin was ready to crack his face in half, he pointed with both index fingers—straight at us. And grabbed us in a bear hug that lasted forever.

THE END

I
knew she would try to end it there. She says that since I had the first chapter, she gets the last and so she gets to end it wherever she wants. But somebody’s gotta be the Whole Story Police here, and the hug on the porch
wasn’t
the end.

In the first place, the bear hug didn’t last forever. It lasted about five minutes—which, I admit, is pretty darn long for a hug. Even the hug when Poppy left next day wasn’t as long. Lily was mad and thumping his chest one minute, bawling into his arms the next. Poppy said don’t worry, it wouldn’t be another ten years before he showed up again. I’m not sure we believed him.

Before Dad drove us all to the airport, Poppy came into our room and got all whispery. “Listen,”
he said, “I have a suggestion for you two. Okay?” We said okay. “So here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to write down your story. The story of you two. Your goombla. Like you told me yesterday. I wish I had done it when I was your age. I can hardly remember those days now. I know it’s hard to put into words, like you said, but I want you to at least try to write your story down before you become an old poop like me who can’t remember anything.” Then he pulled two notebooks from the bag he was holding. He gave each of us a pen. “Okay?”

“Okay,” we said together.

So we took Poppy to the airport and hugged some more and waved good-bye. We wouldn’t leave the terminal until we saw his plane take off and disappear into the clouds.

That night after dinner we started writing in our notebooks. And today, just this second, we finished our book. And that’s what you just read.

Okay, say it now….

THE END

oops

O
kay, so we made a mistake. Hey, we never wrote a book before.

You’re always in such a hurry to get to the end.

I am not.

You read the last page of books first.

I
skim
. Anyway, for this second intro, I (Lily) wrote that first line up there.

She confessed.

For both of us.

I’m still older than you.

Ignore him. So we figured the book was done last November.

Poppy was gone.

Nothing much happened for a long time.

Except school.

Whoopee.

And then suddenly on a dark and stormy night

Oh, good grief. It was yesterday at dinner.

I was just trying to be literary, since we’re back to writing a book.

From now on it’s going to be more like a journal. Or a diary. Day-to-day.

Whatever. So
yesterday
at dinner Dad says

Mom says.

Right. Mom says, “So what’re you guys gonna do this summer?”

She said it because the school year was over next day.

Right. And we just looked at each other for five seconds

ten seconds

and we both said the word at once:

“Write.”

This was no big deal to Mom and Dad.

Just another
twins
thing.

They asked us what we’re going to write.

We just said, “Oh, whatever.”

After dinner we went to CVS. I got a new notebook.

I got a new notebook.

So, what’s your first line going to be?

Don’t know. My head’s a blank.

So what’s new?

Ha-ha.

How about “Once upon a time…”

Right.

Or “It was a dark and stormy night….”

If you don’t shut up, I’m never going to start.

Ladies and gentlemen, my sister…

S
chool’s out! EEYYESSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Poppy said we don’t have to write in our journals every day about every little thing. Just stuff that seems important or interesting. Well—helloooo?—what’s more important than summer vacation? I counted on the calendar. We don’t go back to school for—
ta-da
—81 days. Eight. Tee. One. In other words—forever! Our fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Webber, said, “Now, young people, don’t waste your summer. Read. Volunteer. Improve yourselves. Be productive.” Yeah, I’ll be productive all right. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna produce. I’m gonna produce fun. Fun! Fun! Fun!

D
on’t tell my sister, but forever is already down to 75 days. I’m just starting my notebook because I’ve been busy getting my new room ready. On the second day of forever Dad made an announcement at dinner: “Good news, guys. You’re each going to have your own room.”

I pumped my fists. “Yes!”

Lily snickered. “That’ll be the day.”

Dad rolled on. “You’ll stay where you are, Lily girl. You’ll get a regular bed now. The bunks will go.” He nodded to me. “You’ll get the room next to hers.”

Lily wasn’t snickering now. She was squawking. “He can’t move there! That’s Poppy’s room!”

“We’ll fix up the attic for Poppy,” said Dad.

Lily snapped away from him. “Mom—he
can’t
! Tell him!”

Mom gave a big, sad sigh. She patted Lily’s hand. “It’s time, honey.”

Lily snatched her hand away. “Don’t touch me.” She swung back to Dad. She put on her sob face. “But Dad, you
can’t
separate us. We’re
twins
.”

“You’re also boy and girl,” Dad reminded her. “You’re not little kids anymore. You need your own rooms. Stop acting like it’s the end of the world. He’s not moving to Timbuktu. He’s moving a couple feet down the hall. You can visit each other all you want.”

Amazingly, my sister didn’t say another word. She just stared bug-eyed off into space. She was in shock. Then she dropped her fork to the floor and left the table.

So next day we moved—Dad and I, that is. Lily sat in the doorway and made us step over her the whole time.

That was four days ago. For four days Lily glared and grumped and slumped. Then yesterday
morning she barges into my new room and shakes me awake and says, “Let’s ride.”

So we rode our bikes.

And we went to the creek to hunt stones for my collection.

We went to the comic shop.

And we went to Little Train That Could, the model railroad shop, so Lily could stare at an American Flyer blue-and-silver diesel engine that she says is just like the California Zephyr dream train that streaks through us once a year on our birthday night.

And we checked in with Mom and Dad twice at the house they’re working on down the street. Nobody is living in it. It’s what builders call a handyman special. That means it’s cheap because it needs a lot of fixing, which is where Mom and Dad come in. Because it’s so close and because we check in, we’re allowed to stay at our house by ourselves this summer.

And we tried to play hide-and-seek, but we still can’t because we always know where the other is hiding.

And Lily tried to teach me to burp on command.

That’s what we were doing when a funny thing happened.

T
here was nothing funny about it. As I was demonstrating a simple beginner’s burp, the doorbell rang. We ran for it but nobody was there. But something was. On the doormat. A stone. A blue stone. Jake of course was impressed. “Blue,” he said. “Cool.” He took it to our—ex-
cuse
me,
his
—room and put it in the new box Mom made for his collection.

Me, I just had a bad feeling. I tried to be happy for him. I know how much he loves cool stones. But the bad feeling stuck. And got badder, because in the next couple days two more stones showed up: a pink one and a gold one.

I told him, “That’s not real gold. It’s fool’s gold. It’s fake.”

He shrugged. “I know.”

I told him, “These don’t count. They’re stuff you buy at a hobby place or a museum. You should just have stones you find yourself. That’s a
real
collection.”

He didn’t even hear me. He just ran upstairs pumping his fist: “Yes!”

No stone came yesterday, but my bad feeling got a name. Jake and I were out riding our bikes when we ran into Bump Stubbins and his gang. Not long ago Bump dug up two other nitwits from under a rotting log, and now the three of them ride around together and call themselves the Death Rays. As we were cruising past them, Bump called out, “Hey, Jake! D’juh like the stones?”

Jake shot a look at Bump, all surprised. It had never occurred to him this was where the stones came from. My brother can be a real moron sometimes. I picked up speed. “C’mon,” I said.

I thought Jake was going to do it right, but when we were half a block past them he looked back and called, “Yeah! Thanks!”

Last night I got out the cards to play poker, but Jake didn’t want to. Not even when I promised I wouldn’t cheat. He just kept making goo-goo eyes
at the new stones. He’s already making plans for a bigger collection box. “How many more do you think I’ll get?” he said. “As many as it takes to make you kiss him,” I said. His face got all frowny. He just didn’t get it.

“Jake,” I said, “why do you think he’s giving you stones? Because he’s trying to suck up to you. He hates me because I beat him up and struck him out, so he’s trying to take you away.”

“Away from what?” he said.

“Away from
me
, dumbo.”

He just laughed and ran downstairs to check the doormat.

Today we were out riding again, and again we ran into the Bumpsters. Bump called, “Hey, Jake! C’mon and ride with the Death Rays!”

Jake gave a little wave and said, “Nah.”
Right answer
, I thought, feeling great. But then he said something that gave me the chills: “Not today.”

Like, not today—but maybe tomorrow?

I
don’t know why my sister is getting all dramatic. What’s the big deal? If somebody wants to give me cool stones, why shouldn’t I take them? What am I supposed to do, say, “Here, take ’em back. I don’t want ’em”? How stupid is that? I mean, if Bump Stubbins left an American Flyer California Zephyr engine on the doormat for her, what do you think she would do—throw it in the trash? Yeah, right.

Okay, she hates him. I get it. I don’t even blame her. But what’s he ever done to
me
? Am I supposed to hate everybody my sister hates? Are my sister’s enemies my enemies? Is that what being twins is all about? Lily sees all this evil stuff in Bump. I
just see a clown. He’s harmless. He’s just a kid, that’s all. A guy. That’s what all three of them are, just guys out riding around. So why shouldn’t I ride with them?

I
could see it coming. I could see his goo-goo eyes every time we saw the Bumpsters riding around. I figured sooner or later he would join them. Just thinking about it made me mad. Mad enough to decide that when it finally happened, I would just spit, burp, and call, “Good riddance! Who needs ya? Who cares?”

So when I saw that his bike was gone one day, I reminded myself,
Who cares?
I went out riding myself. Why not? I’m a big girl. I pedaled past Mom and Dad working on the handyman special. When I saw the Bumpsters riding up ahead of me I said to myself,
Turn off. Go another way
. But my bike didn’t listen. It just kept following them. And then they saw me, and that’s when they made their
big mistake—they sped up. All my reminders went out the window. Were they serious? Did they really think they could outrace me?
Me?

I took off after them. They zipped down street after street. Hills. Alleys. Parking lots. Leaning into turns like motorcycle riders. I would have caught them sooner but I couldn’t stop laughing at those four Bumpster hineys slamming from side to side. I caught them on the flat stretch of Beacon Street that runs along the tracks.

I don’t know what they expected me to do. Heck, I don’t even know what
I
expected. But as soon as I pulled up to their fenders I knew: I had already done it. Caught up. All I had to do now was beat them. I smoked past them like they were standing still. I was laughing and waving. Turns out I didn’t feel mad or bad at all. I felt great!

(And just to set the record straight—
if
a train left on the doormat came from BS, yeah, I
would
throw it in the trash.)