Many Worlds of Albie Bright Page 5

  This other Albie leans forward, the point of his compass now dangerously close to several of my vital organs as well as a few others that probably aren’t so vital but that I’m still kind of attached to. In my chest my heart is beating faster than an atom whizzing round the Large Hadron Collider. OK, maybe not quite that fast, as that would result in a serious heart attack, but fast enough to show that I’m pretty freaked out by the whole situation.

  It’s not because I’m scared, although the compass is definitely keeping me on my toes. It’s the total weirdness of seeing my own face staring back at me. You might think that you see your own face in the mirror every day, but you never see your face in the same way as everybody else does. The face you see in the mirror is reversed. If you’ve got a spot on your right cheek, in the mirror it looks like it’s on the left. Try it yourself – hold this book up to a mirror and you’ll see the words on the page are the wrong way round. So this was the first time I’d ever had the chance to see what I really look like. And to tell you the truth it’s kind of creepy.

  This parallel-universe Albie – I’ll just call him Bad Albie for short – has the same green eyes, the same dark-brown hair, the same mouth and nose, and even the same mole on his cheek as me. I can even see parts of my face that you can never see properly in a mirror – like inside my ear and that bit under my chin. All these features are put together in exactly the same way, but this Albie looks different to me. He looks mean.

  “I know what you are,” Bad Albie hisses, reaching up to pull the tape from my mouth. “You’re a clone.”

  “Ow!”

  Now, I should put him right straight away, but I’m too busy checking that he hasn’t ripped off half my face along with the gaffer tape.

  “So this is the secret science project that my dad’s been working on for the past year?” he says. “All the time he said he was working on perfecting cold fusion when really he was creating a clone of me.”

  As Bad Albie babbles in my ear, my stomach takes a nosedive – a delayed reaction to travelling into a parallel universe, I suppose – and I throw up all over the floor.

  “Aw, no! Not on my X-Men comics.”

  Luckily, spewing my guts up over his comic-book collection convinces Bad Albie to take off the rest of the gaffer tape that’s keeping me prisoner. After using a towel to cover up the sick, he sits on the edge of my bed – I mean, his bed – staring at me.

  “You’re not going to puke again, are you?” he asks. “That must be the side effect of all the cloning drugs my dad’s given you.”

  I’m still feeling pretty sick, but I manage to shake my head in reply.

  “I’m not a clone,” I tell him.

  Bad Albie laughs sourly.

  “Of course you’re a clone. Just look at you.”

  In my bedroom there’s a mirror on the wall facing me, and as I glance up I see that this universe has got the same. My reflection stares back with this alternative Albie sitting next to me – the two of us creating our own mirror image.

  “So what was my dad’s plan?” Bad Albie asks. “Create a new happy family with the real me out of the picture? Get you to kidnap me and take my place so you can play the part of the perfect son? Am I too much trouble for him now he’s the superstar scientist on every TV screen? Isn’t it enough that he leaves me stuck here in this stupid village while he jets off to the White House? I know Dad said I was on my final warning after that last detention at school, but I didn’t think that meant he’d replace me with a programmed clone.”

  My head spins as Bad Albie spits out his crazy theory. I might be in a parallel universe, but it doesn’t sound like much has changed for my superstar scientist dad. But what’s all this nonsense about kidnapping and clones…

  Wait a minute. “What do you mean, the White House?”

  “Durr!” Bad Albie pulls a face like he’s talking to the most stupid person in the universe. “Have the cloning drugs fried your brain too? It’s where the President of the United States lives.” He pulls out his mobile and swipes the screen.

  “Take a look. My dad tweeted this a couple of hours ago.”

  I look down to see a picture of Dad’s face staring out from his Twitter profile.

  @DrBenBright

  Physicist. Philanthropist. Father.

  Inventor of cold fusion. Drinker of hot coffee.

  TWEETS FOLLOWING FOLLOWERS FAVORITES

  4,572 314 61.3M 37

  My evil twin taps on Dad’s latest tweet, which zooms out to fill the screen of his smartphone.

  Ben Bright@DrBenBright • 2h

  Great to meet President Cruise and announce the building of the next wave of Cold Fusion reactors across the USA! #CEBFoundation

  Beneath this tweet was a photo of my dad in the Oval Office of the White House. He’s shaking hands with someone who looks like a Hollywood film star, his broad smile dazzling the camera while my dad just pulls a geeky grin like he can’t quite believe who he’s shaking hands with. Neither can I.

  On his TV show Dad usually rubs shoulders with pop stars and celebrities – you know, pushing stand-up comedians wearing suits made out of Mentos mints into dunk tanks filled with Diet Coke. But this picture shows him shaking hands with the President of the United States in this parallel world.

  I look up at Bad Albie as he swipes the photo away. I’m beginning to realise that a brand-new planet between Jupiter and Mars isn’t the only difference between his universe and mine. In this universe, Dad’s Twitter profile says he is the inventor of cold fusion, but I don’t have a clue what this means.

  “What is cold fusion?”

  The expression on Bad Albie’s face hardens into a frown.

  “Don’t you know anything, Clone Boy?” he sneers. “You’re not going to be able to fool anyone that you’re me if you don’t even know a simple fact like that. Cold fusion is my dad’s brilliant invention that should have made him a billionaire. Nuclear energy from a fusion generator the size of a microwave oven. The power of the stars in every home and business across the world – safe, cold and clean. No more global warming, no more food shortages, no more poverty. Unlimited energy helping to solve every problem the world has ever known. All given away for free by my dad’s stupid charity – the C.E.B. Foundation.”

  This alternative-universe Albie is really starting to annoy me. My dad might be a scientific genius in this parallel world, but why am I such an idiot? I try to stay calm. I didn’t come here to get into an argument with myself. I came here to find my mum.

  “So what does Mum think about all this?” I ask him, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Surely she’s going to have something to say if she finds out Dad’s planning to swap you for a clone?”

  Bad Albie stares at me like I’ve just asked him to jump into a black hole.

  “My mum’s dead.” He spits out the words one by one, his face flushed with anger. “She died of cancer when I was just a baby.”

  My heart seems to freeze in my chest. No. She can’t be dead. Not here. Dad said that quantum physics proved that Mum was still alive in a parallel universe. But according to Bad Albie this just isn’t true.

  “You’ve probably got her name stamped on the sole of your foot,” he says, still staring at me with hate in his eyes. “The Charlotte Elizabeth Bright Foundation makes all of my dad’s inventions now – from cold fusion to clones. He said he named the charity after my mum to keep her memory alive, but he can’t wait to forget about me. You’re the proof of that.”

  I glance up at the poster of the solar system above Bad Albie’s head, staring blankly into space. The bright-purple planet between Jupiter and Mars starts to blur as the tears leak from my eyes. A parallel universe might have one tiny change, Dad said, and in this universe I’ve got the wrong one.

  The black hole in my heart aches even harder. If I had a Death Star I’d blow this brand-new planet to smithereens. But deep down I know this wouldn’t bring Mum back.

  I wipe my eyes angrily. I feel lik
e I’m losing her all over again, but this other Albie doesn’t even seem to care.

  Behind him I can see the cardboard box, still on its side. In the shadows at the back, endless lines of zeroes and ones scroll across the screen of Mum’s laptop. It’s still hooked up to the Geiger counter with the banana resting alongside, all ready to go radioactive again. All I need to do is wait for Bad Albie to turn his back and then I can crawl inside that box and escape from this stupid parallel universe.

  But he’s still staring at me, an evil grin slowly spreading across his face.

  Suddenly I feel like I’m in one of those cartoons where Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are both starving hungry and Bugs starts to imagine that Daffy has turned into a giant hot dog. At least that’s the way Bad Albie seems to be looking at me now.

  “What?” I ask him, still trying to work out how quickly I can get inside the box.

  “If my dad’s made a clone to keep me in line then you better start earning your keep,” he says. “If he wants me to behave myself at school, then you can go to school for me instead.”

  I stare back at him in disbelief. No way. I’ve not travelled to a parallel universe just to go back to school. I glance back at the cardboard box, trying to work out if I can dive past my evil twin to make my escape. There’s no way I’d even have time to get the lid shut.

  “I can’t,” I tell him. “I can’t go to school for you.” I babble out the words as my brain whirrs, trying to think up excuses. “It’s like you said, I don’t know anything. How am I supposed to convince everyone that I’m you?”

  “You’re a clone,” Bad Albie tells me with a hint of menace in his voice. “That’s what clones do – pretend to be something they’re not. If my dad wants a perfect son, then you can be the one who’s top of the class. Meanwhile, I get to stay here and take it easy.”

  He picks the compass up off the desk and waggles it in my direction.

  “Anyway, you’re already dressed for the part – once you take that stupid back-to-front mask and body armour off. I thought Dad had thrown that away last year when he swapped my BMX bike for a hover-scooter.”

  I open my mouth to protest but then quickly close it again as Bad Albie prods the point of the compass against the front of my BMX vest.

  “Let’s see how you like being me, Clone Boy.”

  I stomp towards Clackthorpe Primary School, making sure that I step on every crack in the pavement. On my back is Bad Albie’s rucksack, which he’d shoved in my hands as he forced me out of the house at compass point. In my mind there’s a whirl of bad words, all of which would get me suspended from school if they bubbled out of my mouth.

  As I look around, I try to work out how I’ve ended up trapped in this nightmare. The streets all look the same. The houses all look the same. Every car is parked in exactly the same place as I see them every day on the short walk to school. I turn left at the end of Sharman Street, carry on down Appleton Drive before turning right on to Priestley Avenue where the gates of Clackthorpe Primary School are waiting for me on the other side of the road.

  Everything is the same. Every single thing. And in this stupid universe my mum is still dead.

  It’s only when I start to cross the road that I notice the first big difference. A screech of brakes and the sudden blare of a car horn make me nearly jump out of my skin.

  “Stupid kid! What do you think you’re doing?”

  As my heart hammers in my mouth, I look to my left to see an angry-looking man leaning out of the window of his white van.

  “Don’t they teach how to cross the road in that school of yours? I could’ve run right over you.”

  I’m totally confused. I’d looked right then left then right again, but this van had come out of nowhere and was driving on completely the wrong side of the road.

  “But – but—”

  But before I can even start to protest I see another car pull up behind the man in the van, then a scooter whizzes past on the other side of the street. Left to right, right to left – they’re all driving on the wrong side of the road.

  I shake my head in confusion, trying to work out why everyone in Clackthorpe has suddenly forgotten how to drive. Then I remember what my dad’s book said. One tiny change…

  Of course! In this parallel universe people must drive on the opposite side. That’s why I never saw the van until it nearly knocked me down.

  As the car behind beeps its horn, I lift my hand in apology then make sure I look both ways before I cross to the safety of the school gates.

  “Keep your head out of the clouds next time you’re crossing the road,” White Van Man shouts after me as he steps on the accelerator. “Remember you’re on planet Earth with the rest of us.”

  As I race across the empty playground I only wish I knew which one.

  When I open the door to Class 6, I can see that I’m late – again. The rest of the class are already sitting at their tables as Miss Benjamin takes the register.

  “Kiran?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Olivia?”

  “Here, miss.”

  I nervously scan the classroom – searching for any tiny changes in the faces of Class 6. Everybody looks exactly the same. I try to catch Kiran’s eye as he sits in our usual place near the front of the class, but he just stares right through me.

  “Albie?” Miss Benjamin calls out.

  “Here, miss,” I reply automatically, and it’s when she turns in her chair to face me that I get my next surprise.

  She’s old. I mean, seriously ancient. In my universe Miss Benjamin is already knocking on a bit – I think she must be at least twenty-five or twenty-six. But in this parallel universe she’s got wrinkles all around her eyes and I can see a nest of grey hairs poking out beneath her dyed blonde hair. She looks more like an OAP than an NQT.

  “You’re late, Albie,” she says, tapping her watch impatiently. “Again.”

  I stare back at Miss Benjamin in disbelief. How come the rest of my class look exactly the same but my teacher looks like she’s been run over by a time machine?

  “Don’t just stand there, Albie,” she sighs. “What on earth is the matter with you?”

  The words jump out of my mouth before my brain has a chance to call them back.

  “Miss, you’re so old.”

  This is so not the right thing to say. As a wave of laughter runs around the classroom, Miss Benjamin’s left eye begins to twitch beneath her crow’s feet.

  “Sit down, Albie,” she snaps. “Or else you’ll find yourself working in the headteacher’s office while the rest of Class 6 come with me on our trip to the museum.”

  My heart sinks even as my face turns red. My teacher might have become geriatric, there might be a brand-new planet between Jupiter and Mars, but somehow it still seems like the only school trip that Class 6 ever takes is to the Clackthorpe Museum of Natural History and Mechanical Wonders.

  Keeping my head down as Miss Benjamin calls out the next name in the register, I head for my usual place, sitting right next to Kiran. But when I sit down Kiran stares at me like I’ve got two heads or something.

  “What are you doing?” he hisses.

  “What do you mean?” I whisper back, keeping my voice low to avoid another rocket from Miss Benjamin. “It’s me – Albie.”

  “You know you’re not allowed to sit next to me,” Kiran replies, frowning so hard it looks like his forehead could give Miss Benjamin’s wrinkles a run for their money. “It’s in your behaviour contract.”

  At the start of each term Miss Benjamin gives everyone in Class 6 a behaviour contract. This tells you the rules she wants you to follow in school – things like no calling out, no chatting when the teacher is talking, no making any sudden loud noises in the classroom. Most people just get two or three rules to follow, although Wesley MacNamara’s behaviour contract covers four sides of A4 paper. But I don’t know why Bad Albie’s says I’m not allowed to sit next to my best friend in school.

  All my
frustration at everything that’s gone wrong since I climbed out of the cardboard box in this stupid universe suddenly rises to the surface.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I tell Kiran while Miss Benjamin continues to call out the register. “Why does she want to stop us from sitting next to each other?”

  “Because I asked her to,” my best friend snaps in reply. “It’s your fault I got the blame when you let Mr Sniffles out of his cage. When he jumped out of the classroom window and got eaten by that mad cat that just appeared out of nowhere, I was the one who got put in detention.”

  Wait a minute! This isn’t right. It was Wesley MacNamara who let Mr Sniffles out of his cage – not me – and Miss Benjamin stopped him before he escaped out of the window. Except in this parallel universe it must have been Bad Albie…

  “And if it wasn’t for you I’d have won first prize at the Science Fair,” Kiran says with a scowl, “but you thought it’d be a laugh to pop my balloons before I even had the chance to launch my mission into space.”

  I shake my head. I wouldn’t do that – not to my best friend.

  “And now you want to get me involved in this crazy scheme, just so you’ve got someone to pin the blame on when it all goes wrong.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I’m getting more confused with every new thing that Kiran says. “What crazy scheme?”

  Kiran gives me a look like I’ve just farted in the airlock of the International Space Station.

  “Just leave me alone, Albie,” he hisses. “I don’t want to be your friend any more.”

  Kiran is my best friend in Class 6. He’s my only friend in Class 6. Or at least he used to be, in another universe. Just when I think things can’t get any worse, this parallel world proves me wrong again.

  When I was little, Mum and Dad took me to the funfair in Geneva. We had a great time going on the bumper cars, the pirate ships and even the ghost train, but everything went wrong when I got lost in the hall of mirrors. One minute Mum and me were together, laughing at our funny reflections, then I raced ahead to see what was round the corner and when I looked back she was gone. All I could see was endless copies of myself.