Middle-School Cool Read online

  “I got pictures!” Leo added happily. “That is, I think I did. I pointed the camera in the direction of the shouting. I’m sure I got something.”

  “Excellent! Sounds like front-page news,” Jory said. He didn’t want the dodgeballs to be the lead story; that belonged on the sports page. And Victoria’s article about the book pills was too sedate. Victoria would probably complain if her story had the smaller headline, but he would deal with that later.

  “So what happened?” Ruben said.

  Aliya sat on top of the table and crossed her legs. “Well, the fight was between Cole Butkovitch, Marlon Snipe, and Janno Crow.”

  “They each wanted the last plate of chicken nuggets,” Taliya continued, joining her sister on top of the table.

  Leo gave a low whistle. “No wonder there was a fight if those three were clumped together in line. Marlon has a hot temper, Cole is stubborn, and Janno is just plain mean, even meaner than Victoria.”

  “I’m not mean, I’m just painfully honest, you sightless mole,” Victoria snapped.

  “What’s so great about chicken nuggets?” Margo said. She herself didn’t care for any food that came in the form of a nugget.

  “Nothing, except the other options that day were ‘chicken-y nuggets’ …”

  “… ‘chicken-like nuggets’ …”

  “… and ‘tastes-like-chicken nuggets.’ So if you were in the mood for chicken nuggets …”

  “… the best choice was the item actually called ‘chicken nuggets.’ ”

  “That’s why there was only one plate left of the chicken nuggets …”

  “… and several plates left of the other options.”

  “Anyway, while they were fighting …”

  “… Cole threw a bowl of Jell-O at Marlon …”

  “… Marlon threw a bowl of Jell-O at Janno …”

  “… Janno threw a bowl of Jell-O at Cole …”

  “… and they kept throwing more and more Jell-O until the entire floor was covered with orange goo!”

  “Where did all the Jell-O come from?” Victoria asked.

  “Ah, I can explain zat, mademoiselle,” the musketeer said in a thick French accent, twisting the tip of his debonair mustache. “Today was what you call ze ‘bottomless Jell-O bowl’ day. If you bought a bowl of Jell-O, you could get as many free refills as you wanted. Ze cafeteria workers had no idea zat ze Jell-O was being used as projectiles, only zat zey needed to replace ze bowls as zey were taken. Voila!”

  “Shut up, Sam,” Victoria said.

  “En garde!” said the musketeer, pointing his plastic saber at Victoria. She grabbed the blade and snapped off the tip.

  “This sounds like a great story,” Jory repeated. “Follow up on it. Find out what happened to Cole, Janno, and Marlon.” Aliya and Taliya grinned, both giving Jory a thumbs-up.

  “Will do …”

  “… Chief!”

  After school Aliya and Taliya noticed Mr. Gruber, the eighth-grade science teacher who doubled as the dean of discipline, leading the three culprits into his classroom. The twins looked at each other and nodded. That must be where Cole, Marlon, and Janno were going to serve out their punishment. The sisters would have to try to catch one of them tomorrow and interview him (or her) to find out what happened.

  The next morning as the sisters got onto the bus, they spotted Marlon sitting ten rows back from the front. Usually he was loud and rowdy, but this morning he seemed very quiet, almost timid. The two girls sat in front of him.

  “Hi, Marlon …,” Aliya said, leaning over the seat. He stared at the twins, his eyes darting nervously from one to the other. If Marlon hadn’t been buckled in, the twins were pretty certain he would’ve jumped out the window. “How was detention?” Taliya asked. The girls waited for an answer, but Marlon remained silent.

  “Was it horrible?” Aliya persisted. “Did Mr. Gruber hit you?”

  “Did he give you mindless work to do?” asked Taliya.

  “Did he call your parents?”

  “Do you have to do more detention after school today?”

  Marlon said not a word as his nose twitched nervously.

  “Well, when you’re in the mood to talk …,” Aliya began.

  “… we’d love to interview you …,” Taliya continued.

  “… to get your side …”

  “… of the story.” The girls turned back around in their seat, sharing a concerned look. What happened to him? Why was he so jumpy? This story was bigger than they thought.

  When the bus reached the school and the doors opened, Marlon was the first one off. Bolting from his seat, he scampered down the aisle, leaped out the door, and disappeared. Since he obviously wasn’t interested in talking to them, the twins decided to try Cole, who had been sitting quietly in the back row.

  The twins got off the bus and waited. They knew Cole would be the last one out, but after everyone was off the bus he still hadn’t emerged. Aliya and Taliya poked their heads through the bus door to find him making his way down the aisle, trudging along carefully, practically moving in slow motion.

  “What’s taking you …”

  “… so long?” the twins said, exasperated.

  Cole just looked at them and blinked. Then he did something unusual. He sat down on the floor and pulled his head into his sweater. He stayed that way for a full minute as the twins shared another concerned look. What was going on? What had happened to these students? Cole started to poke his head out, but as soon as he saw the twins still standing there, he drew it back in. Then the cannon sounded and Aliya and Taliya took off across the lawn. They ran through the double doors into the main building, bypassing the lockers and slipping into the English classroom before the gong rang.

  Several times during the day the girls tried to approach Marlon, but he darted away as soon as he saw them coming. Cole was easy to find, but he wasn’t talking. He had parked himself in the courtyard with his head tucked into his sweater. Eventually he trudged down the hallway, stopping for a minute or two, then moving on to a different area, but always very, very slowly. Whenever anyone tried to talk to him, he retreated into his sweater. It wasn’t until lunchtime, when the twins went into the bathroom to wash their hands, that they made some headway on their story.

  “Hey! Aliya and Taliya! Is that you?” The voice seemed to be coming from the janitorial closet.

  “Yes, it’s us!” Aliya said, heading to the closet.

  “Is that you, Janno?” asked Taliya.

  “Yes! I’m locked in here! Get me out!”

  The girls looked around for a key, but there wasn’t one to be found.

  “We can’t find a key,” Aliya said.

  “We’ll have to get the janitor,” her sister said. “What are you doing …”

  “… in the closet, anyway?”

  “I escaped and hid, but before I could get out, the janitor locked me in. I spent the night in here.”

  “Why did you hide?” asked Aliya.

  “What’s going on?” added Taliya.

  “What happened to you guys …”

  “… during detention?”

  “Just get me out,” Janno said, “and I’ll give you an exclusive.”

  • • •

  It took ten minutes to find the janitor. Mr. Parker unlocked the closet, no questions asked, and then went back about his business.

  “That’s funny, you would think he’d wonder how I got locked in there,” Janno said. Her shirt was still stained from the orange Jell-O, her hair was a mess, and she smelled slightly of cleaning chemicals, which might be expected from a person who’d spent the night in a janitorial closet. “He didn’t even seem surprised.”

  Aliya rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “You know, I have a feeling that as a janitor of this school …”

  “… this isn’t the strangest thing he’s seen,” Taliya concluded, also rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “You would think everyone would be looking for you …”

  “… once your mo
m called the school …”

  “… to report that you didn’t …”

  “… come home on the late bus!”

  Janno shook her head. “I called my mom from the closet and told her our science class was having an overnight stargazing retreat, and that I’d just forgotten to give her the permission slip, so I’d signed it for her. I didn’t want her to find out about the detention.”

  “So then you also …,” Taliya started.

  “… signed the detention slip.” Aliya finished.

  “Good job, Sherlock Holmes,” Janno said snidely to both of them.

  “Well, that explains that,” Taliya said, ignoring the comment. “Now tell us …”

  “… what happened.” Aliya took out a small notepad and pen from the pencil case in her binder, and Taliya did the same. The twins waited, pens at the ready, eager for the story.

  Janno glanced around nervously and motioned for the girls to follow her into one of the stalls. Closing the lid of the toilet, she took a seat while Aliya and Taliya squeezed in, shutting the door behind them.

  “Yesterday after school, Cole, Marlon, and I met up with Mr. Gruber at his classroom. He told us to take a seat, which we did, and scolded us for being rowdy and making a mess with the Jell-O.”

  “So far this seems pretty standard,” Aliya pointed out.

  “No reason to be afraid,” Taliya agreed.

  “Hang on, I’m getting to it. And could you stop talking like that? I feel like I’m listening to a broken stereo.”

  “Sorry, we’ve been like this …”

  “… for as long as we can remember,” the girls said.

  “I was born first, and I always speak first …,” Aliya began.

  “… and I finish the thought,” concluded Taliya.

  “Well, it’s weird and off-putting,” said Janno. “Anyway, after the scolding, Mr. G. started talking about our behavior. He said that all three of us were too angry and tense, and that’s why we are prone to fighting. He said we should relax, and that if we just calmed down, our behavior would improve. That’s when it started getting weird. He went to his desk and brought out these huge eyeglasses. They had great big round lenses with a strange design that sort of swirled, but I didn’t get a good look at them. He sat in front of Marlon, and …”

  “Janno Crow! I know you’re in here!” a voice called out, startling the girls.

  Janno motioned for them to stand on the toilet so that their feet wouldn’t be seen, but the ruckus they made trying to climb up there made it evident which stall they were in, and it was made even more obvious after Taliya lost her balance and clutched her sister, who in turn grabbed Janno, and the three of them tumbled through the stall door, landing in a heap.

  Aliya and Taliya recognized Mr. Gruber immediately, for they had seen him walking through the campus during lunch. He had an oval head, a pear-shaped body, and two spindly, knock-kneed legs. Mr. Gruber looked like a big chicken.

  “Ms. Crow, I believe you missed detention yesterday. That’s unacceptable. You need to take responsibility for your actions. You’ll have to serve your detention during lunch. Follow me, please.”

  Mr. Gruber crooked his finger at Janno, who stood there wide-eyed. She followed Mr. Gruber out the door, glancing back at the twins with a pleading expression, but of course there was nothing they could do. As soon as she left, the twins shared a knowing look. Without even speaking they had formulated a plan. If they were going to find out what happened during detention, one of them would have to serve detention. One of the twins would break a school rule and be subjected to whatever this mysterious punishment was. Immediately they both knew it would be Aliya. Taliya would remain on the outside, so to speak, and report on the situation. Because they could read each other’s minds, Taliya would automatically know what her sister was experiencing. That was the theory, anyway.

  The girls left the bathroom in silence, their minds a jumble of thoughts and emotions. They had never entertained the idea of separating like this before. The prospect of their doing two completely different things was disconcerting but also exciting.

  There was a reason Aliya and Taliya Naji spoke in such a weird and offputting way, traveled together constantly, and did everything as though they were one person. It was because during the formative period of their lives, they were one person, sort of. Aliya and Taliya had been born conjoined twins, connected at the forehead, and they had in fact shared part of their brain. The operation to separate them was so difficult and the risk of causing brain damage so high, their parents decided to let the girls lead their lives connected. They did this for seven years. To Aliya and Taliya it was natural and normal. Of course their parents kept them hidden away from the rest of the world, fearing the negative attention the girls would get, the pictures of the “freak sisters” that would inevitably spread on the Internet. The Najis moved from Miami to a rural part of Florida, where they led a relatively happy life in seclusion. Mrs. Naji gave up her job as a teacher to homeschool the girls.

  Then, only a few months after the girls turned seven, a group of brain surgeons from Harvard Medical School approached the Najis with a proposition. They had developed a new surgical technique that brought the risk factor for the two girls down considerably. The doctors had not had many opportunities to use it and needed the practice, so they made the Najis an incredible offer: they would do the surgery to separate Aliya and Taliya for free. The parents consulted the girls and everyone agreed that their quality of life would greatly improve if they were separated. The Najis gave the surgeons permission to operate. They moved the family to Boston to be close to the medical school; preparation for the surgery and the girls’ recuperation afterward would take several months, and they wanted to be near the facility in case anything went wrong. After the whole ordeal was over and it was clear the operation had been a success, they moved farther north to Horsemouth, again seeking small-town isolation and privacy.

  Once they were separated the girls remained close—perhaps too close. They knew they needed to make that final psychological step of behaving like two different people, but there was a great deal of comfort in having a sister who knew exactly what you were thinking and how you felt and who always agreed with you. So when Aliya and Taliya formulated this plan, in which they would each play different roles and have different responsibilities to carry out all on their own, it was a very big step.

  The following day when they arrived at school, for the very first time Aliya and Taliya were not identical. Aliya had a yo-yo in her pocket. As soon as the girls got off the bus, Aliya removed it and started playing with it. Up and down, up and down, up and down it went. She was quite good at it. Taliya watched jealously, her fingers twitching to hold a yo-yo. She played with a rubber band that was in her pocket instead.

  “Hey, Aliya, you’re not allowed to have yo-yos in school,” Jory said loudly. Jory, of course, had been filled in about the plan ahead of time. He was doing his part to draw attention to Aliya’s degenerate behavior. “Aliya, I believe you are breaking a school rule!” he announced even more loudly.

  “I don’t care,” Aliya said.

  “It’s a stupid rule,” Taliya blurted. Aliya frowned at her sister. She wasn’t supposed to say that. She was supposed to be the good twin, while Aliya was now supposed to be the evil twin. Taliya shrugged helplessly. The words had tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  As they approached the entrance to the school, Mr. Gruber met them at the door. Aliya executed a very difficult trick called rock the cradle, which involved tossing out the yo-yo, grabbing the string to create a triangle, and rocking the yo-yo rock back and forth within it. She then released the whole apparatus, and the yo-yo spun smartly back into her palm. It was very impressive. Meanwhile, Taliya knotted the rubber band around her fingers to keep them from moving. Inwardly she was quietly going crazy.

  “Good morning, Aliya,” Mr. Gruber said pleasantly. “Aliya Naji, right? Seventh grade? Perhaps you’ve forgotte
n, but yo-yos are against school rules.”

  “No, I didn’t forget, Mr. Gruber,” Aliya replied tartly.

  “We just think the rule is stupid,” Taliya mumbled, but she had shoved her fist into her mouth so that no one could hear her.

  “What possible reason could there be for a ban on yo-yos?” Aliya said, with Taliya adding a quick “when they’re just a toy” into her fist. Aliya executed an around the world, swinging the yo-yo in a wide circle. Suddenly the yo-yo flew off the string and hit Mr. Gruber square in the forehead. It hit his bald spot right in the center and immediately a circular red mark appeared, resembling a bulls-eye on a target.

  “That’s the reason,” Mr. Gruber said, fighting the pain. “You may not believe this, but this is not the first time that has happened to me. Yo-yos hate me. I’m a yo-yo magnet. That’s why when I was hired, I requested, insisted, we have the rule. It’s in my contract.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” Aliya said.

  “If we’d known that, we wouldn’t have done it,” Taliya mumbled through a mouthful of fingers.

  “Nevertheless, you’ve intentionally broken a rule. I’ll see you at detention, three o’clock, room two-twelve.” Mr.

  Gruber disappeared through the doors to go to the nurse’s office for an ice pack, so he didn’t see the twins’ fist bump.

  • • •

  “I’m surprised that someone like you would be so reckless,” Mr. Gruber said later that afternoon. “You really should act more like your sister.”

  Aliya sat in the front row of Mr. Gruber’s classroom, nervously twisting her fingers. She needed to focus on what he was saying, but all she could think of was how badly she missed Taliya. She felt so lonely! She turned her attention back to Mr. Gruber and was surprised to see that he was now wearing the strange glasses that Janno had described. They had very thick opaque lenses, so she was unable to see his eyes, only a swirly rainbow of colors that was constantly shifting, and every once in a while sparkles would flash across them. They were quite pretty.

  “Is this part of the punishment?” Aliya asked.