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  And when the twins were dressed alike with their hair combed alike, little Jay and little Ray were cute. They were. They were unbelievably cute. Unbearably cute. Dangerously cute. Cute, cute, cute. And spot-on identical.

  And if Mom or Dad took them out for a walk in their new superlong double stroller, someone would always stop, and bend down, and then say, “Oooh, look! There are two of them. Aren’t they cute?”

  And the answer to that always had to be yes. Yes, they were cute. Unfailingly, remarkably, and undeniably cute. So cute you could just eat ’em up. So cute you had to pat each of them on the head or tickle them under their adorable little chinny-chin-chins. So cute you just had to have a picture of them.

  At naptime and at bedtime and at bath time, and even during a meal sometimes, Mom and Dad had to do the freckle-check. Because the boy with the tiny freckle on his right ankle, that was Ray. Right ankle, Ray. Right ankle, Ray—don’t forget that. Right ankle, Ray.

  Because it was important to keep calling Ray by the name of Ray, and to keep calling Jay by the name of Jay. Wouldn’t want the boys to get confused about their names, right? Because somewhere in the back of their minds, Jim and Sue Grayson actually did understand that these boys of theirs were two different people. Or that they would eventually become two different people . . . one day. Like, when they grew up . . . right?

  When the boys got to be toddlers, Sue Grayson kept on dressing them alike. It made shopping for clothes a lot easier—in fact, it made clothes shopping twice as easy: two of this, two of that, two of these, two of those—all done.

  And it also made getting the boys dressed a lot simpler—in fact, it made getting them dressed twice as simple: two of this, two of that, two of these, two of those—all matched up, all dressed. No muss, no fuss. And as the boys got a little older, dressing them the same also meant no arguments about which boy got to wear which shirts or pants or socks or shoes.

  Then came school.

  The twins became instant kindergarten celebrities. Everyone thought they were special. And cute. Very, very cute. And their teachers also thought they were adorable. And precious. And sweet. And dear. And darling. And charming.

  The boys were a little small for their age, with straight brown hair and bright brown eyes, and shy smiles that made their right cheeks dimple in exactly the same places. And of course, no one could ever tell which twin was which.

  Almost right away other kids started calling the boys names like “Ray-or-Jay” and “Jay-or-Ray.” Some kids always used the name Ray, and some always used Jay, and then just paused—in case the twin needed to say, “No, I’m Jay,” or “No, I’m Ray.”

  And some kids wouldn’t even guess. They’d just say, “Hey, you.” Or “Hi . . . guys.”

  The Grayson twins got tired of always having to correct people about their names. And they got tired of always seeing that question mark in the eyes of the kids at school, and even their teachers—a puzzled look that meant, Now . . . which one are you? That’s why Ray and Jay stopped dressing alike shortly after they started second grade.

  And to help everyone out a little, Ray almost always wore a shirt or a sweater or a T-shirt or a baseball cap that had some red in it—red for Ray. And Jay usually wore something that was blue—blue for Jay, like the blue jay. And for the kids who actually cared about knowing which boy went with which name, the color-coded clothing helped. A little.

  But the truth is, not that many kids tried to become really good friends with Jay and Ray. Because, like, how do you make two new friends at once? And if you wanted to get to know just one of the twins, which one would you pick? And if you did get to be friends with one of them, would that make the other twin feel left out?

  Some kids also felt that most of the time Jay and Ray didn’t really look like they even needed another friend. Because those two? They always had each other. It was like Ray and Jay got to have a sleepover with their best friend every single night of the week.

  And that was true . . . sort of. Ray and Jay were certainly best friends. But it wasn’t like they had gotten to choose that best friend. From the first moment of their lives, that other person who looked and talked and smiled exactly the same way was always there—eating at the same table, sleeping in the same room, riding on the same school bus, sitting in the same classroom. And almost no one was able to see any difference at all. Except Jay and Ray themselves.

  During fifth grade the mix-ups had gotten worse. Like the time in February when Ray had been walking along the street near their home in Colorado, and this eighth-grade guy came charging up, shoved him into a slushy puddle, grabbed his book bag, emptied it onto the ground, and then shouted, “That’s for hitting me in the face with that snowball last week!” Which seemed like a fair payback. Except it was Jay who had thrown the snowball, not Ray.

  Or like the time last April when a girl had slipped a note into Jay’s hand as he walked down the hallway at school, and it had taken the poor guy three days to figure out that the girl had a crush on Ray, not on him.

  And the worst had been during the last half of fifth grade, when Jay had decided to go all out and earn the top grade in math. He’d done all his homework, studied hard for every test, even turned in the weekly extra-credit assignments. And on his final report card, Jay got a C– in math—and Ray got an A+. The math teacher had gotten their names and grades completely confused. The mistake eventually got fixed, but Jay felt cheated out of his moment of triumph, and Ray felt like he’d been shown up by his brainy brother. Again.

  By the time they turned twelve years old in August, Ray and Jay were fed up with always being “the twins.” They hated how they were constantly compared with each other. And there was no way to escape it.

  At their last school, if you had asked a classmate, “What’s Jay like?” you’d have probably gotten a shrug. Or maybe someone would have said, “Jay? He’s . . . he’s just like Ray.”

  And if you had asked someone, “Is Ray your friend?” you might have gotten another shrug. Or maybe someone would have said, “Sure—I mean, I guess he’s my friend. Because I’m kind of friends with both of them. They’re both nice. Except . . . I really can’t tell which one is which. Unless one of them stays home sick or something.”

  And that was exactly what had happened to Jay Grayson on his first day of sixth grade in Clifton, Ohio. His twin brother Ray had stayed home sick.

  Which was a good thing. Sort of. Maybe.

  CHAPTER 3

  TWINLESS

  During homeroom on his first day of sixth grade, Jay didn’t ask Mrs. Lane why she hadn’t called Ray’s name. He thought, Mom probably called the office and told them Ray was going to be absent, except . . . how come the desk right behind me isn’t empty? But there were a million other things to think about, so Jay just went along with the flow.

  Mrs. Lane handed out everyone’s class schedules, and Jay instantly had plenty of other things on his mind—like, how was he going to find his way around the new school? Language arts would be easy, because he’d be right back here with Mrs. Lane for eighth period. Everything else was a mystery.

  But Alex said, “Almost all our classrooms are right here in the sixth-grade hall. And we have almost the same schedule.”

  So that was a help, and when the bell for first period rang, Jay just followed Alex down the hall to the math room.

  “Mrs. Pell,” Alex said over his shoulder. “She’s supposed to be really hard.”

  Then, as the class began and the teacher called the roll, the same thing happened.

  “Jay Grayson?”

  “Present.”

  “Alex Grellman?”

  “Present.”

  No Ray Grayson.

  And Jay thought the same thing: All the teachers must know that Ray’s absent today.

  So when Ray’s name wasn’t called during art or social studies, Jay hardly noticed.

  But an hour or two later, when he opened his lunch bag, he found a note from his mom, and it was taped onto
a second note. His mom had written:

  Jay, please give this to the secretary in the school office.

  And the second note said:

  Jay’s twin brother Ray is home today with a fever.

  Mrs. Susan Grayson

  Then after lunch, during seventh period, when all the sixth-grade boys had gym class together, Jay took a quick look at the attendance list on Mr. Bolton’s clipboard. It showed the name of every sixth-grade boy in alphabetical order. And . . . no Ray Grayson.

  And that’s when Jay thought, What’s going on?

  But on that first Tuesday, Jay didn’t ask any of his teachers about it. He didn’t say, Hey, I’ve got a twin brother, you know. And Jay sort of forgot to give his mom’s note to the school secretary—accidentally on purpose.

  Because Jay knew that Ray would probably come to school on Wednesday, and then there would be the usual big deal about how the two of them looked exactly alike. And the comparing would begin. And there would be the usual staring and pointing, the usual oohing and aahing, the usual whispering and nodding.

  And the usual teasing, too. Because at every other school they had ever attended, there always seemed to be some big, tough-looking kid who would say something like, “Aw, wook at da wittle twinsies—awen’t dey cute?”

  So Jay decided to keep himself totally unconnected from his twin brother, just for today. Because being on his own was a nice change—very nice. He looked like no one else, he talked like no one else, he walked like no one else, he smiled like no one else. For this one day, Jay Grayson was twinless, purely himself. He was a regular, one-of-a-kind kid. And all day long, it felt great.

  When Jay walked home after the first day of school, he let himself in at the kitchen door, walked into the living room, and flopped into a chair.

  Mrs. Grayson had stayed home from work to take care of Ray, and she called from the upstairs room where she and her husband had set up a small office. “Is that you, Jay?”

  “Yup,” he called back. “It’s me.”

  “Welcome home, sweetheart. How was your first day of school?”

  And Jay called, “Good. It was good.”

  “I’ve just got to finish up a few e-mails, and then I’ll come down and get you a snack. And I want you to tell me all about your day, all right?”

  And Jay answered, “Okay.”

  His twin brother Ray was on the couch in front of the TV, picking a tune on his little nylon-stringed guitar. He stopped playing, looked over at Jay, raised one eyebrow, and said, “So?”

  And Jay said, “So, what?”

  “So how was it really?”

  Jay shrugged. “It was good. Really.”

  “Good in what way?” Ray said. “How about the teachers? What are they like?” And he plucked a few more notes on his guitar.

  It kind of bugged Jay that Ray had gotten so good at playing the guitar—he’d only had it for about six months. And Ray was a good singer, too.

  Jay said, “What are the teachers like? Do you mean, are any of them professional wrestlers? No. And none of them are NASCAR drivers, either. Or movie stars. They’re teachers, Ray. Just teachers. A bunch of women, a couple guys—teachers. They teach stuff. To kids. And I said school was good because everything was pretty much like school should be. Pretty much like all our other schools have been for the past six years.”

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Ray said, “How about girls?”

  Jay nodded, staring at the TV. “Yes, there were girls at school today.”

  “Any cute ones?” Ray asked, with another run of notes on the guitar.

  Jay said, “Look, Ray, you’re gonna see the whole setup for yourself tomorrow, okay? And you can decide for yourself if the girls are cute or not, and if the teachers are okay, and if the cafeteria food stinks. Some of us went to school today and worked, and some of us would just like to sit and watch TV for a while. Without answering a million questions.”

  “Fine,” Ray said. “Just pretend I never asked.”

  “I will,” Jay said.

  And Ray said, “Fine—go ahead and keep the whole stupid day all to yourself.”

  “I will,” Jay said.

  And Ray said, “Fine.”

  And Jay said, “Good. Now, how about you shut up for a while? And don’t play the guitar, either.”

  And Jay pretended to give his full attention to the old TV Western that Ray had been watching. Except Jay felt guilty, shutting Ray out like that.

  Because to tell the truth, Ray had picked up on how his brother was feeling. Jay really did want to keep the whole day for himself. He didn’t want to share what had happened at school, because this first day had been his, all his.

  And there was another reason Jay didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to be forced to admit that he had loved being on his own all day.

  Because he had. He had really enjoyed being at school without being a twin. A lot. And he didn’t want to tell that to Ray. It seemed disloyal. Almost mean.

  So Jay kept it to himself.

  But to tell the whole truth, Ray had also enjoyed being twinless all day. It had been a long car trip from Colorado to Ohio, trapped in Labor Day weekend traffic in the back of the minivan. With Jay. So even though he wasn’t feeling great, Tuesday had been a welcome break for Ray. For almost eight hours straight he had gotten to choose exactly what he wanted to do—without any discussion, without one sarcastic comment, without the constant observation of that other pair of eyes. When Ray had watched TV, there had been no arguments about the programs, no wrestling for the remote. And there had been no complaints about his guitar playing. Plus, at lunch, Ray had gotten to eat all six of the last Oreos in the house—no dividing things up evenly. It had been a great day.

  Ray was feeling a lot better by dinnertime on Tuesday, but he pretended to be sicker than he was. He didn’t want to have to get up the next morning and face the new school—plus deal with being “one of those new twins.” So he coughed a lot more than he needed to. And he picked at his food, then pushed his plate away. And instead of digging into a bowl of chocolate ice cream, Ray said, “I want to go lie down.”

  And it worked: On Wednesday, Ray got to stay home again, and he was glad.

  And on Wednesday, Jay walked the three blocks to school by himself. Again. And he was glad too.

  CHAPTER 4

  TWICE AS THICK

  Jay arrived a little early for his second day of school, so he walked around back to the playground. It was crowded, but right away he spotted Alex’s bright blond hair. He walked over and said, “Hey, Alex—yesterday I forgot to ask where your hockey team practices.”

  Alex told him all about Clifton’s new municipal rink, which was only about a mile from his house. “Yeah, it’s great ice, and all the leagues raised money, and we just got a new Zamboni.” Then Alex said, “You play hockey?”

  Jay shook his head. “Nah, just pond hockey sometimes.” And Jay almost said, But my twin brother, Ray? He’s really good. He should definitely be on a team. And it was true. Skating was the one sport where Ray was a lot better than he was. But Jay didn’t say that. He didn’t want to get into any talk about his brother. So he changed the subject and asked Alex what his favorite books were. That conversation didn’t go very far, and the two of them ended up talking about The Simpsons until the first bell rang and everyone lined up to go inside.

  Once again, Mrs. Lane didn’t call Ray’s name during attendance in homeroom. And once again, Jay noticed, but he didn’t think much about it—until a few minutes later when he read the label on a cardboard file box sitting on a chair beside the teacher’s desk: 6-A STUDENT FOLDERS. That made Jay curious, because it still seemed odd that no one was calling Ray’s name in any of his classes. But homeroom ended, and he rushed off to his first class.

  Jay liked math, and he liked his new teacher, too. She was one of those no-nonsense people who hated to waste time. Mrs. Pell opened the class with a quick review of the readiness test they had taken on Tuesday, and th
en she had their new math books passed out in about two minutes. She said, “We’re going to jump right into factoring. It’s important because it’s going to make working with equations and expressions a lot easier for you . . . a lot. So no complaining, okay? Now, flip to page seventy-two in your books. Anybody think they remember this stuff well enough to factor all the numbers in problem number one?”

  Jay shot his hand into the air, but so did five or six other kids, and he wasn’t called on. But the fifth problem was about finding prime factors—and his was the only hand that went up. And standing at the board, he used a method that he had learned in fifth grade.

  Mrs. Pell nodded and said, “Can someone else explain what Jay did here?”

  By this time Jay was back at his desk. A girl raised her hand. He turned to look at her.

  When the teacher nodded, the girl said, “It’s sort of like he used upside-down division. In a big stack.”

  The teacher nodded again. “That’s right, Rachel, and he divided every number until only prime numbers were left. And Jay, what’s the definition of a prime number?”

  After a pause, the teacher said, “The definition? Jay?”

  Jay was still looking at Rachel, the girl in the first row by the windows.

  He snapped his head toward Mrs. Pell and said, “A prime number can only be divided by itself and the number one.”

  Jay’s face felt hot, because he was sure everyone had seen him staring. At that girl. But the lesson moved ahead briskly, and no one had time to think about anything but the next problems. Even so, Jay managed to sneak a few more looks over toward the windows.

  After math class, Jay started talking with a tall, sandy-haired kid named James. And a couple of periods later during lunch, James called to him across the cafeteria and motioned for Jay to come sit with him and some of his other friends. Then they all hung out on the playground during after-lunch recess and started up a game of basketball against some other guys.