Free Stranger and Stranger by Rob Reger Page B

for Mom to get me out of going to Black Basin with her, and OtherMe was all like, “I’ll handle this,” and ran downstairs. Naturally I eavesdropped on their conversation—I didn’t bug all the rooms in this house for nothing! Here’s how it went:
     
    O THER M E : Dude, Patti, we gotta reschedule that family outing.
    M OM : But tomorrow’s the new moon, and you know that’s the best night of the month to go.
    OM: Well, it’s kind of important. The other Emily and I have to be here to pull off the final step in this huge elaborate prank we’ve been cookingup for the last few days. If we don’t, well, you can imagine what it’ll do to our self-esteem.
    M: [Sounding weird.] The…other…Emily? Is that what I heard you say?
    OM: [Annoyed.] Come ON, Patti. You know what’s going on and it’s time you faced up to it.
    M: [Sounding unstable.] So, you’re asking me to accept that you…“duplicated”…yourself during an experiment?
    OM: That’s exactly what happened. Is that so hard to understand?
    M: [Getting slightly hysterical.] I thought YOU understood…that I don’t WANT to understand! I thought we had an agreement! YOU PROMISED!
    OM: Get over it, Patti! There’s two of me now! You have TWO…IDENTICAL…DAUGHTERS!!!!!!!
    M: [Crying. Running to her room.]
     
    Am extremely peeved with OtherMe! She is responsible for my first fight with Mom! (Wait…is it even MY first fight with Mom? Very confusing.) AND she broke our (my?) promise. Am going to confront her as soon as she gets back up here.

    Later
    Am hiding out in the treehouse. Have had my first fight with OtherMe. Ugh! Here’s how it went:

    M E : DUDE! You broke our promise to Mom!
    O THER M E : Hey, I’m not the one who made that stupid promise.
    M E : But…
    OM: That’s right. Make all the lame promises you want. Makes no difference to me.
    M E : But…
    OM: Look, Patti needs to get tough with herself and face the truth, that’s all.
    M E : Stop calling her Patti.
    OM: [Snorting.] You do, all the time.
    M E : Only to her face.
    OM: Man, how’d you get to be such a baby? Whining, complaining, picking your nose, tiptoeing around Patti…
    M E : And how’d YOU get so evil? Breaking promises? Tormenting Mom’s mind?
    OM: Get over it. We’ve got work to do. I need you to help me finish the editing on the Manifesto and move all the projectors into the central auditorium.
     
    GRRR!!!
    Am feeling very let down by this whole self-duplication thing. Am actually wishing it had never happened at all.
    Also, did not really realize it until now, but there HAS been a drastic increase in the time my finger spends up my nose. Very strange. Do not like the fact that OtherMe has noticed. Will try to control myself.
    Later
    OtherMe and I pushed our drama aside for the moment and went to finish our work at Town Hall. I let her handle the editing—I didn’t feel like being in that small room with her tonight—while I went from one conference room to another, collecting the modified A/V equipment and plugging it into the central unit in the main auditorium. I didn’t even bother to use the heating ducts like we’d started off doing. It suddenly seemed much less exciting and spylike, and much more cramped and dusty.
    Am not feeling happy about recent developments. I’m not sure how it happened, but it seems like we are already growing into two separate people, and I don’t really know how much I can trust the person she is growing into.
    Although, come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve EVER been able to trust her. Didn’t she try to kill me on our very first night together? Sure, she SAID she was only sleepwalking…Do I have ANY good reason to believe her?
    Should I be worried about my safety, for real?
    Grakking vertfarks, this isn’t how I wanted things to play out.
    Later
    Have tried my best to persuade a cat to come console me. No dice. Have had to make do with cat-cam photos. They’re a sorry substitute.
    OK. Being here at home, knowing