Downside Up Read online

  I said his name over and over. I was gulping and saying his name and gulping some more. Case-gulp-y, Case-gulp-y.

  I don’t know how long I knelt there, holding him, saying his name. It must have been a while, because he got restless and whined. I didn’t want to let him go. I was afraid I’d wake up from my dream, and when I did he’d be gone.

  He finally had enough and wriggled out of my arms. He shook himself and stretched, found the patch of afternoon sun in the middle of my carpet and lay down in it. He put his head on his paws and smiled over at me, showing his chipped tooth.

  I didn’t wake up. He didn’t disappear.

  I sat on the floor next to him, still feeling lighter than I had in a long time. Now that I figured I was in a dream, the upside-down thing made sense. Last week Mom told me about an experiment where they fitted a guy with goggles that turned the world upside down, and he got sick and disoriented, but not for long—in, like, no time at all his brain sorted out the images, flipping everything he saw the other way round, so he could wear the upside-down glasses and the world would look right side up. Your brain is amazing, Mom told me. It can do anything!

  I must have been thinking of this when I fell asleep.

  The world didn’t look upside down anymore. The floor was under me, and the ceiling was over me. I didn’t feel sick either. Not a bit. I stroked Casey. He went to sleep and I waited for the next part of the dream. The numbers on my bedside clock ticked over, 5:10, 5:11. Casey slept, and I sat on the floor of my room, and nothing happened. I was happy but puzzled too. You know how dreams work. You’re flying, and then you’re eating pizza, and then you’re in a cave, and then you’re in the bathtub wearing shoes, and then you’re kissing Velma Dudding. What I mean is that dreams move fast. So as I sat here in my room with my dog, and nothing happened, I got to wondering what kind of dream this was.

  I heard voices outside my room. One of them was Mom’s.

  “There you are,” she said. “Izzy told me you were sick.”

  “Nope, I’m good,” said the second voice. “But thanks for asking.”

  “I was just coming up to your room to check on you.”

  “That’s real nice of you. But I’m feeling fine.”

  “Okay then. Love you, goofy boy!” said Mom with a chuckle.

  “Love you too!”

  My door handle turned and there he was. I hadn’t recognized his voice, but I sure recognized him. I scrambled to my feet. We stared at each other. I don’t know which of us was more surprised. Me, or me.

  —

  Yeah.

  I might as well have been staring in a mirror. We were identical. Height and build and hair and eyes. I have a little thing on my chin—a mole. Him too. My hair won’t stay straight and flops over my face. His too. I have a—well, all the things I have, he did too. I didn’t own a gray hoodie like the one he was wearing, but I could have. It’s my kind of thing to wear. I had one a couple of years ago.

  He recovered quicker than me. He blinked and then broke out a big smile. I was trying to fit puzzle pieces together. “You know, you look just like me!” he said. “Are you my long-lost twin? Or are you me from another time? Is that it? Are you from the future? Is there time travel, and you’ve come back to visit? No, wait—you look the same age as me. You can’t be future me unless they’re going to invent time travel next month or something. So are you, like, my son from the future? Maybe that’s it. They cloned some DNA of mine a hundred years from now, and you’re the result. Gee, do they still wear sweatshirts in the future? And what are you doing in my room, patting my dog?”

  “My dog!”

  The words popped out. I didn’t mean to be so loud. “My dog,” I said again, quieter. Casey wagged his tail in his sleep.

  I was sure I’d wake up now, but I didn’t.

  The boy asked me my name.

  “Fred.”

  “Short for Frederick?”

  I nodded.

  “Frederick Berdit?”

  I nodded again.

  “Me too,” he said.

  —

  We compared. We were both named Frederick Melvin Berdit, both with birthdays on May 21. Both in sixth grade. Both living at the same address on Wright Avenue in Toronto, Canada. Both with a sister named Izzy and no brothers, and a dog named Casey—only mine was dead.

  We stood back-to-back and felt the tops of our heads. We were the same height. We compared arm length and shoe size. Exactly the same.

  “So you’re not from the future,” he said. “Too bad. That would have been cool. Mind you, this is pretty cool too. You’re some kind of identical twin, eh?”

  I didn’t know. I didn’t know at all.

  “The only difference is that you’re Fred, and I’m Freddie.”

  “That’s what Izzy called me,” I said. “She thought I was you.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You are me. I am you. Yeah.” He nodded, snapping his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it. That must be it.” Talking even faster now. “Don’t you get it, Fred? You’re me from another world. A parallel place. This is so cool. Don’t you think it’s cool? Don’t you? Hi there, Fred. Hi there, me. Great to meet you!”

  He reached out and put his arms around me. He hugged me. I am not a hugger. I patted him on the shoulder.

  “Parallel?” I said.

  “Doesn’t it make sense to you? We’re identical and yet different. You’re wearing a blue shirt. Your jeans are wet at the bottom.”

  I looked down.

  “And you don’t talk much,” he said. “People say I talk all the time, they’re always telling me to quiet down, but you hardly open your mouth. See? Like right there if I had been you, I would have said something. But you just stared at me like a fish. Ha ha, just kidding. You don’t look like a fish. I mean, no more than I do. This is great! You’re not me, but you’re just like me. So I figure you must have come through some kind of portal and ended up here. You hear about parallel universes all the time, and that’s what always happens. Someone finds a portal.”

  Casey stirred in his sleep. I went over and patted him. He smelled like himself. My dog.

  “This could be a dream,” I said.

  “Huh? I don’t see how we could both be dreaming the same dream at the…Oh,” he said. “You mean that I would be part of your dream. That I wouldn’t be real.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh. Yeah. Me not being real. Ha ha. That’s kind of neat. How about it? Nah, I’m real. What about you, though? How do you know you’re real?”

  He came over and tickled me under the ribs.

  “Does that feel real, Fred?” he said. “Or like a dream? Am I real? Am I?”

  I pushed him away. “Stop!” I said. “Stop, Freddie!”

  “Okay then,” he said.

  This made me jump. I say that too. Okay then.

  “If it was a dream, would it be a good dream or a bad dream?” he said.

  And now, darn it, I started to cry.

  —

  Not a gulp or a boo hoo, no noise at all, just suddenly there were all these tears. He asked what was wrong. And I explained everything to him—falling, climbing out of the drain and finding everything was upside down, going home. And finding Casey.

  “I knew it!” he said, pounding his fist into his palm. “I was right! Another world. An upside-down world! Wow!”

  He took a deep breath. “And Casey’s dead? In your world?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Man, that’s awful! But look, Fred.” His eyes were bright as buttons. “Isn’t it great that you found Casey here? I mean, this is real. But it’s like living inside a good dream. Right?”

  Casey rolled over so I could give him a tummy rub. He didn’t feel like a dream. Or smell like one. What Freddie said made sense. Well, sense is the wrong word, but you know what I mean.

  “So you lucked onto this drain, this…portal to an upside-down world!” he said.

  “I
was looking down,” I said. “And there was this flash of light.”

  “That is so cool!” He waved his hands around. “And you didn’t end up in Wonderland, or Oz or Narnia. You ended up back home. Way cooler! And is your place really just like this one, Fred? Do you have streetcars on Roncesvalles, and Kraft Dinner, and dragons, and Blue Banana jeans, and a science project with Velma?”

  I looked up from rubbing Casey. “Velma Dudding?” I said.

  “Yeah. Do you know her too? Are you in class with her? Miss Pullteeth’s class, 6D? Velma and I are doing the water cycle together. Are you?”

  “We don’t start the water cycle til next week,” I said. “But the rest is the same.”

  Velma sat in front of me. She had dark hair, startling eyes and bra straps I could see through her white shirts. I could never think of anything to say to her. I wondered if I’d get picked to work with her. A science project with Velma? Wow.

  “What do you mean by dragons?” I said. “Is that your basketball team? Ours is the Raptors.”

  “Ours too,” he said.

  Before he could say anything more, we heard a knock on the door.

  “Freddie?”

  Mom’s voice.

  He put a finger to his lips.

  “What’s up, honey?” Mom called through the door.

  We stared at each other. This was a secret and Mom was a grown-up. Don’t tell is an imprinted code, part of kid DNA. The door handle turned. Freddie pointed under the bed and I dove. I trusted him—after all, he was me. Also because he was such a take-charge person.

  “Come on in!” he called.

  I heard the door open. I turned my head and saw my mom’s running shoes. Same as the ones she wears at home.

  “I made you a cup of tea,” she said.

  “Aw, Mom! You’re the best. Thanks!”

  “Yes I am!” she said with the second chuckle I’d heard from her. Which was two chuckles more than I’d heard from my mom in I didn’t know how long.

  “Coming upstairs just now I heard you talking to yourself,” she said. “What was that about?”

  “To myself?” he said. “Yeah, that’s what I was doing, all right.”

  “There was something about dragons. Did you see one?”

  “No, no. Just talking out loud and then answering myself. Conversation, you know?”

  “You are a goof!” she said. “A real goof. Where do you get that from?”

  “I wonder,” he said, and they laughed together.

  —

  “So Mom heard us talking,” I said. “But why did she think it was just you? I don’t sound like you.”

  “Ever hear a recording of yourself, Fred? I have. I didn’t recognize myself at all. You don’t realize what you sound like to other people.”

  He slurped. His mug had a picture of a dog on it. Maybe he was right. Izzy hadn’t said anything about me not sounding like myself. I sat back down on the bed.

  “That’s my favorite mug,” I said.

  “So you have a room just like this?” he said. “Dresser from a lawn sale?” I nodded. “Poster of Yosemite Sam? Clock radio?”

  I nodded. The clock said 5:30. That reminded me. “I have to go,” I said. “My piano lesson is over. Mom will wonder where I am.”

  —

  The more I talked to Freddie, the more I believed this was really happening, and that I’d have to go home. I also still kind of thought it was a dream. I don’t know how you can hold both ideas at once—real and not real—but I did.

  “I don’t take piano anymore,” he said. “I tried it for a while, but I didn’t like it, so Mom said I could quit.”

  Gee, I thought. Why couldn’t my mom let me quit? Come to think of it, why couldn’t she worry less and laugh more? Why couldn’t she be more like this mom?

  I bent down to hug Casey again. I didn’t want to leave him. But if this was really another world, and not a dream, then maybe—maybe—just maybe I’d see him again. I sure hoped so.

  Freddie was thinking the same thing. “You’ll come back, won’t you?” he said.

  “Could I?”

  “Yeah! Please! Anytime, man!”

  What a friendly guy he was. Probably friendlier than me.

  “Okay then!” I said.

  —

  He gave me a green hoodie to wear, and I hooded up in case anyone saw me. We snuck downstairs, him leading the way. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, he motioned me past him into the front hall.

  “Bye, Mom!” he called into the kitchen. “I’m taking Casey outside to poop.”

  My mom didn’t usually laugh at stuff like this, but Freddie’s did.

  I ducked out the front door holding Casey’s leash. Freddie ran after me, calling for me to slow down. Took him a block to catch up. I hadn’t realized I was walking so fast. I crossed the street, like I always do. Freddie asked where I was going.

  “The vacant lot is on this side,” he said.

  “I know, but Lisa Wu’s house is on that side too.”

  “Lisa from Chicago?” said Freddie. “Moved last year? The strong one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s nice, eh? Did she invite everyone at your lunch table over to her place on her first day at school?”

  “No,” I said.

  “There was cake and everything. She gave me a corner piece, because I live nearby. Have you ever been to her place?”

  “No,” I said again.

  Lisa did come to our lunch table, all right, and promised to beat up anyone walking on her sidewalk. I know you live down the street, she told me with a glare. Then she picked up a corner of the table and let it crash to the floor, spilling my sandwich.

  “She hates me,” I said.

  Freddie looked confused at this. Seemed that his Lisa was nicer than mine. Funny, her house had the same missing bit from the chimney.

  —

  We found the open drain without any trouble. “So this is the place,” he said. “And there’s one just like this in your world?”

  “Yeah. Right here too, at the side of the park.”

  The sun was behind the apartment buildings. I shivered when I took off Freddie’s hoodie. Casey stood beside me. I got down on my knees and gave him a big hug. My dog. He licked my face. My dog. I told him I’d see him tomorrow.

  “If that’s okay with you?” I asked Freddie.

  “You bet! Didn’t I say so? Come anytime!” He grinned.

  A silver airplane sailed across the sky.

  “Okay then,” I said to Freddie.

  “Okay then.”

  I started down the ladder. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the airplane bank to turn, and I saw that its wings were curved and pointed, that it seemed to have four legs and a long tail. Then it was out of sight. Weird, I thought, just before I stepped off the bottom rung of the ladder. Next thing I knew I was in total darkness, with nothing under my feet.

  Going somewhere for the first time, say your aunt’s new apartment across town, takes forever, because you’ve never been before and you don’t recognize anything. But going back is faster. And that’s how it was for me, falling back home. It hardly seemed to take any time at all before I landed, bump, at the bottom of the drain, with Casey’s ball beside me.

  I scrambled to my feet and climbed back up the ladder. It was raining. My backpack and hockey stick were beside the drain. I levered the grate most of the way back, leaving it open so I wouldn’t need the stick next time.

  There was so much to think about. Casey, alive and well. A brand-new world with another me in it. Casey.

  I ran home, tossed my hockey stick back under the porch and paused a minute to catch my breath before opening the front door.

  “There you are, Fred! Finally!” Mom leaned against the kitchen counter with a wooden spoon and an expression of relief. “It’s almost six; I was getting worried about you. Did you take the long way home from Miss Lea’s?”

  “Uh, yes,” I said.

  I didn�
�t tell my mom about the other world. You don’t, do you? You don’t tell your folks about weird cool things that happen to you. First, because maybe you should have been doing something else, like going to your piano lesson. And then, because if you tell them, they won’t understand, and they’ll ask questions you can’t answer, and they probably won’t let you do it again.

  Also, Freddie hadn’t told his mom about me, had he? You just don’t do it.

  “Fred, you’re soaked,” Mom said to me. “Look at your pants; they’re wet up to the knee. And your hands are filthy. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I remembered what Freddie had said. “You bet,” I said. “But thanks for asking.”

  She stared at me. “Well, dinner is almost ready, honey. Why don’t you change and then come and set the table?”

  “Sure, Mom.” I ran upstairs.

  Izzy was in the bathroom, drying her face. She knew right away that something was different about me.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, you were smiling. What’s going on? What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “See, there it is again. What happened to you, Fred?”

  She patted her cheek, staring at herself in the mirror.

  I was not going to tell her about upside-down world either. She might pass it on to Mom. And she for sure wouldn’t believe me. I did not want to hear her go on and on about her crazy little brother.

  “None of your business.”

  —

  I laid out knives and forks and napkins and glasses.

  “What’s that you’re humming, Fred?”

  “Huh?” I didn’t know I was humming anything.

  “Sounds like you’re feeling, well, better,” Mom said.

  I was going to say, better than what? But I knew what she meant.

  “You know, I do feel better.”

  “Really? Do you mean it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I knew it,” said Izzy. “Something happened to him.”

  “No it didn’t,” I insisted.

  Mom put her head on one side to look at me. Her mouth puckered up. I thought she was going to cry, but she didn’t.