New Twin Brother

Right after my 10th birthday my parents gave me the news. I was going to have a brother. But not just any brother, I was going to have a twin brother. Dad said this was a very good thing. It meant I had come out all good and they could have more children. They asked me to not tell anybody about it, specially to Tiff.

Tiffany Johnson was my friend last summer and we used to play together. We had the full summer off and we used to run to the creek behind our houses and throw stones to the runaway drones.

I really liked Tiff. She was shorter and she wasn’t very good at catching drones but we had fun together anyways. She used to stutter all funny. Specially when she got nervous chasing a robot. “Co-co-co-come-here!” I thought it was funny.

I can knock down a drone down with one stone. Tiff had never hit a drone so one day I took one down and had her believe it was her rock that hit it. She was so excited she couldn’t stop stuttering. “I hi-hi-hit the dro-dro-dro-drone!” She went home running to tell her parents.

That was the last day we played together and the last day I saw her. A few days later her parents came to visit. The grownups went inside the guest room. When they came out her mother looked at me for a long time. After they left my mom came to me and told me Tiff wouldn’t be playing with me anymore. She said Tiff was a try-out that hadn’t work out. I don’t know what a “try-out” is. They also said I had nothing to worry about and that I was a good boy and I was safe. Safe from what I don’t know.

A few weeks later, after my 10th birthday, my mother said I would have a twin brother soon. She said because I’ve proven to be a good boy, we were having a brother. Except this time she didn’t say “brother”, she said “clone”.

I heard my mom say the Johnsons are having another baby. She told my dad that they are trying again but she doesn’t think it’s gonna work out for them this time either. Work out what, I don’t know.