Sometimes I wish I went to the Windsor Academy just for the uniforms. I mean, I practically wear the same thing to school every day anyway—jeans, T-shirt, boots, and an old leather jacket that used to belong to my dad back when he was in his “edgy phase,” as he likes to call it—but it would be nice to have an excuse to wear the same thing every day and not feel like you’re doing it out of basic laziness and a severe allergic reaction to shopping.
My hair goes straight into a side braid, and my books go into my camo-green messenger bag. I grab my interview study guide from my nightstand, where I tossed it last night after I’d stared at the pages for so long the words started to look like they were growing arms and legs.
I check my phone to see if Horace, our design editor at the newspaper, has written me back about the fifteen graphics he still hasn’t gotten around to designing for this month’s issue, but there’s nothing. Typical Horace.
Looks like I’m going to have to spend my entire free period making graphics. Just what I need today: to go to battle with Adobe Illustrator.
There’s also been no word from the school’s IT guy about the error I was getting last night when I tried to upload our files to the school server.
I groan, slip my phone into my bag, and head downstairs where I’m greeted by the delicious smell of chocolate chip waffles. Dad always puts chocolate chips in the waffles on a big day. He thinks it brings good luck. “Nothing bad ever happens when chocolate is in the equation” is his entire theory about life.
I pull out the stool next to Frankie and sit down at the kitchen counter in front of my pile of newspapers. I subscribe to five national papers that I usually skim each morning over breakfast. As editor in chief of the Southwest Star, I think it’s important to keep up to date on what the big-name presses are doing. But today I have to study for my alumni interview, so I push the stack aside as I ask, “Where’s Mom?”
Dad pulls a perfectly formed work of art out of the waffle iron and plops it onto a plate. “She had to go into work early so she could be home in time for the show tonight.”
It’s not unusual for Mom to be gone by the time I get downstairs. She’s a partner at a top law firm, which basically means she works crazy hours making sure large corporations pay for their screwups. Dad has always been the stay-at-home parent for Frankie and me. He built his photography studio right in the basement so he could work from home. He likes to joke that his commute is only thirty seconds and there’s hardly any traffic.
Dad tops the waffle with maple syrup and whipped cream sculpted into some ambiguous shape and sets the plate down in front of me.
I scrutinize the whipped cream. “Hmm,” I say, rotating the plate in a circle. “A giraffe?”
“I was going for ‘Darkened Nature of Sorrow.’”
I snap my fingers. “So close.”
The truth is, I’m way too anxious to eat, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings so I cut a small bite.
Frankie has noise-canceling headphones on over his wild, uncombed hair that’s sticking up in a million directions. He’s hunched over his board game while he shovels forkfuls of syrupy waffles into his mouth.
My dad reaches over the counter and pulls Frankie’s headphones off his ears long enough to remind him to “Chew!”
I peer over to study Frankie’s latest creation. It looks like he’s redrawing the Forest of Relativity again. He’s been working on his theoretical physics board game for almost six months now. It’s called What’s the Matter? and he must have tried to explain the rules to me countless times but I still have no idea how to play. The best I can tell, it’s like Chutes and Ladders except with wormholes and hadron colliders.
Frankie is not a normal eleven-year-old child.
He catches me watching him and yanks his headphones off, turning the board around so I can see his latest work. He’s an incredible artist. He gets that from my dad. “What do you think?” he asks eagerly.
I give him a thumbs-up and pop the minuscule bite of waffle into my mouth.
“Now when you land on a proton space, you don’t have to get a Nucleus card to bypass the Bridge of Dark Matter. You can just cut through the Forest!”
“Oh, thank God,” I tell him while chewing. “I always get stuck on the Bridge of Dark Matter.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s because you never remember to use your Gravity Eraser card.”
“I’ve had that card?”
“Duh. Everyone starts the game with one.”
I slap my forehead. “Now you tell me.”
Frankie will probably never have to worry about getting into a good college. I’m sure MIT will recruit him by the time he’s fourteen.
I, on the other hand, have to work doubly hard for everything.
“Dad,” I say, sliding my interview crib sheet across the counter. “Quiz me.”
Dad is eating his waffles standing up, like always. He sets his plate down and picks up the page. He clears his throat and pulls his face into a serious expression, putting on the pretense of a snooty professor. “Ms. Rhodes,” he begins in an obnoxiously stuffy accent. “Thank you for your interest in Columbia University’s Undergraduate Journalism Program.”
I stifle a giggle. Frankie looks up from the Forest of Relativity, obviously not wanting to miss this farce.
“My first question for you today is,” Dad goes on, “what is your biggest regret in life?”
I take a breath. I know this one. I’ve studied this particular question the most. You see, I did a bunch of research online and gathered all of the popular questions asked in college admission interviews. This one appeared the most.
“My biggest regret,” I begin my scripted answer, “is probably working too hard and not taking enough time for myself. You see, I’m the editor in chief of my high school newspaper, the Southwest Star, and ever since I took over in my freshman year, we’ve managed to win the National Spartan Press Award three years in a row. And although I’m very proud of this accomplishment, success comes at a price and I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of free time to do fun things. But I hear they have this great new invention called television now.”
I let out my rehearsed chuckle at that last part and then exhale in relief. That might have been my best delivery yet. Let’s hope I can do it exactly the same way tomorrow afternoon at the alum’s house.
Dad nods his head approvingly. Even Frankie looks impressed.
“Not bad,” Dad praises, and then remembers his stuffy- professor persona and clears his throat again. “I mean, Well said, Ms. Rhodes. Well said, indeed.”
I beam. “I read that you should always take a question that is meant to focus on a negative and spin it so it focuses on a positive. And you should always put a little humor into each answer.”
Dad slides the paper back to me and transforms into himself again. “You’re going to blow this up. There’s no way you won’t get in.”
“You know,” Frankie begins knowledgeably, “in some other parallel universe, you already got in.”
“How is that possible?” I ask. “If I haven’t even had the interview yet.”
Frankie sets his fork down with a clank and I’m immediately sorry I asked. I can tell by the look on his face, he’s about to get all timey-wimey technical with us. I guess with our family’s DNA, it was too much to ask for a normal little brother who watches cartoons and puts posters of famous jocks on his wall. No, Frankie’s walls are covered with pictures of Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku.
I worry about the kid. I do. How is he ever going to survive middle school next year in one piece?
“You see,” he begins, with the same flair my father had when pretending to be a snooty professor. The only difference is, Frankie’s isn’t an act. “The multiverse theory states that all possible outcomes—infinite potentials—already exist in other dimensions. So when you scheduled the interview for tomorrow, you unknowingly created a parallel universe. Which means that another you could have—and did—schedule the interview for last week. So that version of you has already had your interview and has already been accepted into Columbia.”
I stare at him in bewilderment. “That doesn’t make any sense. Early decision letters for Columbia don’t arrive until December 15. So even if my interview was last week, I still wouldn’t know if I got in for another month.”
Frankie’s face falls. “Oh.” He bites his lip in deep concentration as he thinks this over. Dad and I share a smile as I take a sip of orange juice.
“What else do you need to do before tonight?” I ask Dad.
He unplugs the waffle iron and starts wiping it down. “Not much. Just some last-minute framing. Oh, and if you have time, there’s one more photo downstairs that needs a caption. Mind taking a stab at it?”
“Not at all,” I say, licking my fork. “I’ll take a look before I go.”
Dad got the visual photography skills of the family but he’s terrible with the written word. Thankfully, that’s my forte, so we make a good team. I’ve been writing photo captions for him since I was in elementary school. I think I’ve captioned every single piece that’s going to be in tonight’s exhibit.
I stand up and carry my plate to the sink, trying to hide the barely touched waffle from my dad. But his keen photographer eye notices everything.
“You’re not hungry?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Too much on my mind, I think. It was delicious though!” I pull out the trash compactor drawer, dump in the waffle, and put the plate in the dishwasher. Dad hates dishes left in the sink.
He gives me a disapproving look. “Promise me you’ll eat lunch.”
I draw an imaginary X across my chest. “Promise. What time is the show?”
“It starts at eight.”
I wince. It’s Drop Dead night at the paper, which means it’s the last night before the files are due to the printer, so we work and work and work until we basically drop dead. But I can’t miss Dad’s show. I refuse to. So we’ll just have to work extra hard and extra fast so I can get out on time.
“I might be a few minutes late, but I’ll be there.”
Dad pulls me into a hug and kisses the top of my head. “You do what you have to do.”
“I’ve got it!” Frankie says suddenly, startling both of us.
“You’ve got what?” I ask.
“In a parallel universe, you were born a year earlier, which means you got accepted to Columbia last year and are already there right now!” He grins, looking extremely proud of himself.
“But Mom and Dad weren’t married a year earlier,” I point out.
Frankie slumps back on his stool with a frown. “Huh.” Then a moment later, he says, “I know! In a parallel universe—”
“In a parallel universe,” Dad interrupts, “you’ve already finished your breakfast and brushed your teeth, and done something about that hair.”
Frankie self-consciously pats at his head, pushing down the crazy strands that are sticking up, but they just boing right back.
“I think you’re going to have to take a shower,” Dad tells him.
Frankie groans and stuffs the last bite of waffle into his mouth before pushing off the stool. “In a parallel universe, no one has to take a shower,” he gripes as he trudges up the stairs. “Showers were never even invented!”
“That would be a pretty smelly universe,” I call after him.
“You’re a pretty smelly universe!” he calls back.
I close the dishwasher and am about to kick the trash compactor shut when something under my half-eaten waffle catches my eye. An envelope. It’s covered in sticky syrup and melted whipped cream, but I can still make out the familiar logo in the top left corner.
“Another offer?” I ask Dad, nodding toward the letter. “What’d they promise this time? A fully paid time-share on the moon?”
“A company car of my choice.”
Jeffrey and Associates is an advertising firm that’s been trying to recruit my dad for years. Every few months they send another job offer with even more zeros at the end. But Dad always turns them down.
“I would never work for those corporate, soul-sucking buffoons,” he likes to say with pride. “Your old man is not a sellout. I refuse to let Magnum be used to hawk laundry detergent and cat food. No way. Nohow.”
I snort and close the trash drawer. “Which photo needs the caption?”
Dad sprays the counter with all-purpose cleaner and wipes it down. “It’s the one that looks eerily like varicose veins.”
“Well, there’s your caption right there. ‘Eerily Like Varicose Veins.’”
He stops cleaning and fakes a stroke of inspiration. “Oh yeah! What on earth do I need you for?”