"Replica03 - Another Amy - Kaye, Marilyn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kaye Marilyn)

Marilyn Kaye: Another Amy (Replica #3)


1

At Parkside Middle School, the noise level in the halls was deafening: The last bell of the day was still ringing, students were yelling, locker doors were slamming, and three hundred pairs of feet were racing to the exit. Despite all this, Amy Candler was able to hear Tasha Morgan call to her from the other end of the hall.
She looked up. Tasha was pretty far away, but Amy could read the expression on her best friend's face. Something was up.
When Tasha came close enough to hear her, Amy asked, "What's going on? Aren't you going to gymnastics today?"
Tasha nodded, but Amy knew that the smile on her face had nothing to do with vaults and uneven parallel bars. "I had to see you before I left. Guess what?"
Amy rolled her eyes. Why did people ask you to "guess what" when you had no idea what they were talking about? She might have certain special abilities and skills, but mind reading wasn't one of them. Still, she made a stab at a guess. "You've gone up another bra size."
Now it was Tasha's turn to do some eye rolling. "No."
"Okay, what?"
"I'm going to be a newspaper reporter."
Amy's brow furrowed. "For the Snooze?" She was referring to the school's weekly newspaper, and she couldn't understand why Tasha would be excited about that. Anyone could write for the Snooze, and no one wanted toЧit was the most boring newspaper on earth.
"No! For the Journal!"
Amy was impressed. "The Journal? The paper we get at home? Wow, that's a real newspaper."
Tasha nodded happily. "I'm the new Parkside Middle School contributor. Actually, I'm the first. The paper just started a program where they have a reporter from each school in the district. My English teacher recommended me."
"Cool," Amy said. "That's great, Tasha, congratulations." She knew this had to be a big deal, and she would have hugged Tasha, but that wasn't cool. It certainly wasn't the kind of thing you did in a crowded school hallway. Not that Amy was concerned with being cool, but she wasn't in the habit of calling attention to herself. "What are you going to write about?" she asked.
The joy on Tasha's face faded a little. "I don't know. Coming up with something interesting is going to be the challenge."
"What about the cheerleading tryouts this month? You could cover that."
"I guess," Tasha said without enthusiasm. "But that's the kind of thing the other school reporters will write about. I want to write something different, something that makes a splash."
"You could interview the new gym teacher," Amy suggested. "Wasn't he on an Olympic track team?"
"Yeah, about a hundred years ago, and he fell in the first lap. That's why he's a gym teacher." Tasha cocked her head thoughtfully. "But an interview . . . that's not a bad idea. If I could think of someone really interesting, someone different, someone who's not like anyone else . . ." She gazed up at the ceiling with a very innocent, thoughtful expression.
Amy's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Someone like who?"
"Oh, maybe a twelve-year-old girl with exceptional powers. A girl who's recently discovered that she's a"ЧTasha lowered her voiceЧ"human clone. What makes her different from other people, how she feels about herself. Now, that could be an absolutely awesome interview."
"Maybe," Amy said. "But not for me." She wasn't alarmed at Tasha's hints. She knew she could trust her.
"I was just kidding. You don't have to worry, your secret is safe with me. I'll never tell anyone," Tasha vowed, as if to assure Amy that her faith was justified.
"I know," Amy said. "That's why I told you."
"And I should have been the only person you told," Tasha remarked. "I still don't understand why Eric has to know. And you told him first! I can't believe you did that."
"Get over it," Amy said cheerfully. She knew Tasha wasn't happy about sharing Amy's secret with her brother, but there wasn't anything Amy could do about that. And Tasha knew perfectly well why Eric had learned about the secret first. "Good grief, Tasha, some creep was chasing me. We were in danger! I couldn't make Eric run for his life without telling him why!"
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Tasha said grudgingly. "He was just there. It's not like you planned to tell him first."
"Of course not," Amy assured her. Not that she minded sharing her secret with Tasha's older brother. She'd harbored a secret crush on him for agesЧand lately she'd begun to think that the feeling just might be mutual. He'd started catching up with her and Tasha on their walk to school most mornings. He usually passed her locker on his way out of school, and sometimes he walked home with them, too, if he didn't have basketball or track practice. She hadn't seen him today, though.
"Where is Eric, anyway?" she asked, trying not to sound too terribly interested.
"Detention," Tasha told her. "He was late this morning."
"Oh, right." She'd been disappointed when he didn't catch up with her and Tasha on their way to school.
On the other hand, Tasha wasn't at all pleased by the fact that Eric had been hanging out with them. "That's why we actually had some time alone," she said pointedly. Then she snapped her fingers. "I remembered the name of that commercial I saw on TV It was for Sunshine Orange Juice."
"What are you talking about?"
"The commercial with the girl who looks exactly like you. It was during the six-o'clock news on Channel Four."
"Come on, Tasha," Amy groaned. Tasha was seeing Amy clones everywhere lately. The last one had been a face in a blurry newspaper photo of science fair winners, and the only thing she had in common with Amy was her sex and the length of her hair.
"Honestly, Amy, you should watch the Channel Four news tonight; the same commercial might be on. I swear, this girl could be anotherЧ"
"Shhh," Amy hissed. Jeanine Bryant was heading their way.
"Tasha!" Jeanine called. "Hurry up, my mother's out front. We've been waiting for you!" She and Tasha took gymnastics at the same place, and their mothers had organized a car pool, much to Tasha's dismay. She didn't like Jeanine any more than Amy did.
And now that Jeanine saw Amy with Tasha, she wasn't in such a rush to get back to her mother's car. "Did you get your essay back today in English?" she asked Amy.
"Of course," Amy replied. "We all got our essays back. And before you ask, yes, I got an A. I suppose you got an A, too."
"Mmm. But I was wondering if the teacher wrote a note on your paper," Jeanine said casually.
"You mean like 'very good'?"
Jeanine smiled in her most annoyingly triumphant way. "Mine said 'excellent.' Come on, Tasha."
Tasha paused to offer Amy an apologetic shrug before running after Jeanine toward the exit. Watching them leave, Amy had no desire to go with them, but she still felt a little abandoned. Up until a few months ago, she had taken gymnastics, too. Then her special talents had kicked in. She could suddenly do complicated, twisting back flips on the balance beam and uneven parallel bars. And that was just the beginning. . . .
Coach Persky had been so impressed that he'd wanted to start training her for national competition. Her mother had refusedЧin fact, she'd become so alarmed by Amy's extraordinary talent that she'd made her daughter quit. Becoming a world-class gymnast was the kind of publicity Amy didn't need.
The crowd in the hall had thinned out considerably. Amy had nothing else to do at school, but she didn't hurry to leave. Instead, she walked in the opposite direction, toward the administrative offices. She'd never had detention herself, but she knew that the unfortunate ones who did had to sign in at the principal's office before they went to the cafeteria-jail, and they had to sign out when they left. She just hoped Eric had only been sentenced to the minimum of twenty minutes.