DupliKate by Cherry Cheva Read Free Book Online

you. And it would definitely be weird. I’m just glad you didn’t talk to Anne long enough for her to think something was up.” At least, I fervently hoped that was the case. Anne’s round, angelic face concealed a penchant for casually messing with my head. It’s generally a minor annoyance, and anyone who even noticed would’ve thought it was just teasing, but the last thing I needed was for Rina to provide her with more material. I opened a dusty cardboard box, fighting not to sneeze.
    “I could go out in disguise,” Rina offered. “I could dye my hair! What do you think we’d look like blond?” She looked at herself in the mirror on the inside of my closet door and started messing around with her hair, taking out the pigtails and putting it in different styles—a ponytail, a side ponytail, and a messy bun, before giving up and letting the waves hang loose.
    “Terrible,” I told her. “I tried it sophomore year and trust me, it doesn’t work; our hair is too dark forit to actually look good, and it’s not right for our skin tone.”
    Whoa, I’d just said “our hair” and “our skin tone” as if it were perfectly normal for someone else with my exact hair and skin tone to be sitting in the room with me. I shook my head and gave myself five minutes to finish looking for the disk. A giant, tangled pile of cords and cables later, I had searched my entire closet. Still no SimuLife. Of course.
    Fine, I’d buy a new one. Rina was now giving herself a rather messy manicure with the same color she’d used on her toes. I felt her pain; I can never paint my own nails without basically covering my entire fingertips with polish either. I took advantage of her silence to go back to the computer and google SimuLife. I scanned the results of the search. Online simulation game…never really got popular…discontinued three years ago. Okay, so much for going to the store and buying it. I trolled eBay. Nothing. I checked Craigslist. Nothing.
    “All right, look,” I said to Rina. She looked up. “The next couple weeks are really important to me. Like, really important. I’ve got finals, the SATs, my Yale visit and interview, and I still have to write my application essay, so…obviously you can stay here for now, but—”
    “Yay! Thank you!” She made a move like she was going to jump up and hug me, but then realized she had a nailpolish brush in her hand that was about to drip onto the carpet. She hastily put the brush back in the bottle.
    “But,” I continued, “you’ve gotta lie low, okay? I mean, obviously we’re gonna have to do something about you eventually, but I just don’t have time to deal with it right now. So we’ll figure it out in a few weeks, okay?” I couldn’t believe I was letting a virtual stranger move into my bedroom with me, but I couldn’t think of another solution.
    “Okay!” Rina said enthusiastically, waving her hands around to dry her nails.
    A door opened downstairs. “Hello?” my mom called. Oh wow, she was home early.
    “Hey Mom!” I yelled down, and then hissed at Rina, “Go in the closet.”
    “What?” she asked.
    “Shhh! She’s probably on her way upstairs, so—” We heard the stairs creak and I grabbed Rina by the elbow, shoved her into the closet, and closed the door.
    “Hey,” I said to my mom as she approached, amazing myself with how casual I sounded. I leaned back against the closet door, bracing my feet on the floor in case Rina did something stupid.
    “Hey,” she said, poking her head around the edge of my door frame. “I had a client dinner but she bailed because her kid got sick. Thank God, right? That she bailed, not thesick-kid thing.” She took off her glasses and stashed them in her purse. “So…dinner?” she asked. “You and me? Are you okay just ordering something?”
    “Aren’t I always?” I asked, smiling.
    “I raised my daughter right,” she said, smiling back and reaching up to rub her neck with one hand, then slowly