DISCLAIMER: I don't own Lizzie McGuire or any related characters or concepts. I don't own Microsoft, either, but if I did I'd make sure their software didn't suck.

"All right," thought Lizzie. "Here I am in a strangely-changed mall, and my friends are missing, and I'm being mistaken for some celebrity named Hilary who seems to star in a show that's all about me, but which I somehow have never heard of before; and now I'm talking to some girl who's been watching me for years. A stalker? No, if I'm on TV, then there must be lots of people who have been watching me… how come I've never found that channel myself? Am I like that guy in The Truman Show who found out that his whole life was a TV show?"

"Are you all right, Hilary? You seem to be spacing out again," said Kendra.

"Please call me Lizzie."

"OK, Lizzie," said Kendra, humoring her. "Are you all right, Lizzie?"

"No, I'm not all right! Everything's all weirded out, and I don't have a clue what's going on! Maybe you can help. First, can you please explain who this Hilary person is?"

"Why, everybody knows about Hilary! You're… I mean she's… a big star on TV, movies, and music. Everybody loves her… well, except for the haters… she did a song about them. She's in all of the teen magazines every month."

"I'd like to see some of those magazines," said Lizzie.

"Let's go look now… there's a book store over there, and I'm sure it's got some of them."

They went into the store, and Kendra pointed Lizzie to issues of Tiger Beat, 16, Teen People, and others, all with Hilary on the cover. Lizzie read the articles and looked at the pinup pictures.

"Very odd… I subscribe to some of those magazines myself, and didn't see any of those articles when I read them before! Well, she does look just like me, but the way she acts isn't quite the same… her personality is kind of similar to mine sometimes, but she also gets into some fights that I would never do. Those magazines say that she's feuding with Lindsay Lohan and Avril Levine… that's not like me. I like Avril Levine… her music, anyway… haven't actually met her. And I've seen some of Lindsay's movies and liked them too… The Parent Trap was one of my favorites back when it came out. Gordo said he preferred the classic 1961 version with Hayley Mills, but he always seems to like all that weird old stuff. Right now I can really relate to the whole 'having a twin sister I've never met' thing."

They were back out in the mall, with Lizzie still not sure what was going on, and Kendra not sure what to make of the girl she still thought was Hilary Duff, but who seemed to have gone insane or something. Then, Lizzie spotted some of the kids that had crowded around her earlier; they were headed down the mall towards her, and she thought they were likely to see her soon and start mobbing her again.

"Hey… can you help me get away from those people before they see me?", asked Lizzie.

"Sure," replied Kendra. "I used to work in this mall, and I know all the back corridors."

They ducked into a service corridor, and out the exit. The parking lot looked just as unfamiliar to Lizzie as the inside of the mall. It was laid out all different, and Lizzie doubted that she'd find her car there. It was a very distinctive-looking car; her dad had given her his old car when she got her license, and it still bore the colorful paint job applied by Matt in his "artist" phase. Sam bought a new car then (fortunately, he had just gotten a big raise at work) and ordered Matt to "Don't even think about painting this one!" All Matt was thinking about, however, was what sort of car he would get when he got his own license, but Sam and Jo were glad there were still a few years before they'd have to tackle that one. Anyway, it seemed unlikely that the car was parked where Lizzie left it, particularly since that spot didn't even exist; she thought it was probably right about where a palm tree was planted now.

"I'm not really sure where I want to go now, but I want to get away from here!", said Lizzie.

"How about coming over to my place?", said Kendra. "My mom is out of town and I have the house to myself. We can order pizza!"

"Yeah, OK…", replied Lizzie, not all that happy with going anywhere with a strange girl who still might be a stalker, but not thinking of any other good options.

They got into Kendra's car (a 1997 Toyota Corolla) and headed away from the mall. None of the streets or houses looked familiar to Lizzie. They seemed to be heading in the general direction of Lizzie's house, or at least what would have been the right direction if the mall were still the one she was familiar with, but none of the neighborhoods looked like they were supposed to. The whole town didn't even seem anything like Hillridge. But it was strange… the natural features, like the mountains in the distance, looked the same as they did in the places that Lizzie was familiar with. It was just the manmade stuff, like buildings and roads, that were changed. So just where was she?

"I think I'm starting to figure out what's happening," said Lizzie. "I hope you don't think this sounds too weird, but I think I'm in a different world. It's like in a book I read once, where some kids found an old wardrobe and went through it, finding themselves in a strange place that had talking animals, and a witch, and stuff. I must have gone through some kind of gateway, and I'm not in the real world any more."

"That's crazy," said Kendra, "this is the real world! There aren't any talking animals here… well, except for parrots. And I don't think there are witches, except on Halloween. Well, the Wiccans call themselves witches, but they're not like the ones in books and stuff."

"You would think that your world is the real one; everybody does. Now, I wish that I was paying more attention when Larry Tudgeman was lecturing me all about that sort of thing! He's a kind of nerdy guy I go to school with…"

"Yes, I know who Larry Tudgeman is… I've seen all the episodes lots of times, including the one where you went on a date with him!"

"Ummm… right… OK, I did date him once, and even enjoyed it, but the two of us just weren't meant for one another. But one day Miranda and Gordo were both sick… some kind of bug going around the school… and Kate and Ethan were dating… they've been on again, off again through high school… and I didn't want to get in their way by asking to sit next to them at lunch. So I ended up sitting with Tudgeman. Big mistake, or so I thought… he just wouldn't stop talking, and about all the weirdest stuff! I thought Gordo liked to talk about strange things, but he has nothing on Larry! First, he was going on about comic books. Like, I stopped reading those things around sixth grade, but he was all about the 'Pre-Crisis DC Universe', whatever that is. He said that there was 'Earth One' and 'Earth Two', different versions of the world where, like, somebody could be a real person on Earth Two but just be a fictional comic book character on Earth One… or was it the other way around? Then he really got strange… he started talking about quantum physics, and the Heisen-something principle, and about experiments with cats that are both living and dead at the same time – PETA needs to protest those quantum physicist guys if they're doing such cruel things to animals – and chaos theory and the Butterfly Effect… well, that one I at least know, it was a movie with Ashton Kutcher… it's so nice to be old enough to go to R-rated movies, finally. Anyway, I'm sure he would know more about parallel worlds and stuff like that."

"My brother's into sci-fi," said Kendra, "but he just left for college. Maybe we can look at some of his books."

They arrived at Kendra's house, a suburban house not that different from Lizzie's. They went up to her room, which had a Hilary Duff poster and a Lizzie McGuire calendar, which Lizzie found weird, though she was starting to get used to it.

"Hey, it's almost time for your show to come up on the Disney Channel! Let's watch it!"

Kendra turned on the TV, and they watched the show. It was the episode where Lizzie took up rhythmic gymnastics.

"OK," said Lizzie, "it's weird that they've got a show on TV that's all about me, but I wish they would at least get the details right… they made several mistakes! Kate's last name is 'Sanders', not 'Saunders', and my school was 'Hillridge', not 'North Hills'. But even worse, the gymnastic routine I really did was nothing like what they showed on TV; the way they showed it broke lots of rhythmic gymnastics rules, like using music with words instead of instrumental music. The judges would never have named me the winner if I did it that way! I may think that sport is dorky, but when I was doing it, I did it right!"

"So," said Kendra, "is there anything you liked about the show?"

"Well, the theme song is kind of catchy."

TO BE CONTINUED