"Did you just almost use me to clean the soccer ball?" Matt asked, albeit with mock anger.

"Eh-at least like you said: at least it isn't poop." Lewis retorted.

"Yeah, but you could have made me lick the garbage off or worse." Matt shivered.

Before Lewis could retort, the Wattersons approached them, and cut in.

Gumball cleared his throat. "Excuse me uh..."

"Name's Matt." Matt introduced. He was followed by the others.

"Walter Waters."

"Ronald."

"Lew-"

"Yeah whatever. I know some of your names." Gumball said, "We're just gonna go straight to the point: have-"

"Hey, what's going on guys!?" Once again, they were interrupted. This time, it was Sticky.

"Nothing much" Matt replied, "except these guys have our attention."

The stickman went to their table. He stopped by, and was about to say something again only to be surprised, and silenced by the Watterson's presence.

Gumball didn't mind him, but did keep an eye on him. "Moving on, have any of you seen Clayton?"

"For those who don't know-" Darwin continued, "he's colored red, pink-purple lips, large eyes and bounces around. Also he can be such a liar and can also shape-shift…"

Then the blue cat leaned forward on Matt and his friends, casting a cold shadow over them. For a while, Sticky literally froze. "…and could be by some chance disguised as one of you guys."

Matt the doormat did know Clayton, but only by appearance and name. He still didn't know what the clay pile was capable of, nor did he believe he could actually shape-shift. "Noooooo…? Not so familiar with him. But yeah, I think I saw him or at least someone like him yesterday."

"Well, if it counts-" the teapot clinked, "my middle name is Clayton."

The brothers eyed him with suspicion. This made the clay teapot uncomfortable. "…just a middle name."

"Oh, okay." Darwin said cheerily, to ease up Ronald. Gumball remained extremely attentive.

"Why are you looking for him anyway?" Walter wondered.

The cat scrunched his eyebrows so much, he cracked them like knuckles. "Because we've got business with him."

"Sorry, but we'd rather not tell." Darwin added once more.

The stickman seemed to regain his composure, and was smiling again. "If you don't mind…I'll be going."

"Yeah, wait." Gumball blocked Sticky's path. "Just one more thing: we want you all to prove that you aren't Clayton in disguise."

Matt shrugged. "We told you, we haven't seen Clayton anywhere lately. Plus how are we supposed to do that?"

"Try morphing." Darwin, the legged fish suggested.

Matt strained himself, and attempted to morph. He put so much strain that much of his cloth "fur" came off. "Whoa!" The bald doormat put pressure again, and grew another coat of tangly skin, slightly softer than his last coat. "Well, there you go."

Before anyone could respond, they were then interrupted once more, this time by Teri's scream.

"You need to get cleaned up, otherwise you'll get sick and infected!" The voice of the paper girl said from a distance.

Turning to her direction, they saw a stickman emerge from the school building. He was running from Teri as she chased him with a bottle of orange scented disinfectant.


"Ah! Stop!" The second Sticky pleaded. "First you punched me away, then you spray me with orange scent!? I'm allergic to oranges even if it's just their scent!"

Ronald, Walter, the first Sticky, Lewis, Darwin and Gumball all watched as the paper bear chased the stickman around.

"What the…?" Lewis gaped.

"…bacon…" Matt continued.

Ronald strained his eyes. "…lettuce…"

"…and tomato sandwich!" The first Sticky added somewhat cheerily.

They all looked past the second stickman, and the paper bear at a BLT advertisement poster.

"What are you looking at?" The BLT poster said to them.

"What? Never seen that flyer before?" Darwin asked.

Lewis nodded. "I'm kinda new here."

Eventually, the second stickman came running to the group with Teri on his trail. "Please! If it helps I'll just stop and avoid you forever as long as it makes you happy!"

"Hold still!" The paper bear tackled Sticky, and sprayed his face with air freshener and disinfectant.

"Well Sticky! At least she cares about your hygiene." Matt remarked cheerily.

"I can't breathe! Too much…orange scent!" The second Sticky coughed.

The first Sticky backed away, also coughing slightly from the orange scent. Matt snickered at him. But then he noticed something off, and stopped snickering. 'Why didn't he realize it sooner?' he thought.

Gumball noticed the two Stickys. "Wait a minute, do you have a twin?" He asked the first.

"Err…nope." The first one answered sheepishly.

The second Sticky fell down on the ground as Teri sprayed him up. Then she only stopped when the second Sticky went limp and still, after he was was sprayed and cleansed thoroughly. He shined and glimmered, showing that he was indeed squeaky clean with
disinfectant.

The Wattersons, Lewis, Matt, Walter, Ronald and Teri finally completely grasped that there were two Stickys.


"Um..." Everyone wondered in unison.

Lewis pointed at one of the Stickys, and shouted, "Doppelgänger!"

"I knew I shouldn't have eaten those dates." Matt muttered.

Lewis grabbed a rock-hard bagel, and was about to beat up the unconscious Sticky with it when he was stopped by Walter.

"Wait a minute! That's no doppelgänger" Walter the watermelon said, "it's…"

The blue cat stepped forward to both the unconscious, and conscious Sticky. He rubbed his paws with glee. "Well well well, if it isn't obviously Clayton! Or at least one of you is."

The first Sticky was taken aback. He yelled at his copy in disbelief. "How dare you copy me-and-and try to replace me in society!"

The unconscious Sticky started to come to. He looked at the paper bear with a sad apologetic smile. It seemed like he wasn't even aware of his twin. "Teri…"

Teri was uncertain. "What?"

"…If it bugs you too much…I'll just leave you alone. Forever..." And with that, he fainted again.

Teri seemed a bit confused. "What is he talking about?"

Matt spoke up for the second Sticky. "Well what he-who could be either Clayton or my battered friend-is trying to say is-"

"He was asking you out in the schoolyard this lunch, don't you remember?" Walter explained, "But then he thinks you dislike him or something since you kept disappearing before he could talk to you…or something. By the looks of it, he thinks you're trying to repel him."

The paper bear raised a drawn eyebrow. "But…I don't remember him asking me anything. In fact I wasn't even here during lunchtime. I visited the hospital and just arrived minutes ago."

Gumball practically pierced Teri's face with his sharp gaze. "So, that can only mean that Clayton must be-"

Everyone turned to the second Sticky. He was lying on the ground peacefully with his mouth wide open.

Walter thought for a while. "But then he couldn't have lied about going to Teri. Teri was surely here during lunchtime…"

Darwin agreed. "I'm pretty sure I saw her too."

"Yeah" Gumball deadpanned, "so did I."

Everyone turned to Teri. The bear stared around, and finally grasped the message. "What? You're suspecting me of being Clayton?! If you want proof of my visit to the hospital, take a look at this!"

She handed Walter a medical receipt. The watermelon passed it to Gumball.

Then Teri faced Lewis. "And anyway, I thought you witnessed me leaving the infirmary for the hospital just after recess?"

"I thought you weren't being serious." Lewis raised his paws, and shrugged. "What if you lied for some reason?"

The paper bear gaped with amazement. "Excuse me? And for what particular reason?"

"…I don't know." Hesitantly, he said: "Maybe you just made up the receipt and lied about your visit to the hospital in order to preserve your dignity."

Before Teri could respond, Matt butted in. "Wait a minute! Sticky had mentioned Teri disappearing at times."

"…and?" Lewis and Gumball asked.

"Couldn't that Teri have been Clayton in disguise trying to avoid Sticky?"

Walter nodded. "That could be true…"

"If that's true, we could just ask Teri about what had happened today." Darwin thought.

Teri exhaled almost exasperatedly. "I told you, I was at the hospital."

"Then that's easy." Lewis replied, "All you have to do to prove your innocence is to answer this question: did you hug Sticky?"

Teri seemed disgusted by the very idea. "You mean that disgusting biohazard who was reeking of sickness? Eugh no. And why are you still suspecting me when it's pretty obvious who Clayton could be: there are two of the same people, and only one could be real!"

The liger's face looked as if he was slapped not just in the face, but everywhere on his body. Gumball, Darwin, and Matt showed a similar expression, but with a more gentler expression since Lewis was the one who was mainly pressing the suspicion on Teri. The silent liger quickly regained his face's composure. "Haha right…fair point, and now I kinda feel dumb for suspecting you. Still, that would mean that Clayton disguised himself as Teri during early lunch-"

"-and later morphed into Tammy!" Gumball chimed in.

"You mean Sticky?"

"So two Stickys." The legged fish rubbed his chin, "The unconscious one didn't lie about talking to the fake Teri. He went to the fake Teri, then later fake Teri or Clayton could have knocked him out and replaced him..."

"And I remember the 'Sticky' here who's still conscious waltzed up here…and acted as if he were pretending nothing had happened." The doormat thought.

Then everyone eyed the first Sticky with ferocious question.

"What? Are you accusing me?" The first Sticky asked rather boldly. "I am the real Sticky. For all we could know, the unconscious sticky could have been Clayton from the very start."

"Doubt it. Sticky seemed himself this morning until recess when he became immobile. And then we brought him to the infirmary." Lewis said, his voice now coated with a tone of skepticism.

"Banana Joe did say he saw Clayton in the infirmary after recess." Gumball said.

"But we were with Sticky in the infirmary the whole time and left after recess." Walter responded, "None of us saw Clayton."

Ronald was starting to get dizzy. "Can someone please clear this up? My head is starting to spin." Indeed his cap was spinning around.

"Okay!" Gumball proudly took the lead. It was his (and Darwin's) issue after all. "So-Clayton morphed into Teri knowing that she was going to the hospital. This is even proved by the fact that Banana Joe said he saw Clayton in the infirmary. Then afterwards, 'Teri' or rather Clayton beat up the real Timmy-"

"-Sticky." Lewis corrected.

"-and replaced him." Gumball continued. "Then while me, and Darwin were interrogating you guys, Clayton thought he could blend in inconspicuously, But the original Stevie-"

"STICKY!"

"Whatever, the original Sticky messed up his cover when the real one was being chased by Teri. And here you are right now-Boom! After all this time we have finally caught you!"

Gumball pointed a finger at the first Sticky. Unfortunately the pointed finger landed on empty space.

Sticky number one had disappeared.

Darwin groaned. "Oh man."

"…and we were so close." His feline brother deadpanned.

But not too long later, their attention was caught by the sound of girls screaming, and the sound of a table being flipped over. The girls had been eating lunch at a table when it was turned over.

Lewis thought he could make out a ball of clay amongst the chaos morph into one of the girls. "Over there! I saw him."

"Then lets go!" Gumball gestured for them to come along.

Matt scratched his head. "Oh, actually we're in the middle of a soccer-"

"Just come with us, and help us."


All of them ran to the flipped over table. The girls were fixing up their lunches, and recovering their scattered belongings on the schoolyard ground.

Gumball eyed all of them suspiciously. "Alright Clayton, give it up!"

Masami stopped at this, and raised a cloudy eyebrow. "What? Clayton? Where?"

The cloud looked at Sarah in a peculiar way. "I thought you were practicing with Penny, and Carmen with cheerleading."

"That's because she's no Sarah." Gumball said with a victorious grin. "It's Clayton!"

The cat leapt on Sarah, and Darwin pinned her down. Knowing he stood no more chances, Clayton morphed back into a pile of clay, revealing his true form.

Everyone gasped in surprise, or in relief (relief specifically for Gumball and Darwin since the confusion was surely over).

"Ah! Okay okay! You found me." A defeated Clayton raised his arms.

Gumball held the clay with both his hands. If he had absolutely inherited his mother's lazier vision, Clayton could have been a liquid puddle. "What the buzz man! We were looking all day for you. Why were you hiding from us?"

"Well, I thought you would get mad at me." The clay ball had a worried look on his face. "Then we would lose our friendship."

"Oh of course not!" Gumball rolled his eyes. "Just admit that you lied about me-uh..."

The blue cat looked uneasily around at the crowd, and along with Darwin sidled closer to Clayton. They both whisked Clayton further away from the crowd, and Gumball whispered to the pile of clay.

Ronald hopped to them. "Wha-"

"Privacy please." Gumball said, thrusting the teapot away.

The continued to talk in hushed voices. Lewis perked an ear up but still couldn't hear much. He only heard a handful and thought he could hear Clayton admit something. "Okay. I admit it…"

Before Lewis could get inconspicuously closer, the Wattersons and Clayton hugged. Lewis still held up an ear.

"See it wasn't that bad…but…" Gumball started speaking in harsher hushed tones. He also made as if to crack his knuckles.

Clayton nodded then saluted with a smile and bounced away.

Meanwhile Ronald, Matt, Lewis, Walter, Masami, Teri and the other girls were watching curiously. Gumball and Darwin were about to walk away when they forgot about the large crowd they had attracted by accident.

"What was that all about?" Masami demanded, more than asked.

"Eh-Nothing." The Watterson brothers said together.

The cloud eyed the blue cat with irritation. "Uh whatever. Come on girls, where were we?"

Teri left the boys to join with the girls as they cleaned up the still turned over table.

Lewis approached Gumball. "So what? All that...for just that?"

"Yup." Gumball said, contently folding his arms as if he were a spy who had successfully completed a mission.

"Probably personal business." Walter said to Lewis, "We shouldn't interfere."

Darwin smiled, as satisfied as Gumball. "Exactly."


The bell's ringing had told them that school time was over. Everyone took off from their classrooms and raced down the hallway, collecting their books and bags. The five exited the school, and went walking along the streets to their homes. Sticky and the others were talking about Teri.

The stickman had recovered, and was well in no time. "I don't think I want to ask Teri out anymore. After the way she treated me, she would never like me back."

"At least you tried." Lewis consoled.

Despite his recovery, Sticky remained clueless and uninformed about the fake Teri, his "twin" and the Clayton situation. It had been resolved peacefully with the Watterson brothers, but they didn't really want to tell Sticky much about it.

As Lewis and Sticky chatted on, Matt walked over to Ronald the teapot. While they walked (and hopped, for Ronald's sake), Matt asked, "So have you told Sticky about the whole situation?"

"Nope." The teapot admitted.

"Why not?"

"Because just imagine how he would feel if his efforts were in vain. He would go crazy if he found out he was asking Clayton out the whole time! Anyway it's pretty obvious that Teri doesn't like him, not after he was doused in garbage. It would just break his poor heart if he tried again."

"Haha, maybe. But I guess it's better to tell him soon."

The teapot considered this. "Mhmmm…maybe in 10 years time."


And that's all! Hoped you liked this story, and my thanks to those who reviewed and liked it. By the way, an advanced Merry Christmas to you all. This is Something logging off!