Simon's POV

Letting Alvin listen to music as he studied didn't work either. Surprise surprise. The music was catchy, but even I became distracted by it. I was quickly running out of patience.

I needed to tackle the heart of this dilemma. Alvin didn't believe he could do this. That's one thing that has always been evident about my brother. When Alvin sets his mind to it, he can do anything. The issue lied with convincing Alvin to fully go all in. He's a stubborn child.

The next morning, I whipped the covers off Alvin's bed with a flourish. "Rise and shine, my little protégé." I said in a calm and soothing voice.

Alvin grabbed the blankets and tried to pull them back. "Simon." He groaned. "It's too early for studying."

"Who said anything about studying?" I asked, succeeding in pulling the blankets out of his hands and landing on my behind.

He covered his eyes with his hands.

"It's ALWAYS about studying with you."

"Not this time." I told him with a wide smile. "I got you up early so we can have breakfast in the park with Jeanette. Now, up and ATOM, as you are so fond of saying." I didn't care for that pun, honestly. Alvin liked it though, so I said it to entertain him.

That got him out of bed. He was ready to go in almost no time flat.

Both my brothers, Brittany, Eleanor, and I met in the park next to the tree that the girls' sister had decided to chain herself to. I admired Jeanette's tenacity and willingness to protect the environment, but I thought she had gone too far. Bocarter's dad wasn't going to yield and she couldn't stay chained up in one place for months. Already, she was beginning to look worn down. Her hair was tangled and her nose was red from her allergies. She was wearing the same outfit she'd been wearing for days. The lilac T-shirt that said "ECO GIRL" and had a picture of the earth on it looked like it could use a good wash. The jeans with flowers embroidered on them looked no better. I would never be able to stand doing what she's doing. I make it a priority to shower at least once every day.

Jeanette greeted us all upon our arrival. "Hi! Do you realize it's morning and not after school yet?" She asked, as she attempted to work out in her head why we had joined her.

Theodore stepped forward with a plate of pancakes and what looked like bacon. "I brought you breakfast. Almond milk pancakes and fake-on! That's fake bacon made from plant products." He explained to the vegan Chipette. Ironically, the fake bacon only made me crave the real thing.

"How is it?" I asked, curious about how the faux meat tasted.

Jeanette nibbled it like the delicate creature she is. "Tastes like chicken."

"Huh?" I was confused. That didn't sound right coming from her.

"Oh, uh, I actually wouldn't know because I've never eaten chicken." She explained, noticing that all five of us were puzzled. "It's just...an expression I was told people use when something tastes delicious."

I tilted my head. "...I see."

"I'm saying it's delicious." She clarified, just in case we weren't entirely sure what she meant. We were. She simply wasn't aware we were.

Brittany asked a question that I was thinking about, but wondering if it would be inappropriate to ask. "How much longer are you planning on staying here, sis? We miss you!"

"Why? You can visit me whenever you want." The clueless Chipette replied.

Brittany ate her chocolate peanut butter granola bar and shot Eleanor an annoyed look.

Eleanor stepped up to the tree. She knew she had to explain things further. "It's not the same at home without you. We want you to come home."

Alvin, still looking sleepy, pushed Eleanor out of the way. "Yeah! I get helpin' the tree, but you gotta call it quits at some point before you're bulldozed into the ground!" He told his girlfriend.

"Plus, you have to watch Alvin and Simon in their physics competition thingie!" Theodore added.

Was I a bit peeved that he'd said Alvin's name before mine despite the fact that I was on the team first? Yes. Who wouldn't be? I assumed he was only saying Alvin's name first because Jeanette was closer to him. They shared an inseparable bond….while I couldn't find anyone to truly bond with.

Jeanette looked at Alvin and I could see sadness in her midnight eyes. "I don't want to miss the competition, but I am not leaving this spot until I know this tree is safe."

"Maybe someone can take a video of it for ya." Alvin suggested.

Brittany shook her head. She had finished her breakfast and come up with an idea. "Leave everything to me. I'm sure I can persuade Mr. Humphrey to reconsider."

"What are ya gonna do?" Alvin asked. "Flirt with him?"

"Ewwww! No!" Brittany gagged. "I just have a very convincing presence….and an entire blog that I can use to create an angry mob to go after the Humphries."

"No." I said sternly. "You are NOT sending a mob after anyone."

"It could work." Eleanor offered her opinion on the ludicrous idea. "Protests have been changing laws and getting stuff done for centuries."

"Protests and angry mobs are two completely different things!" I shouted, wondering why I was the only person there with working brain cells.

The pigtailed blonde in the teal and lavender jacket crossed her arms. "Are they, though?"

"There is an awful lot of overlap." Jeanette squeaked.

I glared at all five of them. "No mobs! No protests! There's too much that could get out of hand."

"I mean…." Alvin rubbed his arm, looking ashamed of himself. "I don't really care if you make it to the Physics Bowl, Netta. You won't miss much."

Eleanor cackled at his comment. "Just Alvin making a fool out of your entire team, right Simon?" True to her word, she hadn't told Alvin of the plans to replace him yet. However, she was still being a thorn in my side.

Alvin looked even more ashamed.

I came to his defense, towering over Eleanor with my extra inches of height. "Training has just begun. He'll improve."

"He's never going to get anywhere with YOUR training." She told me. "You have to think outside the box more!"

I got defensive instantly. "Studying physics has NOTHING to do with outside the box thinking. Science is precise and calculated."

Brittany butted into our conversation. "Alvin doesn't do precise and calculated."

"Alvin 2.0 does." I reasoned. That made the bothersome girls finally leave me alone. We all said our goodbyes to Jeanette and headed to school.

After school, I resumed my usual study sessions with Alvin. He'd been disappointing during practice and Kevin once again tried to convince me, through text this time, to put Alvin out of his misery.

We were holding our study session in the treehouse because Alvin had suggested a change of scenery after becoming bored with our bedroom and the living room. This meant that both Brittany and Eleanor had a front row seat to watch the trainwreck.

"Define force." I instructed Alvin as he sat on Jeanette's bed.

"Uhhhh…." He fumbled around.

I sighed. "We've been over this. Uhhh is NOT an answer."

"I'm still thinking." He sounded extra whiny today.

"Think faster!" I told him, sharply.

His pouty lower lip quivered. "Stop yelling at me." He started crying and whining even more. "Ohhhh, what's the use in having the knowledge if I can't access it? I need like a push or something."

"I could push you off a cliff." Eleanor commented dryly with a smirk. I could tell Alvin's antics were also driving her up the wall.

Brittany jumped up from her bed. "I've got it!" She exclaimed. "I know how we can push you!"

Alvin seemed apprehensive. "How?"

Brittany didn't answer. She smirked at me and then whispered her idea in my head. I was impressed. Her idea actually did have merit, despite it traditionally being used to train pets. It couldn't hurt.

I continued to ask Alvin questions, only this time wrong answers caused him to receive a penalty. Brittany and Eleanor held their squirt bottles at the ready. I could tell they were having a grand time.

"How is acceleration related to mass?" I asked Alvin.

The red capped boy looked at me with a blank stare. "It's…...got something to do with force."

Eleanor and Brittany both squirted him in the face with water.

"The correct answer? The acceleration of an object depends directly upon the net force acting upon the object, and inversely upon the mass of the object." I recited from memory.

Alvin looked lost. "But I was right!" He argued. "It DID have something to do with force."

"The judges would not accept that as an answer." I informed him. "It sounds like something a kindergartner would say."

"Name me one kindergartener who even knows what "force" means!" Alvin shot back angrily.

"He's got you there, Simon." Eleanor commented, watching the debate.

Brittany shrugged her shoulders. "I'm in high school and I barely know what this stuff means. To me, force is like….when you hit something really hard."

"And that's why we're in the Physics Bowl and you aren't." I said haughtily.

"But dude, she's ALSO right." Alvin argued once again. "She's on the right track."

"The judges still won't accept an answer like that." I pointed out. I wasn't purposely trying to be a know-it-all. I simply wanted to make them realize how specific Physics Bowl answers must be in order to count.

Several wrong answers later, a very wet and very irritated Alvin left the treehouse. I laid on Jeanette's bed and went over the flashcards another time. Why wasn't Alvin showing ANY improvement?

"I don't know what to do with him." I told the two girls. "He's not putting enough effort into this."

Brittany narrowed her eyes. "Actually, it kind of seems like he IS putting in effort. He's just not getting anywhere."

"He has claimed his brain is unreliable." I told them. "But I think it's only like that because he thinks it is. He has himself completely convinced he can't do this. I can't seem to talk him out of it."

The pink clad girl frowned. "He has always been pretty unreliable." She agreed.

Eleanor jumped off her bed and began dancing around the room, singing a quickly thought out parody to the song Undeniable. "He's unreliable, no ifs or ands or maybes. It's certifiable. You can't count on him, baby. Unjustifiable, how can he be so lazy? Unreliable, you know that you're doomed."

"Eleanor, please." I tossed one of Jeanette's many pillows at her. "Not the time."

I needed to think! Mildred taking Alvin's place was becoming more probable by the second. She really did seem like our only shot at victory. Unless Alvin started showing major progress, he was fated to be removed from our team.

I checked on Alvin when I returned home. He was reading a comic book.

"No more lessons tonight, okay?" I said in a friendly voice. "You deserve a break. I'm sorry for putting you through this."

His ears twitched and a few seconds later he set the comic in his lap. "Thanks, bro. I'm sorry I'm not good at this. I thought I would be. I'm good at like every other nerd thing ever."

"There's still a chance." I responded, clinging to that thread of hope as it began to unravel.

He rolled his eyes. "If you say so."

I trekked into the closet lab and booted up my computer. I was about to log onto Mystic Mountain Adventure and play through a quest or two when a video chat request from Kevin popped up.

I wanted to deny the call, but a sense of obligation compelled me to answer. I closed the door of the closet lab as I accepted the call request.

Kevin's face appeared on screen along with Warren's and Cheesy's. They were having a sleepover. They had mentioned it to me at practice and offered to let me join them, but I had declined respectfully. I wanted to spend as much time as possible getting Alvin prepped. I hadn't yet accepted that maybe some things ARE beyond Alvin's skill level.

Kevin waved to me. "Hey, how's everything going?"

I felt a wave of dread wash over me. Not ready to tell them I had once again failed in my quest to teach Alvin, I responded with…"It's been….pretty good."

"Really?" Cheesy grinned. "So we aren't going to have to kick him off the team?"

"On a scale of one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, how much has he improved?" Warren inquired.

I gulped. "I'd say, oh, about an...8." Gosh no. He was barely a 1. Why was I lying outright to my friends?

"Oh fantastic!" Kevin wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand.

"Yep." I continued to fib. I hoped this call wouldn't last much longer and luckily it didn't.

Geizmo finished watching his educational videos and the little robot started to open and close the drawers of my desk very loudly. It completely interrupted the video call and I could not be more thankful.

"What's that noise?" Cheesy asked.

I turned the laptop so they could see my robotic child. "That's Geizmo. He's bored. I've got to go find something to entertain him. Talk to you tomorrow!"

Before they could protest, I ended the video call.

"Geizmo," I scolded my….son. "What have I told you about touching things that don't belong to you?"

My robotic child blinked his electronic eyes. "Uh….not to?"

"Exactly." I closed the drawer he had opened.

"But it fun to make noise!" He opened it again.

"I can't concentrate with noise." I told him.

Geizmo continued opening and closing the drawers. "But it fun to make noise!"

That was pretty much the rest of my night. I finally got some peace and quiet once Geizmo activated sleep mode. Sometimes, I really regret making a robot programmed to act like a 5 year old.

The next day at school, I was in for a shock. During math class, Alvin FLEW through his geometry assignment. Perhaps the lessons were beginning to sharpen his memory after all!

I would have liked it better if he didn't tap his pencil against his desk the entire time, but beggars can't be choosers.

"Will you cut that out, Alvin!?" Miss. Smith hollered.

Alvin blinked innocently and then hit her with an intellectual comeback. "Self stimulation, also called fidgeting, helps increase my academic capacity."

"I don't care!" The teacher told him sternly. "I like quiet in my classroom."

Alvin sulked and stopped fidgeting with the pencil.

"Brain's really kicking today, isn't it?" I whispered.

He looked surprised, as if he didn't realize it until I pointed it out. "Uh….yeah...seems like it."

I smiled proudly. "So that means that studying IS helping?"

He groaned. "Sure. Yeah. You're right." He admitted. Oh yeah! Studying works! As I KNEW it would. "Yay studying." He added sarcastically.

At the end of class, I had some time to chat with Alvin before our next class began.

"You crushed that geometry work." I said to my brother, sounding a tiny bit smug.

"I love geometry." He replied. Then he started sobbing. "WHY!? WHY CAN'T I BE INTERESTED IN LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE?"

I chuckled at his theatrics. "I believe you're interested in EVERYTHING else." That's the thing about 2.0, he gets overly passionate about….basically everything.

"Got a, got a point there." He admitted. Then, a sorrowful expression appeared on his face. "Why math though? And science? Especially science! If I wasn't a science nerd, then I wouldn't even be in this Physics Bowl."

"Does it really matter, Alvin?" I asked. "You're in this now….and the lessons have finally begun working."

"Yeah, they are….and that means I'm becoming more like you….and you know that makes me uncomfortable!" His lip did that trembly thing again.

I was getting angry again. Why is Alvin so insulted to be compared to me? Has he EVER stopped to think how that makes me feel? "Would it really be so bad to be like me?" I asked, expecting him to realize how this was affecting me. I had come to terms with us being co-geniuses. Maybe he hadn't?

"Well, you don't seem too thrilled about it." Alvin replied.

He was wrong. I had a nice life. Sure it wasn't always perfect, and there were the crippling bouts of depression, but I'd take that over a rotten memory and the inability to sit still any day. "Oh Alvin…"

"THIS IS SO HARD!" He complained, interrupting my train of thought.

I scowled at him. "It's hard for me too!" I shouted. "This goes both ways!"

His crystal blue eyes narrowed. "No. It doesn't. Nobody's ever told you "hey, be more like Alvin."

I was beginning to figure him out. "So you don't want to be like me...out of spite?"

He nodded. "That….and preserving my individuality."

I decided to tell it like it was. No more trying to beat around it. "Well. we DO share common ground, whether you like it or not."

"Stop reminding me." He covered his ears. "Stop it!"

I decided it wasn't worth the fight at the moment. "Come on. Let's get to class." I was stewing angrily now. How DARE he act like being a little more like me is a fate worse than death!?

We decided to have our Physics Bowl practice in the park after school that day. Some fresh air would help me cool off...and Alvin wanted any excuse possible to see Jeanette.

Even Eleanor, Theodore, and Brittany joined us. Brittany came as a cheerleader (despite a scientific contest having no use for cheerleaders) and Eleanor and Theodore turned up after baseball practice, still dressed in their blue colored uniforms.

"You guys are gonna come back to the team when this is over, right?" Eleanor asked Kevin and Cheesy. "Cuz without you and Jeanette I'm down three players."

"Yeah! Of course!" Kevin exclaimed.

Cheesy nodded. "I miss baseball a lot." He admitted. I found that kind of shocking. Cheesy isn't very good at baseball. How can you love doing something you're awful at? Well, probably the same way Alvin can hate playing chess, something he's extremely good at. It takes a special kind of crazy.

"They can sparkle! They shine bright! Everyone, cheer for the Physics Knights!" Brittany did a cartwheel as she shouted silly rhymes that were bound to knock me off my game.

Warren read out the questions and we all answered, the same as usual. When we COULD anyway. Alvin was dominating us. He didn't miss a single question! It was WONDERFUL! My fib to Kevin and the others may have been a fib at the time, but it seemed that was no longer the case.

Alvin was on fire.

"A prime indicator of the rapidity of the object is speed."

"Velocity is the rate of change of an object's position with respect to a frame of reference and time."

"An unlit match has chemical energy, not thermal because it's NOT giving off heat yet."

It made my hope return. We now had someone who could replace Warren without putting us at a disadvantage!

"Density is mass divided by volume!" Alvin finished answering the last question.

"Dude, you LIED to us." Kevin said to me.

I was shocked. How could they know? How could they think that after witnessing, well….THAT!? "N...No." I stammered. "I didn't."

"You said he was an 8, but he's clearly a 10!" Kevin patted my back. "Whatever you did must have worked. I shouldn't have doubted you."

I tried to think back to what I did, but surprisingly I couldn't think of a thing. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized….this couldn't possibly be the result of squirting him with water every time he answered incorrectly.

How had Alvin done it?

I watched my brother high five everyone around. He seemed so confident in his abilities now, when he'd struggled so terribly before. It made no sense.

When we returned home, I stopped Alvin in the hallway on the way to his room. "Okay, as much as I would love to believe that little display was a result of our study sessions, I don't. How DID you do it?" I needed an answer.

Alvin smiled at me sheepishly. "Oh it definitely was NOT from the study sessions."

I raised an eyebrow. "Then what WAS it from?"

He tapped his head with his index finger. "Superman mode. Completely and totally random."

And like that, I was back where I started. I attempted to chart the fluctuations in Alvin's memory to see if I could pick out a pattern, or a minuscule HINT of a pattern. There was nothing. No rhyme or reason to any of it. Nothing that seemed to trigger it. Could it TRULY be random? Was Alvin right?

Alvin's POV

Superman mode? Supermunk mode? No, those weren't a good name for it anymore. What it was, plain and simple, was Simon mode. I had learned, over the last two days, that it wasn't as simple as my brain just turning on and off. When I was in what was previously known as "OFF" mode, I could still think. I could improvise. I could scheme...err plan. I could rely on my guts and my impulses. When I was in "ON" mode, I couldn't. I was completely indecisive and I stammered nonstop when asked to improvise. "On" mode was really just "academically upgraded super memory mode." "Off" mode was "hyper awesome fun boy" mode.

Oh how I wished I could CONTROL them. That would be a dream, to flip in and out of them at will. Right now, the only way to guarantee I was in "academically upgraded super memory" mode for the Physics Bowl was to get rid of my other mode altogether. No way in heck was I letting that happen. "Hyper awesome fun boy mode" was the thing that EVERYONE associated with me. Losing that, would mean the most Alvin-like part of me no longer existed.

I sighed as I entered the bathroom to brush my teeth. Maybe the fun mode didn't exist at this point. I'd been in academic mode all day. This was the first time, to my knowledge, that I'd ever spent a full day without flip flopping. It freaked me out.

My head was still spinning with physics questions and answers as I started brushing my teeth. I wished I could just turn them off. I didn't need to have them right now. I was heading to bed. I wanted to lose myself in a fun dream about a rollercoaster or….something that doesn't have to do with physics. Oh wait, that's right. Physics is LITERALLY everything. I love physics. Really, I do. This stupid competition was taking the fun out of physics for me, and I wasn't happy about that. I wanted to think about physics stuff on my own time, not be forced to do it nonstop.

I happened to glance up into the mirror after I finished brushing my teeth. As I was gazing into the mirror at my attractive face, it suddenly shifted and morphed into Simon's face.

I leapt backward off the stool and landed on the ground. Slowly, cautiously, I climbed onto the stool and gazed in the mirror again.

Simon's face was no longer there. It only reflected me. My mind was playing tricks on me, as it usually does. I inspected my hair and caught little glimpses of dark chestnut brown among the coppery and orange color. Carefully, I took a pair of tweezers from the drawer and pulled out every last one of them. It was a usual ritual. I had to do it at least once a month. I hope no one ever shaves my head as a prank, because I'm pretty sure my hair would all grow back the same dark brown as Simon's.

My hair is WEIRD. It used to be like this auburn color, which was a reddish brown, then one summer it turned bright red orange and had stayed that way...until now. For whatever reason, the hair growing in now was definitely a dark chestnut brown with very little hints of red. I LIKE being a redhead, so I made it my mission to keep it, no matter HOW much tweezers pulling out my hair hurt.

I sometimes asked myself why I go to such absurd lengths to stop myself from resembling my own family member. Then, I usually find myself thinking about a different topic altogether.

I left the bathroom and headed into my bedroom. I was exhausted. Having ADHD is like having more energy than you know what to do with, and somehow STILL being tired all the time.

I knew it was a stupid thing to want, but I wished that tomorrow my academic mode would finally turn off. I needed to know Simon hadn't succeeded in his quest to break me.

It was a Wednesday….I think….No wait, maybe it was Thursday. Anyway, I was back at school and I opened my locker. To my surprise, a stream of silly string shot out of it, followed by a bunch of golf balls pouring out of it and onto the floor. I almost tripped on them.

I knew exactly who was behind this. It was clearly Bozo-carter and the Bozons he selected for his team. They knew I was a Physics Knight and they'd been doing stuff like this the last couple days.

Sandbags falling in the auditorium, paint bombs in the art room, they even slimed the bottom of my favorite gym sneakers to make them extra sticky so I stuck to the floor while they pelted me with dodgeballs.

If I had time to think up pranks, I would SO get them back for this. Unfortunately, I was still devoting most of my time to studying.

I skipped out on Physics Bowl practice after school. I wanted to get home and find a way to get my brain OUT of academic mode. I tried some videogames, but they didn't work. I tried writing a new song, but my heart wasn't in it. I tried going out to the backyard to shoot some hoops and wound up getting hit in the face with a basketball 4 times. Couldn't make a single basket.

Logically, this was not a result of me being in academic mode, I was just too tired to work out my aim correctly.

Finally, I decided to study more, since I was still in academic mode and I was probably going to be stuck in it my entire life, thanks to my "always right" brother.

Thankfully, once I started trying to study, academic mode flipped off and I was thrilled…..and then I immediately realized this meant I still only had a 50/50 shot of being in academic mode when I NEEDED it most. The Physics Knights were up a creek with no paddle.

I flopped my head down onto the textbook and sighed. This was hopeless.

At least, I knew that I wasn't stuck thinking like an intellectual all the time. That was the ONLY good thing about this.

My phone started to ring. I knew it was my phone and no one else's because of the song chosen for the ringtone. Sadly, that particular song was not one I wanted to hear at the moment.

"It's the magic, it's chemistry, it's math and it's the physics of you and me…"

I picked up the phone and looked at the caller ID picture. Crud. Nuts. Fudge. Other assorted almost-swears. It was Cheesy! Why was he calling me?

I answered the phone in a shaky voice. "H….Hey."

"Hi, Alvin. Why'd you skip practice today? You're not getting sick, are you?" The boy with the hilariously humiliating name asked.

"No. I'm okay, but…." I frowned. It was time to tell them the truth. "I gotta level with you, Cheesy. My memory is still working at random intervals and, well, I don't think Simon's lessons are effective….like...at all."

"What are you saying?" Cheesy sounded like he was on the verge of panic. I could tell because the lisp got worse.

"My brain's still unreliable." I held back tears. "That's what I'm saying. Kevin was right….I AM a liability."

"That's okay, Alvin. You're trying your best. We really can't ask for more than that." My friend was taking this better than I thought. I heard another muffled voice on the line. I couldn't make out who it was, but it sounded like they were yelling. "I gotta go. Mom sounds really mad about something. I hope it's not dad again."

I knew he had it rough, so I said the only thing I could say. "Cheesy, I want you to know that….even if your parents….you know….they….they're still both gonna love you. Sometimes, change can be hard. I know, but you're gonna be okay."

"Thanks, Alvin." He sniffled a little before hanging up.

Gosh, I felt so bad for him. Here I was hashing things out with Simon every day while Cheesy dealt with some really awkward and admittedly worse family drama of his own. I hoped everything would work out alright for him.

A little while later, or longer possibly as I stink at telling time, Simon walked into the bedroom to find me slumped on the desk and staring at the wall.

"Oh no." He commented, immediately deducing what had happened.

I weakly pushed myself off the desk. "Oh yep." I pointed to my head. "Ol unreliable never fails to disappoint."

"But you were doing so well for so long!" Simon was clearly mad he couldn't make sense of this.

"Yeah, and now I'm not." I tried to hide the fact that I was relieved my genius brain was basically trash again. After all, it wouldn't ALWAYS be trash.

"Why are you smiling?" Simon asked. Oh crap. "This isn't funny! This isn't amusing in any way!"

"At least now I know for sure I can keep my individuality." I reasoned.

He sighed. "We have been over this. You'll still maintain your individuality." He was calm, but I knew that would never last long.

I got up from the desk and gestured with my hands. "No I won't!" I yelled. "It's already hanging by a thread right now!" It all came pouring out of me. I wanted to hold back, but it was far too late. "I'm smart like you, I love science like you, I'm sarcastic like you, I'm stubborn and persistent like you, we share similar hobbies, similar clothing styles sometimes, we have the same eye color, heck, we even practically have the same VOICE!"

That entitled know-it-all had the nerve to correct me. "No. Yours is higher."

"Not much higher!" I replied. "My point is, I've already changed to be...so much like you...that changing my thought process...would take away the main thing that keeps me...me, you know?"

He put a comforting arm around me as he tried to lead me back into his trap. "I understand your hesitation, but it'll only be temporary. Without continued training after, your brain will bounce right back to its old habits."

I gulped. "And what if it doesn't?"

"Then you'd still be you." He explained. "You'd simply feel like you're in "superman" mode every day. Wouldn't that be cool?"

No. No it wouldn't Superman mode is Simon mode! "No! I don't wanna be you!" I yelped.

"ALVIN! Listen!" He hollered back. This was getting heated very fast. "I'm not saying you ARE me. You're still an individual. I just want you to embrace our similarities rather than being ashamed of them. You act like being like me is undesirable and inadequate. Do you have any idea how insulting it is to have your own brother view you as something to be looked down upon?"

Oh…..Oh shoot. I hadn't really considered that. It must feel pretty bad. I never meant to make Simon feel bad. I was just caught up in my own worries!

"Never….gave it….much thought I guess." I admitted.

"It hurts my feelings when you are compared to me and then you immediately get defensive and say you're nothing like me." He continued. "You say I'm boring...or too uptight...or a total dweebus."

Gosh, I did say all that stuff. Over and over. Maybe not boring so much anymore, but the other two things I've definitely said. "Sorry, man. I don't want you to feel that way. But I still don't like getting compared to you. How come no one ever compares you to me?"

He lowered his volume. "Because I have been very similar to the way I am now for pretty much my entire existence." He looked hesitant to say the next thing. "You have not."

To his surprise, that did not make me break down. "Dang character growth." I mumbled.

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Be proud of it."

"I am….most of the time." I looked down at my colorful tennis shoes.

Simon smiled at me. "We may share numerous traits, but we aren't and will never be the exact same person."

I blinked, startled by his revelation. "So I don't have to wear the color blue and glasses all the time?"

His smile faded to a look of concern. "Alvin, buddy, you do wear the color blue and glasses all the time." He said. "You. Not me. You do it of your own volition."

I realized he was absolutely right and felt pretty dang dumb right then. "Oh….right. The amount of times I forget that is shocking."

He hugged me tightly. "Please, stop worrying you're going to lose yourself and become uptight. It's a VERY VERY unlikely scenario."

I decided now was the right time to tell him that mushy gushy thing I'd been keeping to myself far too long. "Simon, uh, that's n...not the only reason I don't wanna be too much like you."

We sat on my bed together beneath my hanging solar system decoration. "What's the other reason?" Simon asked gently.

Maybe I shouldn't tell him. "Nevermind. It's stupid."

"I promise I won't think it's stupid." He insisted.

"Yes, you will." I could feel myself tremble.

He sighed. I was irritating him again. What else is new? "No, I won't. What's the reason?"

I started to sniffle. "If I become exactly, or, you know, too much like you, then I won't need you anymore….and that would be the worst thing ever!"

"Awww. I don't think you have to worry about that." He said, wrapping a comforting arm around my shoulders.

"I like this." I continued to sniffle. "I like our dynamic. The main reason I'm sick of people telling me to be more like you is because that defeats the purpose of having, well,….you." I waved my hands in front of my face like a dramatic lady in a soap opera.

"Studying for a little bit for one competition isn't going to make you exactly like me. I promise." Simon assured me.

I cried. "I knoooow. It's irrational, but like….what if I wind up really liking it?" I tried to keep my voice steady, but the tears continued to flow. "What if it makes me lose my creativity or something?"

"I don't think you have to worry about that either. But, you know, maaaaybe I can try to….help you study your way." Wait, was I hearing that correctly? Did he just say….

I was overjoyed. "R….R….Really?"

He took off my glasses and wiped my eyes for me with a tissue. "Yeah. I'm curious and willing to try some of your techniques."

"They're pretty irritating, just warning ya." I cracked a small hint of a smile.

"Bring it on." He said, slipping my glasses back on and smiling.

I wish I could tell you that worked out great and we won the competition and everything was good after that. Unfortunately, it was not.

As it turns out, bouncing around off the walls while answering physics stuff didn't make things any better. The outcome was the same as with classic studying, eating food before answering, classic studying plus music, the squirt bottle thing, and basically everything else we tried. My other method of pretending that the physics questions were codes I needed to crack to solve my secret agent mission….was also a bust.

"I think it's time for us to throw in the towel." My brother in the round blue glasses quipped as he held an ice pack against his head. I musta given him a massive headache.

"We can't just give up on me! I know how much you wanna win! We've worked so hard, Si!" I begged.

"You're hopeless, Alvin. I hate saying that, but it's true. This is beyond your capability" He was making me feel like a screw up. Until, he put down the icepack and looked at me with a smile. "And you know what?" He started laughing. "That is completely okay."

I was confused. How could it be okay? Weren't they at risk of needing to forfeit if I left? Something didn't add up.

Simon continued to….try and make me feel better about my colossal failure. "You have taught me a valuable lesson, bro. Not everyone can get better through studying hard. Next time, when you tell me that you can't do something, I will believe you." He walked away holding the ice pack to his head.

I was not satisfied with Simon's explanation of the situation. I could get better! I would show him! All I needed was something to give me that extra little push during the competition. Something that would be surely temporary, with very little side effects. Something I'd been saving in my nightstand for a worse case scenario like this.

Wanna know what it was? Okay, I will tell you. That night, while everyone else was sleeping, I reached into my nightstand and took out a bottle of red colored pills. Each one was the size of a tic tac. I'd picked these up from the local science lab a few days ago, figuring I'd need them for a time like this. I popped two pills in my mouth and swallowed. Then, I tucked the bottle back into the drawer.

Don't worry! They weren't anything dangerous! They were memory enhancement supplements. They'd make SURE I didn't let Simon's team down….Unfortunately, they'd probably also put me in academic mode until I stopped taking them. It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was what I needed to do. I slept pretty well that night, dreaming of our inevitable victory. Nothing could go wrong now.