Part 6:
Two of a kind
Tai awoke when the sun beams streamed down on his face. He sat up and glanced around the room, but his eyes focus on the mirror behind the door. He walked over and glanced at his reflection. He was once again human, which he was thankful for. However, he didn't appear to be his regular age of 16, but he looked like he was five. He sighed, then went to examine this world.
His room looked similar to his real world, with both his and Kari's stuff divided in the room, only usually his stuff took up more room, but now it seemed both were equally distributed.
He heard a yawn from behind him and when he turned around he was surprised to see an five-year-old Kari smiling at him. "G'morning Taichi."
"Kari," he said,"Y-you're the same age as me!"
"Well, we're twins, right?" she laughed slightly.
"Twins, huh? Well, that's not so bad."
"Come on!" Kari said, grabbing Tai and pulling him into the kitchen.
"What are we doing?" Tai asked.
"Shh!" Kari said, putting her finger in front of her lips,"We can't wake Mom, we'll get in trouble!"
"What are we going to do?" Tai whispered.
"The cookies, remember?" Kari asked, awkwardly pushing one of the chairs across the room so it was leaning against the counter.
Tai nodded,"Yeah," he lied.
"I'll hold the chair so you don't fall," Kari said, pulling Tai over to the chair,"Then hand the cookies to me, okay?"
"Um, sure," Tai said, climbing onto the chair. He instantly noticed how small he was when he was five, he could hardly reach that far at all. He had finally gotten his hands on the cookies, when Kari started whispering fearcly to him.
"Mom's awake!" she hissed.
Tai shoved the cookies back, then jumped onto the floor. They quickly pushed the chair back and Tai followed Kari into the living room where she turned on the television. A moment later the door to their parent's room opened up and Mrs. Kamiya walked out.
"Good morning," she said, walking over and giving her two children hugs,"Did you have any bad dreams last night?"
"You have no idea!" Tai thought, but joined his twin sister in shaking their heads.
"I'll get breakfast," their mother said,"Don't forget today is picture day, so I want you wearing the clothes we picked out last night."
"Picture day?" Tai thought as he sat back down on the couch,"Might as well ride this world out."
He turned to look at the television, but saw that Kari had already turned to a television program. "Sailor Moon?" he shouted,"I don't wanna watch Sailor Moon!"
Hey, I did that pretty good. I saw just like a real little kid."
"Tai!" his mother shouted, from the kitchen,"You know the rules, Kari gets to watch her show first, then you can watch yours!"
"I never realized how much I bullied Kari," he thought sadly,"I always got to do everything, while she had to wait for the off chance she might get to do what she wanted. We always watched my t.v. shows first, my stuff was always all over the room...I never realized how much of a jerk I was."
Tai realized that even breakfast was different. His mother demanded that both he and Kari would start at the same time, and one would have to wait until the other was finished before they could leave the table.
After breakfast, they had to immediately return to their rooms to dress for school. Their mother pulled out the clothes they would have to wear for picture day. Tai was absolutely disgusted at having to wear the tiny three piece suit. He knew that he was going to get made fun of later. Kari was wearing a frilly pink dress, but little girls could wear something like that, and no one makes fun of them. At that age, boys knew all too well about teasing.
Tai was only slightly surprised to see that both he and Kari got to sit in the front of the car, and that they took turns singing to the different songs on the radio. "I can't get over this," he thought,"Everything in the world is equal. In my normal world everything about Kari and I was..mostly I. In the world where she was older and I was younger, she had the upper hand, but now...everything is completely equal. It makes me wish that she really was my twin."
After Mrs. Kamiya pulled the car into the school parking lot, she helped her two children out of the car, then held both of their hands as they walked into the school. When they came closer to the group of children and parents, Tai kept swinging his head around, glancing at each one.
"What are you looking for?" Mrs. Kamiya laughed.
"No one!" he said, turning back to looking frontways. "Where is Sara? She usually shows up by now." As they walked through the classroom door, Tai spied a big little boy sitting in a desk in the back. "Him! That's that boy that tried to beat me up in the world where I was Sora's son. What was his name......it was so weird that...Derwood! That was it! What is he doing here? He must be another one like Sara and Sam, but, why wasn't he with them? Hmm...."
Tai found that both he and Kari sat next to each other a few rows in front of Derwood. Tai could feel his eyes burning into his back.
"Good morning class!" a cheerful woman with long brown hair and glasses walked in.
"Good morning, Miss Namiske!" the children all called out. All except Tai that is, who knew who this woman was.
"Sam!" he shouted to himself thought for a second that they had abandoned me. I really need to talk to her or Sara. I need to know what is happening! No more little clues."
Sam appeared to be a mild-manner first-grade teacher, but Tai knew otherwise. He really didn't pay much attention to Sam's lesson, he knew everything she was teaching already, besides, he had more important things to worry about. In the last world, Sara had given him so important clues about what was going on. Tai was pretty sure that Sara meant to tell him that he was being thrown from world to world because another Tai had stolen his world. He had to get back there, even though he didn't know how, but either Sara or Sam had to know, and he was going to find out.
When picture time came, Sam herded the class down the halls of the school. Tai and Kari were near the back, with Derwood right behind them. Tai waited until Kari was talking to another little girl before he decided to talk to Derwood, he never got the chance, however, as Kari decided it was time to be funny.
"Taichi!" she said, laughing,"How about if we pretend to be each other when we get out pictures?"
"What?" he asked.
"Yeah," Kari giggled,"Ya know, twins can fool oder people by pre'tendin' to be each other."
"Kari, we're not identical twins."
"Wouldn't it be fun?" she laughed.
"I want to retract my earlier wish about Kari really being my twin."
Except for that part, Tai figured that the day had gone pretty well. For some reason, Derwood had disappeared after the pictures, but Tai still had Sam to talk to. After the school day was over, Tai was going to go up to talk to her, when Kari grabbed his arm again and started pulling him out the door.
"Kari!" he shouted,"What are you doing?"
"Mommy told me to make sure you didn't get lost again!" she shouted back, "Sora's waiting for us!"
"Sora? I think this is going to get even weirder."
Outside in the parking lot, Tai saw a young woman that had to be Sora, but Tai judged her to be around 25, she looked the same except her hair was now alot longer.
"Hi guys," she grinned, opening the back door of her car for them,"Hop on it and we'll get going."
Tai took a last look at Sam as she was leaving the building before he jumped inside of the car after Kari. He was surprised to see that there was an orange haired boy sitting on the seat next to the other door, with Kari in the middle of him and Tai.
Tai knew that Sora was waiting, so he shut the door and buckled up. He glanced frontwards and saw that there was an older blond haired girl sitting in the passenger seat. This girl turned around and smiled at Tai and Kari. "Hi!" she said,"Don't mind Mastudo, he's a little grumpy today."
"I am not, Arake!" the boy shouted. Tai judged that the boy was about five or six, and the girl was eight or nine. He figured that the boy, Matsudo was Sora's son, but the girl, Arake, looked like Matt's daughter.
"Mom!" Arake said,"Matsudo's yelling again."
"Sora's children!" Tai silently shouted,"Then that must mean that she and Matt are....I really want to get out of this world."
Tai was able to leave the car ride a lot quicker then this world, as Sora dropped them off in front of the building and into their mother's arms. Once they got upstairs into their apartment, Tai and Kari were all too eager to shed their school clothes and into something more comfortable. Tai was hoping that Sara would show up in some form by the end of the day, but she didn't. Tai was stuck playing board games with Kari until the end of the night. He was relieved that they didn't have to take a bath together, but they both had the same bed time.
There weren't even any bunk beds, but twin beds separated by a simple lamb on a stand. As Tai felt sleep wash over him, he glanced over at Kari,"Hey, are you still awake?"
"Yeah," Kari yawned,"I'm not tired! Okay, maybe..a...'yawn'...little."
"Kari, I want to tell you how happy I am that you are my sister....and I'm sorry if I ever bullied you even once."
"What?" Kari asked,"I think I'd bett..." She was alseep before she could even finish.
"Yeah," Tai smiled, knowing the last thing he would do as Kari's twin would be to fall asleep at the same time.