The Wonderful Baron Doppelgänger Device

The Wonderful Baron Doppelgänger Device — page 5 — parents who I call P and M are two of the cleverest inventors who have ever lived They used to have an assistant named Rose Blackwood who happens to be the little sister of Benedict Blackwood the worst criminal in the history of history who lived with us but because of an incident involving the Doppelgänger Device Rose decided to quit working for my parents and moved out Actually she was arrested and put in jail but I’ll get to that later We live in a large home just outside of Pitchfork Arizona Territory and we call our home the Baron Estate We live there with my Aunt Dorcas who has what I consider to be the first worst name in the world She is a weepy and frumpy woman who is bothered and annoyed by everything But once you get past all her whining and crying and complaining and off-key singing she’s really alright she’s still pretty awful But there isn’t anything that I can do about it You know what I just realized that if I start from the very beginning I’ll need to tell you about a whole lot of unimportant stuff Let me skip to a few weeks before the Doppelgänger Device ruined our lives That lousy invention is the reason why I’m currently standing at the edge of a cliff with a fake W B who is claiming to be the real me It’s also the reason why there’s now a fifty-fifty chance that my father will press a button on his new invention that will cause my skin to turn inside out You see it all began six weeks ago The entire class pointed at me and laughed

The Wonderful Baron Doppelgänger Device — page 6 — Most of my stories start with a large group of people pointing at me and laughing I suppose I should be upset by that but to tell you the truth it’s kind of nice that I’ve given so many people joy At least they don’t all point at me and cry That would be depressing Class please don’t laugh at Waldo my teacher Miss Danielle said as she sighed and gently rubbed her eyes I winced I’d rather be covered in honey and dropped on an anthill than be called Waldo and I’m not exaggerating one bit by saying that You might be telling yourself that I’m underestimating how horrible it would be to actually be dropped on an anthill while covered in honey But just last week I really was covered in honey and dropped onto an anthill so I know exactly what I’m talking about In case you’re wondering who did that to me it was me I accidentally did it to myself I was making myself a bacon and honey sandwich accidentally fell out of the kitchen window rolled down a hill and ended up covered in honey and ants I’m what you might call a little bit clumsy Alright that’s a lie I’m what you might call insanely ridiculously unbelievably comically bafflingly astonishingly horribly wonderfully incomparably undeniably bewilderingly extremely astoundingly unforgivably clumsy and even that is letting me off a bit easy I’m the sort of kid who while he’s asleep in bed will accidentally roll out of a second story window and then land on a horse that bucks him into a swamp where he’ll drop into an alligator’s open mouth and then be coughed up into a raging river which ends in a fifty-foot waterfall drop That actually happened to me last month when my family visited the state of Louisiana It was not a highlight of the trip In fact after I dropped off the edge of that waterfall I experienced very few highlights

The Wonderful Baron Doppelgänger Device — page 7 — I spent the rest of my time in Louisiana with so many bandages wrapped around me that I looked like a mummy All I could do was lie there and moan wishing that the accident had happened closer to Halloween Anyway the children were all laughing at me because our teacher had asked us each to give an oral report on what we did over the weekend My teacher really likes assigning us reports to present to the class but for some reason she never seemed to enjoy hearing mine I guess it’s because I often give reports about the adventures that I have with my inventor parents and their assistant Rose Blackwood And I suppose that our adventures must sound a bit ridiculous to most people They sound pretty ridiculous to me as well If I wasn’t there to experience them there’s no way I’d believe they were real In fact even though I had been there to experience them I’m still not 100 percent certain that they were real Suddenly there was knocking at the schoolhouse door As Miss Danielle went to answer the door I slipped for no reason and bumped my head on the edge of her desk before scurrying back to my seat in the corner of the room Why did I slip and bump my head I don’t know You might as well ask me why the grass is green why the sky is blue and why you get that gross crusty stuff in the corners of your eyes after a good night’s sleep I know that there are perfectly reasonable scientific answers to all those questions But I don’t know them just as I don’t know why it is that I happen to be the clumsiest two-legged creature on planet Earth The whole class watched with interest as Miss Danielle opened the schoolhouse door We never had visitors in the middle of the day Standing in the open doorway with a stack of books in his hands was a short kid with curly black hair Even though he was dressed the

The Wonderful Baron Doppelgänger Device — page 8 — same way that most of us were dressed the other kids in class all turned to each other to whisper about how funny looking the new kid was I turned and pretended to whisper to my friends too even though I don’t have any friends and even if I did I would have nothing to whisper to them I didn’t think the new kid was particularly funny looking He just looked like any other kid To be honest he looked boringly average like the sort of kid who would easily blend into the crowd while walking down the street It wasn’t as though he had an eye patch or a mustache or a wooden nose or something Class Miss Danielle said as she led the new kid to the front of the schoolhouse this is Belford Eustace Nigel Egbert Doolittle Ignatius Cattermole Threepwood Whitestone the Third He will be joining our class Please make him feel welcome That was our cue to give the new student a round of applause but our hands were all frozen in shock as we stared in disbelief at the poor kid who sounded as though he had been named after the entire British army I suppose Waldo wasn’t that bad of a name after all The new kid’s cheeks turned as red as a freshly picked apple Actually he said to Miss Danielle as he cleared his throat if you don’t mind I prefer to be called B W I smiled Nonsense said Miss Danielle as she led B W to his new seat You have a perfectly wonderful name Belford Eustace Nigel Egbert Doolittle Ignatius Cattermole Threepwood Whitestone the Third In fact I quite like saying it It’s sort of like a tongue twister I wonder if I can say it five times fast Belford Eustace Nigel Egbert Doolittle Ignatius Cattermole Threepwood Whitestone the Third Belford

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