CHAPTER 1

I HAVE AN EXCELLENT IDEA (WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY BROTHER)

CLAUDIA

I came up with the idea for the scavenger hunt while taking the M79 bus across Central Park to school.

REESE

You didn’t come up with it! It was MY idea!

You just ripped it off. And you never once gave me credit!

CLAUDIA

Do you seriously want credit for it? After everything that happened?

REESE

Oh, yeah… Good point. Never mind.

CLAUDIA

By the way, for anyone who doesn’t already know, Reese and I are twins.

Which is weird. Because we are not twin-like at all. In fact, we are VERY different.

I don’t want to get into HOW we’re different, because I believe every person is special and unique—and if you put a label on someone, it’s like forcing them into a tiny box where they have no room to move and can’t just be themselves.

Which, obviously, is not cool.

Although if I absolutely HAD to put labels on us, I would be The Smart One.

And Reese would be The Sporty One.

Or possibly The Smelly One.

Or maybe even The One Who Wastes His Life Playing Video Games While His Sister Is Busy Trying To Make The World A Better Place.

See what I mean about labels? They are very unfair.

Even when they’re true.

Back to the M79 bus.

Reese and I were sitting together, and I was writing a speech for Student Government about my proposal to do a fund-raiser for the Manhattan Food Bank.

The fact that some people in New York City don’t have enough food to eat REALLY bothers me. Especially when you consider how well off a lot of families at Culvert Prep are. It just seems completely unfair and wrong that kids could go hungry in one part of the city while people like Athena Cohen have so much money they can fly to Bermuda every weekend on a private jet.

And as president, I’d decided I should do something about this.

REESE

You realize you’re only president of the sixth grade, right?

Like, you’re not president of the whole city?

CLAUDIA

Okay, A) Duh.

B) New York City has a MAYOR, not a president. And C) have you ever heard the term “Think globally, act locally”?

REESE

Maybe. Was that in a Burger King commercial?

CLAUDIA

I am almost completely sure it wasn’t.

REESE

Oh. Then no.

CLAUDIA

That is just sad, Reese. Seriously.

Back to the bus. I was working on my speech. And Reese was babbling about some MetaWorld thing.

REESE

MetaWorld is, like, the greatest video game in the history of the universe. It’s not even one game. It’s more like fifty different games all skrudged ^{Ed. Note: not an actual word} together.

And one of them is MetaHunt, which is this super-massive scavenger hunt. Only it’s MUCH cooler than a regular scavenger hunt, because you can kill other players and take all their stuff. So if you kill enough people, you don’t even have to find any of the stuff yourself.

I’d been playing a ton of MetaHunt, and it got me thinking how awesome it’d be to do a scavenger hunt for real all over New York City.

We couldn’t, like, actually kill each other. But it’d still be cool.

So when Claudia was like, “Shut up, Reese! I’m writing my Student Government speech!”

I was like, “You should have the SG do a scavenger hunt! For the whole school!”

And Claudia was, like, “That is the DUMBEST idea—heeeeey, wait a minute…”

CLAUDIA

And that’s basically how it all started.

 

Read the rest of the story in
THE TAPPER TWINS TEAR UP NEW YORK

Coming Fall 2015!