It wasn’t just Alfie and Colleen and Andrew Sloane, but Aunt Karen and her family, too. They all wore the same half-nervous, half-excited expression, especially Andrew Sloane, who held a massive bouquet of flowers. Ali swallowed hard, afraid she might burst into tears. “You came.”
Colleen, who held a stack of pizzas, stepped forward. “Can we join the party?”
Ali’s parents stepped into the hallway and froze, unable to hide their dazed expressions. Her mother found her voice first. “Come in!”
Digger rushed forward, said a shy hello, and began to collect coats, which he passed to Ali’s friends. The arrival of the Other Sloanes filled an already-crammed living room and dining room to bursting, but no one seemed to care. Everybody cried when Karen introduced her daughters to Gigi, and they stared with disbelief when Andrew Sloane took a seat next to his mother and took her hand.
“We did it,” Alfie mouthed to Ali, then hurried away to find Digger. Ali smiled; they would have so much to talk about later. Then Ali’s mom and Digger presented both birthday cakes, and everyone sang happy birthday to Gigi, who managed to blow out every single candle without any help at all.
The party was like a happy dream. Digger and Alfie and Karen kept hugging. Andrew Sloane smiled at everyone, even at Ali when she took his empty plate. Across the room, her friends, along with her cousins Jennie and Jordan, passed a broomstick back and forth in an attempt to break the piñata. Everything was perfect, except one person was missing: Teddy. Overwhelmed with emotion, Ali escaped to the kitchen. She was rinsing dishes in the sink when she sensed someone behind her. She turned to find Andrew Sloane.
“You were right,” he said.
Ali stared down at the plate in her hand, unsure of what to say.
Andrew Sloane kept going. “I’m sorry to say that I’m a weak man. I always wanted to be like everybody else. Since they didn’t have powers, I didn’t want mine, either.”
“I used to want to be like everybody too,” Ali offered. She wouldn’t be mean this time.
“You’re too kind, Ali, but it gets worse. I punished Teddy and Karen when they used their powers, and I was often petty with my mother and brother because I was sure they were doing things humans beings weren’t meant to do. I thought I knew best. Now I see how wrong I was. We’ve been given these powers for a reason. They don’t make us good or bad, but they do make us different. You saved Alfie’s life, and mine too.”
This was a shock. “I did?”
“Yes. You made me remember that there are only two important things in life: loving your family and others, and loving yourself. Want to know a secret?” He sounded giddy.
“What?”
“I’m going to sign this house over to your parents, if they’ll let me live here for a while and help take care of Gigi. Would you mind having an old codger like me around?”
Ali flung herself into his arms. They hugged for a full minute before Ali broke away. “Thank you, Uncle Andrew.”
“Thank you. Now, I think I’d better go check on Gigi and Walter Pidgeon.”
Ali watched him leave. You never really knew what was going to happen in life. She used to think that was a bad thing, but now it was kind of exciting.
Ten minutes later, Alfie found her on the back deck, bundled up in Digger’s plaid coat and staring up at the sky. She smiled when he sat down beside her. “Look—the fog is gone! I forgot how much I missed the stars.”
“You know, there used to be a squirrel constellation. Sciurus Volans, the Flying Squirrel, named by William Croswell in 1810,” said Alfie. “Sadly, it got sucked into Camelopardalids, the giraffe constellation, which totally bites.”
They gazed upward, neither speaking. For the first time in weeks, the foghorn was silent.
Alfie exhaled. “Saying thanks doesn’t seem like enough, but it’s the best I can do.”
“You would have saved me if the situation was reversed,” Ali pointed out.
“Yup. And Gigi got her birthday party and Granddad has forgiven everyone, including himself. He told me he’s always regretted not training my dad.” He took a breath, and there was a catch in his throat. “You know, when I found out that they never found his body after the accident, I used to pretend he was just lost somewhere, even though I knew it wasn’t true.”
A strange jolt reverberated through Ali. “They never found his body?”
“Nope. Granddad says that’s not unusual when someone drowns in the ocean.”
Ali closed her eyes. Uncle Percival’s chapter about not drowning when you were a fish or a whale popped into her head. Teddy had written “Practice” at the beginning of that chapter. But if Teddy had practiced, what had happened?
She hopped up. “I need to go the bathroom.”
Instead, she ran to her room and began to thumb through the book. Why was Alfie’s comment nagging at her so much? Since she hadn’t had time to read it all yet, Ali began to flip through the book to see what she’d missed. She stopped at Chapter Two, “How to Recognize Another Copycat.” Why hadn’t she bothered to read this chapter earlier? “Copycats have one thing in common,” wrote Uncle Percival, “every one of them has pale gray eyes.”
Ali took a deep breath. She scanned the table of contents and went to Chapter Fourteen, “What to Do If You Can’t Change Back.” It was a recounting of Uncle Percival’s forty-two days as a rat. Several lines jumped out at her:
I blame my inability to change back on my shock at nearly being a tomcat’s dinner. Nothing I did seemed to return me to my natural form. By day seven, I realized I must try and learn the rat language if I was to do more than simply survive. Given the simplicity of a rat’s linguistic abilities, I managed to achieve fluency by day seventeen. I secured a rat guide named Stinky, who agreed to guide me home, for the narrow streets were like boulevards to me. From days twenty to thirty-six, I hung about my house, doing my best not to be trapped or attacked, for my dear wife is no fan of vermin. Still, I could not change back. It was not until day forty-one, when I met a fellow Copycat named Arthur Smart, that I was saved. Arthur was patrolling the neighborhood in the form of a raccoon and recognized that I was a Copycat straightaway. Given the fact that he could not speak rat, and I was not proficient in any other language but human and yet could not speak it due to my unfortunate circumstances, we could not communicate. Finally, out of desperation, he led me to an alley and transformed back into his human form. For whatever reason, seeing him change made me suddenly understand what I must do, and within one hour I was reunited with my family and in a hot bathtub scrubbing off a month’s worth of grime.
Trembling, Ali went to find Cassie, Emily, and Murray.
“Are you okay?” Cassie asked when they were all in Ali’s bedroom with the door closed.
“I know this is going to sound bizarre, but Emily told me that there’s only one seal left at Tin Can Beach. The sick one. I think it’s Alfie’s dad.”
Nobody spoke, just exchanged wary expressions. “No—listen! I found out this afternoon that Alfie is a Copycat too. He got hurt and had trouble changing back into himself because he was so scared. Everyone believed Alfie’s dad drowned going over the Reversing Falls, but what if he changed into a seal and then couldn’t change back?” She held up Uncle Percival’s book. “This is a book about Copycats, and there’s a whole chapter about what to do if you can’t change back, which means it must happen a lot. My dad says Alfie’s dad’s powers weren’t very strong.”
Cassie took the book and began to thumb through it. “Ali, this book is about fog,” she said, looking at Ali like she’d lost it.
Ali grabbed the book back. “I know that’s what it looks like to you. It’s what it looked like to me before I became a Copycat too. But once I changed, I realized that it was really a handbook for Copycats.” She ignored the doubt on Cassie’s face and kept going. “A couple of minutes ago, Alfie told me that they never found his dad’s body. What if the reason the last seal hasn’t left isn’t because it’s sick, but because it’s Teddy? Remember last week, when I changed into a seal—the sick seal was the only one that reacted? But that doesn’t make any sense, because it’s supposed to be blind.”
Emily’s voice was gentle when she spoke. “Ali, I know you want this to be true, but it doesn’t make any sense.”
“You know that the simplest explanation is always the most likely explanation,” added Cassie.
“And he’s been gone for over a decade,” Murray reminded her. “How could he possibly survive?”
Frantic, Ali tried to think of a rebuttal to their arguments. She needed to persuade them; if it was Teddy on that beach, she’d need their help. She took a deep breath and began, refuting their points one by one.
“Emily, I know you think this doesn’t make any sense, but does it make any sense that there are a whole bunch of people on this planet who can copy other creatures?”
“Nooo,” said Emily,
She turned to Cassie. “I agree, the simplest explanation is always the most likely explanation. But you’re forgetting that Alfie’s father is a Copycat, not a regular person. He goes over the Reversing Fall and drowns? Yes, he wasn’t as talented a Copycat as my dad, but he’d read all about not drowning in this book. For a Copycat, I think the simplest explanation is that he changed into a seal when the boat turned over, got carried away by the current, and then couldn’t change. Maybe it’s taken him all this time to find his way back.”
“Maybe . . . ,” conceded Cassie.
Murray was her last rebuttal. “How did he survive over a decade? He lived like a seal. Eventually he must have joined a pod of seals. In this book, Uncle Percival talks about learning to speak rat.” When the others raised their eyebrows, she shook her head. “Listen. I know it sounds bizarre, but stick with me. Uncle Percival was stuck as a rat for forty-two days. He had to learn to speak rat so he could get the other rats to lead him home. What if it took Teddy years to figure out how to speak seal? And when he finally did, he told them his story, and they brought him back to Saint John. But for whatever reason, he still can’t change, maybe because he’s sick. I thought the sick seal’s eyes were gray because it was blind. But apparently all Copycats have pale gray eyes. I didn’t know that until today. I need to go to Tin Can Beach to see if it’s him, and I can’t tell Alfie or my family in case I’m wrong. I can’t go without you guys. I may need help.”
There was a long silence. Ali was sure her counterarguments hadn’t been enough to convince them. But then Murray smiled. “Cassie and I have our bikes. We’ll double you and Emily. It sounds wacky, but then your whole family is kind of wacky, Sloane. Let’s do it!”
Emily grabbed a throw blanket off Ali’s bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I’m bringing this, in case.”
Ali, on the verge of tears, pulled them into a group hug. She scribbled a note to Digger—Back soon—and then the four of them snuck down the stairs and slipped out the front door.
The bike ride to Tin Can Beach was the longest half hour of Ali’s life. It was slow going along the dark trail, and when they had to bike on the street again, they discovered that the few cars on the road were still crawling, like they weren’t used to driving without fog. Despite the starry sky, the night was dark, with only streetlights and their bicycle lights to guide them.
“Well, this is super creepy,” a cheerful Murray called over his shoulder when they reached Tin Can Beach. “It’s like every scary movie ever.”
“Assuming your theory about this seal is right, how exactly are you going to change him back?” asked Cassie.
Ali thought of Uncle Percival and the raccoon. Instead of saying anything, she morphed into a copy of Alfie and then turned back to herself.
“I don’t get it,” said Cassie.
Emily did. “Ali’s going to change into people Alfie’s dad knows to see if she can get him to remember.”
“That’s brilliant!” Murray cried.
“It’s only brilliant if it works,” said Ali.
The beach was eerily quiet, with only the odd slosh as a wave crested against the rocky shore. Far away, Ali could see the flickering lights of the freighters anchored offshore. Murray, Cassie, and Emily pulled out their cell phones and cast light into the endless darkness. Ali stumbled behind them, straining to try and find the seal. Was Teddy still here? He had to be.
“I think it’s gone,” Emily moaned.
“Keep looking,” begged Ali. It wouldn’t be fair if she’d finally figured out that the seal was Teddy, only to discover it had gone back to the bay.
They trudged on. Minutes passed, and Ali became increasingly despondent. She’d failed.
And then: “Look up toward the grass!” shouted Cassie.
The other two lights turned in the direction where Cassie pointed.
They’d found the seal.