Out in the hall after class, I unfolded the mamba to read more unfamiliar words from a very familiar hand:

Hi, Me,

Nash giving you a hard time? I may have had something to do with that. Sorry, we Mes can’t resist getting the better of that kid when we have the chance. You’ll learn how to get the better of him too—at Me Con. You’ll pick up tips from other Mes who’ve put their versions of that jerk in his place. You may even learn a thing or two about getting Mr. Lunt off your back, or getting Twig interested in being more than your friend. I’m telling you, it’s the real deal. The Janus South. After school. Be there.

Ours sincerely,

Me

Any kid at school could have written this note. Even people I’d never talked to knew me as the kid who got more attention than he wanted from Nash. And anybody who cared probably figured I had a thing for Twig. It was the most obvious letter so far, but also the one that really got me thinking. If there actually were different versions of me out there dealing with Nash and Twig—not to mention Mom and Dad—some of them were bound to have advice. It was a nice little fantasy to daydream about, at least.

The rest of the morning didn’t go much better than the way it had started. The origami notes kept coming, all of them in shapes I’d thought were solely mine: a bat-eared fox under my desk in algebra, a Norwegian forest cat by the cafeteria’s Build-a-Spud station, a stickleback gar shooting out of my saxophone in band, an Asian house shrew in my PE uniform. Whoever had left these creations knew my schedule right down to the bathroom breaks, if the alligator snapping turtle on the flusher of my go-to urinal was any indication.

Having a stalker was bad enough, but a stalker who stole my best origami ideas was even worse. And then they’d rubbed it in my face by not even trying hard enough. Though these creations technically weren’t bad, there was something a little too by-the-book about them, like whoever had made them wasn’t having any fun.

The notes themselves got more and more wacky, but that also made them harder to resist. They tried to sell me on the same pitch about how Me Con was the solution to all my problems, the place for tips on improving my grades, doing better at band and basketball, becoming more popular, etc. A lot of them ended with the line “What kind of Me do you want to be?” The only Me I wanted to be was the kind who didn’t get any more of those letters. But I still read and reread each one, searching for clues about who’d written them.

I got so absorbed in the mystery of it all that I was late for Ms. Assan’s drama class. No big loss. There was nothing for me to do there anyway. I was Nash’s understudy in Benedict!, a middle school version of the hit Broadway rap musical about Benedict Arnold, the notorious traitor of the Revolutionary War. Nash played the lead role, and I was supposed to memorize his lines in case he missed a show. The thing was, Nash, the perfect physical specimen, never got sick. That left me with nothing to do but sit through the rehearsal like always, watching Nash ham it up with Twig, who played Mrs. Arnold. As the two of them performed a flawless duet of “Call Us Mr. and Mrs. Traitor,” I cursed myself for choosing “acting in a play” from the list of preprogrammed Achieve-O-Meter goals.

At least Nash was so busy with the play that I didn’t have to worry about him getting revenge on me just yet. Instead, Twig cornered me backstage during her first break. “Seriously, why are you acting so cagey about last night’s episode? What did you think of it?”

Any other day I might have lied, if only for the sake of our friendship, not to mention a lifelong fear of confrontation. But today wasn’t any other day.

“You really want to know?”

“I’ve been waiting all this time.”

The notes, the stalking, Me Con—it all swirled around in my head until the words spilled out: “It just would’ve been nice if you hadn’t used me as an example of a loser to the entire internet.”

Twig looked crushed. “I didn’t call you a loser! I didn’t call you anything! I didn’t even use your name!”

“You might as well have!”

The backup dancers, dressed like minutemen and redcoats, started to stare. There’s nothing drama kids like better than, well, drama.

Twig lowered her voice. “I’ve tried to talk to you for weeks about this stuff. This achievement nonsense, this need to have a ‘thing.’ It’s just stressing you out.”

“Easy for you to say! You’ve got your show and your acting. And now you’ve got Nash.”

“What?! That’s gross! Give me a break! You’re just mad because you know I’m right.”

Before she could say more, the MeMinder burst in on the conversation. “You must begin work on your science fair project now to achieve your goal! Student Showcase tonight!”

For once I appreciated the intrusion. “Sorry to cut this short, but the Achieve-O-Meter has spoken.”

I headed for the school exit, leaving my former best friend behind. This was the final straw in a final-straw kind of day. I had a few classes left, but I needed to go out and do something stupid.

Breaking into an old abandoned hotel sounded like just the right kind of stupid.