She hurried to her brother’s side. When she arrived, she discovered that this wasn’t actually her brother—it was Arthur! The young king had been transformed to look like Conner! Once Alex realized she had been tricked, the curse returned tenfold. The real Conner cleared his throat from wherever he was hiding and began his story.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was very smart and loved to learn more than anything else in the world. The little girl was the best student at her school and surpassed her classmates in every subject they studied. Unfortunately, the other students became jealous of the little girl and were intimidated by her. Instead of praising her intelligence, the children teased and bullied her for being so smart. They wouldn’t play with her on the playground or eat lunch with her in the cafeteria, and the little girl became very lonely.”
Alex saw her brother running across the third level of the platform. She zapped him with another burst of light and he collapsed. However, when she went to check on him, she found Jack lying on the floor instead.
“Whenever the little girl felt sad, she would read a new book from the library. The characters in the stories became her friends, inspiring the little girl to read as much as she could. The more she read, the smarter the little girl became. And the smarter she became, the more people resented her for it.”
Conner appeared on the bottom level of the platform. He leaped over the railing and landed on the level above. Alex blasted her brother with a beam of light and discovered that he was actually Froggy. This time the curse didn’t even break so she could check on him—it knew the game Conner was playing.
“By the time the little girl was a young woman, she was the leader of a faraway kingdom. The young woman’s passion for knowledge made her a very wise ruler, and the mistreatment she experienced as a child made her sympathetic to her people’s needs. Unfortunately, the young woman’s superior leadership intimidated the adults in her life. They became envious of her abilities and made her life difficult whenever they could.”
Conner popped up from behind a satellite dish. Alex struck her brother with another burst of light and Charlotte collapsed on the floor.
“Since there always seemed to be consequences for the young woman’s good qualities, she gravely feared the consequences of a bad quality. So the young woman held herself to an unhealthy level of perfectionism and never allowed herself to make a mistake. It was hard enough being resented without reason—she couldn’t imagine how difficult the world would be if she gave it a reason to hate her.”
Alex saw Conner skipping across the platform above her. She hit him with a ray of light and Red rolled onto the roof.
“One day the adults in the young woman’s life created a plan to exploit her abilities for themselves. They put a terrible curse on her that caused the young woman to feel and do awful things at their command. Even though she was being forced against her will, the young woman was such a perfectionist, she blamed herself for every terrible act she committed. She was so ashamed, she asked a loved one to take her life, believing it was the only way to end her suffering.”
Conner suddenly peeked out from behind the Freedom Tower’s antenna. Alex hit her brother with a powerful ray of light and he transformed into Cornelius.
“But it wasn’t the young woman’s fault for thinking this way. You see, no one ever told her it was okay to make mistakes. No one told her there was nothing wrong with needing help. No one told her it was normal to feel upset, or angry, or overwhelmed now and then. Everyone in her life took her perfectionism for granted and didn’t realize how suffocating it was. And because no one gave the young woman permission to be human, she thought she was a failure for being one.”
Alex spotted Conner doing a handstand on a radio antenna. She hit him with another blast of light and Emerelda tumbled to the floor.
“You are that young woman, Alex! People have made you feel bad for being accomplished, and now that you’re cursed, it feels like it’s the end of the world! You’re so used to being in control, you think you’ve disappointed everyone by being vulnerable to something you can’t control! But the only thing that would ever disappoint us is if you gave up fighting! So I won’t let this curse be the end of you! I know you can save yourself from it if you just cut yourself some slack!”
Suddenly, her brother’s binder of short stories slid between Alex’s feet. The real Conner jumped out from hiding and wrapped his arms around her.
“But if I can’t convince you, I know someone who will!”
Conner dropped the flask of Portal Potion and it shattered across the binder’s pages. A beam of light shot up and the Bailey twins disappeared into the most important story Conner had ever written….
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A SPECULATION STORY
The twins entered the bright and endless world of the Portal Potion. The story Conner had written was so short that it didn’t take long for his handwriting to take shape and form the world he’d created. He’d written the story so quickly, there hadn’t been time to include much detail. All that materialized in the empty space around them was a very familiar white door.
Alex’s eyes stopped glowing, her hair stopped floating above her head, and she looked around the story in a daze.
“I… I… I feel normal,” she said. “Conner, you broke the curse! How did you make it go away?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not over yet,” Conner explained. “You’re still cursed—it just can’t affect you in this story. I wrote about a world where curses don’t exist.”
“It’s nice to have a clear head again—even if it’s only temporary,” Alex said. “If we don’t find a way to break the curse, I should just stay here. What kind of story is this?”
It was difficult for Conner to describe it. “It’s sort of a speculation piece,” he said. “I wrote a story about what our lives might be like if… well, if we’d never had a reason to move out of our old house.”
His sister’s eyes grew wide when she realized what he was implying.
“You mean…” she said, but couldn’t finish her thought.
Conner sighed. “Maybe,” he said. “Let’s go inside and find out.”
The twins went through the white door and stepped into the living room of their old house. At first glance the room was exactly the way they remembered it, but as they walked farther into the house, they noticed a few subtle changes. All the photos in the picture frames had been changed to current ones of their family. There were pictures of birthday parties, family vacations, holiday trips, and embarrassing school portraits. Even though the twins were present in each photo, Alex and Conner didn’t remember any of the memories on display.
“It’s like an alternate reality,” Alex said. “Look, this school picture is me in the ninth grade—but I was already living in the fairy-tale world by then.”