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Colton gave him a strange look, then snorted. “More points? Dude, you crushed the other team. You scored the most points ever. I swear, it must be like a school record.”
“W-wait, I did?” Jamal stammered, looking around at the other kids.
“Yeah, and there was that sick layup to finish the game,” Colton added, wrapping his arm around Jamal’s shoulder and steering him down the hall through the crowd of students heading to class. He mimed swishing a shot. “Just an overachiever. You’ll do better next time. Ha! Good one.”
“Right, you know me,” Jamal said, feeling like he was losing his mind. Colton and his friends liked him now? And he had scored the most points in the basketball game?
It was like they were confusing him with Malik. Except in this world, there was no Malik. It was really like he had taken his brother’s place. He was living in some alternate reality.
How is this possible?
As they strolled down the hall, more kids ran up to him.
“Jamal, sign my yearbook?”
“No, sign mine!”
“Hey! I was first.”
A pen was thrust into his hand, and yearbooks cracked open in front of him for his signature. The kids looked at him expectantly. He scrawled his name again and again, and then something strange started to happen. His guilt dissolved, replaced by a new feeling—elation.
Was that how his brother felt all the time? Like a social media star? Being noticed and standing in the spotlight was so much better than lurking in the shadows. He looked up from signing, and his eyes fell on Riley. She was standing by her locker, loading books into her backpack. She gave him a disapproving look. Her dark brows twisted into a frown under her purple mohawk, and her nose crinkled up. His hand froze mid-signature. It was almost like she knew what he had done. But how was that possible?
Out of the corner of his eye, Jamal saw something that looked like his own shadow dart across the floor. He blinked hard, and when he looked back, it was gone. Instinctively, he reached for the skull necklace, but it was dark and cool.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Must be tough being most popular,” Colton said, drawing his attention from the necklace. “Does your hand get tired signing all those autographs? Come on, or we’ll be late for class.”
Colton herded the fan club away and pulled Jamal toward science class. He turned back to the disappointed kids, still clutching their yearbooks. “Look, show’s over, folks,” Colton said. “He’ll sign more at lunch.”
* * *
“Mr. President, care to answer the question?” Mrs. Perkins said, calling on Jamal right away. He couldn’t believe that his teacher had noticed his hand up for once. And she’d called him Mr. President. The other kids lowered their hands. “Does light behave as a particle or a wave?”
“Actually, according to Einstein’s theory, it can behave like both,” he replied.
While Jamal always paid attention in class and usually knew the answers, he almost never got a chance to display his knowledge. Most of the time, his brother got called on.
“Very good, but I shouldn’t be surprised by my best student,” Mrs. Perkins said with a chuckle. “By the way, congratulations on winning the election. I know you’ll do a stellar job, just like you always do in my class.”
“Uh…thanks, Mrs. P,” Jamal said, using his brother’s nickname for their teacher—something he would never have done before. Only his brother had the charisma to pull that off. He half expected her to chastise him, but instead, she blushed and chuckled.
“Oh, you’re such a joker.”
Jamal couldn’t believe it. A cockiness he had never known spread through him. It was like he could do anything and everyone loved it.
He turned back, hoping to catch Riley’s attention. He suddenly felt like he could make a good impression. But she just glowered at him, then buried herself in her composition notebook.
It was so weird. Before, he’d expected Riley to lose interest in him when she met his brother. That was what usually happened. People forgot he existed when Malik was around. Literally. But not Riley.
Everyone else seemed charmed by him and loved him, but she couldn’t care less. In fact, it was almost like she disliked him now. The dark magic spell had worked on everyone else. Why was Riley different?
That was when he saw it again: the shadow slithering across the floor toward his desk. It passed Riley and headed straight for him. And then he heard a strange whisper.
“Help me…please.”
Jamal jolted in his seat, feeling the familiar guilt, but then the buzzer went off, signaling the end of class. Mrs. Perkins flipped on the lights, and the shadow instantly vanished in the flood of brilliance that washed over the classroom.
