Author’s notes: This story actually falls earlier in the timeline than stories posted before it. While the action takes place after the second story, Double Bind, it mainly contains spoilers for the first story, Stopgap Jim. It also relies on information given there, which sets up this universe. So, it would be very helpful to have read the first story in the universe before starting on this one.
In case you need a refresher, the basic outline is as follows: Jim discovered that an alternate reality existed, where the Bob-Whites had super-powers. Unfortunately, both Jim and Brian in the alternate reality have suffered a loss of common sense. A year later, all of the regular Bob-Whites visited the alternate reality when the alternate Brian tried to destroy both worlds. You can also check the Reference Page for more information.
Part One
“Wake up!”
Jim groaned, but did not open his eyes. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
Mart, standing above him, let out a frustrated sound. “You all try this on us all the time, but when we’re the ones in need – or, rather, your own double is – it’s a different matter altogether, isn’t it?”
This time, Jim opened his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Mart glanced around the room. This version of Jim – the alternate one – was messier than his original counterpart. Not seeing anywhere else to sit, he perched on the edge of the bed, forcing Jim to sit up in order to see him.
“Do you remember the musical jewellery box that Trixie and Honey found hidden in the attic when we were working on the antique show?” Mart asked. “The one that originally belonged to your great-aunt?”
Alternate Jim ran a hand over his face. “What about it?”
“In my world, it’s been stolen,” Mart explained. “That’s not the biggest problem, by the way. Trixie’s on that and she thinks it can be recovered. But while we were talking about the box, it came to Jim’s attention – the original Jim, you understand – that the story he had connected to it does not add up.”
“So?” The other man lay back down. “Tell him not to worry so much.”
Mart growled. “Your own self is having an existential crisis and all you can say is, ‘don’t worry so much’? I’ll have you know–”
“I’m not like him,” Alternate Jim interrupted. “You know that, Mart. And I don’t think I can help you this time.”
Mart got up, scowling. “I hope you’ll be more amenable in the morning. Because I’m not giving up.”
Alternate Jim pulled the covers up over his face.
After a moment’s consideration, Mart crossed to the door and listened for a moment. He eased it open and padded across to Honey’s door. Not a sound came from within, so he opened it a crack.
“Honey!” he called, in a low voice. “Wake up!”
She made a soft noise, but did not otherwise answer.
“Honey!” he repeated, still with no result.
With a sigh, he opened the door the rest of the way, entered the room and closed it behind himself. The thick carpet muffled his steps as he crossed the room. He stopped just short of the bed, peering into the shadows the moonlight did not reach.
“Honey?” he asked, just a little louder.
“Hmm?” she answered. A moment later, she sat bolt upright. “Mart! What are you doing here? There must be something wrong. Where’s the problem? Is everyone in your reality okay? What do you need us to do?”
“Calm down,” he urged, as her voice began to rise in volume. “I’m sorry to bother you. We actually mostly need your Jim, but he doesn’t want to help me. I was wondering if you could convince him in the morning that it’s the right thing to do.”
“Of course,” she answered. “I’ll get on it right after breakfast. And I’ll get whoever I need to help me, too. Even if I have to get Di to influence him.” In this reality, Diana had the power of hypnotic suggestion. “But what is it that I’m convincing him to do?”
Taking the desk chair that Honey waved him to and drawing it near the bed, he repeated to her all of the things he had told Jim.
“Oh!” She fell silent for a few moments. “You know, now that you mention it, the things that I remember Jim saying at the time, don’t really make sense. But is that because I’m not remembering them right, or because they never did?”
“That’s one of the things we’re trying to find out,” Mart replied. “And it’s the main reason that we want help from your Jim – so that we can compare his memories to our Jim’s.”
He saw her nod. “Of course. He just has to help. And I’m going to make sure that he does. So, do you want us to come to you, or you to come to us?”
“Pardon?”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday – or, I guess, today, really – and I’m going to call a Bob-White meeting and I was wondering, your clubhouse or ours? And does nine-thirty suit you?”
“Yes, that would be great,” Mart answered. “And if you’re happy to offer your clubhouse…”
“Of course I am.” She yawned. “Nine-thirty in the clubhouse in this reality. I’ll definitely bring Jim, and as many of the other Bob-Whites as I can grab.”
“Thanks, Honey,” he told her, his relief clear in his voice. “I really appreciate your help.”
They bid each other goodnight, and then Mart returned to Jim’s room, using the portal there to return to his own world.
“Is he going to help?” the Jim he found there demanded, almost before he had finished stepping through.
Mart shrugged. “He didn’t want to, but Honey’s going to make sure he does.”
Jim ran a hand across his face. “This isn’t going to work, is it?”
“Of course it is,” Mart answered, giving him a comforting slap on the back. “Get some sleep. Honey’s called a meeting in their clubhouse at nine-thirty.”
His friend nodded. The two divided up the rest of their club, so that all would be invited to the meeting and Mart departed. Rather than take the advice to rest, Jim paced the room.
“Has he agreed to help?” Diana demanded, as she entered the regular clubhouse at twenty-five past nine. “And why wasn’t that part in the message about the meeting?”
Trixie shrugged. “We didn’t tell you because we don’t know, yet. Apparently, he wasn’t interested last night, but he might be this morning.”
Diana turned on Mart. “You didn’t stay long enough to find out?”
He shook his head. “I followed the plan we made. I turned it over to Honey and she’s the one who called this meeting.”
“Not me,” their own Honey clarified as she entered. “The other Honey did. And she’s going to make him help us, I just know it.”
“The other Jim isn’t like our Jim,” Trixie commented, frowning. “Are we all here yet? I want to get going.”
Diana made a point of counting the present Bob-Whites, only coming up with four.
“Jim’s waiting by the portal,” Honey explained, with a worried glance in that direction. “Dan had to work – he’s going to join us a bit later – and Brian chose to… well, to sit this part out. He said he had something else he needed to do and we didn’t make a fuss.”
“In that case, we are all here,” Di concluded.
They joined Jim in the storage area. Trixie made the portal and the five of them stepped through into the bathroom of the alternate clubhouse. Moments later they reunited with their alternate counterparts in the main room.
“It’s so good to see you all,” alternate Honey greeted. “Are we waiting on anyone from your side, or can we start?”
“It’s just us, for now,” regular Trixie answered. She looked around the room. “No Jim, Dan or Di?”
“Dan’s joining us a bit later,” alternate Trixie informed them. “And Di is bringing Jim in about fifteen minutes – or when we give her the signal; whichever is soonest.”
“We wanted a few minutes to compare notes,” alternate Honey continued. “Because we’ve compared notes with each other and we’d like to compare those notes with any notes that you have, so that we can see if we’re coming at this thing from the same angle.”
“Sounds good,” Jim answered, gesturing for everyone to sit down.
The nine of them settled on the couches or the floor.
“How about if you start, Jim?” alternate Honey suggested. “Tell us what it is that you remember.”
He looked away, frowning. “My mother once told me that Jonesy used to ask Uncle James and Aunt Nell for money, but that she put a stop to it. Then, when the musical jewellery box went missing, it was the obvious conclusion that Jonesy had stolen it. My mother actually accused him once, but he denied it. She also said that my great-aunt and uncle loved her. They couldn’t understand why she had married Jonesy – no one understood.”
“And the circumstances of the theft?” Honey prompted. “Except, of course, we already know that it wasn’t actually a theft.”
Jim frowned. “I don’t think I knew much about it before we heard from Mrs. Spencer, who used to own Manor House. I think all I knew was that Aunt Nell was very upset that it was missing, because Uncle Jim had given her the music box when they visited Paris once and she loved it.”
Regular Trixie nodded. “I think it was Mrs. Spencer who told us the part about the trip to Europe. It got taken back to Manor House right before the trip and they noticed it was missing when they got back.”
“But none of this makes sense.” Jim looked down into his lap. “Aunt Nell died when I was about two or three and my mother didn’t marry Jonesy until I was eleven. Which leads me to wonder: did I really have that conversation with my mother? And if I didn’t, why was I so certain that I did?”
Alternate Brian cleared his throat. “We’ve begun to explore the idea that someone might have the power to create false memories.”
“But that doesn’t fit with the evidence,” alternate Honey all but interrupted. “Because we have my diary – this diary, where I wrote down all the things that Jim said that day, because I thought they were important.”
“And we also have mine,” regular Honey added, holding hers up. “Are they the same?”
She went to sit next to her double and they compared the pages in question.
“I don’t see any differences at all,” alternate Honey announced, at last. “And that recollection tallies exactly with both our collective recollections and with my diary, which I think means that you’re remembering the incident before the antique show correctly.”
“I don’t find that a comfort,” Jim told her. “I know that I said those things that day. I’m not denying it. The trouble is with the events I told you about. They’re completely impossible. It just can’t have happened that way.”
Alternate Trixie cast him a shrewd look. “You wanted to tell Jonesy it had been found and that he’d been exonerated. Did you ever do it?”
Jim shook his head and looked away. “I should have, but an opportunity never arose.”
“Getting back to the false memory theory,” Brian put in, but was not allowed to continue.
“We’ve been over this, Brian.” Alternate Mart made a frustrated gesture. “If there was a false memory, it must have been created years before any of us had abilities. And that doesn’t really make sense, does it?”
“It doesn’t,” regular Mart agreed. “No. I’ve thought all along that we need to accept that Jim really did have that conversation with his mother. There must be a logical explanation; we just have to find it.”
“And that’s what we came here to try to do,” regular Di reminded them all. “So, is it time to see your Jim, yet? I’d like to hear what he has to say.”
“I was going to say,” Brian told them with a scowl, “that the false memory theory has a second facet. If Jim’s memory is faulty, there might be a way to recover the correct memory.”
Alternate Trixie turned to him. “Using Di’s ability, you mean?”
He nodded. “It’s worth trying, don’t you think?”
“You’ll have to ask the Diana who lives here,” regular Di objected, as everyone turned to her. “I don’t have enough experience.”
“Well, it’s nearly time for her to arrive anyway,” alternate Honey noted, with a glance at her watch. “Why don’t we bring her and Jim inside now, and see what we can find out?”
Alternate Trixie went to the door and beckoned the other two inside. Greetings were once more exchanged and they all sat down again.
“What did you find out?” alternate Di asked, looking around the room. “Do the memories match?”
“The other Jim’s match all of ours,” alternate Trixie answered. “But we’re thinking that you could help us find out if Jim’s memories of the original conversation with his mother are real or not.”
Di thought for a moment and nodded. “We could try that.”
“But not with me,” alternate Jim objected, scowling. “You’ve already pushed me around enough for one day.”
A soft, blue glow from the bathroom indicated a portal forming. At almost the same time, the outside door opened.
“Hey, Dan,” regular Dan greeted his double. “Problem?”
“Maybe our Brian could answer that,” the other answered, holding up an electronic device.
“I know nothing about electronics, nor am I interested,” Brian intoned, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Sorry. I don’t know what that’s about.”
Both Trixies narrowed their eyes at alternate Jim.
“But someone else has been acting a bit off,” regular Trixie noted.
“I think you have some explaining to do, Jim,” her alternate added.
He got up and strode to the door, pushing Dan aside. “I don’t have to explain anything.”
Dan made to follow him, but alternate Trixie called him back. “Let him go. We have other things to worry about right now – starting with, where did you find that?”
“Just outside the old schoolhouse,” he answered. “And I couldn’t get inside to check it out.”
“Suspicious,” she commented. “Okay. Here’s the plan: Di, you get started on Jim. See if you can figure out if the memory is real. Do you want Di’s help with that?”
The two Dianas looked at each other and the regular one shrugged.
“Only if she wants to,” alternate Di decided.
Regular Di shook her head.
“Okay, then.” Alternate Trixie looked around the rest of the group. “It’s probably better to let them have some peace. A team of us can go up to the schoolhouse and check it out. Another team can follow up on Jim. Which team do you want to lead, Trixie?”
Her double thought for a minute. “I’ll take Jim. But it’s probably better if your Honey is on my team.”
“Then, I’ll be on the other Trixie’s team,” regular Honey decided. “We should make sure we’re not in the same places as ourselves, just in case we meet anyone who doesn’t know that there’s more than one reality.”
They sorted themselves out with only a short debate, then alternate Trixie’s team departed. The other team agreed to give them a few minutes to get away before they, too, left.
“Tell me more about what you found,” alternate Trixie demanded of the Dan from her own reality, who was on her team. “How far was it from the building?”
He shrugged. “A few paces. I’ll show you when we get there.”
“And was it hidden, or out in the open?”
He frowned, thinking. “It wasn’t completely hidden. But it wasn’t all that obvious, either.”
“What are you getting at, Trixie?” asked regular Mart.
“Just trying to get a handle on whether it was there deliberately, or if it was dropped.”
Regular Honey’s brow creased. “Do you think this has anything to do with our problem? I mean, with my brother Jim’s problem, as opposed to the other Honey’s brother’s problem?”
Trixie cast her a sympathetic look. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
The four of them lapsed into silence.
When they reached the old building, Dan’s steps slowed.
“Here.” He pointed to a place beside the path. “It was here, kind of under this bush.”
“Spread out,” Trixie directed. “See if you can find anything else suspicious. And Mart, make sure you look through everything.”
“Got it,” he answered, and began using his x-ray vision to scan the area.
They all poked around, but didn’t come up with anything.
“I don’t think there’s anything else to find,” Mart commented, after a time. “What else are we up here to do?”
His sister’s double turned to the schoolhouse. “Let’s see if we can find a way in.”
They examined the sturdy padlock securing the door, but did not find an easy way to bypass it. Next, they checked all of the windows. Last, Trixie stood back and peered up at the bell-tower.
“No,” Dan told her, before she said a word. “You’re not trying to climb up there.”
“Well, how else are we going to get in?” she wanted to know.
He shrugged. “We’ll have to get some tools.”
“Or, we could wait for Jim to open it,” Mart suggested.
Honey nodded. “Or, steal the key from him.”
“What’s inside?” Dan asked Mart. “Maybe, if we know that, Trixie won’t feel compelled to break her neck.”
“For your information, Mr. Know-It-All, I was actually thinking of getting you to fly me up there.”
He smirked. “You were not. You only thought of that just then.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mart interrupted. “The door to the bell tower’s got a lock on it, too.”
“What else is in there?” Trixie demanded of him, abandoning her argument with Dan.
Mart frowned. “Old junk, I think. Piles and piles of broken things. Mostly broken electrical things, as far as I can see.”
“Where would it all have come from?” Honey wondered. “It can’t be from Maypenny’s.”
Dan shook his head. “Jim must have brought them here. But why?”
“Until we can get inside, I don’t think we can find out.” Trixie heaved a sigh. “I don’t think there’s anything else for us here. Let’s get back and see how everyone else is doing.”
They followed the path back down to the clubhouse, three of them chatting as they walked. Trixie strode ahead, not joining in the conversation. She stopped short outside the clubhouse door and waited for the others to catch up.
“We can go in,” Mart assured her, after a quick glance through the closed door.
“How did it go?” alternate Trixie asked, as soon as they entered.
Regular Jim shrugged. “It seems to be real. We got a few more details, but nothing very important.”
A slight frown creased alternate Di’s brow, but she did not voice an objection.
“What did you find?” Honey asked her brother, sitting down beside him.
He shrugged again. “Context, mostly. My mother told me about the musical jewellery box after she’d had what she called a ‘discussion’ with Jonesy. He was gentle with her – he always was – but he made it abundantly clear that he thought she was spending more money than they could afford on household expenses and school supplies for me. When he went out to the farm, she told me the story.”
“And that’s the only time you heard about this?” Honey wondered. “Your Dad didn’t mention it at all?”
Jim shook his head. “I don’t remember Dad talking about Uncle James and Aunt Nell all that much. It was Mom who told me I’d inherit money from them one day.”
Honey’s brow creased. “I wish I could have been here to hear your memories, but I do understand that that would have made things harder.”
“I wrote it down as he described it,” Di mentioned. “I’ll need to rewrite it before anyone can understand what it says; it was hard to keep up.”
“The part about Aunt Nell and Uncle Jim not understanding about her marrying Jonesy was a separate conversation,” Jim continued. “She was sick, by then – but not so sick as to be incoherent. She was trying to explain to me why she had married him.”
“Why did she marry him?” Trixie wondered. “I’ve never understood that, either.”
He shook his head. “I still don’t know. She talked about always doing what was right. By I don’t know why she thought that was right. It seems all wrong, to me.”
“It seems all wrong to us, too,” Honey told him, giving him a hug. “But we’re going to get to the bottom of this. I just know that we’ll be able to find an explanation.”
Jim shook his head. “What possible explanation can there be?”
“That’s what we need to figure out.” Alternate Trixie looked out through the door. “I think that’s the others coming back. Maybe they’ll have our Jim with them and we can try it on him, too.”
But when they arrived, that turned out not to be the case.
“Brian and Mart from here both had to go. And we couldn’t see the Jim from here anywhere,” regular Trixie told the group.
“Perhaps, in that case, you should keep looking,” her brother Mart answered.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “You’re forgetting who we’re talking about here. We couldn’t see him anywhere.”
“But we did find his clothes,” alternate Honey added.
Regular Diana smiled. “We considered hiding them, but that would have only made him stay out of sight longer.”
In this reality, Jim had the power of invisibility.
“So, seeing as we couldn’t see him, we decided to see if we could find any things he might have been doing,” Trixie continued. “And we found something suspicious in the Manor House basement.”
“What sort of suspicious?” asked alternate Trixie, while at the same moment regular Mart asked, “What basement?”
Alternate Honey answered the second question. “It’s a space under the kitchen that got sealed up sometime before we owned the house. We only found it a few months ago when the cook we had then accidentally burnt a hole in the floor.”
“Anyway, there’s a whole lot of broken electrical or electronic things down there,” regular Trixie continued, “and a red door that we can’t open.”
“That’s just like what we saw at the schoolhouse,” regular Honey noted, “except, of course, the part about the red door, which the schoolhouse doesn’t have – though, we couldn’t open the outside door either, but it’s not red, and that it wasn’t actually all of us seeing the things, but only Mart, on account of not being able to get inside.”
“So, what’s our next step?” alternate Trixie wondered. “In connection with our Jim, we need to get inside that schoolhouse and behind that red door. In connection with your Jim, what?”
“I’m still figuring that out. Because I think getting your Jim to help isn’t going to work – at least not until we can figure out what he’s doing.” Regular Trixie frowned. “But first, I need to get back to my own reality. I still have a stolen music box to recover. But I think I can get that done this afternoon.”
“Okay.” Alternate Trixie glanced around the room. “I need a team to break into the schoolhouse, a team to break through that red door and a team to help Trixie with the theft. Oh, and how about a team to look for information on the Fraynes – maybe we can narrow down the time when the box went missing.”
“I need to rewrite my notes,” alternate Di told her. “I think there’s something important here in the things that Jim said.”
“And I need to get to work,” alternate Dan added.
“We’ll meet back here, when?” alternate Trixie asked. “This afternoon? Tomorrow?”
“This afternoon is too soon, if some of us are going to do some research,” regular Honey pointed out.
“Tomorrow after lunch?” regular Dan suggested. “Say, at two?”
“If most people can be here then, that suits me,” regular Trixie answered. “Show of hands? I count eight… but there’s only ten of us here. Okay, tomorrow at two. Trixie, you can tell your brothers and I’ll tell my Brian.”
“Sounds good,” she answered.
In minutes, they had divided into their teams and departed, leaving alternate Diana alone in the clubhouse. She frowned at her notes and tapped them with the end of her pen. After a few moments, she began to write.
Continue to part two.
Notes are at the end.
Return to the Reality Displaced Page
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