First published in 2018 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2020

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2018 Guy Bass

  Illustrations © 2018 Steve May

  The moral right of Guy Bass and Steve May to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  ISBN: 978-1-80090-020-2

  To my dad

  CONTENTS

  1. Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce

  2. Dinosaurs

  3. Another Noah

  4. Noah and the Other Noah

  5. More Noahs

  6. Miss Fiddy Faints

  7. What a Difference a Weekend Makes

  8. You Can’t Always Get What You Want

  9. Enough Is (Not) Enough

  10. You Might Get What You Need

  “Welcome to BTVC News. I am Anne Finally, and you join me here, live from the sleepy village of Dundlewick. I was here last month at the start of the so-called ‘Dundlewick Doubling’. Today, I look back at how it all began. A month in, the doubling goes on, and on … and on. Scientists say the number of doubles is set to rise to one billion by tomorrow morning. Today, I examine how the doubling began, and what it means for the future of Dundlewick … and the human race.”

  One Month Before ...

  Chapter 1

  Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce

  Dundlewick Doubling – Day Zero

  Number Of Noahs – 1

  “What’s that?” Noah asked. He looked down at the tray of food and screwed up his face.

  The dinner lady, Mrs Tuckin, stared back at him.

  “Meat pie,” she said. Her spatula hovered over the tray, ready to serve him a slice.

  “What’s in it?” Noah asked.

  Mrs Tuckin raised an eyebrow.

  “Meat,” she said.

  “I want spaghetti and tomato sauce,” Noah said.

  Mrs Tuckin sighed. “And yet here we both are, staring at a tray of meat pie,” she replied. “I’ll spell it out to you, Noah. I’m sure it won’t be for the last time. Monday is spaghetti day. Tuesday is meat pie day. Wednesday is pizza day. Thursday is chicken day. And then, as sure as sugar lumps, it’s Friday. And what is Friday otherwise known as?”

  “Fish Friday,” Noah said with a roll of his eyes.

  “Fish Friday! From the sea to your plate!” Mrs Tuckin declared.

  “Yeah, but –” Noah began.

  “But every single day you ask me for spaghetti and tomato sauce,” Mrs Tuckin said. “Every. Single. Day.”

  “That’s because I want spaghetti and tomato sauce every day,” Noah said in a matter-of-fact way.

  “And I want my cat to stop pooing in the fruit bowl,” Mrs Tuckin said. “But every day I go home to find that Catilla the Hun has done her business on my satsumas.”

  “It’s like the song says,” Mrs Tuckin went on, “ ‘you can’t always get what you want – but, if you try, sometimes you might get what you need …’ ”

  “I have no idea what that means,” Noah said.

  “Give it time,” Mrs Tuckin said. “Now, look, Noah, I have a lot of mouths to feed and I know it’s hard to believe but they don’t all want to eat spaghetti and tomato sauce,” she said. Mrs Tuckin pointed to the line of children behind Noah. And, as he looked back at them, she slapped a spatula full of meat pie down on Noah’s plate. “Bon appetit! Enjoy!” she added. “I look forward to our little chat again tomorrow.”

  ‘Why would anyone not want to eat spaghetti and tomato sauce?’ Noah thought, as he stared down at his plate of meat pie.

  If it was up to him, Noah would eat spaghetti and tomato sauce for lunch and dinner. He would get up every morning at exactly 06.45 a.m. and go to bed at exactly 10.10 p.m. every night. He would only drink cold milk, and only if it was in a tall glass with a straw. And he would read nothing but books about dinosaurs.

  If Noah had his way, everybody else would live by his rules too. But life wasn’t like that. Everyone was different. It was very frustrating.

  ‘Why can’t everyone be like me?’ Noah thought. He had to do something about it.

  But what?

  Chapter 2

  Dinosaurs

  Noah Scape’s day didn’t get any better.

  How could it? His teacher, Miss Fiddy, was always teaching her class about things like personal pronouns and poisonous plants. She never even mentioned dinosaurs.

  Noah knew a lot about dinosaurs.

  He knew that the dinosaur with the longest name was Micropachycephalosaurus.

  He knew that the smallest dinosaur egg ever found was only 3 centimetres long.

  He knew that the earliest known dinosaur found so far was the Eoraptor – and that its skeleton was dug up in Argentina in 1991.

  It wasn’t just that Noah was interested in dinosaurs – it was that he was interested in nothing else.

  But if Noah dared to bring up the differences between the Jurassic and Cretaceous climates in a lesson about poetry, then Miss Fiddy would give him a stern look and say, “No dinosaurs, Noah. Not today.”

  Noah soon learned that trying to talk about dinosaurs in class was like asking Mrs Tuckin to serve spaghetti and tomato sauce on a Tuesday.

  Of course, that didn’t mean he stopped trying.

  “Now, who can give me an example of a metaphor?” Miss Fiddy asked at 2.59 p.m. “That is, something that compares one thing to another, without using ‘like’ or ‘as’. Can anyone think of –”

  “The archaeopteryx was a rainbow of colours!” Noah yelled, waving his hand in the air.

  “Well, yes,” said Miss Fiddy, trying not to sigh. “I suppose that is a metaphor, but –”

  “The archaeopteryx is the oldest kind of bird,” Noah added, in a loud voice. “The largest kind of archaeopteryx could grow to half a metre long, and had a wingspan of –”

  “Thank you, Noah,” Miss Fiddy said, and she raised her hand. “I think we’ve heard enough about dinosaurs for one day.”

  ‘That makes no sense,’ Noah thought. ‘How could anyone ever have enough of dinosaurs?’

  But it felt like the more Noah cared about dinosaurs, the less everyone else did. All his classmates seemed to care about was playing stupid, pointless, nothing-to-do-with-dinosaurs games, like football or catch or tig.

  Even those children who Noah knew liked dinosaurs stopped talking about them as soon as he got anywhere near. Instead they chatted about video games and the sizes of planets and why it rains and burping the alphabet and the best colour of socks.

  Socks!

  ‘If only,’ Noah thought, ‘everyone was more like me.’ It was the second time that day he’d had that thought. (And the 100th time that year.)

  Then Noah decided he would stop wishing ‘if only …’

  Noah decided to decide.

  So, just as the day was about to end in its usual way – with a loud bell and the sure knowledge that everything was going to be just the same tomorrow – Noah picked up his best pencil and squeezed it so tight that it snapped in his hands. ‘I have to decide,’ he thought.

  Then, in the exact moment that the clock struck 3.15 p.m. and the bell rang for the end of school, Noah made a decision instead of a wish.

  “I need more of me,” he said.

  Chapter 3

  Another Noah

  Wednesday.

  Noah awoke at 06.45 a.m. as normal and ate his breakfast.

  • 1 dippy egg boiled for five minutes as normal.

  • 1 slice of white toast buttered to the edges as normal.

  • 1 tall glass of cold milk drunk with a straw as normal.

  Then Noah began the walk to school. It took nine minutes. On the way, he made a list in his head of as many dinosaurs as he could remember.

  So far, so Wednesday.

  It was only when Noah arrived at his classroom that things changed. Someone was sitting in his chair.

  Noah blinked, two times.

  No, it was not someone sitting in his chair.

  It was him.

  He was sitting in his chair.

  Dundlewick Doubling – Day 1

  Number Of Noahs – 2

  This other Noah was identical to him in every way. He had Noah’s dark, curly hair that looked untidy no matter how much Noah brushed it. He had Noah’s upturned nose … he had his chipped front tooth. It was like looking in a mirror, except the Noah that Noah saw did not look like a mirror image. This other Noah was 100% absolutely the same as he was!

  “Whuh?” was all Noah could say.

  The other Noah looked at him. By now the rest of the class had seen that there were two Noahs. A few of them shrank back to the corners of the classroom. Some peered at the pair, fascinated. Others scowled with suspicion.

  Noah ignored them all. He walked slowly towards the other Noah, his heart thumping in his chest.

  “You … you’re another me,” Noah said at last, his eyes wide. “Did – did I decide you?”

  “Well, I didn’t decide you, so I suppose you decided me,” the other Noah said with a shrug. “Now here I am.”

  “It worked … my not-wishing worked!” Noah laughed. He looked his double up and down. “All that time I spent wishing … I should have known it was a waste of time. I just needed to decide.”

  “Looks like it!” the other Noah said. “So, how many different dinosaur names did you think of on the way to school today?”

  “One hundred and two,” Noah said.

  “Three more than yesterday,” the other Noah said.

  “Wait, how do you know how many dinosaurs I counted yesterday, but not how many I counted today?” Noah asked.

  “You know as much as I do,” the other Noah said. “Maybe we’re just a little bit different. But other than that –”

  “We’re the same,” they said together.

  A grin spread across the faces of both Noahs, but Noah’s grin was just a little bit bigger. This was his doing, after all. He had decided this.

  “Morning, Owl Class,” said Miss Fiddy in a jolly-for-a-Wednesday voice. She skipped into the classroom with her arms full of exercise books. “And how is Owl Class doing tod-aAAAH!”

  Miss Fiddy dropped the exercise books as she stared at the two Noahs. “Two!” she blurted in horror. “How two? Who how? Two who …”

  “You sound like an owl, Miss,” both Noahs said together.

  Noah watched as his teacher tried to work it out.

  It was clear to Miss Fiddy that the other Noah wasn’t an identical twin. Twins may look the same but they move differently and breathe differently and think differently. They are different. These two Noahs were the same person – almost 100% the very same human being. Noah had been exactly doubled down to every last untidy hair on his head.

  “It’s OK, Miss, I’ll get a spare chair from the back,” Noah said. “Noah and I can share.”

  And that was that. For the rest of the day, Owl Class had two Noahs.

  Chapter 4

  Noah and the Other Noah

  Noah and the other Noah hit it off right away. After all, they had a lot in common.

  They agreed on the simple joy of a glass of ice-cold milk. They agreed on the delicious taste of a plate of spaghetti and tomato sauce.

  And, of course, they agreed that there was nothing in the world more important than dinosaurs. In fact, they had everything in common, down to the very last thought. They knew what the other one was thinking, and had just thought, and was about to think, which meant that conversations between the two Noahs tended to go like this.

  “The best thing about the spinosaurus is –”

  “Totally.”

  “Do you think the ankylosaurus –”

  “Definitely.”

  “I bet the parasaurolophus never –”

  “Of course not!”

  After the first couple of hours, the two Noahs could tell each other everything with a look … and soon they worked out they didn’t even need to do that. They didn’t say another thing to each other on their first day together. Noah didn’t mind at all. At last, he had found someone who agreed with him on everything.

  At lunch time, the two Noahs stood together in the queue.

  “Before you ask, Noah, no – there is no spaghetti and tomato sauce,” Mrs Tuckin said, as Noah reached the front of the lunch queue. “Today is pizza. Still, at least it’s still … Italian …”

  Mrs Tuckin fell silent as the other Noah stepped out from behind his double. Mrs Tuckin, who had seen a lot of odd things in her time, stared hard at the two Noahs but kept her cool.

  “What’s all this then?” she asked.

  “I decided I needed more of me,” Noah said.

  “So here I am,” the other Noah said.

  “You said I can’t always get what I want, but I might get what I need,” Noah added with a grin. “But now there’s two of me, so I have what I want and what I need.”

  “For the record, Noah, I did not mean for you to double yourself.” Mrs Tuckin tutted, as she waved her spatula at them. “Anyway, I haven’t time for hocus-pocus – hold out your plates.”

  The Noahs looked down at their empty plates, then at the hot, fresh pizza.

  “We want spaghetti and tomato sauce,” they said together.

  Mrs Tuckin let out a sigh.

  “Catilla the Hun did a poo in my fruit bowl and my slippers this morning, so I am in no mood for your usual objections,” Mrs Tuckin said. She picked up another spatula and slapped a pizza slice on to both plates. “Now, if you look behind you, you’ll find a hundred children who do want pizza, and I need to serve them too. Arrivederci! Farewell!”

  Noah and the other Noah stared at their pizza slices. They pushed them around their plates with identical jabs of their fingers. Then, in the very same moment, they made a decision. They looked up together and stared at each other.

  “We need more of us,” they said.

  Chapter 5

  More Noahs

  The Noahs did not have a good night’s sleep.

  Noah’s mum and dad didn’t sleep well either. They were altogether disturbed by the fact there were two of Noah. They spent all night on the internet looking for answers, and kept saying things like “How?” and “Impossible!” and “What will the neighbours say!”

  They treated the doubling of Noah as if it was some sort of awful illness.

  “It’s OK. I just decided I needed more of me, that’s all,” Noah told his parents, but no one seemed to think that the doubling was a good idea – except for Noah and the other Noah …

  … Oh, and the two new Noahs that they found in the classroom the next morning.

  Dundlewick Doubling – Day 2

  Number Of Noahs – 4

  “More of me!” Noah shouted when he saw the third and fourth Noahs. “We decided you! We decided you and now you’re here!”

  “We knew you were going to say that!” Noahs three and four laughed. They looked exactly the same as the other Noahs – doubles down to every tiny last detail.

  “How many dinosaur names did you think of on the way to school?” the two new Noahs asked together.

  “One hundred and six,” Noah said.

  “It would have been one hundred and five, but Noah saw a mouse and then he remembered mosasaurus,” the second Noah said. “I hadn’t thought of a mosasaurus.”

  “Maybe we’re just a little bit different,” Noah said.

  The Noahs looked at each other, and then they both shrugged at the same time.

  “Morning, Owl Class,” Miss Fiddy said, in her only-two-more-days-to-the-weekend Thursday voice. She rushed into the room with a heap of exercise books in her arms, as normal. “How is Owl Class doing tod-aAAAAH!”

  The exercise books fell to the floor with a KRU-DUMP! and Miss Fiddy went weak at the knees. If she hadn’t held on to her desk she would have fallen to the ground in a heap.

  “Four!” she blurted. “Two … now more! More … four!”

  “It’s OK, Miss, we’ll find some spare chairs,” Noah said. “We can share.”

  The four Noahs spent the morning huddled around a single desk, but it was clear that they needed more space. In the end, Miss Fiddy borrowed a table from another room and squeezed it into Owl Class. Everyone else had to shuffle back so that the new Noahs could fit.

  The best thing about there being more Noahs was they had the chance to talk about dinosaurs in their lesson.

  “Uh, who can give me an example of a verb?” Miss Fiddy asked.

  “Eat!” Noah shouted out.

  “And … and would someone else like to use that verb in a sentence?” Miss Fiddy asked, ever hopeful.

  “The ceratosaurus wants to EAT the stegosaurus!” the second Noah said.

  “The torvosaurus couldn’t EAT the ceoplophysis …” the third Noah began.

  “… Because the ceoplophysis didn’t exist in the Jurassic period!” the fourth Noah added.

  The four Noahs were proud of their verbs and of their dinosaur jokes … but all the other children groaned. Miss Fiddy did her best to move the lesson on to something other than dinosaurs.

  ‘Imagine if there were even more of me,’ Noah thought. ‘Imagine if there were more of me than everyone else …’

 

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