I get up to leave with my chin up. I avoid looking into any faces so I won’t have to talk to anyone. I walk with my bag of peas down so as to not bring attention to my injuries. As if people are likely to forget I’m the one who was fighting. If Raffe is in the lunch crowd, I don’t see him. Just as well. I hope he lost his argument with the bookie. He deserves to lose that bet.

I’m barely out and walking between the buildings on my way to the laundry area when two redheaded guys step out from behind the building. If they didn’t have matching boy-next-door smiles, I would have thought they were ambushing me.

They’re identical twins. Both look scrappy and strung-out in their dirty civilian clothes, but that’s not unusual these days. No doubt I look just as scrappy and strung-out, too. They’re barely out of their teens, tall and skinny with mischievous eyes.

“Great job out there, champ,” says the first guy.

“Oh, man, you really put old Jimmy Boden in his place,” says the second one. He’s practically beaming. “Couldn’t have happened to a better man.”

I stand there, nodding. I keep a polite grin on my face while still holding the frozen peas to my jaw.

“I’m Tweedledee,” says one.

“I’m Tweedledum,” says the other. “Most people call us Dee-Dum for short since they can’t tell us apart.”

“You’re joking, right?” They shake their heads in unison with identical friendly smiles. They look more like a couple of underfed scarecrows than the chubby Tweedledee and Tweedledum I remember from childhood. “Why would you call yourselves that?”

Dee shrugs. “New world, new names. We were going to be Gog and Magog”

“Those were our online names,” says Dum.

“But why go all doom and gloom?” asks Dee.

“Used to be fun being Gog and Magog when the world was Tiffany-twisted and suburban-simple,” says Dum. “But now…”

“Not so much,” says Dee. “Death and destruction are so blasé.”

“So mainstream.”

“So in with the popular crowd.”

“We’d rather be Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”

I nod, because, what other response is there?

“I’m Penryn. I’m named after an exit off Interstate 80.”

“Nice.” They nod as if to say they understand what it’s like to have parents like that.

“Everyone’s talking about you,” says Dum.

Not sure I like that. That whole fight thing didn’t really go off the way I had planned. Then again, nothing in my life has gone the way I had planned.

“Great. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go hide now.” I tip my bag of frozen peas at them like a hat as I try to step between them.

“Wait,” says Dee. He lowers his voice to a dramatic whisper. “We have a business proposition for you.”