Then the bed shifted and Teddy fell, but not before grabbing one of the new sisters and pulling her down with her to crash onto the mattress on the floor with a heavy “oomph.”

Emily scrambled to look over the side, which made the girl hugging her squeak and roll off onto Athena. “Are you okay?” Emily asked the pile of limbs on the ground that was partially Teddy, partially one of the new girls.

“I’m fine,” Teddy grumbled.

“Yep! I’m good!”

Emily sat on the edge of her bed, rubbed her eyes, then sighed. “Okay. We’re all awake now, I guess. Can . . . can you line up? Please?”

“Me?” the girl still clinging to Emily asked.

“Yes, please, “Emily said. “We need to, uh, figure things out.”

Like how she was going to house three more sisters. Or how she’d feed them. Or buy clothes for all three.

Emily’s heart sank.

Looking back up, she noticed that all three of the new sisters were standing in a rough row, shoulder to shoulder and all wearing identical grins. “Okay,” Emily said.

Athena came to sit beside her and rested her head against Emily’s shoulder while rubbing her eyes, and Teddy turned over and used Emily’s legs as a backrest.

Emily took a deep breath. “Okay,” she repeated. “Um. I’m Emily. This is Teddy, and this is Athena.”

“Hi!” all three girls said at the same time. “I don’t got a name yet.”

“Right,” Emily said. “We’ll have to find three names for you.” Maybe some sort of thematic name? She couldn’t go calling them One, Two, and Three.

The girls blinked, then shook their heads. “Nope, there’s only one of me.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah!” the middle one said. “That’s me,” she said, pointing to the girl next to her. “And that’s also me.” She pointed to the other side.

“You’re clones?” Emily asked.

“Nope! I just got three bodies.”

“But . . . there’s three of you.”

“Yeah. Three of me.”

Emily tried to wrap her head around that, but there weren’t enough digits on the clock for thinking that hard. “Okay? So . . . do you, like, know what you’re thinking?”

“I always know what I’m thinking. It ain’t usually much.”

“No, I mean, what the other . . . you are thinking.”

“But there’s only one me.”

Emily gestured at the three girls before her. “But you have three bodies.”

They nodded. “That’s right,” came the chorus.

Emily stared for a moment, then let herself flop back down. “I haven’t slept enough for this.”

“Cuddle pile!” came three cheers before Emily was swamped. Then Teddy and Athena started fighting for room atop her too.

She had the impression it would be a long day.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Trinity and Toaster-bun Kissing in a Tree

Trinity?” Best Sister Emily asked.