Chapter 30: Chapter 30

Ka “I’m serious,” pleaded Ellie, as the others laughed at her suggestion. “I’ve seen posters asking about special abilities up around the uni. Maybe they can help.”

“Yeah, when they say special abilities, I’m not sure they can quite take this,” Les argued between mouthfuls of toast.

It was the morning after the night before again, and although they weren’t quite in the same state as they had been the previous morning, they weren’t exactly a hundred percent either.

“So we need to go to your uni to get the number,” asked Ka’s doppelgänger.

“Indeed. Maya can get us to St Lukes,” Ellie said confidently.

“Hey, hey, hey!” interrupted Les, waving his toast around. “Remember what happened last time? We had to tell downstairs we’d had a burst pipe!”

Maya turned beetroot red so Ka replied on her behalf.

“She wasn’t concentrating, but she has got so much better. She promises to concentrate fully,” Ka assured Les, with Maya nodding in agreement.

Les grunted and returned to his toast, which they took as consent.

“We need to do something about their names,” Ellie said, pointing at the Ka’s. “We’re going to have to identify them as something, not just Ka, no the other Ka.”

“Which one is the other Ka?” wondered the Ka’s.

“This twin thing is getting creepy,” Les muttered, before downing a pint of water.

“Well, which one shall we rename?” asked Rob as he joined them at the table. “I mean, there’s more of us than there are of you, so I suggest our Ka stays Ka, and yours gets a new name.”

“No, I’ll end up using the wrong name and it’ll be a disaster, like saying the wrong name in bed!” Maya pleaded, never the most private person.

“She has a point,” said the Ka’s in unison.

“So you guys are okay with that? Maya’s Ka gets to stay as Ka?” asked Ellie.

“Yup,” they replied. Ka knew that the other him understood that his girlfriend would be hard pushed to change his name.

“How do you pronounce your name?” grunted Les from the end of the table.

“Kah, eee, ree,” they enunciated in tandem.

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” moaned Les.

They all laughed and joked at the names they could pin on poor Ka. It was finally settled that he be Key. Ka and Ke.

It was hard for them to have someone in the room who knows what you are thinking. It was like a total invasion of their privacy, and Maya’s Ka wondered what the other Ka was thinking while he was day dreaming about Maya. Was he also day dreaming about Maya?

* * * * *

The slightly awkward group of friends were stood in the lounge area, ready to attempt a portal to St Lukes. Fortunately, this time Maya and Ka were better attired for the other side of the portal than they had been the last time they went through one.

Les and Rob had gone to work on the English leg of their movie, leaving the others to go to the university without them.

Maya, Ka, Ke and Ellie left a sofa cushion lying on the table to indicate that they had returned to the right world, as no other Les and Rob’s identical flats in other parallel universes would have the cushion. They figured only their universe would have had a set of them doing something so strange with the furniture.

“Whoa!” Ka-now-known-as-Ke jumped back, horrified as Maya had just taken his hand and nuzzled into him.

“Sorry!” she cried, scurrying over to and grabbing her Ka tightly. She looked up at him, her face set in an ‘oops’ expression which Ka found rather cute despite the jealousy he felt when she snuggled in to the wrong man.

“Right, let’s go,” she breathed, still a little taken aback over nuzzling the wrong Ka. Meanwhile Ke was scratching his head and avoiding Ka’s gaze.

Like a line of schoolchildren, they walked through the portal hand in hand. They had yet to establish whether they could follow through not touching each other and had decided not to risk it.

Maya and Ellie confirmed that it was the correct room, though they couldn’t be sure it was in the correct universe. They were just hoping. Fortunately the room appeared to be empty, the staff all out on duties.

They walked out of the portal without incident, sneaking out of the room with Ellie leading the way to her university building, which was on the same site as the hospital. The Ka’s were both glad to take the back route, they didn’t need springing by crazed fans like they’d had to deal with in the past.

The grand entrance hall boasted just the noticeboard they needed, and Ellie quickly put the number in her phone, and called it once they had left the building.

“Oh hi, my name is Ellie Scott. We’re kinda stuck on where to go, our friend can travel through space, like opens portals and we all walk through. If you can help give us a ring back,” Ellie gave the answerphone her number, before hanging up, sighing deeply.

“So what now?” she looked at the others expectantly. It was strange for Maya and Ka to see Ellie’s excess of energy channelled in that way. Their Ellie channelled her energy into becoming a bouncy and optimistic pseudo lunatic. This Ellie was so matter-of-fact, she smiled so little. It was nice for them to watch Ellie’s optimism increasing, to see a little of their Ellie in her.

, thought Ka.

“Physics,” the Ka’s said at the same time. Ellie joined Maya in giggling at their random spontaneous outburst, and Ka smiled at Ellie giggling.

“No, seriously,” they continued, making themselves laugh too.

“Excuse me,” said a young woman who had sidled up to their group undetected. “Are you that actor?”

“Was ist das?” Ke’s eyebrows reached the sky as he instantly sported an interesting German accent, which Ka had also thought of at the same time, and watched his mirror indicate that he should start. “Ak-tor?”

“I know nicht,” Ka replied, mirroring the intense eyebrow display.

“Ve are from Frankfurt,” Ke explained slowly. “Ya frankfurters ’ere are bad, our frankfurters gut!”

“Ya, sehr gut,” agreed Ka.

Maya and Ellie had given up on all idea of decorum, and were killing themselves laughing, doubled over and gasping for breath.

“Vie dey laugh?” Ka asked the girl. “My sen and mine frau, er, bro-ther visit London.”

“Bad Frankfurters,” they said in unison, causing the girl who’d asked the question to start backing off, nodding and preparing to run.

“Bad frankfurters,” they said again, nodding at each other and admiring the effect they’d just had on the women, who were no closer to standing up straight and sombre than a drunken giraffe.

“Who’d have thunk that would come in handy?” they both said, nodding in agreement with themselves, having done a German accent in a movie, however only learning about three words of the language.

They wandered around the back of the hospital where they were less likely to get sprung again.

“Physics,” Ka and Ke stated, looking at the women who were barely holding it together.

“Physics,” confirmed Ellie. “Excellent idea, some physicist somewhere has to know about travelling between universes.”

“Or not,” interjected Maya in a silly voice.

“Frankfurters require physics,” the Ka’s told them, as both the women put their hands over their ears, singing, “La la la la la la,” sang Ellie and Maya “Right,” said Ellie, looking at her phone once she had pulled herself together a little.

“The department of physics is at the Strand. Maya, you can get us into the Victoria Embankment Park, can’t you? You must know it so well.”

Maya regarded her suspiciously before answering.

“And the chances of getting sprung with my disembodied head floating in the park? It’s rush hour,” she warned, shaking her head.

“Try...” pleaded Ellie, clearly not wanting to deal with the tube. Neither did the Ka’s for that matter, as Ke and Ka exchanged glances to confirm that. They were concerned they might come across more people who recognised them.

“Yes, do try,” they added, dripping with over-sincerity.

“Oh dear,” sighed Maya as she closed her eyes and stuck her head into a portal that was invisible to everyone else as they weren’t touching her.

“Think I’m getting the hang of this,” she said, withdrawing her head and taking the correct Ka’s hand. They trailed through, much to the consternation of a homeless man sat on a bench, who gaped as they waved hello and carried on their way.

Ellie stopped dead in her tracks, looking at her phone.

“My phone doesn’t work,” she said, as she turned to the others.

“Mine neither,” Ke concurred. Ka looked at Ka’s phone, his old mobile phone, noting how without Maya to push him in the pool with it in his pocket, Ke’s was still alive, probably with his old number. It dawned on him why Maya had been unable to call his mobile when she had been in this world before, she would have been calling his new number.

“Maybe this is your world?” Ellie suggested. “Maya, check you can still get us home to Les’s with the sofa cushion.”

Maya moved to behind a tree, and returned nodding.

“Sofa cushion present,” she said, perfectly happily.

“Guess we could visit a physicist in this world,” Ellie pondered, looking uneasy.

“Why don’t we have a bash at getting the right world, then we can be contacted by both the physicist and the paranormal guy?” Ka offered, noticing Ke stop as he was about to join him. It was a little long a speech for a dual effort.

They all followed Maya to behind the tree, and went for round two at Victoria Embankment Park, this time successfully.

Ellie’s phone was barely out the portal when it started ringing.

“Hi, yeah sorry we got the wrong world...Silvery shiny thing...It’s Maya, my friend who can do it...Only just started...We’re behind a tree at Victoria Embankment Park...Embankment end...Really? Okay, see you at the tree on stilts...No, we won’t use a portal.”

Ellie’s call was short but functional, and they looked at each other before heading down the other end of the park.