"Boys, hurry and wash up! Breakfast is ready!" the voice of their mother called out.
"I'll go first," Zack said, with more authority and self-confidence in his voice than Cody had ever heard there before. He strode into the bathroom, leaving his twin to struggle with the dramatic shift in reality which had occurred.
Everything Cody had ever learned in his science classes ran contrary to what he and his brother had seemingly experienced. No twelve year-old could gain forty pounds of rock-hard muscle overnight, just from playing a SIMS computer game! And it was even more ridiculous to think the game could have boosted Zack's I.Q. so significantly as to produce the brilliant homework essay on his desk.
It's a dream, Cody told himself. I've got to still be dreaming; that's the only logical explanation. That reassuring notion calmed the younger Martin brother down. This was just a dream, nothing for him to worry about.
Even when a freshly showered Zack returned, a towel wrapped around his waist and his newly magnificent physique otherwise on full, proud display, Cody repeated, "This is just a dream, just a dream!"
"A dream, huh? Want me to help you wake up?" Zack asked, a mischievous look on his face which Cody should have spotted. At the moment, however, he was too consumed with the need to escape this nightmare.
"Yes, please!" he answered, and then what felt like a cannonball slammed into (and through?) his midsection. With a mewling cry Cody crumpled to the floor and curled up around where it hurt.
"Shit! Sorry, man!" Zack apologized. Bending down, the powerhouse preteen effortlessly lifted his twin up in his heavily-muscled arms and deposited Cody on the latter's bed.
"I only meant to give you a little jab," he explained earnestly. "Guess I don't know my own strength anymore!" Zack bragged, pointedly flexing his quite large, impressively bulging right bicep.
Leave it to his brother to show off while Cody felt like he was dying! No bully had ever hit him half as hard as his empowered twin just had! Still, one useful thing had been accomplished; the continual, aching pain he felt from the impact of Zack's iron right fist made it clear that this was no dream!
"Are you okay? Do you want me to get Mom?" Zack asked, shifting his attention once more to his stricken twin.
"No, I'm fine," Cody managed to huff out. Painfully he pulled himself up from his bed and started toward the bathroom. "See you at breakfast."
Showering and brushing his teeth brought Cody no greater clarity on this situation, but it did enable his pain to subside down to a dull ache.
After getting dressed he joined Zack at the table, where his twin was devouring the pancakes, bacon and eggs Mom had prepared for them.
"Save some for me, will you?" he instinctively objected.
"Gotta feed these muscles, bro!" Zack rebutted quietly, too low for their mother to hear. "Pretty sure my metabolism has sped up and that I need more calories now."
Hearing that scientific hypothesis come out of his brother's mouth was enough to shock Cody into silence. He slid into his chair, taking for himself a portion of the remaining food on the table. As it turned out, he didn't have to worry about not getting enough to eat; between Zack's sledgehammer punch and the nervous churning of his stomach his appetite had been effectively killed.
"Here are your lunches. Have a good day at school!" Mom said, giving each of them a brown bag as they headed out the door. When they hit the lobby, Zack swaggered over to the candy counter.
"Hey, sweet thang!" he drawled to Maddie. It was his usual greeting, but the reaction it got was unprecedented. Instead of rolling her eyes or condescendingly shooting Zack down, Maddie actually blushed!
"Hi, Zack! How are you doing today?" she asked somewhat anxiously.
"Doing great as always," Zack said, using one hand to brush back his golden hair and simultaneously flaunt his tanned, extraordinarily brawny arm.
"Glad to hear that!" Maddie responded, her eyes flicking to the handsome younger boy's ripped, remarkable build.
"Zack, we need to get going if we're going to make it on time," Cody put in.
Throwing a displeased look at his twin, Zack told Maddie, "I'll see you later, sweet thang."
As the twins made their way toward school, Zack told his twin, saying, "Interrupting me while I'm working wasn't cool, bro."
"How were you working? Maddie's never gotten close to going out with you."
"Not before, but things have changed. I've changed; I'm the new and improved Zackary Martin 2.0!"
That was a truth Cody couldn't deny anymore. It seemed crazy to think that a mere computer game could have changed Zack so much, but it was like Sherlock Holmes had said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
"So since you messed up things up with me and Maddie, why not even the score by talking me up to the girls in school today?" Zack asked. "Get them ready for the Zack. Go on," he urged, forcefully shoving Cody ahead of him.
Deciding the path of least resistance was the way to go, Cody trotted ahead of his brother to their middle school. Plenty of kids were milling about outside the doors, including Amanda Parsons and Elizabeth Sanders, two of the prettiest girls in the 8th grade. Zack would be sure to try for them now, even though they were two years older.
Uncomfortably edging up to the duo, Cody said, "Hey, Amanda, Elizabeth. How, uh, are you doing?"
"Fine," Elizabeth replied, the word edged with ice and her eyes sharp with disdain.
They clearly had no interest in him or what he had to say; best just to keep his word to his brother and then let Zack get blown off by these beauties.
"You know, my brother Zack has really been hitting the weights lately," Cody offered. Even if true, pumping iron wouldn't realistically account for how extraordinarily buff Zack had gotten over the weekend, but at least it was a fig-leaf of an explanation.
"Zack Martin? You mean you're Zack's brother?!?"
"Yeah, Cody Martin," he offered cautiously.
"Oh, your brother is so hot already! It's tough to imagine him getting even hunkier," Elizabeth said, batting her eyelashes.
"I can imagine it," Amanda offered, with a dreamy smirk.
Wait a minute, how did these girls even know who Zack was? Neither of them had ever approached either girl before.
"How do you even know Zack?"
Both girls looked at him like he'd grown a second head.
"Are you kidding? Zack Martin is . . .
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