The Adventures of Ari and Charlie: The Beginning and The Twins

Hi! My name is, Ari! You must be here because someone told you I ruined everyone’s day at a Billy Joel concert but…

That ain’t true.

Obviously!

But you’re here anyways! So I ought to just tell you anyways! Please don’t take anything I say the wrong way. But take it more like in a ‘this girl is way too friendly’ way! Yeah! Anywho. Onto what happened! It was Saturday, I don’t remember when. But I guess….no…I should know. But I don’t…oh well……….I was walking towards the entrance, way ahead of my family. “Ari, wait up! I don’t want to lose you in the crowd!” My mother exclaimed. I stopped. “Really?! If you were to lose anyone it’d probably be-” “Me?” My brother, Kelen laughed. “Yeah, exactly! He even admitted it!” I yelled out to them. My mother just shook her head. Having four crazy boys and a daughter with ADHD is tough. I got in like before all of them and then when I hopped, I mean literally, I jumped out of line. I bumped into someone, and then he bumped into someone else, and then she bumped into someone else and he fell on his buttocks alongside us. “I am…..sorry.” I said awkwardly sitting there with them. The girl started laughing. “That was awesome!” She exclaimed, me and the other two little boys laughed with her. We helped each other up. There was something about the boy I bumped into. He resembled me a little bit……So I introduced myself to them. “I’m Ari, and sorry!” The girl laughed even more! “That’s clever! I’m Antionette!” She exclaimed. “Oh cool! You, French?” The other boy asked “I dunno!” She giggled. “I’m Charlie!” The boy that resembled me said. “Nice to meet you Charlie!” We all exclaimed. “And I am, Billy!” Antionette laughed “No wonder you’re here!” We had a good laugh, it was a a good joke! Charlie then gestured for us to follow him yelling “Come on gang! It’s about to start!” And we all took off running to the stage.

What?

Did we go back stage?

Even when we’re not allowed to?

HECK YEAH- I mean of course not!

Heh…

Fast forward a bit. We all discovered we went to school together, we hung out a lot. Because Antionette is blonde we nicknamed her Blondie, like the seventies rock band. Obviously, Billy’s nickname is Billy Joel! But that was when we started the band. We were just joking about naming the band ‘Cats’n Hats’ but after a while, it was perfect! That was like a few months ago though. Because while I’m telling you this, you can tell. We’re all thirteen. We were like….five, six? Maybe seven? When we met. So it’s been a while. But I’d like to focus on the bond me and Charlie formed. You might know I have favorites. I have a favorite person to annoy, favorite person to goof off with, favorite person to pretend I’m their sister with and he’ll just go with it, and a favorite person. That’s just my favorite person! That’s Heidi. I don’t think there will be any other person on earth that should have that title.

Other than God. But he has a more special role in our lives. Anyways, Charlie! Right! So, yeah, I was suspicious at how much we looked alike, how much we were alike. Heck! We’d say the same thing at the same time sometimes! It was weird. It felt like decades that we looked for answers, and maybe we weren’t looking for answers! Maybe we were pretending to! Or just naturally being curious! But there was no denying…

We were somehow related.

Somehow…..

SOMEHOW!

Every time we’d walk to school we’d talk about it. “Ari?” “Yeah?” “Do you ever wonder, if there’s something that our parents aren’t telling us about?” I’d pause “Absolutely!” Like always, I’d somehow slip and fall. We always have the same ideas. Ever heard of the Taxi Tales? No? Wanna hear one? No? Okay! I’ll tell you anyways! Taxi Tales are like stories, memories, we cherish and write down. Once they’re written down, they become…. Taxi Tales! All because the Taxi Tale that started it all had to do with, a taxi, me and Charlie, and a cat! But me and Charlie call them: The Adventures of Ari and Charlie! “I can’t find- Oh, wait I was just holding it the entire time.” Charlie chuckled. “Really? We were searching this apartment up and down just to discover you’ve been holding it the entire time?!” I exclaimed in laughter. “Yeah, cuz we were looking everywhere!” As he said ‘everywhere’, the song said it too, we had a good laugh about that. We raced down the stairs like always, we fell down them at one point, but it was still fun. “Okay. So, we go down to the alley you were telling me about and find cats.” “Yeah.” “And just film them?” “Yeah!”

“Really?”

“Yeah!”

We continued on to the alley. Now since downtown has a lot of traffic sometimes, it’s hard to cross the street, but I mean…...it’s also not. “Look, Charlie! There’s a cat!” He quickly turned around with his camera ready to record “Where?! Where?! Show me where nincompoop!” He exclaimed. I pointed ahead of us “There! It’s right there! You’re the nincompoop!” I replied. He shrugged “No, I guess I’m just blind….I guess.” He recorded the cat. And I ran after it, this is where the taxi comes in, ya see when I ran across the street some taxi took a sharp turn, almost hit me and then honked at me! Charlie got it all on camera too! The best! So, we followed the cat and I had treats so anytime the cat tried running off, when something or someone scared it or if we lost it. I was there! With treats! Little did we know, we had literally followed the cat all around the city! But this cat wasn’t just any cat it was the star of our film!

‘The Lives of Domestic Animals’

It was for a project at school. We had to study animals in their natural habitat. So, we chose to film domestic animals and we started off with a little bit of Mrs. Harry’s horses, eating, being brushed, being ridden and out in the pasture. She has a lot of paint and Arabian horses. So, it’s pretty cool! We filmed my Tia’s parrots, screaming, eating, preening. We also filmed a hawk we saw while following the cat. It’s not a domestic animal but it was at the square, so we got a shot of the cat sitting in the center of the square, keep in mind the fountains were off so it was okay, and then the hawk flew above us and even the cat looked up! “It’s a red-tail! Ari!” I was already staring in awe “Charlie, the cat’s looking at it!” I laughed. The cat was very friendly. I decided to name her Redtail, because of the hawk we saw the day we met her. Yes I kept her. She was the star of a recent prank! She was only a kitten when we found her, I forgot to mention that. So, she’s grown a bit. We stayed in the square for a bit just because it’s nice. There’s an ice cream on the….right side I think, you just turn left and walk down from there….or do you turn right? I don’t seem to remember. Is it even there? I could be incorrect about all this. I probably am. But there’s an ice cream place close by that’s all I know. “I wonder if they’ll let us bring the cat in.” Charlie said as we stood in front of the place. “Probably not, but I have an idea!” She was small enough to fit in my hoodie’s pocket so I put her in there and then went inside. We got our ice cream and sat down. Her little head peeking out. I gave her some of my ice cream, it was just a little bit of my scoop of vanilla because there was a scoop of cookie dough on the bottom. I made sure I gave her some vanilla of course. Only problem was, she got so crazy about it. She started meowing at the top of her lungs for more and I quickly covered her mouth. Me and Charlie held in our laughter as best we could, people did turn and stare, we just didn’t want to deal with it so we left and ate our ice cream in the square. I let Redtail have the treat bag. We decided to go to the park near the river because people often brought their dogs out there. It was a success because Antionette was out there with her german shepherd, Ray, goofing off. She immediately ran up to us. “Charlie! Ari!” She joyfully shouted as she hugged us. “I’m so happy to see you! What’re you two doing out alone?” We both shrugged and said at the same dang time “Working parents.” She giggled as we stared at each other like ‘What…’. We stayed to chat with her a bit and record her dog and her playing. But then, like always, the sun began to set, the stars began to show and as this all happened, Antionette sadly had to go. That rhymed! Although I got no ‘superhero’ work in that day, it was totally okay! Because it mainly consisted of confusing pickpockets and other thieves enough to snatch what they stole and return it. But when we came home, my parents were there, they looked like they were eager to tell us something. “We’re so happy you two finally came back! We have something you’d like to see.” My mother said, handing me an envelope. I opened it and pulled out…….

Birth certificates….?

with our names on them…

dated the same..honestly I don’t even remember if it was one or two certificate but that’s what was in there.

“We’re twins?” Charlie said in shock. I couldn’t believe it. “That’s what it looks like.” I said. We processed what had just happen a bit and then the excitement kicked inside. We were brother and sister! We don’t just say it because we’re close friends anymore! We both exclaimed at the same time, with so much joy!

“We’re twins!”

and that is the Taxi Tale, that started it all but also tells the tale of how me and Charlie, discovered we are indeed, in fact twins. But we still call em' The Adventures of Ari and Charlie!