Twenty-Two part 2

LOCATION: 15 Blackpine road, London, England, Earth
DATE & TIME: Saturday, 14 May, 2011 13.02 BST (British Summer Time)
Theo
My name is Theodora. Yes, like Theodore. Except I'm a girl, so my incredibly creative parents changed the last letter and thought it was okay when I came out as a girl and not as a boy like they were expecting. Ugh. I just go by Theo. Much easier.
My little brother's name actually is Theodore. Which is even stupider, since now we have almost identical names. At least he goes by Teddy, so we don't get quite so mixed up.
My parents are idiots.
Dad's from America, and he always revered Theodore Roosevelt when he was a kid – I think the bloke used to be a president there or something – so he wanted his son to be named after him. But as usual, I didn't meet up to his expectations and came out a girl. Mum, as usual, was so infatuated with Dad that she just went along with it.
And on top of the similar names, we don't look all that different either. Our mildly wavy hair is almost exactly the same, identical shades of deepest black and even cut in similar styles just past our chins; and his eyes are just a slightly lighter shade of green than mine. He's only a bit more than a year younger than I am and already a few inches taller – which I am so not happy about, just by the way – so I usually look like the younger of the two of us, but I'm still the more mature of us two. The easiest way to tell us apart is our clothes: I wear t-shirts, jeans – not skinny jeans, though, thank you very much – and skate shoes; while Teddy, being the total dweeb he is, wears polos, slacks, and loafers, plus a pair of super dorky rectangular glasses that I replaced with contacts on myself long ago. I also have a scar over my left eyebrow from this time I got into a fight with some kid in grade school and he bashed a rock into my head after I got in a good kick where it counts, getting us both suspended with pending expulsion. We both have unnaturally pale skin as if we haven't seen the sun in months, no matter how much time we spend outside, and it's earned us the nickname of "the vampire twins" from some of the more annoying twats at school. They can't even seem to get into their thick skulls that we're not twins, no matter how many times I try to punch some sense into them. Yes, on top of the name and appearances and all that rubbish, Teddy just had to go be a total nerd and get moved up to my grade – and in most of my classes, no less, because those idiots in the administrative office seem to think it's cute to always put us together. Even if I deliberately sign up for all the conflicting classes, they always seem to find away to land us in the same room at the same time. I swear, sometimes I could-
But I won't get into that.
Anyway, I'm way off track here. This isn't my life narrative. I'd bet five quid you don't give a damn about me or Teddy. It's not about us, anyway. Well, it is, but not only.
No, this is about the day the sun went out.

See, it started like this.
I was in the dining room, pacing about and ranting to empty air about the unfairness of the load of weekend homework we'd been assigned, as I often was found to be doing on Saturday afternoons. Teddy was at the table, calmly working away at his maths homework. He had long ago stopped bothering to try and get me to just sit down and do the stupid assignments. I'd do it when I was good and ready, which is to say at eleven o'clock tomorrow night. Mum had some odd idea that weekend homework was to be done by teatime on Saturday and had locked us up in the dining room to finish it nearly every week for as long as I'd had homework. To get out I usually just waved some of last week's work in front of her eyes and then packed it up again before she got a good look. It had worked so far, so why destroy a good system while it was still going? 'Course, the moment she found out she'd be breathing over my shoulder every second I was supposed to be doing schoolwork, but till then . . .
"You know, Theo," Teddy said suddenly, but then trailed off as if he'd been distracted by something and went back to his maths. He was always doing that, the annoying little brat. Irritated, I crossed my arms and glared at the back of his neck as I counted off the seconds in my head.
One . . . Two . . . Three . . . Four . . . All the way up to Eighteen . . . Nineteen . . . Twenty . . . Twenty-one . . . Twenty-two . . .
" . . . it would be a lot faster if you just did your homework now," Teddy continued as if he hadn't stopped. Twenty-two seconds on the dot. He always did that, dropped off and continued twenty-two seconds later. Annoyed the hell out of me, let me tell you. I'd gotten counting it down to a science. To be honest, the only science I was good at.
"Yeah, well, I don't feel like it. I'm more motivated when I'm on a tight deadline."
He shrugged and turned back to his maths. "Suit yourself. I'm not going to help you, then."
"Who needs your help?" I scoffed. "Certainly not me."
"If you say so." But I could see him struggling to hide a smile. I scowled and slumped down into the seat in front of my uncompleted work, my frown deepening at the sight of all the work awaiting me tomorrow night. This was such a freaking waste of time. Both the homework itself, and the enforced lockups. I bet the guys – the ones that weren't total idiots, that is – were out at the skate park or playing football against the third years or something fun like that, while I was stuck in here.
"Ugh!" I slammed my hands down on the table and then threw them in the air in frustration. "I want to get out of here!"
"Yes," Teddy said calmly. "You've made that quite clear, thanks."
"Shut up, brat." As I scowled at him once more, a shadow passed over the room, just a flicker of shade before the rare day of sunlight returned. He looked up, his interest piqued.
"What was that?"
"What was what, dweeb?"
"That shadow."
"It was a just a cloud passing over the bloody sun."
"No," he said, standing and going over to the window. I began to count out the twenty-two seconds again, but it wasn't necessary and only six had passed when he continued, "It was something more."
"Yeah? And how do you know that, Bear?" Bear was a stupid nickname I'd given him when we were little and he first started going by Teddy. It had stuck, and despite myself I still slipped up and accidentally called him that sometimes. He'd never admit it, but I think he liked it when I did. Eww.
He shrugged, his eyes fixed on the strip of blue sky we could see through the window. "I just do." He fell silent, and having nothing better to do I reluctantly did the same.
And so the two of us were some of the only ones watching the sun when everything went dark.