When Ryan and Bradley went back downstairs wearing the clothes of their ConjoinVerse counterparts, the family looked surprised again. When the boys first met the ConjoinVerse versions of their families six chapters ago, they had appeared as separate beings, not the two-headed boy that the families here were used to; now they looked just like ConjoinVerse Ryan and Bradley, and the families began to feel that everything was normal again--perhaps the families believed that THEIR Ryan and Bradley had been separated temporarily and had somehow been rejoined, not knowing that ConjoinVerse Ryan and Bradley were in another world!
Back home in NormVerse, Ryan and Bradley had pretended to be conjoined twins several times, so they would be used to eating lunch as conjoined twins here. They sat around the table with their family and their ConjoinVerse friends' family; there was one seat for each body, so Ryan and Bradley had to be careful when sitting in their chair--fortunately, the seats in ConjoinVerse are wider than in NormVerse, so their two bodies could sit comfortably while looking like one body. While eating lunch, Ryan and Bradley noticed how their ConjoinVerse families ate: at least one head is left without food in its mouth, and each head tries to make it so that they each get a word in edgewise. It was also still weird to see their families like this. Ryan was still getting used to the fact that his older brother Derek now had an identical brother named Eli, a brother that did not even exist back home in NormVerse; Bradley kinda felt the same about his older brother Thatcher and his brothers Terry and Dylan, for those two also did not exist in NormVerse. Their moms Helena and Lisa shared a body here, as did their dads Sean and Shane--apparently, this was the case because their parents had married as two sets of twins in NormVerse. It was a little less weird to see their friends as conjoined quadruplets here--Leo, Donnie, Raph, and Mikey had dressed up as conjoined siblings so often in NormVerse, it was actually comfortable to see their ConjoinVerse counterparts like that. The same could not be said for the quad's two moms and two dads.
After lunch, Ryan and Bradley said goodbye to their ConjoinVerse friends and their parents; they might hang out some more later. Derek and Eli went back up to their room to do some more napping, while the dads went back into their study to work. The moms went to the kitchen to clean up the dishes, while Terry, Dylan, and Thatcher grabbed their keys and went out to their car. That left Ryan and Bradley; they decided to explore ConjoinVerse some more, and walked out the door "together" to the sidewalk. When they arrived from NormVerse, they had gotten stares for being one-headed boys; no such attention would occur now that they looked like their two-headed ConjoinVerse counterparts! Many of the first houses they passed looked like those occupied in NormVerse by their friends and neighbors--naturally, each body here was wider and had at least two heads. The school was nearby; it was closed for now, but it would be interesting to attend a ConjoinVerse school. There was a bus stop; the two decided to get on the bus. The fare was half of that in NormVerse--basically, two for the price of one! The seats were wider, suitable for wider bodies, so both Ryan and Bradley got a window seat. As they rode the bus to downtown, they passed a lot of familiar places: mall, movie theater, museum, arcade, stores, hotels, restaurants, and so on. When the boys got off the bus, they were in the heart of the ConjoinVerse city.
"Anything we should do here?" Ryan asked.
"I dunno," Bradley asked. "Maybe a movie?"
"Maybe we can buy one ticket, considering..." Ryan said while he gestured to their ConjoinVerse clothes.
Bradley chuckled as the two walked towards the movie theater; as Ryan expected, they did only need one ticket--to the boys, ConjoinVerse people apparently counted bodies, not heads. The concession stand operated the same way--one body, one stomach (except in the case of Ryan and Bradley, as they were not from ConjoinVerse). The seats were wider, and the movie was like the ones that they had seen back in NormVerse--except, of course, for the "head count". It would seem unusual for ten-year olds to go downtown to watch a movie by themselves, but Ryan and Bradley were more responsible and careful than most their age, and their parents knew this well enough to allow them to start taking care of themselves (in some ways).
When the boys had finished their movie, they walked back outside to see what else they could do in ConjoinVerse. They saw a store nearby, and decided to look at the merchandise. They saw several comic books, and--obviously--each of the human characters had at least two heads. They decided to come back later, figuring that they still needed to get used to some things in ConjoinVerse. They certainly didn't need to get used to three familiar faces when they saw them--it was their uncles (since Ryan and Bradley's dads were twin brothers, their dads' older brothers were uncles to both boys). The boys were also not surprised for another reason--in NormVerse, the three uncles had been born as triplets, so it was unsurprising that they were born as conjoined triplets in ConjoinVerse. Their three heads were arranged in a row across their shoulders, and they wore black pants with an orange sweater. Their left-hand head, Joe, had brown hair and a pencil mustache. The center head, John, had black hair and sideburns. Their right-hand head, Jim, had short blonde hair and a small goatee. Naturally, the three-headed uncles believed that the Ryan and Bradley they were looking at were their nephews, when in fact they were the nephews of the uncles' NormVerse counterparts.
"Hey, uncles!" Ryan said.
"Ryan! Bradley!" Joe smiled.
The uncles hugged their "nephews", who made sure that none of the three were aware of the boys' separate backs.
"What are you doing here?" Bradley asked.
"Did you forget?" John replied. "We're visiting your family!"
"They sent us here to pick you guys up," Jim said. "Let's go home!"
The five packed their two/three bodies into the uncles' car--yes, wider seats (it was ConjoinVerse). Ryan and Bradley couldn't help but notice the driving of their ConjoinVerse counterparts' uncles; it was pretty much the same as driving in NormVerse, just with wider vehicles and more heads. When the five got back to the house, Ryan and Bradley wondered what else they would discover in ConjoinVerse, and what could be going on with their ConjoinVerse counterparts back home in NormVerse.