Mom delivers boiling
drinks
and tries to make us
eat a little toast.
But we are too sick
to move.
I Cannot Shake It Off
I cannot get these shivers to go away
and though Tippi seems way better
she has to stay in bed, too.
While I
fight the flu.
Worrying
Mom calls Dr Derrick
and gives him
a list
of our
symptoms.
He isn’t worried,
for now.
He tells her to keep us hydrated
and in bed for a few more days.
He tells her to watch us.
But Mom can’t help watching.
She can’t help worrying.
And why wouldn’t she
when so few of us manage to make it to adulthood.
The older we get
the more she frets.
As time ticks by
the chances of us
suddenly
ceasing
to be
get
quite
high.
That’s just a fact
that will
never
go
away.
I Get Up
I don’t want to.
My legs are wobbly.
My throat is coated in sand.
And my heart feels as though it’s beating
extra hard
just to
get me from the bed
to the bathroom.
‘You sure you don’t want to lie down?’
Tippi asks.
I shake my head.
I can’t confine her to bed
just because I can’t get my
act together.
I shake my head
and suck it up.
Almost
The front door opens and closes
and Dad’s voice calls out,
‘Hello? Anyone home?’
We are so close to finishing the jigsaw puzzle
we don’t shout back.
We don’t even look up.
All we want is to conquer this Picasso,
these masses of colour.
‘I got you presents!’ Dad says,
sweeping into the kitchen and
throwing two bags right
on top
of the puzzle.
We hold our breaths.
Dad rummages.
He pulls out two boxes and
hands them to
Tippi and me.
I gasp.
Phones—
brand new,
still wrapped in cellophane.
‘Oh my God,’ I say.
‘Are you serious?’
Dad smiles.
‘You’ll need them for school tomorrow.
They’re state-of-the-art
and they’re new.
For my girls.’
‘I thought we had no money,’
Tippi says.
Dad ignores her and hands a larger box
to Dragon.
‘And for you,’ he says.
Dragon peers inside,
blinks,
and takes out a pink satin
ballet slipper.
She turns it over to look at the sole.
‘They’re nice,’ she says.
‘But they’re too small.’
The fan in the corner of the kitchen whirs.
Dad stares at her steadily.
‘They’re too small
is all,’ Dragon tells him.
Dad sighs.
‘I just can’t win, can I?’ he says.
He grabs the shoebox from Dragon,
pitches it back into the bag,
and pulls the lot
down from the table,
taking every last piece of Picasso
with it.
Truth Is What Happens
Tippi,
half dipped in sleep,
drains her coffee mug and
stares into her scrambled eggs
as though she can read her future in the
yellow and white
swirls.
I never
usually
rush her,
but we can’t be late,
not on our first day of school,
so I quietly clear my throat
—ahem, ahem—
hoping it will stir her from daydreaming long enough
to get going on the marbled eggs.
Instead it is like pouring
icy water into a
pan of hot fat.
Tippi pushes away her plate.
‘You know I’m owed a
goddamn gold medal
for all the times you’ve kept me waiting
over the years.’
So I whisper,
‘I’m sorry, Tippi,’
because I can’t lie and pretend the
throat clearing
meant nothing.
Not with her.
Truth:
It’s what happens
when you’re bound like we are
by a body too stubborn
to peel itself apart at conception.
Uniform
Unlike Dragon’s school
where they can wear what they like,
Hornbeacon expects all students to wear
uniforms—
bright white shirts, stripy green ties,
a plaid skirt
with pleats down the front.
The idea
is to make everyone look the same.
I know that.
But it doesn’t matter how we dress.
We will always
stand out,
and trying to look like everyone else is stupid.
‘It isn’t too late to back out,’ Tippi says.
‘But we agreed to go,’ I reply,
and Tippi clicks her tongue.
‘I was forced into saying yes.
You think I want this?’ she asks.
She tugs at the tie knotted around her neck,
pulling it up
and into a noose.
I reach for the skirt and step in.
Tippi doesn’t resist
but pulls it into place.
‘I feel so ugly,’ Tippi says.
She laces her fingers through my hair and
separates it into three thick strands
which she plaits and unplaits.
‘You’re not ugly.
You look like me,’ I say, smirking,
and squeeze her hand
tight.
What is Ugly?
I’ve been in enough hospital wards to have seen horrors:
a kid with his face melted down one side,
a woman with her nose ripped off and ears hanging loose
like strips of bacon.
That’s what people call ugly.
Not that I would.
I’ve learned to be less cruel than that.
But I know what Tippi means.
People find us grotesque,
especially from a distance,
when they see us as a whole,
the way our bodies are distinctly two
then merge,
suddenly,
at the waist.
But if you took a photograph of us, head and shoulders only,
then showed it to everyone you met,
the only thing people would notice is that we are
twins,
my hair to the shoulders,
Tippi’s a little shorter,
both of us with pixie noses
and perfectly peaked eyebrows.
It’s true to say we’re different.
But ugly?
Come on.
Give us a break.
Dragon�
��s Advice
If I’m being completely honest,
school’s probably the worst place you’ll ever go in your life.
Seriously.
Middle school is bad
but I hear high school is hell.
The kids are mean and the teachers are bitter.
Really.
Listen,
whatever you do, don’t get stuck with the first kids who want to hang out
with you
because chances are no one else likes them.
That’s social death.
And in the cafeteria, sit as far away as you can from the jocks.
I mean it.
And I know this sounds weird, but if you need to poop,
wait until you get home.
Bathrooms are for cigarettes and make-up.
That’s it.
OK?
I’m sure you’ll
be fine.
Mom
‘Time to go,’ Mom says.
She jangles the car keys and
steps into the hall.
Her hair is wet.
Damp spots bloom on the
shoulders of her shirt.
Mom does not dry her hair any more,
nor straighten it.
The only indulgence she allows herself
is a smear of gloss on her lips
sometimes.
She never used to look so plain.
She used to have time to do herself up,
but that was before Dad’s college
made cutbacks and let him go,
before Mom took on extra hours at the bank.
I can’t remember the last time I saw her
flick through a magazine
or sit to watch something on TV.
I can’t remember Mom being still for more
than a moment.
Her life now is
work,
work,
work.
So despite my sweating hands and the sick feeling in my stomach,
and regardless of whether or not
Tippi and I want to go to school,
we will go.
We will go,
and we will
not complain.
Hornbeacon High
The building is white,
ivy eating its way up the broken walls,
windows small
and scratched.
Most students are
pulling at one another and squealing,
basking in their easy, friendly reunions.
But I
study those
who are alone,
at the edge of this noise,
the kids holding their school bags close,
keeping their eyes down,
so I can
impersonate their
invisibility.
Among Wolves
‘You will not be thrown to the wolves,’
Mrs James, the principal, says,
and presents Yasmeen—
a student to be our guide,
‘and friend …
for a while,’ Mrs James says.
Mom and Dad look relieved,
as though this girl with a conspicuous hot pink
bob and
skinny wrists
could fend off more than a moth.
‘Holy cow!
You guys are amazing!’ Yasmeen says,
without looking sickened,
which is, I think,
a pretty good start to the day.
And what she’s said
is true.
It is amazing we survived
the womb.
Amazing we didn’t die
at birth.
Amazing we’ve lived as long as
sixteen years.
But I don’t want to be amazing.
Not here.
I want to be as boring as everyone else
though I don’t tell Yasmeen this.
I smile and Tippi says, ‘Thanks,’
and we follow our tiny
pink-haired defender along the hallway
to class.
Eyes
Tippi can’t stand clowns.
Dragon is terrified of cockroaches
and Mom of mice.
Dad pretends to be fearless,
though I’ve seen him flinch when the mail arrives,
seen him hide
hospital bills and parking tickets under
stacks of junk mail and old newspapers
in the hall.
Me?
It’s eyes I despise.
Eyes,
eyes,
eyes
everywhere,
and the probability that I’m
another person’s nightmare.
So when Yasmeen opens the door to our homeroom
and every head
turns
slowly,
I grab Tippi’s right wrist
like I always do when
I’m afraid.
‘Welcome! Welcome to Hornbeacon!’ the teacher says,
doing everything she can to sound natural.
Yasmeen groans, leads us to some seats at the back.
And the whole way there we are
followed by a field of open mouths,
thirty pairs of bugging-out eyes,
and one hundred percent pure
panic.
In Homeroom
Mrs Jones
reads through the school rules,
allocates lockers,
and hands out personalised schedules.
Yasmeen grabs ours
before Tippi and I have
a chance to look at it.
She runs a finger
down
the
columns,
along the rows.
‘We’re together for most subjects.
Awesome,’ she says,
and claps me hard
on the back
like she’s known
me for
years.
Maybe More Than That
For all her silly hair
and thin bones
Yasmeen is not delicate or lace-winged.
She swears at anyone who gives us
a slanted look
and threatens
to break the fingers of a freshman
who smirks when he sees us.
Yasmeen doesn’t have an entourage
like the prettiest girls,
the blonde ones with bouncing breasts and
invisible bottoms,
but still,
no one gets in her way.
And she seems to have only one friend,
or maybe he’s more than that,
a boy called Jon
who introduces himself in art,
holding out his hand and
looking at Tippi and me
in turn
like we truly are
two people.
Art Class
‘God I hate being back,’ Jon says,
yawning and battering a clot of grey clay
with a rolling pin until it is
flat.
His eyes are walnut brown and quiet.
His hair is shaved so tightly to his head
he could be in the army.
His hands are speckled in tiny tattoos—
stars that seem to twinkle as he moves
his fingers
through the clay.
‘At least you get to see me every day,’
Yasmeen says huskily
and nips and tucks at her own clay piece
until it is a lopsided pot.
‘I’m Tippi. This is Grace,’ Tippi tells Jon,
talking for both of us.
But
I want to speak
for myself.
I want Jon to hear my voice,
though I sound identical to my sister.
And I want
his eyes focused on me
as they are focused on Tippi:
still
and without the tiniest
hint of horror.
In Our Free Period
In the common room
they crowd around
like we are
lunch
and they are
starved animals ready to feed.
Necks long
—stretched and taut—
they strain to see.
It isn’t as though we’re performing
a butt-naked cancan routine.
All we are doing is
leaning on our crutches.
Yet this is enough.
Our very beings keep them mesmerised.
The spectators are girls with
smooth hair,
boys with collars
turned up,
their nails clipped and clean,
and as a pack they look like a scene
from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue—
everyone groomed and carefully ironed.
No one speaks
when
Tippi tells them our names
and where we’re from.
They just look at us
steadily
as though checking
we are real.
Yasmeen eventually drives off the crowd.
‘Enough!’ she shouts
and leads us to plastic seats by a fire exit.
Jon says, ‘I guess the staring
stops bothering you after a while.’
‘Would it stop bothering you?’ Tippi asks.
I swallow.
Yasmeen snorts.
Jon thinks about this for a moment.
‘No,’ he says.
‘It would piss me
the hell off.’
French