Free DupliKate by Cherry Cheva

my photos. They were mainly of Paul and my friends, and most of them were from the past couple years, but there were some baby pics and some of my mom in there as well. Rina couldn’t help squealing at practically every new photo she clicked on—“Oooh, you’re at the beach!” “Oooh, Halloween!” “Oooh, look at that hat!”—and I smiled. “Glad you like ’em, but keep it down a little, okay? You’re going to wake up my—”
    We suddenly heard my mother’s door open and then the sound of her footsteps coming down the hallway. In a flash, Rina vaulted over the bed and retreated into the closet, and I sat down at my computer just as Mom stuck her head in the door.
    “Sorry, was I being too noisy?” I asked, leaning casually back in my computer chair and giving her an innocent look. “I was just on the phone with Kyla.” I suddenly realized my phone was over on the floor by the closet, and I prayed my mom didn’t notice how far away it was from where I was sitting.
    “This late?” she asked, stepping inside a little and leaning against the door frame. I shrugged and nodded. “No, I just wanted to get some water and decided to check in on you,” she said. “How’s the essay going?”
    I made a sort of “eeeeuughhhh” noise and she smiled. “Well, I’m sure it’ll turn out great. Night, honey.”
    “Night, Mom.” She closed the door behind her. After five full minutes, Rina cracked open the closet door and peeked out.
    “Coast clear,” I said, still feeling a little paranoid. That had been waaaay too close.
    “Cool.” She came out and went back to looking at the photos on my computer as I gathered up my SAT practice book, a notebook, and some pens and pencils.
    “What’s going on with Kyla and these four guys?” Rina asked, indicating a picture of Kyla in a green flapper dress being held horizontally in the air by four of our guy friends, as Paul stood off to the side, half out of frame, cracking up, and our other friend Sam blurrily ran through the back of the shot with a feather boa wrapped around his head.
    I laughed. “Oh, that. That…was an incident at our homecoming after-party. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back upstairs.” I headed for the door.
    “Aw, come on!” Rina pleaded.
    “Suck it up and wait till I’m done with all my work.” I suddenly thought of something. “Actually, you know what? Suck it up and wait till tomorrow after school.”
    “What? No, don’t make me wait till then!”
    “No, I think you’ll like this,” I said. I had suddenly realized how I could make up for Rina’s four years of utter boredom inside SimuLife—well, for a tiny fraction of it, anyway. “I’m taking you shopping.” Paul might have canceled, but there was no reason I couldn’t go anyway. I still needed to get Christmas shopping done, after all. More important, after hearing how Rina had spent the last four years doing nothing, I wanted to take her outside.
    Rina’s eyes practically bugged out of her head. She opened her mouth, was too overjoyed to actually say anything, and instead did a series of enthusiastic fingertip claps.
    “Shopping!” she finally whispered. “Together, though? What about rule number one?”
    “We’re breaking it,” I said. “Just this once. Because you cannot keep dressing like that,” I added, eyeing the black short shorts with a silver cat logo she was wearing. Probably another Hot Topic find. The cat logo itself even looked slutty somehow.
    “Does that mean you’re going to choose clothes for me tomorrow?” Rina asked.
    “No, I’m going to choose clothes for me,” I said. “But you can wear them if you want.”
    Rina shrieked with joy, then realized she’d shrieked and immediately retreated into the closet. She stayed there until I left for school the next day.

 
     
    Dear Diary,
    I. Am. Soooo excited to go shopping! Kate already said she mostly wants to get Christmas presents—she’s got a whole list with everyone she