Free Twins by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

two sisters in different malls would choose the identical tiny object!
    But Madrigal had flung back her head, and screamed , a scream of pure wrath, and flung her barrette into the trash. She’d stomped up and down, taking a decade off her age, acting like a toddler in a tantrum. “Why did you have twins?” she screamed at Mother and Father. “I hate sharing my decisions with her! I want to be one person! Make her go away!”
    How quickly Mary Lee had torn the barrette out of her hair. How swiftly she, too, stomped down, going even further than her twin, crushing the offending barrette beneath the hard sole of the brown loafers — shoes she rarely wore, preferring sneakers. Shoes that Madrigal also rarely wore and, dressing separately that morning, had also chosen.
    But later Mary Lee fished Madrigal’s barrette out of the trash, washed it off, and kept it. Very soon after that morning, Mother and Father had decided on the boarding school. But even at boarding school, Mary Lee could not bring herself to wear the green barrette. Madrigal would feel it. Two thousand miles away, would get a headache right on the spot where Mary Lee held her hair down with it.
    She had meant, over Christmas, and later over the long weekend of Madrigal’s visit, to talk about the barrette incident, to see if Madrigal felt better about that stuff now that it had come to an end. But the time had never come to discuss barrettes. I could wear it now , she thought, and knew that she never would, for even the ash and wind of Madrigal would hate her for it.
    She left Madrigal’s room, with its secrets, and went into her own former bedroom. The bed had a comforter, but no sheets and blankets beneath it. The floor had only a carpet. The closet only musty air. The dresser drawers were empty. For her own possessions had not, after all, been shipped back.
    Too painful, Mother had said.
    We can’t bear it, Father had said.
    The school agreed to dispose of Mary Lee’s things.
    Dispose.
    It was a garbage word. A trash word.
    The possessions of Mary Lee had been disposed of.
    She wanted to run down the stairs and fling herself on her parents, let out her pain and anguish. I made a mistake! Everybody made a mistake! We switched clothes , that’s all! And it’s me , it’s Mary Lee , I’m still here , please be glad , please be glad that I’m the one who lived .
    Yes, she thought, I will do that. I cannot just adopt my sister’s life.
    Bravely, she left the empty room and headed for her mother and father to tell the truth.
    At the top of the stairs she paused, hearing soft conversation between Mother and Father. “I don’t miss her,” said Father.
    “I don’t either. But it still hurts so much.”
    “Of course it hurts,” said Father. “But if we must lose a daughter, better it should be that one.”
    “What kind of parents are we?” said Mother. “And what are we doing now? I’m sure it’s another terrible mistake.”
    “Having twins was the mistake,” said Father.
    Mary Lee was stabbed through the heart.
    She crept back into the room that was not hers, and stood in front of the mirror, trying to grasp the reality that it was only a reflection and never never never again a twin.
    Oh, Madrigal! They don’t miss me! They think it was a mistake ever to have had me. They wanted only you!
    The mirror spoke to her.
    Mary Lee shuddered convulsively. Ridiculous. The mirror —
    The mirror spoke again.
    For a moment she thought it was her sister, living between the silver and the glass. She even heard her sister’s voice, whispering out of the long ago as if, in another life, the twins had lived in a fairy tale. Madrigal had once stood before this very different mirror, murmuring, “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who Is the Fairest of Them All?”
    And to Madrigal, the mirror had replied, There are two of you , exactly the same .
    No! I will not be somebody’s double . I will not be interchangeable parts , like something out of a factory! I