Free #3 Mirrored by Annie Graves

T here was this girl in my class called Abbey. We used to be friends.

    I liked her ’cause she invented the best games. My favorite was when we made potions and cast spells on the boys in our class. I was just pretending, but Abbey would get really into it, like it was real.
    The other kids in our class thought she was weird and didn’t really talk to her. But I thought she was more fun than anyone else in school.

    But after last summer, Abbey was different. She never played games anymore. When I asked her if she wanted to play virtual rollercoaster, she looked at me like she had a bad taste in her mouth.
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    Suddenly, Abbey was popular. All the kids wanted to be her friend. But I didn’t. I thought she was boring now. And she was kind of mean. She was the one who made fun of the “weird” kids now.
    Then a rumor started going around school about why Abbey changed. I don’t know if it’s true, but I have to tell somebody ...

    Even at home, Abbey didn’t really have anyone to talk to.
    Her parents acted like she wasn’t there.
    Her older brother, Pearse, treated her like a little kid because he was in high school and knew how to do algebra and speak Spanish.

    So Abbey read lots of stories. Stories about princesses and acrobats and pirates and explorers.

    And she was a really great painter. Big, colorful pictures of jungles and oceans and castles.
    But mostly, she liked to play make-believe. She was a sorceress or a liontamer or the queen of a country where all the boys were slaves.

    One time she invented special night goggles and made wings out of ostrich feathers, and she flew all over the world, looking into the houses of rich people and film stars.
    But Abbey had no one to play with. I was her only friend in school, and at home she had no sisters or friends in the neighborhood.
    So, when summer came, she was by herself.

    One day Abbey was playing in her bedroom. She was an astronaut, Abbey Armstrong, on the surface of Zortek, a strange and dangerous planet.
    Suddenly she thought she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. She spun around. It was only her reflection in the mirror.

    Oh, this make-believe. Now her own reflection was giving her the spooks.
    But then something really weird happened. Her reflection smiled at her.
    Abbey wasn’t smiling.

    And her reflection began to talk!
    â€œHello, Abbey.”
    Abbey couldn’t believe it! She opened her eyes wide.
    â€œAbbey, don’t be scared. My name is Bee. I’m just like you.”
    Abbey finally stuttered, “No—you are me.”
    Bee grinned. “That’s what you’re supposed to think. I follow your every move so quickly, you think it’s your own. I look like you, I change when you change, I blink when you blink, I speak when you speak. But I’m not you.”
    Bee was whispering, and her eyes were wide open.
    â€œI live in an entirely different world—the world of mirrors. We copy people so they never know we’re here.”

    Abbey’s heart was beating really quickly. She was curious. Another world!
    This was like a fantasy come true!
    â€œWhat’s your world like?” she asked.

    Bee sat cross-legged on the floor. She told Abbey to sit down, too.
    â€œYou see, you think I’m a reflection. But it’s just a trick to hide our world. I’m real, like you.”

    â€œOutside my bedroom is a world made of glass. Glass that never breaks. Even the people are glass. It’s really beautiful.”
    Abbey was amazed. A glass world!

    â€œNow, we’re supposed to copy everything people do when they look in a mirror,” Bee said. “But I’m so bored with that. I’m sick of pretending I don’t exist. I wanted to meet you, Abbey, and learn about your world.”
    Abbey and Bee became great friends. Abbey told Bee about her boring school and her parents and Pearse and the kids who didn’t get her.

    Bee told Abbey