by Betsy Haynes
The organ music was trembly as the camera focused on Cynthia lying in bed. She looked even worse than she had the day before. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were so sunken that I wondered if she was sucking them in. A minute later Chad came into the room.
Cynthia tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth were just too weak to turn up very far. "Chad," she whispered. "My hero. I heard about how you saved that elderly lady from being mugged. I even saw it on TV."
Chad shook his head sadly. "I didn't come to talk about me. I've just had a conference with Doctor Norris. The prognosis is grim. He doesn't think he can save you now." Chad's handsome face crumpled in sorrow, and he began to cry softly. My heart was in my throat. I couldn't stand to see Chad cry. If only there were something I could do.
Cynthia spoke up again, and this time her voice was stronger. "Chad, there is something I desperately need to talk about. It's terribly important. Will you listen?"
"Of course, my darling. Anything. What is it?"
The camera zoomed in on Cynthia, who sighed deeply before she spoke. "There is one part of my life that you have never known about. When I was just a tiny child my parents divorced. My mother took good care of me and loved me very much, but my father . . . my father never came to see me after that and almost never wrote. I felt sometimes as if he had forgotten I existed."
I sat up straight as a poker. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that somewhere in this world was another father like mine. Poor Cynthia. I knew just how she felt.
Cynthia brushed away a tear and went on. "A few days ago, when I realized that I might not get well, I decided to make one last attempt at contacting my father. Today I got a response."
She reached to her bedside table for a letter. My heart was pounding so hard it sounded like thunder. I couldn't watch, but I couldn't move away either.
"Chad, it says here that I have an identical twin sister I never knew about. It says that when Dad and my mother decided to divorce they agreed that one of us would stay with each of them. That way, both of them would still have a child. They decided that it would be best if neither of us knew the other existed. That's why he never came to see me and only wrote me once in a while."
I sank back against the sofa. I could feel little explosions going off in my heart. An identical twin sister. That's why he never came to see her and hardly ever wrote. Suddenly I couldn't sit there any longer. I jumped up off the sofa and went tearing into my room. I jerked open my sweater drawer and pulled out that picture of my third birthday. There I was, sitting on Mom's lap on one side of the picture and my father's lap on the other. But was I? Were they both really me? I couldn't take my eyes off that picture. I was so excited I thought I'd die.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Could that be why my father never came to see me and hardly ever wrote? Was he too busy taking care of my secret identical twin? Suddenly I was very grateful to Interns and Lovers. I might never have suspected my twin existed if I hadn't started watching the show. I was even a little grateful to Taffy Sinclair.
My hands were shaking so hard that I had to put the picture down on my desk to study it. The little girls on both sides of the photograph looked like the same person, but, of course, identical twins always do. That's why they're called identical. They usually comb their hair alike and dress alike and everything. Still, I looked for some little telltale difference, like a scraped knee on one of them or something, anything that would prove that they weren't the same person, but there was nothing like that there.
After a minute I went to my full-length mirror, staring hard at myself and thinking that this was what it would be like to look at my twin. That gave me a tingly feeling.
"Hi," I said to my pretend twin in the mirror. Then I smiled and, of course, she smiled back. I closed my eyes and tried to remember back to when I was really little. Was there somebody else in our family, another little kid like me? My mind was blank. I could sort of remember the girl in the kiddie pool that day, but I didn't know if she was related to me or if she was just a neighbor. Could she have been my twin? I sighed. If I couldn't remember my father, how could I hope to remember my twin?
Still, I could have an identical twin. If I did, was she as much like me on the inside as she was on the outside? Did she take cream-cheese-and-jelly sandwiches in her lunch? Would she like my friends? And what about Randy Kirwan? Would she be able to see how kind and sensitive he is? I felt a funny little stab in my heart when I thought about my twin and Randy Kirwan. What if he met her someday and decided he liked her better than me?
And I couldn't help wondering about Mom and my father. Did Mom miss my twin? Did she think about her often? I gulped as tears filled my eyes. Did my father miss me?
I looked at the picture again, but even though my twin was right in front of me, she seemed far away. I had to find out more about her. I just had to. I thought about asking Mom, but I couldn't do that. I'd die if I asked her and she started to cry. Besides, if I was wrong about this, she'd probably think I'd gone crazy.
Just then the phone rang.
"Hello?" I growled the word so that whoever it was would know they interrupted something important.
"Jana, did you watch Interns and Lovers?" It was Beth. "Isn't it exciting? Cynthia has a twin!"
"Sure, I watched," I said. I felt sort of guilty, as if I had been caught spying on someone.
"Can you imagine what it would feel like to find out you had an identical twin sister who'd been kept secret from you all your life?"
I opened my mouth to say something, but my heart was in my throat. I wanted to tell Beth that I might have a twin sister and that I sort of knew how it felt. After all, Beth Barry was my very best friend. But I couldn't. It was all too personal and private right now to tell even my best friend.
"What do you think Cynthia will do now?" Beth asked, not waiting for me to answer her. "I bet she'll eat. I bet she'll get well now so she can go visit her twin. Wouldn't that be exciting?"
"Sure" was all I could say. I hadn't thought about Cynthia visiting her twin. I hadn't thought about visiting my twin, either. I wanted to hang up so I could think about it. But I had no sooner put down the phone than it rang again.
"Jana!" It was Christie, and she was positively shrieking. "Can you come over right now? I'm going to call everybody else. You've got to come. It's important!"
"What's so important that I have to come now? I haven't even started my homework." That was the truth, but secretly I also wanted to think about my twin some more.
"It's about Taffy Sinclair. I knew she'd be staying after school today so Mr. Scott could tutor her, so I stayed after, too. I hung around Mom's office and right by his office when Taffy came in. You should have seen the way she was batting her eyes and flirting with him!"
"So what's new about Taffy Sinclair batting her eyes and flirting, and why does everybody have to come over to your house?" I asked. I still didn't understand. I knew Christie was fuming over Mr. Scott, but Taffy did that sort of thing all the time.
"We're going to fix her once and for all," said Christie. "Just come over and bring your notebook from the Against Taffy Sinclair Club."
That was all I needed to hear. Wild horses couldn't have kept me away from Christie's house. I wrote Mom a note explaining where I was and started rummaging around in my closet for my Against Taffy Sinclair Club notebook. We had each started a notebook last year in fifth grade when we had our club against Taffy, and we had used them to record all the mean, snotty, and truly horrible things she did. I hadn't seen mine in a long time. Not since I used some pages in it to make lists of my friends' faults that time when we were all mad at one another. Finally I found it under a big pile of stuff. I grabbed it and headed for the door. I paused beside my mirror, but I didn't look. I knew my twin would understand.
I was the last one to get to Christie's house, and she practically dragged me through the door and into the kitchen, where our meeting was apparently going to be held
. She had pulled an extra chair up to the kitchen table so that all five of us could sit down, and she had set a mug full of pencils in the middle.
"What is this, school?" I asked when Christie left the room for a minute.
"Who knows? I think she's flipped out," said Beth, making a weird face.
Katie shook her head and frowned as if it were all beyond her, but Melanie only shrugged. I stared at Melanie. She was getting thinner and thinner. She was probably too weak from her anorexia to say anything.
A minute later Christie charged back into the room. She clutched a folded newspaper in one hand, her Against Taffy Sinclair Club notebook in the other. A triumphant look was on her face.
"Okay, everybody. Let's get started," she barked. "Remember when we had our self-improvement club called The Fabulous Five?"
I nodded. Everybody else nodded, too.
"Remember all the problems we had and how mad we got when each of us told the others their worst faults?"
Who could forget a thing like that? I thought. But before any of us could nod again, Christie went on. "And most of all, remember what we decided to do after we stopped being mad and made up again?"
"To let people see us for what we really are," I said. There were nods and murmurs of agreement around the table.
Christie didn't say anything for a minute. I didn't know if she was giving us time for the idea to sink in or if she was just trying to be dramatic like Beth. Either way I couldn't see what it had to do with Taffy flirting with Mr. Scott.
"Exactly!" she said finally. "And now it's time to take that idea one step further. It's time to do the same thing for Taffy Sinclair."
"You mean, to let people see Taffy for what she really is?" I asked. "How are we going to do a thing like that?"
A wicked grin spread across Christie's face. "Not we, Jana. You!" She was pointing her finger at me. "You are the reporter for the Mark Twain Sentinel. You are the one who is trying to help Curtis Trowbridge by getting exciting stories into the Sentinel, and you can get an exposé about Taffy Sinclair into next week's paper, just like the exposés they print in the National Enquirer." Christie whipped the folded newspaper into the air and held it up for us to see. It was the National Enquirer, all right.
"What's an exposé?" asked Melanie in a weak voice.
"It's a disgusting article full of lies about an innocent person," said Katie.
"It's an article about a celebrity who acts goody-goody and perfect in front of everybody, but does terrible things in private," corrected Christie. "It exposes what that person is really like so everyone can see her for what she really is."
"I don't want my by-line on a thing like that," I said. I was beginning to feel trapped, even though I'd have to admit that an exposé of Taffy Sinclair sounded like a pretty good idea.
"Put Curtis Trowbridge's by-line on it. He's such a jerk he won't know the difference," said Christie. "Besides, Curtis's grandfather died all the way out in California, and he's going to be absent for more than a week to go to the funeral. He'll never even know about the story. And Taffy probably won't know about it until the day after it comes out and everybody has already read it. Remember, she went into the city to be on television last Monday, so she'll probably go in this Monday, too."
The more I thought about writing an exposé of Taffy Sinclair, the better I liked the idea. She certainly deserved it. And if I could turn the story in with Curtis Trowbridge's by-line on it, I could get revenge on Taffy for all the truly mean and horrible things she has done to me, and nobody would know that I had written it. Not to mention that I could get back at Curtis for putting my by-line on the first article. Now I understood why Christie had told us to bring our notebooks from the Against Taffy Sinclair Club. We had recorded every snotty thing Taffy did during the entire fifth grade. And I could remember a lot of things she'd done this year, too.
"Christie, you're a genius," I said. "We've probably got enough material in our notebooks to write a dozen exposés."
"Maybe even a book!" said Beth.
Suddenly all my best friends were thumbing through their notebooks. Even Katie was getting into the act. She's usually above this sort of thing, but after all, she's our friend, not Taffy Sinclair's. "Here's one," she shouted. "'October fifteenth. Taffy Sinclair drops her lunch ticket in the cafeteria line. She is wearing a really short dress, and she bends over to pick up her ticket so that she can show her underpants.'"
We all started yelling and clapping like crazy. I was glad Christie's mother wasn't home. She would think we had gone berserk.
"I've got one," I offered.
"No, me! Me!" insisted Beth. "We've got to put this one in the exposé because of Mr. Scott. 'November ninth. Taffy Sinclair walks past Mr. Neal after the last bell rings. She puts her hand on her hip so her elbow will stick out and then she brushes against his sleeve as she walks by!"
I could hear everybody yelling and clapping again, but I sat there feeling slightly numb. I remembered that day. I would never forget dreamy Mr. Neal, our fifth-grade teacher, and the huge crush I had on him. In fact, even thinking about him now made me feel all tingly. But most of all, I remembered Taffy Sinclair brushing against his sleeve and then looking straight at me. I'd get her for that. I'd write the greatest exposé that had ever been written.
For the next half hour we all went through our notebooks calling out every truly mean and horrible thing she had done during fifth grade. After that we remembered everything she had done so far this year. As my friends would think of something new I'd write it down on a blank sheet in my notebook.
"Jana, remember when she tried to teach you body language and she said yours looked like baby talk?" asked Christie. I shot her a poison-dart look. I certainly wasn't going to print a thing like that.
Still, the more things we thought of, the happier I was that Christie had come up with the idea of writing an exposé of Taffy Sinclair.
CHAPTER NINE
When I got home, Mom still wasn't there, even though it was time for her to be getting off work. I was glad I had beaten her home. She might start asking a lot of questions if she saw my Against Taffy Sinclair Club notebook. This way I could sneak it back into my room and even begin working on the exposé. I could hardly wait to get started.
I plopped the notebook on my desk. Then I looked in my mirror. I couldn't resist. And there was my twin. In all the excitement over writing an exposé of Taffy Sinclair, I had almost forgotten about her. I stopped and looked at her. She looked back at me.
I sat down at my desk and got out a clean sheet of paper. This was going to be great. I was really going to get back at Taffy Sinclair. I stared at that clean sheet of paper. Getting the first sentence down would be the hardest. After that it would be a cinch. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see if my twin was watching me. She was, out of the corner of her eye. I sighed. It was really hard to write something important with another person looking over your shoulder.
A little while later the front door slammed. It was Mom. I grabbed the notebook, stuffed it under the bed, and opened my social studies book just as she barged into my room.
"I suppose there's some good reason why you haven't started dinner," she said sarcastically.
"I didn't know you wanted me to," I said.
"Then apparently you neglected to read my note."
My ears started to get hot. I hadn't seen any note. We always left notes for each other on the fridge, but I hadn't noticed her note to me when I put mine up to tell her I was going to Christie's. I hadn't noticed it when I got home and took mine down, either. Actually I hadn't paid any attention. I had had too many things on my mind.
I thought fast. "Gosh, Mom. I guess I was just too preoccupied with this fascinating report we have to write for social studies," I lied.
Mom rolled her eyes and gazed toward the ceiling as if she expected to find the answers to all her problems written there. "What fascinating report is that?"
Frantically I looked around my room
for an idea and saw my mirror. "Twins," I blurted out. "We have to write a report on twins, and gosh, are they fascinating. Wiggins even read us an article out of a magazine about twins who got separated when they were really little. Do you know anything about twins?"
The minute those words were out of my mouth, I thought I'd die. I hadn't meant to say a thing like that. Mom had a funny look on her face. She was probably thinking about my twin and wishing she were here right now.
"What do I know about twins?" she asked almost dreamily. "Pink is a twin." She was staring off into the distance as if she were in some sort of trance, and I could swear that her eyes were filling up with tears. My heart started to pound. What would I do if she started to cry? Then all of a sudden she came to life and shrugged. "Twins? What do I know about anything? I thought I knew some things. I thought I knew about Wallace Pinkerton. Boy, what a fool I was. Now, come on into the kitchen and help me get supper. I've had a terrible day. I'm exhausted and I don't intend to do everything myself. You're going to have to help."
It was my turn to be practically in a trance. I did have a twin. I was sure of it now. Mom had looked so far away. She'd almost cried. She wouldn't do that just because Pink was a twin. Why would that make her sad?
I had a twin, all right. The clues were everywhere. First there were the pictures and Mom's flimsy excuse that they were both me and that they had to be taken separately. Then there was the other little girl in the kiddie pool the day I stepped on the bee.
I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard, trying to remember everything I could about that day. Finally I started to see her face. It was getting clearer and clearer, as if she were stepping out of a fog. She had long dark hair just like mine and blue eyes just like mine. I knew it. She was the other little girl in the picture!
"Jana!" bellowed Mom from the kitchen. "Are you coming or not?"
"Yeah, Mom. I'll be right there."