by Karen Rivers
Should I still go, do you think?
Oh, Sophie wants to know if she should wear a skirt or would that look like she cared, because she doesn’t, so maybe she’ll just go in her jeans. Can’t think why Soph cares what she wears. She should wear a bin bag, far as I’m concerned. And act like she doesn’t even reallllllly like him at all, ’cause she doesn’t! It’s just that he’s popular, isn’t he? And he looks fit from very far away?
Are you cross about Angus? It’s just that if he fancies you then he’s sort of yours, yeah? Like you have dibs on Nate. This can’t come between us being mates, it isn’t worth it. It makes me feel wistful! Just thinking about how looooong ago, we used to not care about boys. Oh, got to go! Have got to curl my hair before we meet the boys! We’ll be thinking about you loads though, about your mum and all that, and … I AM TELLING HER, SOPHIE, GET OFF.
Sophie says that it isn’t as bad as all that, and everything will work out, and we love you, smooches and hugs and besos! Talk soon. Wish us luck! Byeeeeeee.
You’re going to a film with HAWKSTER and Angus? They’re total rubbish, both of them! I’m attaching the e that Angus sent me. You deserve way better! Hold out for someone nice! Someone like Nate. Why d’you want boyfriends anyway? I’d rather eat my own sick than see a film with those yobs.
PS — Thanks, about the other stuff. There must be an explanation and I’m sure Mum will tell me everything soon.
The Mole’s gone now! I swear! He just had to come back because he forgot his giant, dorky headphones so he can listen to his music on the train and look like a complete wally while he’s doing it. COME ROUND.
Hey Ruby,
Thing is that I know it’s off. The way you call me the Mole and everything gives it away. You know, I know how it is. But it’s like I can’t help how I feel. I guess I wanted to say that. It’s like a magnet. Like we fit or something. That felt stupid to write. You’re probably laughing.
You should throw this away. Don’t let Fi see it. She’d laugh so hard, she’d probably drop dead. (Did you know there are ten deaths listed on Wikipedia under “died laughing”? Truth.) Adding Fi to the list wouldn’t be so bad. (That’s a joke.)
Maybe you could leave me a note in my room if you want. Not if you don’t. I get it. You don’t have to.
See you around.
Ed
Dear Ms. Ruth Quayle:
To whom it may concern:
I have signed the contract.
Sincerely,
Jedgar A. Johnston
Ruth, are you being weirder than you usually are? I can’t tell sometimes if you’re being funny or not, like you’re making fun of me but I’m not supposed to get it. But I do get it, so it’s either not funny or just mean. I wish I could unwind time and go back to Drop Mac and un-ask you what I asked you, because it wasn’t worth this awkwardness, if that’s what this is. And really, I am not taking advantage of your story, it’s just that it’s super awesome and I can totally see how to do it so you’ll think it’s awesome too. I know you’re all confused about it and I guess that because you’re a girl and stuff, you are feeling a lot of things about having a twin and a real mom, but if you think about it, none of it changes YOU. You are still you. This is all stuff that is happening around you, but not TO you, not really. Do you get what I mean? It’s like even if this didn’t happen, you’d still be exactly like you’ve always been. But now you know your real mom and that you have a sister, it’s like a bonus. Like extra stuff. It doesn’t take away anything from you, is what I sort of mean.
If I make the film, it would be like a comic book, except animated. So it’s not really YOU, it’s just a drawing of you, so that other people can see it and go, “Wow, that’s a totally amazing thing that happened!” and they can see how you are still you. I think that’s the part that’s the most important, you still being you. I feel like maybe you don’t think you are, and that’s why you’re acting all crazy and weird.
But I won’t do it if you don’t want me to, but I want to, which I’m saying just so we’re clear and later you don’t go, “What? I didn’t know you wanted to do that!”
Anyway, whatever. You’re still you and you’re still my best friend and all that.
Mea culpa,
Jedgar
Mom,
I’m sorry about spa day. I wrecked it! It’s my fault. As Jedgar would say, “MEA CULPA,” which is an actual thing that he’s taken to saying all the time, like he’s an elderly Latin scholar and not a 13-year-old boy. (You were absolutely right about me needing more girl friends and I’m working hard at finding more, because ever since the Incident, Jedgar has been weird. Not FRAUGHT, but definitely different.)
Anyway, here is what I need to say to you, Mom:
I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’M SUPER EXTRA SORRY!
OK?
Mom?
You know, when I asked you why I have a twin sister named Ruby Starling who lives in England, I totes completely didn’t know that you’d run out of the spa with your nails half done and the Korean lady chasing you down the street, shouting.
That was weird, Mom. Even for you. (But also sort of awesome. All that running you’ve been doing when you travel is paying off! You’re super fast.)
Are you mad? I don’t really get it, whether you are mad or sad or if you’ve actually gone completely crazy and I should be calling 911. (That last part was a joke. I know you are not crazy.) I guess I just thought that you understood that this wasn’t about finding my birth mother, but actually just about “GADZOOKS! I HAVE A TWIN!” It’s definitely not that I want to trade you in. It is so so so so so not that.
You know that I’ve always said I don’t care about my birth mother, and that’s a lie, I do care. But not in a good way. Like I’m mad at her, Mom. I’m really mad. But I’m trying to understand what Dad’s been teaching me about being angry and about how I shouldn’t be angry. I know he wasn’t talking about my birth mom, he just meant in general that anger is a waste of energy, and I get that. So I’m trying not to be angry with Delilah Starling. I am trying not to hate her.
I Googled her this morning.
Now I know what she looks like, and seriously, Mom, that’s all I wanted to know, and now I do. I know she has long red hair and she paints stuff and sculpts stuff and sometimes builds crazy-looking stuff out of metal, and that stuff is usually … me. Which is weird. It is the weirdest. She’s basically spent all this time making me out of clay and paint and paper clips and whatever! Everything! Like my image is interesting or useful to her big fantastic OMG artistic career, but the actual ME isn’t/wasn’t good enough for her?
Mom, I hate her. I really do. Don’t tell Dad. It’s like basically the opposite of everything he’s trying to teach me about Buddha and inner peace and all that stuff that’s super important to him! I know it! But it’s true.
I’m not even sure I ever want to meet her. I guess I’m scared. She gave me away and I can’t rewrite that in my head to make it a good story, or even to make it OK. It just sucks. She obviously didn’t want me, she wanted Ruby. And she got her. So why should she even get to meet me? It’s much more super complicated than I ever thought it would be when I first started thinking about being adopted and how one day, maybe on the bus, or in line for Space Mountain, I might bump into the woman who was my actual mother, and then I’d be able to look at her with great disdain and she would see how great I was and she would regret giving me away because I turned out to be so awesome. I was sort of thinking it would happen more when I was a grown-up, and not exactly NOW.
I’m not ready.
And I am not awesome.
And I’m weirdly so sad, it’s like the sad is squashing out all the other feelings. I’m so full of sad that I only have a bit of room left for MAD, but even that little bit of mad is making me sick. Dad’s right!
Mom, it’s all messing up what’s really important, which is that I really really really want to meet Ruby. SHE IS MY TWIN. The very same set of cells! But with an acc
ent! And good fashion sense! So of course I want to meet her, Mom. OF COURSE I DO.
So would you, if you were me. Right?
Dad told me not to talk to you about it because it would be upsetting, but it’s not like you to get upset about this stuff. I don’t want you to feel terrible, but I want you to want ME to not feel terrible too. And I DO feel terrible! The worst! And Dad’s mad at me because he says I promised not to talk to you about it until you had a chance to figure out how you felt, but I didn’t know how long that would be! I didn’t know when it would be OK! And now, well, I’ve wrecked everything, I guess.
But Mom, even if you are upset, I have to ask you something. You said we could plan our trip this summer, and I need to see Ruby, for real. I need to. I really really really really need to. Can we please go to England? I know you were probably thinking Lake Wanabasco or possibly even Disneyland, but …
This is bigger than anything that’s ever happened to me, like EVER. You know how you felt when you found out the Luffy cells might work? It’s like that! But different. It’s more personal. Mom, I never would have looked for my biological mom. Not on purpose. I love you! You’re my mom! But she’s my SISTER. I have to meet her, Mom.
I just chipped all of my nails typing this out. How does anyone have painted nails for more than five minutes? I don’t understand nail polish. But there’s lots of things I don’t understand. Like boys and physics and Buddhism and why I’m so different from everyone else.
Mom, are you crying in your room? Because you are freaking me out. If you don’t come out, I’m going to call Dad. Or better yet, send Caleb in. And I can’t be responsible if he rolls on your clean laundry.
Love you more than jumping into the lake from the dock,
Ruth
P.S. Please be OK.
P.P.S. I’m sorry.
Honey, I am fine. I am OK. It’s just it was a shock. Hearing it from you, even when I’d already heard it from Dad.
I’m acting oddly, I know! You must be worried. But don’t worry. There are some things happening at work, you know, about the Luffster. We should stop calling him that. We should call him the dinosaur. We should just say that, from now on. Because you shouldn’t get attached to things that aren’t real, do you know what I mean? But that’s nothing to worry about, not for you!
I think I’m a little bit in shock about the twin in England. It’s not something I was expecting! Life’s funny like that, right? About what you expect and then about what actually happens. I could never have guessed this. Not in a million years. But, Ruth, I do think I knew that you’d go looking for your biological family one day. And then “one day” just snuck up on me.
I know you’re mad at her, and I know you have to figure out your own path here. Dad gave me a great quote this morning: “The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.” You know I think his Buddhism-day-by-day thing is pretty ridiculous and that science doesn’t leave much room for religion, but in a way, “The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground” is how I feel about all of this. By which I mean, I didn’t know that this was going to happen. I just thought I knew what I’d feel. But now it’s all hitting the ground, and now I know how the foot feels. I’m sure I’m butchering what Buddha actually meant, but I think you know what I mean.
You might feel like you’re different from everyone, but you aren’t. You’re not all that different from me, Ruth. That’s why I’ve always felt you were made to be my daughter. It was meant to happen, all of it.
Unexpected. There’s so many unexpected things, Ruth! I guess if I teach you anything, as your mom, I hope I teach you about how things happen that are unexpected. I hope I teach you how to cope.
Plus, I haven’t been sleeping. I can never sleep when I’m traveling! Insomnia is the worst. I’m going to take some melatonin and get some rest! I’ll feel better after I’ve slept. Listen, Daddy wants to come to the park with you to watch you skateboarding and then have a nice dinner of baked-fried chicken at the beach. (I know it’s not the same as fried-fried, but it’s much healthier! It’s in the fridge.) It will be fun, and Caleb and I will just have a long, long nap, and then everything will be fine.
And thanks so much for explaining to Ms. Kim about the situation. I don’t know what you said, but she wouldn’t let me pay, and she’s given us a ham. It’s in the fridge, but don’t eat it. I’ll make hamaroni for your dad’s birthday next week. You know he loves it because he loves everything that has hardly any nutritional value.
Goodness, this melatonin is working! Yawn!
Love you more than squid ink pasta,
Mom
Dad? I can’t have a picnic with you at Drop Mac, I’m going to Jedgar’s house. We’re just making SHORCAs because he’s agreed to do SHORCA! in addition to a very, very small, insignificant documentary that no one will watch about my tragic story.
I know what you’re thinking, which is, “WHAT? RUTH, WHY WOULD YOU LET JEDGAR MAKE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT FINDING YOUR TWIN ON THE INTERNET WHEN WE ARE STILL TRYING TO COPE AS A FAMILY WITH THIS NEWS?” And you are right to massively overreact! Because I did too! At first!
Then I changed my mind because of how things sometimes make more sense when you see them in a different way. But mostly you never can. You can only ever know what you were thinking, yourself, when stuff happens. EXCEPT if someone else tells the story, THEN you can see it from a totes different perspective! I imagine this is how Luna the killer whale felt when she saw the film Killer Whale. (Whales are very intelligent, you know, which is why SHORCA! was so brilliant in the first place, because it’s about a terrifying killer shark who is also really, really smart, which makes her scarier, amirite?)
I think that when I see the whole story about me and Ruby in Jedgar’s way, then I’ll be all, “LOOK AT MY TWIN! THIS STORY IS AWESOME!” and not so much “I AM FEELING A LOT OF PANIC AND I DON’T KNOW WHY.” I hope, anyway.
xoxo,
Ruth
Ruth,
Will you meet me at the park if we get McDonald’s instead? DO NOT TELL YOUR MOM. I’ll be there at 5. Be there or be a cube. (That’s a joke, I know it’s “square.”)
Daddy
DAD. Not Daddy. See you later, alligator. Get me a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake, OK? Please?
I am in Jedgar’s bathtub right now, hiding behind the shower curtain. It would be funnier if his mom wasn’t flipping out. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, send help!
I’m kidding, I’ll be fine. She’s mad at the boys, not at me. Well, mostly because she doesn’t know that I’m here.
Hey, so, I know you’re probably mad, but I’m apologizing for my mom. She was super mean to you and that wasn’t OK. It’s not your fault about the towels, you were just trying to help. Besides, she’s being unreasonable. How could we know that SHORCAs would block the toilet like that? I would have told her all this, but I was in my room trying to stop my idiot brothers from suffocating me with a pillow.
I think I have enough footage now anyway, and all I have left to work on is the drawings. So we agree that it’s now going to be basically silent, except for the words in the bubbles above their heads like “HELP!” and “AU SECOURS!” and “¡AYUDARME!” and stuff. Then we’ll just do a voice-over about the facts about SHORCAs, like how there is only one left in the world and she’s lonely and misunderstood, because even though she’s friends with both sharks AND orcas, she doesn’t fit in with either group, and that’s why she eats people. Well, that, and because she’s hungry. Can you figure out how to put all that into a three-minute script, or are you totally too mad?
I have to go. Mom is turning purple and shouting again. Apparently I’m not allowed to use the computer until I’ve cleaned the carpet in the hallway. I didn’t know toilets could even flood that far. I might die from the stench. If I do, I guess this is good-bye. Au revoir. Adiós.
J.
P.S. Why was my laptop in the bathtub? I guess that was good, because it didn’t get wet when the toilet exploded, since
the shower curtain was closed. But weird. I’m just glad no one took a shower.
Dear Ruth,
I’m staying at my best friend Fi’s. It’s a madhouse here, even though it’s just Fi and her mum and dad. (Her brother, the Mole, is away. Thank goodness.) He left me the most embarrassing note under my pillow! I can’t tell Fi. She’d be angry. I don’t know what to do so I’m going to pretend it fell between the pillow and the headboard, so I couldn’t have seen it. Then he won’t expect an answer.
When they talk to each other round here, they all talk at the same time instead of waiting for the first person to finish. Then they get louder and louder and louder and no one is listening and everyone is talking. Eventually I just gave up trying to have a conversation and snuck up to Fi’s room to write to you. It’s a bit like a room you would have picked out when you were little, with lots of purple and a canopy bed. I love it, but I’d never tell Fi. She thinks it’s awful. Mum was never very into things like that, proper girly things. She said the light in my room was fantastic. And it is, really. But then she painted it really pale blue. It gives me migraines when the sun’s out, because somehow the blue turns bright white, like snow. Maybe that’s why I like the wardrobe so much.
The thing is, what I want to say, is that I’m sorry that Mum is … awful. She is awful, isn’t she? She must be if she gave you away. I don’t know why she did what she did, but it’s rubbish. Whatever her reason is! It must be! But she isn’t a bad person, she just sometimes gets easily overwhelmed. It’s because of her art, I think. I’d say it was because Dad died, but I don’t think that’s true, I think it’s just how she is. She’s always half lost in whatever she’s working on! I know that sounds like an excuse to make it seem OK, but it’s true.