Twins by Caroline B. Cooney

Author:Caroline B. Cooney [Cooney, Caroline B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-6430-0
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-07-13T03:27:00+00:00

Chapter 8

MADRIGAL IS BACK.

The news whirled like winter winds through the long and heavy corridors of the school. On the second day she was in class, hostility hung in the halls.

The school was overlaid with apprehension. It lay like another textbook on top of everybody’s burdens.

Madrigal is back.

Madrigal herself — Mary Lee, that is — was thinking only of Jon Pear.

A good night’s sleep had been impossible. But even a bad night’s sleep showed her how ridiculous yesterday had been. Of course she had been afraid, but to call her twin’s boyfriend evil? Nonsense. Jon Pear, said her mind and heart, Jon Pear Jon Pear Jon Pear.

She was as nervous as a cat on a string, jerking and looking and tying herself in knots.

But Jon Pear was not around.

She found her way to European history without him. This was not a subject Mary Lee had taken at boarding school. It was going to be a challenge, suddenly starting in midwinter. The text was dauntingly thick.

Again Mary Lee sat in the back row, but today she had company — Van. What a pleasure! “It was so nice of Scarlett,” she said to Van, “to tell me she was sorry about Madrigal.”

Van stared at her.

She’d used the wrong name. She colored deeply. “I mean Mary Lee, of course. I’ve lost half of myself. I keep forgetting who I am. Because half of me — isn’t.”

“That’s sick,” said Van.

“No, that’s twins.” She tried to imprint the name Madrigal on her tongue. But the name didn’t feel like hers. It felt like a summons, as if she were calling Madrigal back. If only she could!

Mary Lee forgot European history.

Grief filled every cell of her body. It was time to weep, to bawl, throw back her head and wail and keen. But it didn’t happen. She wept without tears and without sound, a huge and terrible despair for the beloved life that was gone forever.

I have no tears, she thought. Jon Pear took them.

As if he were sitting next to her, she saw the swinging vial of her captured tears. For a moment, she was so fearful she might have been dropped herself into the tube. Her soul encased in glass, fixed by a rubber stopper.

Why can’t I cry? she thought. Does Jon Pear have some power over me now that he possesses my tears? Does he own me?

Stop this, she thought. Stop this pitiful absurd train of thought! Some people become deadheads. Some people become glue freaks. Jon Pear is a tear collector. It’s a little weird, but Madrigal loved him, so he’s lovable.

Van lifted his hand. Mary Lee misunderstood, reached over and clung to it. He took his hand back as she had jerked hers away from the principal. Wishing for harsh soap to scrub off the touch.

Get a grip! thought Mary Lee. Do something, girl, do anything; collect tears, just don’t keep having these creepy ideas about people! “That time Scarlett and I went shopping together,” she said to Van, and caught

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