The Twin Within

Cassie caught her toe on the bottom step in front of the school and flew forward. She reached out to break her fall but slammed the ground hard. “Uggh,” she groaned, scraping her left palm. She knew better than to trust the landscape.

A horde of adolescent bodies shoved through the heavy front doors of Ortiz Middle School and bolted past where she lay sprawled on the ground.

Kit rushed to her. “Are you OK, Cassie?”

“Hey! Nice faceplant, spaz!” Wayne and Logan high-fived each other and hooted. “Never gets old!”

She flushed red and buried her face in her hands. How often did she fall? Once a month? Twice a month? Way too often. She should be used to it by now. But she’d never get used to the laughing and ridicule…it did get old!

“Buzz off, you morons!” Cassie snarled at the boys. She pushed herself off the ground. Her heart-shaped necklace fell into the dirt. “It’s broken,” she moaned. “My dad gave it to me on my birthday.”

Kit grabbed Cassie’s elbow. “Let me help you up. Oh, your palm is bleeding! There’s blood on your T-shirt.”

“I’m OK. It doesn’t hurt that bad. I’ll wash it off at home.” She stuffed the necklace in her pocket and let her best friend take her arm as she limped toward the bus. They sat near the front, away from the toads in the back.

Cassie stared out the window as they passed the grassy football field before turning onto a paved road. As the bus neared Cassie’s neighborhood, tall mountains to the east towered over the adobe-colored city, with yucca and cholla cacti dotting the landscape. Santa Fe’s earth-colored, flat-roofed houses stretched along the high desert toward the mountains. The route was so familiar that if she were old enough to have a driver’s license, she could drive home with her eyes closed.

She glanced over her shoulder at the students behind her. Half of them she’d known since kindergarten. The rest came from other elementary schools in the area, including Wayne and Logan. They weren’t the first creeps to taunt her. There were many others—starting when she was about six years old.

She’d always been different; the kids never let her forget it. Cerebral palsy made her an easy target—”Cripple! Freak! Dummy!” It was never-ending. She’d collapse into Mom’s lap, sobbing, followed by anger that boiled over like a whistling kettle on the stove. Thank goodness most of the mean kids had grown bored with her and looked for new victims. Except for jerks like Wayne and Logan. They never grew tired of taunting her.

The bus pulled into her neighborhood. After the bus dropped her off, Cassie walked up the sidewalk to her family’s adobe house. Mom’s fragrant miniature pink roses lined the walk. A purple butterfly bush grew next to the porch, with a sprinkling of bees buzzing through the flowers. Under the shade of the aspen tree, Mom planted the beloved columbines she’d brought from the mountains of Colorado. Their home might be older, but Mom had made their yard into a playground for fairies. Cassie stopped to smell the sweet morning glories that framed the screen door and stepped inside.