They both started sobbing right there in the middle of the sidewalk. If somebody had walked by, that person would have wondered what was wrong. But nothing was wrong. Everything was right. They were just thirteen-year-old twin sisters hugging for the first time.
Finally, Olivia let go and reached into her bag for some tissues. She blew her nose loudly. “Sorry if I snotted on your shoulder,” she said.
Ivy smiled tearily. “Don’t be sorry,” she said, wiping black mascara tearstains from her cheeks. “I think I might have ruined your dress.”
Olivia peered down at the smear of black on her bright pink sleeve. She couldn’t help laughing. “You Goths really don’t like pink, do you?”
Ivy chuckled as they walked on again. “I hope you like Franklin Grove,” she said to Olivia. “The bunny population here isn’t too bad.”
Olivia laughed. “Yeah, I saw that T-shirt your friend was wearing. So what’s it all about? Is this place infested with wild bunnies? I once read that when rabbits were introduced into Australia they, like, ruined the whole country.”
“Very funny,” Ivy said.
“No, really. I mean, their whole ecosystem was destroyed. The rabbits ate all the crops.”
Ivy shook her head. “No, not those bunnies, the—” Suddenly Ivy went quiet.
Olivia glanced at her. She had a weird look in her eyes. “What’s up?” Olivia asked.
“Huh?” her sister said distractedly. “Nothing. I was just ...I was ... thinking again about how strange it is . . .” She was talking really slowly. Then, all at once, she seemed to come back to life. “That we’re sisters.”
“No kidding!” Olivia agreed. “Why do you think we weren’t adopted as a pair? I mean, don’t they usually try to keep twins together?”
Ivy played with the ring around her neck. “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
“No. Do you?” Olivia asked.
“No. Maybe both our parents could only adopt one kid. Or maybe our real parents wanted us apart.” Ivy shrugged. “We don’t know a thing about them.”
Olivia nodded and followed Ivy toward the neon sign of the Meat & Greet Diner up ahead. “All I know is,” Olivia said, “when I think that we could have been together for the last thirteen years, it makes me want to scream. I totally could’ve used a twin sister in second grade.”
“Yeah,” said Ivy as they crossed the parking lot. “Second grade did bite.”
The restaurant was packed with other students from Franklin Grove Middle School. The place was decorated like a meat locker, with hooks hanging from the ceiling. But instead of slabs of meat, they held cool things like piñatas and disco balls. Olivia followed Ivy to an empty booth hidden in an alcove near the back of the restaurant.
A waitress decked out in a butcher’s apron appeared. “The usual?” she asked Ivy.
“Definitely,” Ivy replied. “What about you, Olivia?”
The waitress looked over expectantly.
“What are you having?” Olivia asked Ivy.
Ivy put her finger on Olivia’s open menu. “The Sink Your Teeth into This. It’s an almost raw burger. It’s utterly dripping,” she said happily.
Gross, thought Olivia. She wrinkled her nose and turned back to the waitress. “I’ll have the Bunny’s Delight please.” What is it about bunnies in this town? she wondered.
“You want salsa on your tofu burger?” the waitress asked.
“Yes, please,” Olivia replied. “Oh, and salad dressing on the side.”
She hoped the sight of Ivy’s raw burger didn’t make her nauseous. They might be twins, but they certainly didn’t have the same tastes.
“Considering we’re identical twins,” Ivy said, “we’ve turned out seriously different.”
“Oh, my gosh, I was just thinking that!” Olivia said. She cocked her head. “It must be a real trip for you to see what you’d look like in pastels, huh?”
They both laughed so loudly that the people in a nearby booth looked around to see what was so funny.
This time, Olivia thought blissfully, I definitely sat at the right table!
Ivy’s stomach was still fluttering, and it wasn’t because she’d laughed too hard or wolfed down her burger. It was because she had a twin sister.
When she really thought about it, she realized that she’d always known. That was the feeling that had come over her the first time she saw Olivia in the hallway this morning. It wasn’t just the strange sensation of seeing someone who looks like you; it was the rush of seeing someone you’d waited your whole life to see again.
Except for one grave thing: How come Olivia didn’t know what a bunny was? They were identical twins, right? So shouldn’t they be identical ?
If she doesn’t know, thought Ivy, I can’t tell her. “Hello, Olivia,” said a familiar high-pitched voice.
Ivy looked up. Oh, yippee, she thought sarcastically. Charlotte Brown.
“Hi, Charlotte,” Olivia said.
“I’m sitting over there with Katie and Allison,” Charlotte announced.
Olivia smiled blandly. “Say hi for me.”
Charlotte turned her back to Ivy and bent down, like she was going to tell Olivia a secret. “I think you should know, Olivia,” she said loud enough for Ivy to hear, “the Devils cheerleaders are like a really close group of highly elite girls. And hanging out with certain people”—she made quotation marks with her pink nails—“won’t really help you become part of the club at all.”