DupliKate by Cherry Cheva

different methods of killing Rina. I then sped all the way home, to get the killing started as soon as possible.
    “Hi!” Rina said when I walked in. She was lying on my bed, reading The Swiss Family Robinson. She must have finished the thesaurus. “How was your day?”
    I stared at her. There was a crumpled-up Hot Topic bag on the floor and she was wearing skintight purple and black zebra-patterned jeans, a black tank top with the word HARLOT written on the front in some sort of red-sequined pointy devil font, skull-and-crossbones bracelets, and what looked like a dog collar around her neck.
    “How was my day?” I asked her. “HOW WAS MY DAY? How the hell do you think my day was? My friend Kyla saw you at the mall! And now she thinks I’m a bitch and that I dress like a baby goth ho!”
    Rina looked down at her outfit. “I know, right? It’s so cute. I figured I would get away from all the pink, so—”
    “Did you not hear what I just said?!” I have never evencome close to starting a girlfight, at least not since preschool, but I wanted very badly to grab Rina by the hair and slam her face into the wall. Repeatedly.
    Rina saw my expression, and her smile disappeared. “I’m sorry,” she said, chucking her book aside and sitting up straight. “It’s just—I know I wasn’t supposed to leave your room, but I was just so bored, and I got the bus schedule off the Internet and you had a ton of change in your piggy bank….” I stared at her and she started talking faster. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad. Don’t you like our new clothes?”
    “No,” I said, recoiling in disgust as I stared at her outfit again. She’d bought a lot of stuff. I looked over at my piggy bank, which was lying on the floor. “How much money did I have in there, exactly?”
    “Oh, it was mostly change, but there were some twenties. You must’ve shoved ’em in at some point and forgotten about them,” Rina said. Her brief foray into remorse was evidently already over and she seemed all cheerful again. Great.
    I sighed and flopped down on the bed. “Rina,” I said, forcing a note of patience into my voice, “you can’t just go wherever you want. I mean, you’ve already been spotted. That can’t happen again. Okay?”
    “I guess,” she said, scooching over on the bed to make more room for me. “But couldn’t we just tell people we’re twins?”
    “But we’re not!” I exclaimed, sitting up. “I’ve lived here my whole life. People know I’m an only child! It’s not like we’re long-lost—here, give me your hand.” She held it out and I yanked her toward me, then held both of our hands up to the light. “Okay, if we’re twins, we’ll still have different fingerprints. Right? They’re like snowflakes. So let’s see if…” I squinted at her fingers, then my own, then nodded in resignation. It wasn’t hard to tell that the ridges and whorls on her fingertips were the exact same as the ones on mine; not just similar, but exactly the same. “See?” I said. “If somebody found out about you, they’d probably throw us into a government testing facility or something. They’d dissect us in a lab. I don’t wanna be dissected in a lab, thanks very much. I kinda like my parts where they are.”
    I flopped back down on the bed. “This is so the last thing I need right now.”
    “Yeah, you look stressed,” Rina agreed.
    “Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “You aren’t exactly helping by gallivanting around town. And you would be stressed too if you had to retake the SATs in less than two weeks, but before that there were finals, and…” I rattled off my “life sucks because” list that I usually confine to my most private neurotic moments, and she had the decency to look appropriately worried for a split second before jumping in and reciting the end of the list along with me. Smart-ass.
    “By the way, is it really hot in here or is it just me?” I asked.
    “Oh, I turned the heat up,” Rina