Twins by Caroline B. Cooney

hesitated, if she floundered, they would turn on her like feral dogs at bare ankles.
    Even worse — what if nobody suspected, but she failed anyhow? What if she was such a faded copy of Madrigal that people lost interest?
    I am Madrigal, she said to herself. And then out loud. “I am Madrigal. I own this school. And I own Jon Pear, whoever he may be. Once I walk the halls, it will be made clear to me.”
    She was arriving at ten in the morning. School, of course, began at eight-thirty. But Madrigal would make an entrance, because Madrigal had remained an Event.
    If I make mistakes, thought Mary Lee, I’ll dip my head, hide the tears behind my tumbling forward hair, explain that death has confused me.
    It would not be a lie. Death, especially this death, was quite confusing.
    She (whoever she was; at this instant she herself had no idea) held the car handle as she held her two selves. Carefully. Cautiously.
    Jon Pear might be watching. It must begin now. Every motion and thought must be Madrigal. She slammed the car door shut at the same moment she took the first step toward the school. Madrigal had connected her Events, whipping from one to the next. Mary Lee stalked up wide marble stairs that led to the front hall, and entered the high school under the frosted glass of the central dome.
    “Madrigal,” said the principal immediately, scurrying out of his office to take her hands. “Poor poor Madrigal.” He was in late middle age, and had lost most of his hair. That hair he had left was combed desperately around his baldness. “We had a Remembrance Service here at the school, of course,” said the principal, hanging onto her like a suitor.
    A Remembrance Service, thought Mary Lee, almost pleased. I wonder what they said about me. I wonder who spoke. I wonder what poems and prayers they used.
    “And the next day,” added the principal, “we had a Moment of Silence.”
    A moment? Mary Lee had died and they gave her a moment? She pulled her hand out of his greasy clasp and wanted to wash with strong soap.
    “You’re upset, Madrigal,” the principal said, putting the same hand on her shoulder, resting it on the hair that lay on her shoulder. Her hair could feel his sweaty palm; she had always had hair like that; hair with a sense of touch. “It is an unusual situation,” said the principal, “and none of us can possibly understand the depth of your emotions. I just want you to know that we understand.”
    “You can hardly do both,” she pointed out. It was Madrigal’s voice speaking, for Mary Lee would never have ridiculed an adult. “Either you understand or you do not, and in this case, you do not.”
    He flinched. “Of course,” he said quickly. “Of course, Madrigal.”
    He was afraid of her. His smile stretched in a queer oval, like a rubber band around spread fingers.
    “Walk me to my class,” she commanded.
    He moved like a good little boy and walked nervously ahead, turning twice to be sure she was still there. The creases in his charcoal suit wrinkled with each kneebend.
    The first hurdle was over. Because she did not know, of course, what nor where Madrigal’s class was.
    She kept her stride long, but measured; setting the pace, allowing the principal to dictate nothing, and yet following him, because she had to. It was an art, and she was good at it. It came from twinship, she supposed, the constant struggle both to lead and to follow.
    Struggle. A word she had never used. Had she and Madrigal been involved in a struggle, and only Madrigal had known?
    Down the hall, so far away he seemed framed by openings, like a portrait with many mats, was Van. One hour, one dish of ice cream — did that a crush make?
    She wanted to run to him, crying, Van, it’s me, Mary Lee! The one you flirted with that afternoon, before they told me I had to leave. Van, I don’t have Madrigal now, and I need somebody, because nobody can be alone! Please, Van, be mine.
    But Van, who must have recognized her, simply