No! You always make me go first,’ I say it quietly, but I’m angry. Biologically I’m the odd one out, standing awkwardly with Marlise and Katherine, in the shallow school pool. I can’t win, but I’ll protest anyway.
Everyone else is already out, getting changed like we were told to. Neither twin speaks, but they watch me carefully. I desperately try not to squint. They’re waiting for me to give in, but I’m not ready to back down yet.
I slap my hand against the water in time with each protesting shriek and each hysterical laugh that echoes out from the changing rooms. The ripples grow, along with our stubborn silence.
I’m not sure where I’d rather be.
I’m drying quickly in the sun and the smell of chlorine mixed with sweat rises up off my skin. I hope they can’t smell it too.
‘Your eyes are red,’ Marlise says.
‘I know,’ I reply.
‘Ok, so we’ll go first this time, then next time you can go first,’ Katherine finally speaks.
Carefully considering this idea, Marlise nods, ‘There are two of us, so that’s fair.’
‘Then one of you goes against me. You don’t need two people to count, and it’s my turn.’
‘There’s no point - you’re too easy for us.’
‘You said this wasn’t a competition…’
‘If we hurry you might still get a go.’
They wade towards the ladder, breathing long deep breaths, puffing themselves up with air and self-satisfaction.
‘So you’re happy to use my ideas, but…’
‘You’re not one of us,’ Katherine sneers, like that settles everything as I finally give in and shade my eyes with my dripping hands.
I automatically assume she means I’m not part of their pair, which is true, but then they grin at each other surreptitiously.
‘Yeah,’ Marlise says over her shoulder, ‘you’re not a real Kiwi.’
I try not to respond, because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Whenever I ask mum why she decided to make me foreign, she presses her knuckles to her lips and looks at some fixed point on the floor. She often makes me invisible while she thinks. Eventually she’ll say something about lamenting the loss of friends, and adjustment, but she could be talking to anyone.
‘That’s an interesting complaint,’ she’ll say if I keep asking, slowly twisting her hair into a bun. It’s so long and thick she can tie it in a knot, which helps her answer my constant questions.
‘I’m not complaining, I just want to know.’
‘Why do they think it’s so bad to be “foreign”? I grew up in New Zealand - we moved back to my home country, is that really so strange?’ Her arguments are always perfect in isolation, but not much help when I try to repeat them at school.
When she asks, ‘Who made these kids the judge of your individual worth anyway?’ I am unable to answer.
Mum never refers to Marlise and Katherine by name, she always buries them in a crowd. That way she can avoid saying how much she dislikes them, which is obvious, and overlook the fact they’re identical twins, which is impossible to ignore.
I shrug while she smiles at a problem well solved. She is right, in theory.
‘…Two, three…’
With a perfectly synchronised nod, the twins drop below the surface. Their sun-kissed, mouse brown hair splays out like halos of wriggling ghostly fingers as they sink, grabbing the bottom rung of the ladder.
‘What are you doing?’ I had asked the twins, the second their heads popped out of the water. They’re surprisingly buoyant for such skinny kids.
It was impossible to ignore the fact they were always last out of the pool, I had to know what they were doing so secretively after every swim class.
Despite gasping for air, they had both looked at me with exactly the same level of disdain. They didn’t like me and they’ve never tried to hide it, not on my first day, and especially not then when I cornered them. I had tried talking to them in class and they’d done their best to ignore me, always rejecting the idea that they were doing anything in the pool other than swimming.
Then I caught them and they couldn’t pretend they didn’t know what I was talking about.
I took a moment to confirm who was who, ‘Can I play?’
Katherine scowled.
‘I want a go, you know, at the game that you don’t play.’
I’d been studying their activities from a distance since I started at the school, and they were usually quite predictable. No one ever tells them off and a lot of people tell them they’re special, just because the egg they’re made from split by chance. And because there are no other twins at school, not even fraternal ones.
Katherine acted like I had asked the worst question in the world. ‘It’s not a game,’ she said tersely, curling her bottom lip beneath her central incisor. She stared at my body, scrutinising the way I crouched at the edge of the pool.
‘You’re really pale.’
‘I know.’
‘How long have you been waiting?’
‘Not sure, maybe a minute.’
‘You like science, don’t you.’
I nodded.
‘We’re doing an experiment. You could time us.’
‘What’s the experiment?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Maybe I won’t be much help then,’ I countered. Unable to crouch any longer, I stood. ‘If you want to hold your breath for longer, hang onto the ladder. You’re wasting air swimming to stay at the bottom of the pool.’
I stepped down from the edge of the pool, and start walking towards the changing room.
‘Wait,’ Katherine pushed herself up out of the pool, a dark wet shadow forming as she leaned towards me. ‘Psst,’ she hissed at me, ‘Psst, Chloe.’
I looked back and saw how faint my wet footprints had become. They disappeared under Katherine’s larger, darker prints as she raced after me.
‘Our brother nearly drowned diving,’ she confided.
‘I know, I mean everyone knows.’
She stared at me.
‘They told us at assembly, remember?’
‘Yeah, sure but you still don’t understand what it’s like,’ she paused carefully, ‘to almost lose your brother.’
I think she enjoyed saying this, telling me what I couldn’t know and filling each word with eternal drama.
‘He says it’s changed him, the way he sees everything, but you won’t really get what we’re doing…you can’t understand. I mean, he nearly died!’
I didn’t correct her. It’s too complicated.
I didn’t get to go first, Mississippi. It’s always my turn to count, Mississippi. My legs are refracted and strange, Mississippi. I hate my swimsuit because it makes me look like Kermit, Mississippi. I’m bored of waiting, Mississippi.
People always say it’s good to ask questions, Mississippi. When what they really mean it’s ok to ask some questions, but there are lots of other questions you shouldn’t ask… Mississippi.
It really isn’t fair, like life, Mississippi, but I hang around anyway, hoping to discover something from their experiment before we’re chased out of the pool.
Am I the only one who thinks the bottom of the pool is a weird place to look for meaning?
I bend my knees, crouching until my chin touches the water, while I wait for the twins to resurface.
The water is incredibly still now the pool’s almost empty, but it’s still too bright for me. Whoever decided to paint the pool white wasn’t a scientist. I don’t know what they were thinking. When the water is still it flickers and sparkles, and when anyone splashes the water becomes fractured and searing white. I can’t say anything about it without being told it’s only bright for me because I’m not used to the New Zealand sun; another symptom of my foreignness.
I can easily touch the bottom while standing, so it’s definitely not deep enough for diving, which seems pointless. I crouch lower, holding my head level, until the water touches my nostrils. I skip a breath, before reluctantly inhaling the chlorine water. I’m still spluttering as one twin after another pops out of the water, surfacing long enough to take a single breath, before disappearing again.
This is their experiment. They’ll keep popping up for air and then hold their breath until they’re unable to get enough air with just one breath.
I'd rather be in class.
I drop my nose level with the water again, skipping two breaths this time, as I crouch lower and force myself to breathe.
I’m trying not to choke on the water I’ve inhaled when Michael walks out of the changing rooms. He pauses but shows no apparent interest in what’s going on. Mum calls him the low-slung kid. She says it’s because he looks so much older than the other kids, and because everything he wears defies the seasons, hanging off his lanky body in deliberate disarray. Today he’s fighting summer in thick trackpants and a hoody; if it was cold and wet he’d be wearing shorts and a singlet. I shrug whenever she asks if I’ve ever seen him wear shoes.
When he sees I’m squinting in his direction, he pulls his faded NBA cap over his long black hair, covering most of his face. Ruminating, he walks the length of the pool, slowly inching closer to the edge. Once he’s level with me he lazily tips his head over the water, ready to spit.
I don’t respond.
He waits, before slowly shifting his attention. Hovering over the twins, he studies their shuddering submerged outlines. They’re oblivious to the threat of his saliva.
I step forward, refusing to flinch or to be provoked.
Without an audience to shock or entertain, the idea of projecting his body fluids into the pool is too much like hard work. Michael opens his mouth, letting his carefully cultivated wad of spit fall to the ground between his feet. Digging his foot into his jandal, he walks away.
Everyone says they can't tell the twins apart. They say it like it’s something to be proud of, like it's ok to clump two people together because they're identical. But the thing is, they’re not that similar. Marlise is taller lanky, with freakishly large hands and feet. Her eyes are lighter than Katherine's, whose eyes are dark hazel and demanding.
Katherine has narrow lips and smaller ears. She gets angry and can’t help but make mean jokes. She can’t hide these traits, even when she’s wearing Marlise’s favourite t-shirt and taking Marlise’s maths tests. She’s pickier than Marlise, and she doesn’t like sharing. Katherine’s the one who chooses their friends, which explains why they only really spend time with each other.
It didn't take long to see differences between them, not after I really looked. But maybe it was easy for me to learn because of my sisters.
They’re still underwater so I nudge a hovering leg to get their attention. It’s supposed to be an experiment, not a re-enactment of their brother's accident.
Nothing happens so I kick. They push each other too far because they’re so closely matched.
The twins abandon their search for the things no one likes to talk about as Miss Anderson bellows to get out of the pool.
'Time?' Katherine demands, through laboured breaths.
They turn, waiting for my response.
When did I lose count?
I have no idea, so I say it’s even because it was. They dive again. I get out of the pool alone.
Miss Anderson marches over, for the sole purpose of telling me off, conveniently ignoring the fact two of her students are still in the pool.
‘I’m going, Ms.’
‘Miss Anderson.’ Out of the whole class I’m the only one she corrects, everyone else is allowed to abbreviate.
She thinks I try too hard, mum said after parent-teacher evening, that I’m too eager to learn and that’s probably why she doesn’t like me.
I look back at the twins. I’m always on the outside with them too, but it’s like that for everyone else at school. Not just me.
I always wonder what it would be like if there were four of us at home instead of two. Would we share everything? Would we fight less?
Would mum and dad even have had my brother, if the twins had lived? Would I miss my brother if he’d never been born? Can you miss someone who was never there? Would dad still say we have to be nice to each other because he and mum won’t be around forever?
Would my sisters have needed me the same way they needed each other, or would I still be on the outside?
‘Hey professor, don’t you have any questions for me today?’ Frank leans on the fence, laughing to himself. He picks his sisters up from school sometimes, because the twins don’t get the bus.
‘I’ve run out of questions,’ I say, walking by. They drive past my house every day, but never offer to drop me home.
‘That’s a lie if ever I heard one.’
I keep walking towards the bus. I’d like to get a lift home with them, but I’m too embarrassed to ask.
When Frank realises I’m not going to reply, he yells, more loudly then he intends to, ‘Scientists don’t run out of questions.’
I drift towards the fence, but I don’t walk back to where he’s standing. He’ll talk to anyone who’ll listen about his diving. But, like everyone else, he doesn’t like to talk about his accident. If I ask too many questions I get told off, even though I’m a scientist and it’s research.
I consider asking him if he knows about Marlise and Katherine’s experiment. He should know. It’s because of him that his sisters look for the truth, floating above the thick sediment of chlorine and used plasters at the bottom of the pool.
‘You could be a marine biologist.’
‘Why?’ I ask without thinking. He falters, so I explain, ‘I think I want to do research into genes, or something to do with evolution.’
Normally people just nod, or tell me I’ve got lots of time to decide what I want to do, like I couldn’t possibly know yet. But Frank tries to listen. He has four sisters and none of them like science or maths.
‘I’m resitting my exams at the end of the year.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to do something to, you know, change my life.’
‘Because you drowned?’
‘Yeah, well…’ He runs his hand over his newly shaved head awkwardly. He looks different without his surfer’s mop, ‘I’ve never pushed myself – I didn’t even finish school. I’m going to apply for engineering, if I get the marks.’
I point to the bus as I hop the fence. I can see the twins running towards the car.
‘You know, everyone else has been wishing me luck,’ he says with vague irritation.
I don’t know why he’s angry with me. ‘Do you like to win?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you shouldn’t need luck.’
‘You’re a weird kid.’
‘I know, but normally people think it instead of saying it…’
As the twins get closer to the car, they accelerate. They clear the fence faster than I’d dare, desperate to be the first to the car.
I don’t see who won.
It's really a competition, the breath thing. Even if it did start out as something more, they’d had to turn it into a competition eventually. They make everything into a contest and they’re always at their worst with each other.
I don’t understand why they fight each other for the best time but never ask a single question about what they’re looking for.
Michael dangles my drink bottle out the window as I step off the bus. He probably thinks he’s being clever, stealing my bottle and drinking out of it.
I can’t tell on him, because anyone I tell will try to put it back on me, saying “he must like you,” or “he’s just looking for attention.” The sort of thing adults say when they can’t admit it’s something they can’t control.
Do they really believe it’s my fault he’s a bully?
As the bus pulls away, he hurls the bottle out the window. I don’t duck, even though he’s aiming at my head. The bottle misses me, hitting the ground with a sharp crack and bouncing into the ditch. No one’s waited for me, so I clamber after the bottle alone.
I hope it’s broken. I don’t want Michael’s spit on anything of mine.
Across the road everyone is standing around, halfway up the neighbour’s long gravel driveway. I can’t see what they are looking at so intently.
‘It was here this morning,’ Nina solemnly explains, as I lean over her shoulder to see what secret they’re guarding.
I’m disappointed. We’ve seen so many dead possums before.
This one’s ridged and it’s starting to bloat. It’s very dead, but with a wide-eyed look of determination, like it desperately clung to this world as it died.
I can’t tell what killed it, but I can tell that it wasn’t ready to go.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about it then?’ I say, acting surprised.
‘You’d complain,’ Jake says, clinically poking the swollen body with a stick.
He thinks I’m precious because I don’t shoot things for fun.
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘You always cry when animals die,’ he counters. ‘You probably cry every time you eat your dinner.’
We all laugh.
‘Did you kill it?’ I try to sound like I don’t really care.
‘No,’ he swings the stick towards his sister. She shrinks and ducks, desperate to avoid being touched with the same stick as the dead possum and reluctant to turn this into a chase.
‘You cried when that cat got run over,’ Nina mumbles, siding with her brother.
‘It reminded me of my own cat.’
Jake is silent as he crouches down. Wedging the stick under the possum, he levers the body. We all tilt our heads to look.
‘Stupid cat shouldn’t have run across the road. It ran right under the truck.’
The possum’s body moves with each investigatory jab. I feel sorry for it, even though they’re pests. I don’t say anything.
‘You cried when someone brought those baby birds to school,’ Nina chirps.
I don’t reply because it’s not true. I cried when one of the boys emptied a nest by our classroom, and the mother flew around frantically looking for her chicks for the rest of the day.
Jake finally stops stabbing the possum. Everything is still. Then, with everyone watching, the ridged front legs jerk forward.
We all take the same sickeningly silent step back, far out of reach of the possum’s blindly grasping paws.
No one speaks. We don’t need to say anything, we all know we saw the same thing.
‘Rigor mortis,’ I say it sternly, convincing myself. I know it’s impossible, but with that look on its face I wouldn’t be surprised if this possum came back to life.
Dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, Jake suddenly turns to me and says, ‘Only city slickers cry every time something dies.’
I wait for him to start poking the possum again, but it’s a long time before he can look at it again.
I only remember Bertie dying, which is bad because he was just a cat. All the people who’ve died in our family were either before I was born, or before I remember.
Like the twins, they died when I was two. I don’t even remember if I met them, which is terrible.
It’s the sort of thing I should remember, no matter what.
How old do you have to be to remember something? Do you always remember the first time you see something die? Is that why I remember Bert so clearly, because I saw it happen?
Stuck behind a taxi, we had driven down our street slowly. We could see Bert waiting at the end of the drive. He didn’t like it when we went out for too long. He was so still, like a statue, but as the taxi drove past him he bolted.
We felt like we saw it in slow motion, mum said, consoling the driver. It wasn’t his fault, she told us. The cat just ran without any warning.
We sat in the car crying as they picked him up and put him in the garage. When we went inside, mum called dad right away. That’s when she cried. Mum always cried on the phone, especially when she spoke to anyone about babies.
Dad got home and mum took us to look at Bert. He was wrapped in one of dad’s old shirts. Mum said we had to look at him to understand what happened. But I already knew he was gone because I was so sad and because it didn’t feel real, even though we saw it happen. Looking at him didn’t help me understand what that meant.
What’s it like to be dead and gone forever? Is it the same for animals and people?
I had so many questions I didn’t know how to ask. I knew we couldn’t undo what had happened to Bert, no matter how sad we were. But I was still scared he’d move while we looked at him, that we’d been wrong and he was in pain, lying in the garage, waiting for us to come back.
We’d only had him for two months, but we loved him. Dad couldn’t admit how upset he was. He still can’t talk about it.
Would he have slept on my bed, or one of my sister’s?
Would I have been braver about this if my sisters were there?
Does it matter?
The possum will decompose with or without Jake’s dissection.
We learnt about it in science. I hated that particular class. It reminded me of the time I asked mum about the twins and whether or not they’d still be in their graves. I was younger then, I wanted to understand why we were taking everything in the house when we moved, but were leaving my sisters behind.
Mum turned the TV off, even though the documentary wasn’t finished.
‘Those are my babies you’re talking about,’ she said, getting up and walking out of the room. She didn’t look at me for the rest of the day. When we ate dinner I could see she’d been crying.
‘Some questions are unnecessarily upsetting,’ mum said later. ‘I know you have questions about everything, but you need to learn that.’
We both knew what she was talking about.
Jake pokes the possum again. No one’s asking why the possum’s dead, or where it’s gone.
I have so many questions and poking the possum with a stick won’t give me any answers. I already know what’s inside a possum.
Am I the only one asking these questions?
Don’t they gnaw at everyone in the same way?
Walking home I count the number of bones I can name and the number of questions I have, to see which number is bigger. I already know which I will run out of first.