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Trouble lurked outside the Hawley Junior High School library late into the lunch period, in the form of a trio of boys who were bored and had just spotted someone smaller, skinnier, and less macho than themselves exit the library with his nose in a book.
Not them again, said a voice in the back of the bookish boy’s head.
“Hey, it’s Powdered-milk!” one of the trio shouted. “Whatcha reading, Powdered-milk?”
Just keep walking, Cary, said the voice in his head, but instead the boy froze, and stuttered, “M-Mendel’s Genetic Experiments on Plant Hybridization.”
They didn’t actually want to KNOW! the voice in his head snapped, as the trio “ooo”ed and moved to surround the boy, who muttered, “but they might learn something, Kerry!”
The bullies chortled and nudged each other, mimicking, “Yeah, somebody might learn something! You keep telling yourself that, Cary. Hey, when you gonna learn to man up, Caroline?”
Come ON, Cary, just push through them and go to math class! But all he could do was shrink downward, feeling trapped by the boys now looming over him.
“Hey wait,” said the brightest of the three. “Genetics. I get it. Chowder-milky-white here wants to learn how his Injun mommy birthed a milky-white four-eyed fairy!” Oh he did NOT go there! “Everyone knows that, Chowder-milk face. It’s ‘cause his real daddy’s the judge who keeps mommy’s redskin ass out of prison!”
HIT HIM, CARY! “No, I-”
“Naw way, that’s what them books are about?” another boy shouted, grabbing for the library book. “Let me read that!” But before his fingers could close on the book, a fist flew out of nowhere and punched him squarely in the nose.
There was a pause as the assembled tried to register what had happened. It seemed that the fist had come not out of nowhere, but out of Cary Loudermilk’s own pale, bespectacled face, but that didn’t make sense. And then it became clear that the fist must have come from the small dark-haired girl now standing between Cary and his tormenters, hands on her hips and glaring, though where she had come from, they knew even less. “Shut up and leave us alone,” she said in a slow, steady voice, ferocious even as the shortest person present.
One boy shrunk back, nursing his nose, but his buddy who knew the definition of “genetics” retorted, “Okay, so now Powder-milk’s hiring little girls to be his bodyguards?”
She thrust her small fist under his chin and hissed, “I should whomp you even harder after what you said about Mama.”
Cary had crouched to rescue the library book from the ground, but reached up and whispered, “Kerry, don’t—” but no one heard him amidst the laughing “OOOOOO”s of the now subtly-backing-away bullies.
“You- you and your little girlfriend be careful learning about ‘genetics’ now, Chowdermilk,” one of them said, unable to quite hide the nervous confusion. They kept chortling and hitting each other in the arms and striding away as if they fully intended to go, but not without rush.
The girl grinned at their retreating backsides, then said, “See? All you have to do is sock ‘em one.”
“You can’t just— hit your problems away,” Cary told her.
She gave him an exasperated gawk. “I just did. Did you have a better idea?”
His mouth opened and closed soundlessly as he stood and looked down at her. Then he noticed he was looking down at her. It had been a few weeks since she’d been out, and seeing exactly why they’d kept calling her “little” surprised him. “Did you get shorter?”
“No, you got taller.”
“But so should— I mean if I grow, wouldn’t you grow, too?” He glanced at the book in his arms: maybe the answer would be in there somewhere. But he doubted it. It seemed no one had ever bothered to study the phenomenon of twin sisters who lived inside your own body.
“I have grown. Spiritually. I just discovered the meaning of life: to beat people up for you!”
“You can’t find spiritual enlightenment through beating people up, Kerry.”
“Says you.”
Cary sighed. “Let’s go, or we’ll be late for class.”
Kerry slipped back inside her brother immediately. No, YOU’LL be late for class. School’s YOUR bag, not mine. Unless… do you think Mama will let us take martial arts classes?
“What?!” Cary stopped in the middle of the hallway. Other students stopped to stare. “We’ll talk later,” he muttered under his breath.
“It won’t work,” Cary said after school, slightly muffled by the pillow he held under his chin. He’d collapsed on his bed, but Kerry was too hyped up to stay there. She jumped around on the other side of the room, shadow boxing and cheering herself on as one by one her imaginary opponents fell. “I don’t want to take martial arts, and Mama doesn’t believe you exist.”
“No, it’s simple!” She stood on one leg and kicked as high as she could, fell backward slightly and hopped a few times to regain her balance. “You sign up for lessons, but when we get there, I go in and take them, that’s all.”
“What would I do while you’re in martial arts lessons?”
“READ, obviously.” Kerry knocked into a chair, and Cary winced as he felt the bruise she’d gotten swell in his own hip. That was why he didn’t really want Kerry to take martial arts, either: even if he wasn’t doing the fighting, he’d still feel the bruises.
“Cary, are you jumping on the bed?”
“No, Mama, I’m training!” Kerry answered as their mother peered in.
Ms. Loudermilk blinked at the place where she was determined not to see a little girl, and turned back to her son. “So, why does it sound like a stampede in here?”
Cary sat up and held his hands up in surrender. “I promise we’re not breaking any furniture. It’s just that Kerry wants to take martial arts lessons.”
“Cary, for the last time. Please don’t refer to yourself in the third person. Do you want to get taken away from me?”
“No, not me, Ker-” he glanced across the room, and realized Kerry’d chosen this inopportune moment to retreat inside him. “The other Kerry. If she takes martial arts, can I take magic lessons?” he added hopefully.
Ms. Loudermilk shut her eyes and breathed deeply. “ONE lesson at a time. For one child.”
It wasn’t that Ms. Loudermilk didn’t believe in Kerry, truthfully. She was just afraid to. It was a group hallucination, or something, and she didn’t like what that might mean. Somehow Cary had heard how they’d originally expected a Kerry (probably from her ex, out of spite), and turned her into an alter ego, a dissociated personality to blame things on, wasn’t that how these things worked? And if sometimes—frequently—she thought she saw her, and heard her, the little girl who looked so like herself as a child… well that would mean something even worse. That the desire she’d repressed for the daughter she’d never had was strong enough to come out in hallucinations. That her son wasn’t enough for her. She could never regret her sweet, so very intelligent son. Odd as he was, she loved him with all her heart and wouldn’t want him any other way. She didn’t need a Kerry. And she didn’t need the Cary she did have to be put in an asylum, either.
Kerry didn’t mind, exactly. If Mama was absolutely sure she was real, she might be forced to eat dinner or brush her teeth or any number of boring things Cary was perfectly capable of handling himself. There was plenty of love for Kerry in the love Mama gave to Cary. Mama loved her by loving Cary. It was hard to explain, but Kerry was satisfied.
It just got awkward when she wanted to do something different from Cary.
Cary respected that. Sometimes he felt guilty that he got all the attention (he didn’t care much for attention to begin with), and could lead them both around wherever he wanted to go. “Martial arts, then,” he said. “For Kerry.”
“All right. I’ll see if the YMCA is offering—”
“Make sure it’s a class that accepts girls,” Cary added quickly, “For Kerry.”
“I will look for a martial arts class that accepts girls,” their mother promised. “For Kerry.”
“Yes!” Kerry rushed out and hugged their mother from behind. “Thank you, Mama.”
With her eyes closed, Ms. Loudermilk reached around to stroke her daughter’s hair. “You’re welcome…my child.”