Chapter 1: School’s Out
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The bell rang, signaling the release of hundreds of children from their forced nine months of drudgery into the empty halls of Weight Middle School. The children always joked that they couldn’t wait to get out of Weight—and the day had finally come. For some, it was a permanent state. Eighth graders would move on to the new challenges of high school, which was just next door. For the sixth and seventh graders it was only a summer’s respite and then back to Weight as they climbed up to the next rung of the educational ladder.
Middle school was the age of discovering who you were by testing, poking, and prodding everyone around you to make sure that who you thought you wanted to be had the desired effect. For two particular children struggling with the concept of who they were and how they fit into the grand scheme of life, it was no different—including the feeling that they just didn’t fit in.
Ryssa S. Chambly shuffled her feet out of the classroom with the other children. She was as happy as the rest to have the summer free. She was especially happy to have managed to scrape together a high enough passing grade that she wouldn’t have to attend summer school, which had been a very serious threat looming over the next three months of her life. Someone fell into step beside her and she looked up, with a brief flash of resentment that turned to a smile.
Her twin brother, Reggie S. Chambly, looked at her with concern, his eyebrows raised in question. Ryssa’s smile grew a little bigger and she nodded.
“You passed, then?” Reggie let loose the breath of relief he hadn’t been aware he was holding.
“Barely.” Ryssa gave him a crooked smile. “But I actually did it.”
“Cool.”
Reggie was relieved that his sister had managed to squeak her way through to another grade. He peeked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her naturally thick brown hair gleamed with reddish highlights when they stepped into the sun. She had it pulled back from her face, which is how she wore it most of the time. He tended to let his own hair, finer in texture, hang loose around his face and shoulders. It was as long as his sister’s hair, but his was a shade darker and didn’t have those cool red highlights.
Most people said it was obvious they were brother and sister and were seldom surprised to find out they were twins. Their faces looked much the same—heart-shaped with high cheekbones and a spray of freckles to mark an otherwise smooth complexion. The noses and mouths were the same, and the eyes—deep-set and wide-eyed, framed by thick dark lashes. Someone had once said they were the kind of eyes you could get lost in. Reggie still wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad thing, but he had shrugged it off then, as he did now, as he always did.
Reggie was the kind of kid who let everything roll off him—or at least that was the face he tried to show the world. Easy going and good-natured—that’s what he allowed people to see. Not like Ryssa. She was quick to let all of her emotions jump to the surface. There was never any doubt about what she was feeling. Sometimes Reggie envied his sister for that.
Ryssa looked up at her brother, brown eyes meeting blue. He smiled at her and she noticed with a trace of envy, not for the first time, that his little star-shaped mole disappeared into the crinkles of his smiling eyes. Hers never did. It was down by her mouth and always on display. She hated it. Just like she hated that her brother had those bright blue eyes while hers were the color of mud. And she hated the fact that he was so much smarter than she was. Everything always came easy to him.
“I don’t suppose I have to ask whether or not you passed?” She looked hopeful. “Or maybe got a bad grade? Just one?”
Reggie gave her a grimace of understanding.
“Yours were that bad, huh?” he asked.
“The worst yet. Mom’s gonna kill me—or worse, she’ll probably ground me for the whole summer.”
“She wouldn’t do it for the whole summer—”
“No, but it might as well be. I’ll be grounded just long enough for everyone to forget I exist. It’ll be the end of my social life.”
“It’s not that bad—” Reggie’s attention drifted away.
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t care about anything.” She looked at him and growled. “Just like now. You’re not even paying attention to me. You don’t even care that I’m doomed to a lonely summer with no one—Hey, watch where you’re going!” she snapped as Reggie reached out to grab a boy from stumbling into her.
“Well, well,” a mocking voice drawled, pulling Ryssa’s attention away from Reggie and the boy who’d almost run into her. “What a combo—Hammie and the Chamblys. It almost sounds like some lame rock band or something.”
Hammie looked up at Ryssa and froze, staring at the star mole on her face, but she wasn’t paying attention.
“What do you want, Cally?” Ryssa asked. Cally and the trio of girls who followed her around like lap dogs really grated on her nerves. The popular group—she hated them. Mostly she hated them because she couldn’t be one of them. Coming from a single-parent home, there wasn’t a lot of extra money to buy the things it took to be popular. If they’d only let her—well, she’d show them.
“What do I want?” Cally tapped a finger to her chin, pretending to think it over. “Everything, of course. Oh, wait—I already have that. I’d settle for this lump,” she pointed a finger at Hammie, who still stared at Ryssa, “cleaning my shoes where he spilled his drink. They’re ruined.”
Ryssa looked down at Cally’s shoe, where a single dark drop of cola was already sliding off as though it had never been there at all. She looked at Hammie, finally noticing that he couldn’t stop staring at her ugly little mole. He seemed frightened, and she found herself irritated.
“Are your eyeballs stuck or something?” she asked.
Hammie’s eyes immediately dropped away, and he refused to look up again. Cally reached for Hammie, but Reggie stepped in front of him. The girl drew up short and laughed.
“What are you going to do about it, Chambly? Hit me?”
Reggie didn’t respond, but he didn’t move, either.
“Fine.” Cally tilted her head and added with a sugary sweet smile, “You know the party I throw every year at the end of school? Consider yourself uninvited.”
“We were never invited in the first place,” Ryssa said, letting her irritation show.
“That’s right, and little trolls like you never will be.” With a nod of her head, Cally turned and walked away. Her girls followed silently in the wake of her clicking heels.
Reggie snorted and rolled his eyes. He looked at Ryssa, the dejection evident on her face, her forehead furrowed in disappointment.
“Come on, Ryss, you can’t really want to hang with that bunch. You’re so much better than they are.”
“Yeah, right, whatever.”
Reggie looked behind them for the boy, Hammie, but he was gone, swallowed by the multitudes of children passing out through the doors of the school.
“Come on, let’s head home. Mom’ll be waiting.”
Ryssa pulled her books close to her chest like a shield and quietly followed her brother away from the school. She caught up to him, and their silence continued for a time while they walked side by side.
“So how do you think she’ll be today?” Ryssa said.
“I don’t know,” Reggie sighed. “She seems to have been pretty good these last few weeks.”
“Which means she’s due for a bad spell. I hate it, Regg. I hate seeing her like that. She seems so helpless, so—not like Mom.” Her expression hardened. “Sometimes it comes on so sudden it makes me feel like she’s faking it, like there’s nothing really wrong with her and she’s just doing it to get attention.”
“That’s something you would do, Ryss, not Mom.”
“I know.” Ryssa blushed and looked away.
“The doctors say her body is attacking itself, sort of.”
“They can’t figure out what’s wrong with her. What do they know?”
“I
don’t know.”
The rest of the walk home was silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Reggie stopped and retrieved the mail while Ryssa waited, and then together trudged up the long driveway that ended at a house set back from the rest of the street, surrounded by trees. Ryssa was the first to the door and opened it to let loose a rolling, hazy fog of smoke. The twins looked at each other. Reggie groaned while Ryssa rolled her eyes.
“Battle stations,” Reggie muttered as they resolutely moved into the house.
School bags were dropped with the mail, just inside the door. Reggie went straight for the kitchen while Ryssa opened all of the windows and turned on a freestanding fan to blow the smoke from the living room. A high-pitched screeching noise blared in the kitchen, and Ryssa rushed into the room to help her brother.
Smoke billowed from the oven and Reggie waved his arms to move it away until he could see well enough to grab the burning object inside. Ryssa hurried to the windows and opened them before blindly reaching above the stove to turn on the hood vent. The smoke rose straight up into the vent and out of the kitchen. Ryssa grabbed a towel while Reggie was finally able to get a grasp on the tray in the oven with potholders. While Ryssa fanned the smoke away from the detector that still screeched its loud warning, Reggie headed toward the back door with the flaming sheet of unidentifiable charcoal lumps. Just as he arrived, the door swung open from the outside.
“Out of the way Terry—coming through,” Reggie yelled.
His foster brother, a taller boy with dark eyes and even darker hair, leapt back as the flaming tray passed under his nose and down the back steps. The smoke hit Terry’s eyes and he blinked, jumping into action. By the time Reggie set the tray on the ground, Terry was already unwinding the hose attached to the house. Reggie ran back and turned on the water. He came to stand at Terry’s side as the last wisps of smoke dissipated under the assault of the water hose.
“Where were you?”
Terry glared at him and opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it and turned back to the faucet, gathering the hose as he went.
“Hey!” Reggie yelped, jumping back to avoid a spray of water. “You knew Ryssa and I would be home soon,” Reggie exploded. “Couldn’t you wait a few minutes longer before running off to your workshop to play with your toys? You know she can’t be left alone. She’s starting to become dangerous, Terry. Why don’t you think of something other than yourself for a change? You have to pay attention—or do you really want someone to find out how wonky Mom’s getting so they’ll come take me and Ryssa away?”
Reggie grabbed the older boy’s arm and turned him around. Face to face, Terry scowled at Reggie, his anger building. Reggie took a step back, intimidated by the look on his foster brother’s face.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t you think I know—?” He stopped, anger turning to dismay as he stared with widening eyes over Reggie’s shoulder. Reggie’s heart sank, and he slowly turned to see Ryssa standing behind their mother, wildly waving her arms to catch the attention of the two arguing boys.
Debra Chambly stood in the doorway, her face falling as she looked at the tray of burned blobs. Her eyes filled with shining tears.
“Mom, I didn’t mean—” Reggie took a step toward her.
“Yes, you did.” A single tear slid down her cheek. She hugged her arms tightly to her waist, pulling the fuzzy green bathrobe that she always wore closer around her body. “I’m sorry. This is my fault, not your brother’s. I was just trying to—” Her voice broke as her eyes slid to the charcoal lumps again. She looked at the two mortified faces staring back at her and sobbed. Debra turned and ran back into the house, brushing Ryssa aside in her haste.
“She was trying to make cookies to celebrate our last day of school.” She looked at the black chunks on the scorched tray and shook her head sadly. “I hope you two are happy. You made Mom cry.”
“She cries all the time now,” Reggie mumbled petulantly. He stopped, realizing he had spoken out loud. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”
Ryssa shot him a scathing look, turned, and went back into the house. Terry’s expression was identical. He shut off the hose, and followed Ryssa inside. Reggie stood outside for a while, horrified that the day had turned out as badly as it had. Even the charcoal lumps seemed to stare at him with dark accusation.
He stormed over and grabbed the tray. Taking it to the garbage can, he lifted the lid and dumped the whole thing inside, tray and all. He slammed the lid and stood for a moment, grinding his teeth and staring at the container. He didn’t feel any better. With shoulders slumped, he followed his siblings into the house.