Abby's Twin

  Maybe we were simply tired from shoveling, but no one said much after that. We served the kids hot chocolate in the den, played a game of charades with them, and then, pretty soon, it was time for them to go home.

  On Sunday I was sore from shoveling. I wondered if my friends felt the same. Or was I more sore because I had scoliosis? Could they have shoveled several more drives without feeling it?

  Anna was especially quiet and seemed tense. We watched TV together but didn’t talk much. I could tell Anna was as worried about our upcoming appointment with the orthopedist as I was.

  The weather outside seemed to mirror our mood. Fat, gray clouds hung low in the sky, as if they too were waiting for something.

  On Monday morning, though, the waiting ended. Things started happening.

  The first thing that happened was snow. Lots and lots of it. When Anna and I came down to breakfast, we saw that the entire world was blanketed in white, about five inches thick. It had happened during the night. “Snow day!” I said with a smile. “Bet you!”

  Mom was still in bed. She’d taken a rare day off so we could go to the orthopedist at three o’clock.

  Anna snapped on the kitchen clock radio, which was set to the local station. “Stoneybrook Day School, Stoneybrook Academy and all Stoneybrook public schools, all canceled.”

  I yawned and stretched contentedly. “It’s back to bed for me.”

  But as I headed out of the kitchen, the phone rang. “Hello?” I said, yawning into the phone.

  “It’s me. Come over to my house as fast as you can.” It was Kristy. “I just had a great idea.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I was on my way back to bed.”

  “See you in five minutes,” she said, hanging up.

  Anna gazed at me with questioning eyes. “Kristy’s had a great idea,” I informed her.

  “Too bad,” Anna said as she headed out of the kitchen.

  I dressed quickly, then grabbed a Pop-Tart and went to the closet for my coat. I was curious to find out what Kristy had in mind.

  When I reached her house, Kristy and Shannon were already outside, knocking snow from the windows of Charlie’s car with long-handled snow brushes. The engine was running. “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Charlie is taking us over to Bradford Court,” Kristy said. “We’re going to make a fortune cleaning off cars. School is canceled, but most people still have to go to work.”

  As Charlie drove along, Kristy explained why it would be better to work in Claudia’s neighborhood. “The houses are much closer together, so there are more of them and we don’t have to walk as far. And the driveways aren’t all that long, so hardly anybody has a contract with a snowplower,” she explained. “I should have thought of it Saturday.”

  She was absolutely right. Charlie let us off in front of Claudia’s house. Claudia and Stacey were already working on Mrs. Kishi’s car. Stacey was scraping ice from the windshield, while Claudia shoveled behind the car. “Mom has to go in to the library today,” Claudia said. (Her mother is head librarian at the Stoneybrook Public Library.) “She paid us to shovel her out, and we’re almost done.”

  Jessi and Mallory waved from the driveway next door. They were working on another car.

  Mary Anne’s father dropped her off in front of the house, and in minutes we’d all landed jobs cleaning off cars. It was easy. As people came outside to work on their cars, we offered to do it for them. They were happy to accept. We didn’t even have to knock on doors.

  In two hours we’d made a lot of money. People paid us very generously. “All right!” Kristy cheered as she counted the bills. “Winter carnival, here we come!”

  I checked my watch. It was time for me to go home. Orthopedist, here I come, I thought, with a whole lot less enthusiasm.

  By four o’clock that afternoon, Anna and I were sitting in Dr. Abrams’s office with Mom, waiting for him to come in to speak to us. After he repeated the same scoliosis checks we’d gone through in school, his assistant had X rayed us in a room down the hall. Dr. Abrams was taking forever to examine the results.

  I was a wreck.

  “Do you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing that this is taking so long?” I asked anxiously. “I mean, if there was nothing really interesting to see, he would be here by now, wouldn’t he? Maybe not, though. Maybe our bones are so boring he fell asleep.”

  “He does have to look at two sets of X rays,” Mom reminded me.

  “That’s true,” I said, jiggling my foot nervously. “I guess it takes twice as long. But two times nothing is still nothing. If there was nothing to see, he should be here in the same amount of time as if there was only one nothing to see … shouldn’t he? I mean, mathematically that makes sense.”

  Mom smiled at me indulgently.

  Anna seemed intent on examining the knitted hem band at the bottom of her sweater. She wasn’t even listening to me.

  “Don’t you think he should be here by now?” I prodded Anna.

  “I guess,” she murmured, her fingers working along the hem. “I don’t know.”

  Of course, I didn’t know, either, but this waiting was making me insane. I wished Anna would say something. At least I’d have someone to talk to. “If he doesn’t come in soon, I’m paging him.” I got up and lifted the receiver of his desk phone. “Hello, doctor,” I spoke into the phone in my best Groucho Marx voice, “where are you? I’ve got two girls with crooked backs. They look like the Twin Towers of Pisa. Come quick!”

  At that moment, the door opened and Dr. Abrams came in holding a manila file folder in his hands. He was a short man with only a ring of dark hair around his head. He had a nice smile and a friendly face.

  Embarrassed to be caught hovering over his phone, I leaped back into my seat. “I was about to send a search party out to find you,” I joked nervously.

  Anna rolled her eyes as she slumped in her seat. I just shrugged quickly.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Dr. Abrams said, seating himself behind his desk and opening the folder. “Measuring spinal curves is a bit time consuming. I have to be very precise.” He glanced down at his notes. “Which one of you is Abby?”

  Instantly, I felt ice cold. My mouth was as dry as sand. “Me,” I croaked.

  Dr. Abrams sat back in his chair. “The word ‘scoliosis’ comes from a Greek word, meaning ‘crooked,’ ” he said.

  Skip the history lesson and get to the point, I thought.

  “It’s not uncommon for a spine to be somewhat curved. It’s a matter of degree, though. You have a definite curve in your spine,” he said slowly, carefully, as if he were considering every word. “But the curve is at about a fourteen-degree angle, which is less than twenty. We don’t usually treat an angle that is less than twenty degrees.”

  I barely dared to breathe. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Which means what, exactly?” Mom asked.

  “Practically, it means that the amount of curvature in the spine probably will not progress and that it won’t present a problem in the future,” he replied. He held up my X ray and used his pencil to point out my spine and its curve. It didn’t look that crooked to me, but it was hard for me to tell what I was looking at.

  “Yesss!” I cheered, pumping my fist in the air. What a relief! No problem. Exactly what I’d hoped to hear. “Anna, we’re okay,” I said, smiling at her.

  She didn’t return my smile. “What about me?” she asked, turning her attention to Dr. Abrams.

  The doctor sighed and sat forward. He drummed his fingertips on the folder a moment before speaking.

  All my happy excitement drained away.

  “It’s about twenty-five degrees, Anna,” he said. “I’ve seen much more severe curves. You’re also less skeletally mature than Abby. Your bones are not quite as fully developed. While hers are almost finished growing, yours aren’t. That means the curve I’m seeing in your spine now is likely to worsen, if left untreated.”

  Mom took Anna’s hand in hers. ?
??What do we do?” she asked.

  “You’ll have Anna fitted for a brace.”

  “A brace!” I gasped without meaning to.

  “It’s really not as bad as it sounds,” Dr. Abrams said. “Anna’s curve is low. She probably won’t need a full Milwaukee brace.”

  He opened a thick book on his desk and showed us a picture of a girl in a brace with metal rods up the front and back, and a ring around her neck. It looked so confining. I remembered the cage I had imagined.

  Dr. Abrams flipped to another page. The girl in this picture wore a much smaller brace. It looked more like a thick belt, going from under the armpit on one side to lower on her rib cage on the other. It wrapped around the girl’s waist and was held together by three Velcro straps.

  It didn’t exactly look like a load of laughs, either, but there was a lot less to it than the Milwaukee thing.

  “This is a low-profile brace,” Dr. Abrams explained. “I think this will be enough for Anna, especially since her curve is located in the lower lumbar area of her back.”

  “What do you mean, you think?” Mom asked.

  “I’d like to have Dr. Sherman look at it,” he replied. “She’s an orthopedist and her office actually makes the brace. I don’t do that. Each brace has to be individually fitted. I’m going to make a recommendation for a low-profile brace, but it’s really up to Dr. Sherman.” He wrote on a prescription pad and handed the sheet across the desk to Mom. “My nurse will give you Dr. Sherman’s card. Call her right away, because it’s not easy to get an appointment.” He reached into his top drawer and handed Mom some pamphlets. “These should answer more of your questions.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Mom said, putting the paper and pamphlets in her purse.

  “Anna,” Dr. Abrams began, “don’t let this upset you. You won’t be wearing the brace for the rest of your life. It’s lucky that we caught this problem now, while your bones are still developing. We can stop it from progressing.”

  Anna forced a weak smile as she rose from her chair. She’d become extremely pale. Her eyes were red, as if she might cry. I felt like crying for her.

  Out in the hall, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, Anna,” I said.

  “Why are you sorry?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry that … I don’t know … that you have to go through all this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said in a small voice.

  Of course it wasn’t my fault. So why did I feel like it was? Maybe I felt guilty that I’d been given the good report and Anna hadn’t. We were twins, after all. Shouldn’t we go through something like this together?

  “Don’t worry,” I told Anna as we walked down the hall. “I’ll be with you on this one hundred percent. You can count on me.” Right then and there I promised myself I was going to be the best, the most supportive, caring, helpful twin possible.

  On Tuesday we had my favorite kind of snow day — you know, the kind that starts off with enough ferociously falling snow to close things down, which then tapers off immediately after they’ve announced school is closed. That way you have the day off but you’re not stuck inside.

  Once again, the BSC made a bundle of money cleaning off cars and helping people dig out of their driveways. Kristy had invested some of our Monday earnings in five cans of this spray stuff that instantly melts ice off windshields. It was a huge help and enabled us to work even faster than before. (While I worked on a car one morning I had the idea that BSC could also stand for Beat the Snow Club.)

  Kristy, Claudia, and I were working on Mrs. McGill’s car while Stacey counted our earnings. (Jessi, Mallory, and Mary Anne were working on a car across the street.) As we worked, I told them about Anna’s and my visit to the orthopedist.

  “Is Anna very upset?” Claudia asked, knocking snow from her brush.

  “Yes. She handles things much more quietly than I do,” I replied. “But I’d say she’s pretty upset.”

  Stacey finished counting the money. “We can definitely afford to hold the carnival now,” she reported happily, packing the bills into a neat pile.

  “We might as well work on it today,” Kristy said as she spritzed the side mirror with the ice melting stuff. “After all, it’s a free day off. If only we could make it to the mall to shop for supplies.”

  “I can ask Mom if she’ll drive us out there,” Stacey suggested. “Bellair’s is opening late today because of the snow, so maybe she won’t mind taking us to the mall before she goes to work.” (Mrs. McGill is a buyer for Bellair’s department store downtown.) Stacey ran inside to ask her mother, then return to report that Mrs. McGill had agreed.

  We all went inside Stacey’s house to call home for permission to go out to the mall. I didn’t really have to call, because Mom had braved the storm and taken the train into work. When she’s at the office Anna and I don’t have to call to ask about every little thing. She just expects us to use good judgment.

  I wanted to check in with Anna, though. I was worried about her. “Why don’t you come with us?” I suggested.

  “No, thank you,” she replied in a dull voice. “I’m going to stay in and read some of the books Mom brought home about scoliosis.”

  “I’ll come home then,” I offered.

  “No, don’t. You’ll just distract me while I’m trying to read.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “All right, if you’re sure.” I hung up, still not feeling right about things. Running around with my friends the day after Anna had received the news about her scoliosis wasn’t exactly being supportive. But if she’d rather stay home and read, what could I do?

  We didn’t all fit into Mrs. McGill’s car, so Jessi called her dad, who was also going into work late because of the snow. He agreed to drive out to the mall, too.

  We met up again in front of the big fountain in the middle of the mall. (It’s so cool. It sprays pink water!) “To make the most of our time, we should split into groups and meet back here in an hour,” Kristy suggested. “The first thing we need to do is decide how to advertise. I think fliers would be better than posters. With fliers people can put them up at home and keep the information. Claudia and Mallory, why don’t you be in charge of those.”

  “Okay,” Claudia agreed. “We can go to Artist’s Exchange for special paper and a couple of markers. That won’t cost too much.”

  Stacey handed Mallory some money, then she and Claudia went off to the art supply store. “See if you can find some decoration stuff, too,” Kristy called after them as they headed for the escalator.

  “Okay,” Claudia called back.

  “They’ve started selling awesome hot chocolate mixes at Just Desserts,” Mary Anne said. “Sharon brought home a can of mint chocolate the other night. She said they have lots of different kinds.”

  “Good idea,” Kristy said. “But are they expensive?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary Anne admitted. “I suppose it would be cheaper in the supermarket, but this hot chocolate was the best I’ve ever had.”

  “We could always charge a few cents extra for it,” Stacey pointed out. “If it’s really great, people will pay.”

  “It’s great, trust me,” Mary Anne said.

  We sent Mary Anne and Jessi off with twenty dollars to see how much hot chocolate they could buy. “What else do we need?” Kristy mused.

  “Well, on the way over we were talking about having sled rides,” Stacey recalled. “But we were afraid sleds with sharp runners might be dangerous. Why don’t we go to Toy Town and see if they have any inexpensive plastic ones?”

  So Stacey, Kristy, and I did that. It turned out that we could afford three of them. We also found a funky art set with squirt bottles and paint (kind of like food coloring) that you spray on the snow to make pictures. We bought two sets for the carnival.

  When we met again at the fountain, Mary Anne and Jessi had four large cans of hot chocolate powder, all in slightly different flavors. Claudia and Mal were
loaded down with bags. “What’s all this sparkly stuff?” Kristy asked, peeking into one of the bags.

  “Claudia had the best idea,” Mal began.

  “I thought we could make crowns,” Claudia explained. “Snow Queen. Snow King. Snow Princess and Prince.”

  “The kids will like that,” Stacey agreed.

  Claudia opened another bag, revealing colorful metallic paper. “Isn’t this beautiful?” she said excitedly.

  “It’s really nice, but what do we do with it?” Kristy asked.

  “We can cut out snowflakes,” Claudia said. “We can either sell them or have a booth where people cut out their own designs. It’s not hard.”

  “That’s a pretty flake-y idea,” I said with a grin.

  Everyone handed Stacey their change. She totaled it and looked up with a smile. “I think we have enough left for lunch at Friendly’s as long as no one goes too wild.”

  This announcement was met with lots of cheering. As we headed toward Friendly’s, I realized I was having a great time. Spending the day with my friends had put me in a terrific mood. I’d felt crummy ever since the health check last Monday. It was a relief to smile and laugh again.

  But then I pictured Anna — home alone, probably playing some darkly melodic, heart-breaking piece on her violin.

  How could I be here having so much fun when she was there feeling so rotten? I knew that it was her choice, but it still didn’t seem right.

  I should have gone home despite what she’d said. She’d done the noble, unselfish thing by telling me to go.

  I, on the other hand, had done the selfish thing by listening to her and actually going.

  I suddenly saw that very clearly.

  “What’s the matter?” Mary Anne asked me when we reached the entrance to Friendly’s. “You look so worried.”

  “I shouldn’t be here today. Not now, when Anna needs me so much,” I said guiltily.

  Mary Anne nodded sympathetically. “You could bring her a piece of cake or something. At least it would show you were thinking of her.”

  “Piece of cake,” I joked, appreciating the suggestion. But I knew a treat wouldn’t make up for my thoughtlessness. I felt so guilty. From now on I’d have to realize that everything was going to be different. I would have to spend a lot more time with Anna, whether she said she wanted me to or not.