One

  I pull her up.

  I pull her up and face our parents.

  ‘It was a joke,’ I say.

  ‘I’m fine. I was joking.’

  Dragon squints.

  Mom and Dad frown.

  But for some reason

  everyone decides to believe me.

  Everyone except Tippi.

  A Victory

  Mrs Buchannan teaches the whole class badminton

  and rather than watching,

  we join in

  awkwardly.

  Still. Though the shuttlecock is light

  and Tippi and I are given a

  racket each,

  we can’t get close to beating a single player on the other

  side,

  even when that player is Jon,

  even when he doesn’t once run.

  You’d think he’d let us win

  a few points.

  You’d think he’d do it as a mercy,

  magnanimously letting the shuttlecock

  drop on to his side of the court a couple of times.

  But pity is not part of the game.

  Maybe we should feel downhearted.

  Maybe badminton should make us feel like losers.

  But knowing we’ve lost fairly,

  knowing Jon doesn’t care how we take it,

  that’s a victory all in itself.

  After Badminton

  The victory feels pretty short lived

  when

  Tippi and I are forced to sit on the toilet seat

  long

  after gym class,

  long after we’ve finished peeing,

  just to get

  our breaths back.

  ‘We should take it easier,’

  I say.

  ‘Yes, please,’ Tippi agrees.

  For once,

  she agrees.

  Reunited

  Tippi and I turn up at The Church

  carrying a big bag of chips

  for sharing.

  ‘So we’re all good again?’ Yasmeen asks.

  ‘Guess so,’ Tippi says,

  begrudgingly.

  I smile.

  I smile and Jon smiles

  back.

  ‘It felt like you were gone forever,’ he says.

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘But we’re back now.’

  Normal

  ‘Why aren’t you friends with the jocks

  or the rockers

  or the nerds

  or with any guys

  at school?’

  I ask Jon.

  ‘I’m on a scholarship, Grace.

  You know what that means.

  We’re too normal for them.’

  ‘Are you kidding?

  You are normal.

  And normal is good.

  Normal is my goal,’

  I tell him.

  He shakes his head and

  takes my hand,

  strokes my thumb

  with his fingers

  making the vessels in my heart burn.

  ‘Around here normal is a slur,’ he says,

  ‘Deep down

  everyone wants to be a

  star

  and normal is the road to

  nothingness.’

  But everyone is wrong.

  Normal is the Holy Grail

  and only those without it

  know its value.

  It is all I have ever wanted

  and I would trade

  weird or freakish or spectacular or astonishing

  for normal

  any day of the week.

  ‘I love your normal,’ I tell him,

  then feel my face

  burn up

  as I wonder how I let

  these words slip out—

  words too close to the truth.

  He watches me.

  ‘I know you do,’ he says.

  The Reader

  Jon lends me all the books he loves

  once he’s read them—

  thick tomes like doorstops,

  corners curled down

  and spines broken and sun-bleached.

  Sometimes I follow his lead,

  read along in The Grapes of Wrath

  until I find a dog-eared page

  then stop

  so I can inhabit the rhythm of his reading,

  feel how

  it must have been for him to

  turn those pages,

  see those words,

  trace the outline of his

  thoughts.

  I cannot watch a film in secret,

  and even with my headphones

  on

  I know that Tippi hears the tinny hissing

  of my music

  in her own ears.

  But when I read,

  I am completely alone.

  I have privacy from her

  and from everyone.

  When I read

  The Unbearable Lightness of Being

  I am not in Hoboken but in

  Milan Kundera’s

  Prague

  with the seductive Sabina

  who wears nothing but a bowler hat

  and I am with her as she opens the door to her

  art studio, where she welcomes her lover.

  I am alone in Virginia Woolf’s

  Orlando,

  in Orlando’s chamber

  when she wakes up a woman

  after living her whole life a beautiful man.

  And yet,

  somehow,

  knowing that Jon has run his eyes

  along these pages

  and digested the very same words

  I am devouring,

  makes me feel like

  I am tasting him, too.

  Diet

  I batter the chicken flat,

  flour it for schnitzel,

  and fry it in hot sunflower oil

  until it

  sizzles and

  pops in the pan.

  But the only thing to pass Dragon’s lips

  are a few slices of cucumber

  from the undressed salad.

  She nibbles at them like a baby rabbit

  and slides everything else

  to the corner of her plate.

  I put down my fork.

  ‘You don’t like the schnitzel,’ I say.

  Mom looks up and says,

  ‘You have to eat, honey,’

  though too tiredly to have any impact.

  Dragon shakes her head.

  ‘I had a huge lunch,’

  she says, and smiles so hard,

  and so wide,

  it can only be a lie.

  Our Part

  Dragon’s ballet studio is planning a special six-week trip

  to Russia,

  but she can’t go,

  not when Mom and Dad are spending every spare cent

  sending us to therapy and on the best health insurance

  money can buy so

  we don’t

  drop down

  dead.

  ‘It’s Dad’s fault,’ Tippi says.

  ‘Every time he drinks, he’s flushing

  money down the toilet.’

  But we can’t pretend that’s all it is.

  We have to own up to what we’re costing—

  to what we’re making our sister sacrifice.

  ‘You know what we could do,’ I say.

  Tippi waves away the

  suggestion.

  We’ve discussed being on TV before

  and agreed not to do it,

  agreed never to let anyone in

  except those we love.

  ‘Not a chance,’ Tippi says.

  ‘Not a chance in hell.’

  When I tow Tippi into Dragon’s room

  our sister pretends she doesn’t care about

  going to Russia or about

  the Bolshoi Ballet or about herself at all.

/>   ‘I’ll go another time,’ she says,

  then lifts one leg out behind her

  and using her desk as a barre

  bends her back

  into a perfect

  lunula.

  I could cry

  but Tippi turns away.

  ‘I won’t be on TV,’ she mutters.

  Skinny

  ‘Are you on a diet?’

  Mom asks the next night,

  opening a

  can of salty salmon

  and pinching Tippi’s

  forearm.

  Tippi pulls away.

  ‘Girls and their figures,’

  Dad grumbles.

  He hasn’t been

  drinking today.

  He went into

  New York instead,

  so he smells clean

  again,

  like wood chips

  and baby wipes.

  But even so,

  his voice is

  edged with spurs.

  ‘We should see

  Dr Derrick,’

  Mom says.

  She heaps the salmon

  on to hunks of

  wholegrain bread

  and squirts

  mayonnaise at it.

  I look at Tippi.

  She has lost weight

  though I never noticed.

  And it doesn’t make sense.

  I’m the one addicted

  to carrot sticks and

  fruity tea.

  ‘Maybe we should

  see a doctor,’

  Tippi says, and I stiffen.

  ‘Yes,

  make an appointment,’

  Dad tells us,

  and stomps

  out of the room

  leaving a trail

  of grey mood

  behind him.

  ‘There’s seriously no need,’ I say. ‘I feel great.

  Don’t you?’

  Tippi tenses

  and bites into her half of our

  salmon sandwich.

  ‘Most of the time,’ she whispers.

  ‘But not always.

  And you don’t, either.’

  Searching for String

  Dad buys a bird feeder,

  that he fills with seeds.

  He thrashes around in the junk drawer

  for some string

  to hang the long, green, three-storey cylinder

  and when he can’t find any

  stomps down to the basement

  coming up

  minutes later

  empty-handed.

  The longer he searches for string,

  the harder he treads,

  the stiffer he breathes.

  ‘Let’s help him look,’ I say.

  Tippi shakes her head.

  ‘He’s not a child,

  let him deal with his own goddamn feelings,’

  she says,

  as though she hasn’t figured out

  that Dad’s feelings are always

  someone else’s responsibility.

  How He Is for Others

  Before winter comes

  barrelling in with bared teeth and

  icy jaws,

  Dad fires up the BBQ

  and we get the whole family over

  to eat hot dogs and blackened corn.

  ‘Your dad is so funny,’

  our cousin Hannah says,

  watching him

  and giggling

  as Dad does his Beyoncé dance,

  wiggling his butt,

  spinning his arms,

  and hanging off Mom like she’s a human pole.

  ‘He isn’t always like that,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ Hannah asks.

  ‘Really,’ Tippi says.

  Our cousin frowns and

  shakes her head;

  she doesn’t believe a word of it.

  Cankles

  On Monday morning

  Tippi and I sit

  on a table in the common room

  and watch Yasmeen and Jon scrambling

  to copy down our answers for history

  homework.

  Tippi lifts her leg and points her toes.

  ‘I have a chubby ankle,’ she says.

  ‘When did that happen?’

  Yasmeen looks up,

  prods Tippi’s foot with the point of her pen.

  ‘You’re probably pregnant,’ she says,

  and smirks.

  I laugh and lift my own leg.

  Point my toe.

  See that my ankle

  isn’t as slender as it used to be

  either.

  How is that fair?

  For conjoined twins

  to have cankles

  as well as everything else?

  When Apart

  Now Jon and I have swapped numbers

  and he is among

  my Favourites

  I spend any lessons

  apart from him

  with my phone hidden

  beneath my desk

  sending

  messages and waiting for replies.

  Tippi rolls her eyes.

  ‘I won’t let you cheat later,’

  she says.

  But I don’t care.

  There’s another message coming through.

  Texts

  Wot do the tattoos on ur

  hand mean????

  Nada

  Can’t b nothing

  Can

  Can’t

  Mayb I like stars …

  Mayb I’m that shallow

  Ur not!

  I am

  Tell me!!!

  They remind me the

  universe is bigger

  than me

  Than u?

  Than what we think should

  matter

  I need some stars 2

  U totally do

  On the Sidelines

  The other girls play basketball

  while we sit on the sidelines,

  me with a book,

  Tippi with her headphones in.

  Margot Glass isn’t doing gym

  either

  and sits with us,

  right by me

  on the wooden bench.

  ‘Got my monthly,’ she explains,

  taking out a tube of sticky lip balm

  and smearing it all over

  her plump pink lips.

  ‘Tic Tac?’ she asks,

  holding out a transparent box brimming

  with tiny white capsules.

  Our classmates have offered us nothing

  but

  a wide berth

  so I’m surprised Margot is even talking to me.

  ‘Sure,’ I say,

  and Margot

  rattles

  four tiny pieces of candy

  into my hand.

  ‘I was saying to some of the other girls last night

  how sorry I feel for you and your sister,’ Margot says.

  ‘I need my privacy.

  I’d hate to be so trapped all the time.’

  Margot

  opens her mouth

  and tips the Tic Tacs straight inside.

  ‘It doesn’t bother us,’ I say.

  Margot Glass almost smiles—

  her lips and eyes

  hard and mirthless.

  I curl my fingers around the

  Tic Tacs in my palm and

  slowly

  the sweet minty coating melts

  in my sugary

  fist.

  Thank You Anyway

  Jon’s lawn is littered with empty beer cans and

  a rusting, tyre-less bicycle is tied to the chain-link fence.

  The windows of his house

  are protected by bars

  and his front door has green graffiti sprayed across the glass.

  As he pushes open his door

  a German shepherd leaps at us

 
and licks our arms.

  ‘Down, Pup,’ he says,

  and pulls the dog away.

  The house smells of cigarettes.

  Dirty dishes are piled high in the sink.

  The TV is on—no one is watching it.

  Jon goes to the refrigerator.

  ‘Coke?’ he asks,

  and I am filled up with shame

  because the last thing I want to

  do is eat or drink

  anything in this house.

  The doorbell buzzes.

  ‘That’ll be Yasmeen,’ Jon says, and

  rushes to open it.

  A guy with a grey beard and

  a teardrop tattoo below his eye

  emerges from a bathroom door

  in the corner of the kitchen.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he says,

  dropping a cigarette on to the tiled floor

  and grinding it down into tobacco dust

  with the heel of his boot.

  ‘I mean …

  fuck me,’ he repeats,

  and

  as sweetly as if we’d been offered

  pumpkin pie,

  Tippi replies,

  ‘No.

  But thank you anyway.’

  In Jon’s Room

  Jon’s bedroom smells of stale bedsheets

  and aftershave.

  The walls are covered with photographs of dead writers

  and

  tattoo art.

  ‘Sorry I was rude to your dad,’ Tippi says,

  and then,

  ‘though I’m not really sorry.’

  Jon laughs.

  ‘Cal’s my stepdad. He’s OK.

  He’s here, you know.

  He stayed after Mom bailed.

  And he’s an asshole sometimes, but he didn’t leave.

  He pays for my train tickets and lunch,

  and if it weren’t for him