Read Online Pirouette by Robyn Bavati - Free Book Online Page B

walked down the hall to the office. She took off her sunhat and glasses and knocked on the door.
    â€œCome in.” Jocelyn Jones looked up and smiled. “Hello, Simone. Did you get my note about your package?”
    Simone nodded.
    â€œYour mum must really miss you if she’s already sending you goodies from home.”
    â€œI guess so,” said Simone, thankful that she’d asked for the DNA kit to be sent in an unmarked envelope with no visible return address.
    Back in her room, the entire dorm silent and empty, Simone opened the package with trembling fingers. She read the instructions on the enclosed leaflet. Twice through, just to be sure.
    The swab was to be taken on an ordinary cotton bud. All she had to do was wipe the tip of the bud against the inside of her cheek, then place it inside a sterile tube. It seemed almost too easy …

    â€œHere goes.” Simone watched anxiously as Hannah gave the little white stick a final twirl.
    â€œDone,” said Hannah. Carefully, she inserted the cotton bud into the clear plastic tube and grinned at her sister. “But I hope it’s worth spending three hundred and sixty dollars to find out something we already know.”
    Simone said nothing, because on some level Hannah was right; they did know they were identical twins. They’d conducted their own experiment, consisting primarily of a list of questions to which both had contributed. They’d asked, and answered, separately and in writing so that there could be no cheating, questions like What is your favorite toothpaste/shampoo/chocolate bar? (They’d both listed MacLean’s, Pantene, and Coconut Rough.) What is your lucky number? (They’d both chosen six.) Favorite colors? (Simone had written pink and purple, while Hannah had written purple and pink.)
    Yet even though they looked identical and had so much in common, Simone still found it hard to grasp the idea that two genetically identical individuals could be so different.
    â€œIf we are identical,” she said to Hannah, “and our personality differences are caused by our environment, not our genes, then do you think I’d be you if I’d grown up in your family, and you’d be me if you’d grown up in mine?”
    Hannah laughed. “I don’t think it works that way,” she said as she slipped her tube into the padded envelope alongside Simone’s. “The changes start within the womb, don’t they? Which means by the time we were born, we were already different.”

fourteen
    Life at Candance soon slid into an easy routine. Dancing from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon was what Hannah had always longed to do, and she was in her element. If Miss Roth had at first seemed puzzled by the regression in “Simone’s” technique, she made up for it by complimenting her on her passion, drive, and artistry. And Hannah was doing just as well in the other classes. Jazz and hip-hop were great fun, classical repertoire was tough but rewarding, and in contemporary dance, she had the chance to create and improvise
—something she’d always loved.
    Hannah, Sam, Tom, and Liam had become a foursome, and though they took their dancing seriously, they laughed their way through lunchtimes as they listened to anecdotes about each other’s lives. Not wanting to contradict anything Simone might have told them, Hannah said nothing about her life back home. But she was so quick to comment on the others’ stories, no one seemed to notice that she told none of her own.
    The week was drawing to a close. As the four were heading back to class one day, Tom said, “Why don’t we ever see you in the evenings, Simone?”
    â€œYeah,” said Sam. “Where do you disappear to?”
    â€œI have a secret life,” said Hannah. Sam rolled her eyes and Hannah continued, “It sounds better than saying I promised my mum I’d have early