"Winter-NaturalBoy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Winter Laurel)

LAUREL WINTER

PERMANENT NATURAL BOY

Nine years old. Brother and sister. More than that. Somehow, on an atomic or
subatomic level, unaffected by the differences in hair color (his was ruddy,
hers streaky blonde) and size (she had two inches and five pounds on him) and
sex, they were identical twins.

At least that's what they felt, and that's what they told everyone. Young
children and dumber adults -- those who didn't understand the difference between
mono- and dizygotic twinning -- even believed them. They certainly acted alike,
thought alike, talked alike.

They didn't have to consult one another, or rely on a psychic bond, to dress
alike. lust dip into the shirt drawer and drag out one of eight identical --
except for distinguishing stains -- red-and-white striped shirts. Faded ieans--
not stonewashed so much as gravel-scraped-- in the appropriate size. Or not. He
sometimes wore hers, belt cinched, dragging at the back of black canvas Keds.
Whatever. Whenever.

Their mother [classic single parent with delinquent ex-spouse) had neither time
nor money to defeat their identical decisions. She'd given up years before. Even
grandparents, faced with the waste of unworn choices, bowed to them with
red-and-white striped shirts, Wrangler jeans. Or, more frequently, small gifts
of money.

They'd heard (overheard) many discussions on the possible causes of their bond.
Their names? Madeleine and Matthew, Maddy and Matt for short. The fact that
their mother used to dress them alike and call them "the twins"? The tiny
apartment that insisted even at the advanced age of nine they share a room? Bunk
beds, one dresser, hardly enough room to spin around.

They were identical twins, all right. An unsplittable atom, an uncuttable
string, alike in every way that mattered.

Such as curiosity.

When the old woman across the street came out feet first -- slowly, no hurry --
on a stretcher, they were hiding in the hedge along her driveway. They saw the
dead hand flop out from under the sheet when the paramedics bumped their load
down the steps. They tried the door after the ambulance putted away, just in
case. If one of them had the idea, the other reached for the doorknob, blended,
tangled together. Years later, neither of them would ever be able to remember an
individual part in the event. They opened the door. They entered the dead
woman's house.

They found the stacks of Harlequin romances, the empty boxes from Domino's