Virginia Hamilton Read online

  “I only want to know where you go,” Mrs. Douglass persisted. “I’m not saying you can’t go.”

  “I ride around, over to the playground, and over to the baseball field,” Justice lied. “Not around any cars, don’t worry.”

  “Tice, now listen to me,” Mrs. Douglass said.

  “Mom …”

  “I can usually depend on you not to do anything foolish, so don’t do wheelies and stunts like that.”

  “Moth-er! What do you think I am? Girls are different from what you were like as a kid—you know? And probably smarter, and they can do anything boys can do! I could do wheelies by third grade, for chrissakes!”

  “No cussing, if you don’t mind,” said her mom, seemingly unperturbed, although she was impressed by her daughter’s ability to express herself. “And no riding double,” she added, “it’s against the law. Don’t ride with no hands down any streets—one slick spot in the road and you’ve had it.”

  Save me from mothers! thought Justice.

  “You think my jacket could be in the boys’ room?” she asked her mom.

  “Not to change the subject,” Mrs. Douglass said, eyeing her daughter.

  Justice thought it best not to answer. Her expression remained as childishly sweet as it could be.

  “Dear Ticey, I know all of your tricks by now,” her mom said firmly. “I have no idea what you do every minute of the day and I’m not going to pump the neighborhood to find out. Just remember,” her mom finished.

  “Oh, I remember,” Justice said. “How can I forget?” Justice is as Justice does.

  She watched as her mom gulped the tea.

  “I’m going to be late if I don’t get myself together,” Mrs. Douglass said. “I did see your jacket in the boys’ room, yes,” she told Justice. “Tom-Tom hid it up on the encyclopedia shelf. I meant to take it down. …”

  “Brother!” Justice whispered. Him doing things like that all the time! Another reason I have to win The Great Snake Race. Boy! Only, how in the world do you race snakes?

  She ran for the boys’ room and stopped dead still at the entrance. How many times had she come into their room in the morning to find something belonging to her, or to wake up Levi? So many she couldn’t count them. But this time she hesitated, not moving a muscle.

  Why did Thomas have to take her things and hide them like that?

  She’d seen it as just his way of being funny. But now she realized she might never have found her jacket.

  Like he was being mean in earnest.

  Cautiously, she tiptoed into the darkened room, counting on her brothers being dead to the world. In summer, Thomas stayed awake half the night watching science-fiction or horror films on TV, when he could find them. And from them he’d learned his sickening, screeching laugh and a lot of different personalities. These he used on Justice and other decent, normal, unsuspecting persons. He pretended he had himself made up certain dramatic characters. But Justice knew he was simply a copy-cat.

  On the other hand, her brother Levi was a light sleeper. He couldn’t drift off with the television going full blast in the parlor. So he would end up wide awake, watching the films, also. He would never tell Thomas to shut the box off. He never complained.

  Justice never called her brothers Tom-Tom and Lee, as most of the neighborhood kids did, and as did her mom and dad.

  Wonder why I won’t? she thought.

  She found her hands were trembling. She was standing right next to Thomas’ bed. She could see part of his face and his dark, curly hair on the pillow. She heard his breath come in a gentle snore. It took all of her nerve to move, to climb onto the desk chair and then onto the desk in front of the bookcase.

  What’s wrong with me? There’s nothing to be scared of.

  But she was, and she quaked inside.

  At the far end of the room she glimpsed the round, shadowy forms of Thomas “instruments of torture,” as she called them.

  Yuk, she thought. And then: Better keep your mind on what you’re doing, too.

  She reached above her head as high as she could.

  “Darn!” she said, before she thought. And held her breath as Levi stirred on the top bunk. He flung himself over in bed. He caught a glimpse of her as he turned to the wall, and let out a groan.

  “Great,” he said sleepily. And suddenly he rose up in alarm at seeing her above his head.

  Justice smiled brightly. Putting a finger to her lips, she motioned to him to be quiet.

  Levi stared at her. He next peered down over the side of his bunk to find that Thomas below him was still deep asleep.

  “Oh,” he said softly, pulling the covers up again. “What are you doing up there? What time is it?”

  “Shhh!” she whispered. “Early. You can go on and sleep. But first will you get my jacket where Thomas put it on the shelf? I can’t reach it.”

  “What?”

  “Shhh! My jacket, I can’t—reach—it!”

  Groaning, Levi rose up with a sheet wrapped around him. On his knees, he was tall enough to reach the jacket shoved to the back of the highest shelf.

  And handed it to her. “Where you going, anyway?” He spoke softly again.

  Shaking her head to dismiss the question, she said nothing as she began her climb back down.

  Of her identical brothers, she much preferred Levi, who was more likely to be nice to her. Often he could be kind when Thomas wasn’t too close by. Thomas appeared to have a weakening effect on Levi. And since their mom had been in school, Thomas had seemed tense around Justice.

  Guess I get in the way of his bad temper, she thought, as she stepped from desk chair to the floor. He and Levi are to look after me this summer, Mom says. To know where I go and to feed me when I’m hungry. I don’t mind—they do let me have my way. And if they get to go somewhere, I get to go or one of them has to stay home with me. So phooey on them! So if there’s to be a gang and a snake race, I get to be in on it all! So there.

  “I know where you’re going,” whispered Levi from his bunk.

  Justice stopped still.

  “You’re scared if you go with us Friday, you might crack up on the Quinella. You going to practice riding down it!”

  “Shut up,” Justice whispered back.

  “Huh?” It was Thomas. Justice was practically standing in front of him, whispering. “Wh-what is it?” Opening his eyes. He saw Justice and yelled: “G-g-gehht outta h-here!”

  She raced from the room.

  Brother. I despise him, I truly do, she told herself, once she was a safe distance away. And shoved her arms into the denim jacket, straightening the collar. She checked the sleeves to see if her arms had grown any longer, something she felt obliged to do each day. Nope. They hadn’t.

  I’ll be a shrimp all my life, for Chrissake. The shortest eleven-year-old in the world.

  The thought made her both angry and sad.

  She returned to the kitchen and her mom on a wave of injured feeling. At the counter, she drank the glass of tangerine juice waiting for her, and avoided looking at her mom. The juice was good and cold, but it did little to ease the hurt Thomas had caused.

  Mrs. Douglass studied her daughter’s sullen face. She had heard yelling and she surmised it had come from Thomas, since Levi seldom raised his voice. She reminded herself to have a word with Thomas about his ongoing treatment of his sister.

  “They look so much alike,” Justice said, finally, as she had said so many times before about her brothers, “so why are they so different?”

  Mrs. Douglass smiled sympathetically. She knew Justice wasn’t really asking. So she stayed quiet while preparing a lunch to take along to school.

  The boys were as identical as two peas in a pod, and it was also true they were as different as night from day. They had the same brown eyes and the same arch to their dark brows. Same black, curly hair, same hands and feet, same walk. Levi liked books and would read anything he could get his hands on. He loved music and poetry. However, Thomas led everybody
and told everyone what to do and what not to do. All the kids did whatever he told them. He had a highly developed rhythmic and percussive ability. He also had a terrible stutter.

  Justice looked solemn. Something nagged at her, and slowly she found the words to speak about it.

  “I look at one and then the other,” she said. “Mom? I get to thinking one of ’em is inside a mirror—do you ever? It’s Levi trapped in there, and he can’t get out! It’s so creepy.”

  Concerned, Mrs. Douglass crossed the space between them. She wrapped Justice in her arms as a worried look rippled over her features.

  Justice felt like a baby standing there holding on to her mom. But, she had to admit, she enjoyed every minute of it. She knew nothing could hurt her, threaten her, with her mom so close.

  “Oh, well, Tice,” her mom said, “it’s easy to imagine all sorts of things. Especially when Tom-Tom and Lee seem so self-contained in their own private realm. Have you ever known two boys to get along so well? But it gets hard keeping things settled down when even adults have to go make up stories.”

  She chose her words carefully. She didn’t want to upset her daughter any further, but she did want Justice to understand exactly what her brothers were.

  “We who are their family have to keep in mind certain things,” she said.

  “Like what?” Justice asked.

  “Well, that your brothers don’t only look alike, Tice. They also have identical inherited information called genes. They have the same blood group and the same brain patterns. They came from one fertilized egg, just as you did. But the two of them came from one egg and it divided into two identical parts. And that’s as close as two people ever get to being, feeling, seeing and looking like one another.”

  Mrs. Douglass took a deep breath, calming herself a bit. Justice wondered why she seemed so excited, and she watched her mom closely.

  Mrs. Douglass continued, “You weren’t far wrong when you said one was like a reflection of the other. But it shouldn’t seem creepy. Because for them it’s natural. Their kind are known as mirror identicals.”

  “Really?” Justice said.

  Her mom nodded. “Tom-Tom is left-handed,” she said, “and Lee is right-handed. Tom-Tom parts his hair on the right while Lee parts his on the left.”

  “Right!” Justice said. “I knew that, but I never kind of put it together.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Douglass said, and paused a moment. “I myself have been guilty of thinking there’s something odd—you know, I’ve told you stories. But perhaps odd is normal for them. Just remember that nearly every moment each one has to face the spitting image of himself. Levi once told me it felt like he was seeing himself and someone exactly like himself at the same moment. He said it was like ‘feeling double.’ And I could almost understand what he meant.”

  Justice laughed suddenly, and nodded. “Must be like when I look in a mirror. I sometimes can feel myself looking at myself. I’m the reflection, and the reflection is me. I can ‘feel’ both going on and on forever. Boy, but for Thomas and Levi it must be really weird.”

  They were quiet a moment. Then Justice said to her mom, “Tell me about them again.”

  She loved the stories her mom could tell. Funny and sometimes strange things about the boys when they were babies. She pulled away from her mom to lean against the counter.

  “Tice, I don’t think I have the time today,” Mrs. Douglass said.

  Justice slowly pivoted, turning halfway from her.

  “Maybe I should stay home this morning,” her mom said, studying her.

  Justice peeked around. This was something unexpected—her and her mom together for an entire day, the way they used to be.

  “Oh, but I can’t, hon, not today. Tice, I’m sorry! There’s usually a quiz in the middle of the week. Anyway, I shouldn’t miss classes when they charge you an arm and a leg to take them.”

  She watched her small, dark-eyed daughter suck her fingers.

  “Ticey.” Mrs. Douglass came over to her. She gently turned her daughter to face her. “You’re my favorite girl, you know that, don’t you? And your dad’s, too. You’re the girl we always wanted.”

  “Mom!” she managed to whisper. Her face flushed and she covered it with her hands as her eyes began to tear. But with great effort she managed to control herself.

  “I gotta go,” she said, finally. She did not enjoy having her mom leave her, and she felt much better about it when she left the house first, rather than the other way around. Also, she didn’t like being home with her mom not there to make it safe.

  “You sure you’re okay?” her mom said. She peered at her daughter.

  Justice hid away her feelings of apprehension. “I’m okay. Bye. See you later, Mother-gator.” She gave her mom a quick kiss on the cheek.

  Mrs. Douglass gave her a nice one back. “Bye, sweetie. I’ll call to check around noon.”

  Well, I won’t be here, Justice thought. She paused at the kitchen entrance. “Can’t you tell me just the one?” she said. “About what happened when you’d call one of them for something?”

  “What?” But quickly Mrs. Douglass understood what Justice was referring to. “I don’t have the time, Tice, I really don’t.”

  “Yes, you do, too. I don’t care if you tell it fast.”

  “But you know that story,” Mrs. Douglass said.

  “I know I know it. At least, I do when you tell it. Just tell it—please?”

  Mrs. Douglass sighed. “If that’ll get me to school faster …”

  Grinning, Justice ran to stand before her.

  “Okay, here it is,” her mom began. “The boys were about three years old when I happened to notice something. I’d call out for Thomas to come to me. In summer, the screens would be in like now. He usually would be outside and he’d hear me and he’d come running. Well, I’d call for Levi the same way. You’d find him either in or out with Thomas—he never seemed to prefer indoors or outdoors, he was satisfied as long as Thomas was with him. Anyhow, I’d call for Levi, and Thomas would come to me. I’d tell Thomas to tell Levi I wanted him. And back would come Thomas by himself. If I wanted Levi for something, I’d have to go get him. Otherwise, I’d get Thomas every time.”

  Justice stood there, fascinated. “Age four,” she said.

  Without a pause, Mrs. Douglass continued. “When the boys were four years old, there was a slight change. I’d call for Thomas and he would come. I’d call for Levi, but I would get Thomas pretending to be Levi. Or I would call for Levi and both boys would show up. That’s it.”

  Justice had listened with rapt attention. She knew the story by heart and she still loved it. But, for some reason, this time she had to know more.

  “What does it mean?” she asked softly.

  Her mother shrugged. “I think probably they were just trying to sort out who they were,” she said. She sighed and hurriedly turned back to her work at the sink, where she began rinsing lettuce for sandwiches.

  “Well, do you think they’ve sorted it out by now?” Justice asked. And then sucked in her breath as a sudden inspiration came to her. She didn’t wait for a reply, but said, “You know what I think? Age three or age four, you always got Thomas when you called. But you never got Levi of his own free will—right?”

  Her mom didn’t answer. With the water running and her mind on getting to school, she might not have heard.

  So Justice went on her way. She did have her own business to attend to. She swept through the house in strides much too long for her short, muscular legs. Walking as if she were seven feet tall made her sneakers squeak importantly on the hardwood floors. Thomas had repeatedly warned her that sneakers made black marks on the paste wax.

  “Liar—liar!” Justice had singsonged right back at him. Just the other day, too.

  By the time Mrs. Douglass realized that her daughter hadn’t had anything substantial to eat, it was too late and Justice was out of the house. Outside, thoughts of her sometimes peculiar brothers and even h
er mom receded for Justice as she stood in the shade of the front porch.

  “Oh, nice. Neat!” she said.

  The sun beat down on grass and driveway. It was the sort of glaring light that made their white house with black trim look brand new.

  “Bet there’s not a cloud.” She leaped from the porch out over the steps onto the short walk to the driveway. She saw that the sky was a forever blue. Just the kind they say in Ohio country is a California sky. Her dad liked to say that the forever blue with no moisture must arrive from westward by hopping a dawn freight train of the B&O Railroad.

  There were a few clouds, Justice noticed. White, fluffy things, hardly moving, like sleeping puppies of the sky.

  “It’ll get hotter’n hell,” she cussed to herself, “but I’ll be back home by then.”

  Unlocking her bike at the edge of the steps, she afterward tucked the chain-lock key on its cord under the neck of her T-shirt. And hopped onto her bike, as agile as a cat on a fence. Bike-riding three-speeds thrilled her and took most of her time and energy. Justice rode all of the streets in town—once in a while with two or three girls from school. She’d ridden some distance out along country roads, past farmhouses and long lanes, all by herself.

  Best of all, she liked biking on her own, to stop wherever she pleased. But today she had no time to freewheel. Like yesterday and the day before, Justice had sure, awful work to do.

  2

  FROM HOME, SHE TOOK the gravel lane fast on her three-speed, risking a slide on sharp stones. She loved the way the lane and her house were situated at the end of a narrow blacktop road called Union. At the entrance of the property was an enormous cottonwood tree, at the top of which Levi often sat reading his books. The cottonwood had to be the biggest tree in the world; certainly bigger than any Justice had seen. Slowing to pass it, she looked up from under thousands of leaves and tens upon tens of stretching branches.

  You grand, you tall woman, she thought. Better than a hundred and fifty years old, I bet.

  Levi had said the cottonwood was older than a century, but he hadn’t said it was a woman.