Almost Identical #1

by Lin Oliver

  Yup, humming. What was that all about?

  Ms. Carew noticed me at the door and came over to greet me.

  “Good to see you here, Sammie,” she said quietly, not wanting to interrupt the swarm of bees. “Do you want to join our acceptance circle?”

  “No, thanks. I’m not a very good hummer.”

  That was bogus. I can actually hum up a storm, but usually I do it in the shower or when I’m working on my scrapbook, not in a group of people I don’t know. I was beginning to feel like I had come to the wrong place, that I really belonged at Starbucks with Charlie and the SF2s.

  Ms. Carew laughed. “It’s a warm-up exercise. We hum to get used to the sounds of our voices in the room. That makes us more comfortable when we speak.”

  “Why do you call it an acceptance circle?”

  “Because everyone in the circle accepts each person for exactly who they are. That’s the only requirement to join this group.”

  “Wow. That’s . . . um . . . different.”

  “In Truth Tellers, we welcome difference. We embrace it,” Ms. Carew explained.

  So, like, this is a place where I could bring my brown-bag turkey sandwich and nectarine and no one will think I’m a total geek? Amazing.

  I followed Ms. Carew over to the circle of kids and took a seat on the floor. I’ll be honest: I felt extremely uncomfortable. I wasn’t into public humming, and even though they were wrapping that part up, I didn’t know what to expect next.

  “Everyone, this is Sammie Diamond,” Ms. Carew said, taking her seat in the circle. “She’s thinking about joining our group. Sammie, why don’t you tell us something about yourself.”

  I looked around the circle. Alicia was there, of course, and Sara, too. Alicia was wearing another beautiful, embroidered shirt, which I assumed was from El Salvador, and Sara had pulled her hair back with a rubber band so it looked like a giant, poofy French poodle tail. Bernard, Mr. Drumsticks, was sitting next to Devon, the secret Lady Gaga fan from my English class.

  Other than that, I didn’t know any of the kids, but I noticed two things about them all. One, they seemed very relaxed. And two, they had taken their shoes off and were sitting there in their bare feet. I wondered why. Maybe you can’t lie about yourself when your feet are exposed. Or maybe a person’s truth center is located in their toes. Or what if it had to do with socks, like they just keep you all bottled up inside? Or perhaps it was—

  “Sammie,” I heard Ms. Carew saying. Oops—I had gotten carried away with the foot-and-sock-truth thing and checked out completely.

  “Yes?” I said, coming back to earth.

  “You were going to tell us something about yourself.”

  “Oh, right. Well, I’m a good tennis player. And I just moved here from Culver City. And I’m a twin. Those are the basics.”

  “Does anyone have any questions they’d like to ask Sammie?” Ms. Carew asked the group.

  Here it comes, I thought. The twin questions, just like always. Which one of you is older? And do you have a secret language?

  Unbelievably, no one asked either of those. They asked about me, and their questions were the most fun questions I’d ever been asked.

  “If you had to do one or the other for an hour, would you rather hop or skip?” a small sixth-grader named Will Lee asked.

  “Hop, for sure.” I laughed. “I never actually learned to skip.”

  “What’s your favorite word?” Bernard asked.

  That was easy. “Fantabulous. I just learned it today. It means marvelously good.”

  I smiled shyly at Ms. Carew.

  “What’s your favorite word in Spanish?” Alicia asked.

  “Guacamole.”

  “Mine’s corazón,” Alicia commented. “It means heart.”

  “What’s the most disgusting thing you can think of?” a girl named Etta asked. She had a green streak in her spiky, black hair.

  “My brother, Ryan.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “The hot eighth- grade guy?”

  “Everyone thinks he’s hot, but he flosses his teeth at the dinner table, which is totally disgusting. Oops—maybe I shouldn’t have said that. It’s kind of personal.”

  “This is a safe place,” Ms. Carew said. “What we say in here stays in here.”

  “What’s the funniest sound you can make?” Sara asked. “And I think I already know the answer.”

  I held my nose, squinched up my face, and did the baby cry. I don’t know what got into me, but it wasn’t just one cry. It was a total baby temper tantrum, with sobs, gags, snivels—the whole thing. I was feeling so loose with this group, it didn’t even occur to me to hold back. It was only after I finished that I realized the extended tantrum might have been a little much, even for the alternative kids.

  But it was the opposite. Everyone laughed and clapped and cheered and said things like “amazing,” “hilarious,” and “a total crack-up.”

  Ms. Carew explained that now that we were warmed up and ready to share, we were going to do a truth-telling exercise. She would say a feeling, and anyone who wanted could tell about a time when they felt that emotion. She could see I was a little uncomfortable with that, so she said that I could just listen, that listening with your heart was the best kind of sharing.

  “The emotion for today is frightened,” Ms. Carew began. “Tell us about a time when you were frightened.”

  Everyone was silent until Alicia spoke up.

  “I came to this country when I was three years old, hidden in the back of my uncle’s car,” she said. “I remember stopping at the Mexican border and seeing the American guard. He had blond hair and a blond mustache—I had never seen anyone with yellow hair, and I thought he was an alien. He shined a flashlight in my face and yelled at me in a language I couldn’t understand. I was so frightened! I thought they were going to take me away from my parents. I still have nightmares about it.”

  Other kids spoke after that, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Alicia’s story. I wondered if anyone else at school knew what she had been through. It’s amazing what we don’t know about people.

  That’s what I kept thinking as I listened to each person’s story. Will Lee was frightened when he had to show his parents his report card with a B in math. They were from Korea, and it was really important to them that their son get straight As so he would do well in their new country. Devon was frightened every time he came up to bat and had to face a new pitcher. Sara told about a time when they couldn’t find her little brother and searched all over the house and finally found him sitting on a curb half a block away. Bernard was frightened in PE because he didn’t want to change his clothes in front of everyone. Etta was frightened on her first day of eighth grade because she didn’t know if people would make fun of her hair. A seventh-grader named Keisha said she was frightened the first time she kissed a boy for real, because she didn’t know if she was doing it right.

  By the time they had gone around the circle, I felt like we were all old friends. The hour had whizzed by, and as we left the room, everyone was laughing and talking.

  I asked Alicia if she wanted to walk home together. I just assumed she was walking to the Sporty Forty so her dad could drive her home, but she said that she usually took the bus after school. She lived about an hour away. She went to Beachside because her mom and dad worked in the district and got her a special permit.

  We walked to the bus stop on Third Street and Arizona Avenue, right in front of the Third Street Promenade. I told Alicia that I was pretty sure I was going to join Truth Tellers. She was glad and told me about these performances that they sometimes did for the community. The last one was at the Laugh Box, a comedy club. Over one hundred people came, and they weren’t all just parents, either.

  “I can’t imagine standing up in front of grown-ups and tell
ing them for real about my life,” I said.

  “Once you do it, it’s really fun. At our last performance, this woman told me she hadn’t really thought about how it feels to be twelve, and what I said helped her to understand her daughter. That was cool.”

  We were so busy talking that I hadn’t noticed that we had reached the bus stop in front of the mall—specifically, in front of Starbucks. And, of course, who should see us but Charlie and Lauren and the other SF2s who were sitting around an outside table. I was supposed to be at the dentist getting my fang pulled, and it was clear to everyone that I wasn’t. I think we can all agree that the situation was totally, completely, horribly awkward.

  “Hey, Sammie. What are you doing here?” Lauren called out. I could see Charlie burying her face in her hands.

  “She doesn’t look like a dentist,” the General shouted, pointing to Alicia. “But if she were, I’d go more often.”

  “That guy thinks he’s such hot stuff,” Alicia whispered. “And why does he think I’m a dentist?”

  I was really embarrassed to have to confess to Alicia that I hid the fact that I was going to Truth Tellers. I was tempted to tell her something different, but then I realized that if I was going to be a Truth Teller, I was going to have to start telling the truth. That was the deal.

  “I’ll be right over, guys!” I hollered to the kids at the table. Then I took a deep breath and turned to Alicia.

  “I didn’t tell them I was going to Truth Tellers,” I said. “I told them I had a dentist appointment.”

  “Why?” she asked. She seemed really confused.

  “My sister asked me not to tell them about Truth Tellers. She didn’t want them to think I was a geek. We’re just getting to know them, and she wants to make a good impression.”

  I watched Alicia’s face carefully. I could see her shaking her head sadly, fighting back tears. At last she spoke.

  “So your sister is embarrassed that you’re friends with me?”

  “No. She’s not like that. It’s just that she wants to be friends with those kids, and . . .”

  “My friends and I are not as good as they are,” Alicia finished my sentence for me.

  It sounded so ugly when she said it.

  “Alicia, I think you’re great. And I bet Charlie does, too. We always agree on friends . . . or, at least, we used to. Just let me talk to her . . .”

  Before I could finish, the bus pulled up and its doors whooshed open.

  “I have to go, Sammie,” she said quietly. “And you know what? I was wrong about you. I thought you were nice. I thought we could be friends. But I don’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t think I’m good enough for her.”

  “Alicia, wait—”

  “You’d better go,” she said as the door shut. “Your real friends are waiting.”

  Alicia disappeared onto the bus, and as I turned around, I saw Lauren running up. She was waving a Starbucks card at me.

  “I still have money left on my gift card,” she said. “Come on. Frappuccino’s on me.”

  I wasn’t thirsty. In fact, I wanted to barf.

  The Apology

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, I was waiting at the bus stop at seven thirty, but Alicia wasn’t on the seven-thirty bus. She wasn’t on the seven forty-five bus, either. I had hoped to catch her before school—to talk to her, to explain the truth behind what had happened. I had tried calling her the night before, but when her father, Candido, answered, he said she wasn’t feeling well and had gone to bed. I figured she must have really been sick because Alicia wasn’t on the eight o’clock bus, either.

  In homeroom, I asked Sara if she had talked to Alicia.

  “Yeah, we talked on the phone a lot last night,” she said.

  “About me?”

  “About friends. You tell me, Sammie. Are you her friend?”

  “I want to be.”

  “Then I have a suggestion for you,” Sara said. “Try acting like one.”

  Wow. That was harsh. These Truth Tellers don’t mess around.

  I went through the day at school feeling lousy. You know how when you’re mad at yourself, everything seems to go wrong? Well, that’s how the whole day went. My bra strap broke after PE, and I had to hold it together with this huge, old safety pin which came undone in the middle of Spanish. I got back my history test, and I missed getting a B by half a point because I said the king of England during the American Revolution was George II. (Big deal, so it was George III. That’s close enough for me.) And at lunch, Charlie talked to Jared the whole time and left me sitting at the table listening to Jillian’s in-depth discussion of whether Ashley on Real Teens looked better as a blonde or a brunette. (Oh, and in case you’re dying to know, brunette won.) Going into English, I dropped my backpack, which was unzipped, and all my pens fell out on the floor. Bernard of the drumsticks didn’t even stop to help me pick them up. Sure, it was possible that he just didn’t see them. But it was also possible that all the Truth Tellers were sticking up for Alicia and thought I deserved to get all my ballpoints trampled.

  After school, Charlie was waiting for me at my locker.

  “I’m not going home right away,” I told her. “There’s something I have to do.”

  “Dad’s waiting for us. We have practice.”

  “I have to skip today.”

  “Sammie, we have a tournament this Sunday. Dad will freak out if you’re not there.”

  “Can you cover for me, just this once?” I begged. “I’ll let you borrow any of my clothes you want.”

  “I do that, anyway,” she pointed out.

  “Please, Charlie. This is important.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Alicia’s.”

  “You don’t even know where she lives.”

  “I got her address from Sara. Tell Dad I’ll be home by six. And I’ll practice like a lunatic the rest of the week, I swear.”

  I think Charlie would have continued arguing with me, but just then, Lauren came up and asked her if she wanted to go to the gym with her to sign up for cheerleader tryouts.

  “Of course I do,” Charlie said, a big smile breaking across her face. “But afterward, I have to go to the club to practice.”

  “Perfect,” Lauren answered. “We’ll go sign up, and then I’ll watch you work out. By the way, will Ryan be there? Not that it matters.”

  Right—not that it matters.

  “Sure,” Charlie said. “He lives there.”

  She picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “Okay, Sammie, I’m covering for you this time, but you’d better be there tomorrow,” she whispered.

  “I will be. Promise.”

  Charlie and Lauren started off down the hall, then, realizing they were leaving me behind, Lauren came back to talk to me.

  “Listen, Sammie,” she said, without the slightest bit of awkwardness. “I’d ask you to come, too, but I happen to know they’re looking for girls who can fly, and I think you’d be kind of hard to lift.”

  She might as well have said “Sammie, you’re a fat pig and harder to lift than a pregnant elephant.” I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach, but luckily I was able to take in just enough air to spit out, “That’s okay, Lauren. I have other plans, anyway.”

  Sara had given me directions to Alicia’s house. She lived in a neighborhood called Palms, which wasn’t too far from where we used to live in Culver City. I got on the bus and rode down Lincoln Boulevard until we reached Venice Boulevard, then transferred. There were no other kids on the bus, certainly no one from Beachside. It was a long way, and I had to admire Alicia for making the trip twice every day. I looked out the window, checking the street signs. The directions said to get off and walk a half block to Alicia’s house, which
was number 4307.

  When I got off, I went into the little grocery store on the corner of Southwest and Venice and bought two pieces of red licorice, one for Alicia and one for me. Then I ate them both. Being nervous makes me eat. Actually, being anything makes me eat.

  I headed down the block until I reached number 4307. I have to confess that I was a little surprised to see that Alicia’s house was not a house, but an apartment. The building was three floors high, and there must have been seven or eight apartments on each floor. I never assumed it was an apartment because Sara hadn’t given me an apartment number. So I just stood in front of the row of mailboxes searching for the name Bermudez. I was concentrating so hard that I didn’t see Alicia come down the stairs and stand in back of me.

  “Sammie, what are you doing here?” she said.

  I nearly jumped ten feet in the air. I wheeled around to face her. I think you could safely say that she didn’t look happy to see me. And that’s an understatement.

  “Oh, you scared me, Alicia.”

  “Why are you scared, Sammie? Because you’ve come to my part of town? It’s not scary here, although I realize it’s not the Sporty Forty.”

  “Alicia, I need to talk to you. You’ve got me all wrong.”

  “Do I? Is that why you wouldn’t tell all those kids from the club that we’re friends?”

  “Can we go into your house, please?” I asked her. A bunch of little kids from the apartment building had gathered around and were looking at us curiously.

  “Whatever.”

  She turned and headed up a flight of stairs and down an outside hallway to apartment 206. She pushed open the door, and as we went inside, my mouth started to water. It smelled completely delicious in there. An older woman was taking a pan out of the oven, and I realized that whatever smelled so great was in it.