Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sat up and thought a moment. Then I went to the bathroom and dabbed ice-cold water on my face. I heard Gisselle's ripple of laughter and pulled open the door to confront her as she was being wheeled by.

"Good morning, Sister, dear," she said, looking up at me and smiling. She appeared fresh and happy and full of gloating satisfaction. "You look like you stayed up too late. Is your . . . friend back?"

"No, Gisselle. She never came back."

"Oh no! What will we do with the trophy?" she wondered aloud, and looked at Jacki, Katie, and Samantha, who flashed smiles back at her, but then those smiles evaporated quickly when they gazed at me. At least they showed some remorse, Samantha looking the saddest.

"It's not funny anymore, Gisselle. Something terrible might have happened to her last night. Where would she go? What would she do?"

"Maybe she found refuge in a sharecropper's shack. Who knows?" she said, smiling. "It might even be one of her long-lost relatives." She laughed hysterically. "Let's go," she commanded Samantha. "I'm ravishingly hungry this morning.”

Embarrassed and disgusted over the fact that this was my sister, I lowered my head and returned to my room. I had little appetite and wasn't looking forward to sitting down at breakfast with the girls, who would only be waiting to hear and see what I would do and say. Nevertheless, I changed my clothes. Just as I was about to go to the dining room Mrs. Penny arrived. One look at her face told me she knew about Abby. The fingers of her hands were locked around each other as if she were holding onto herself for dear life.

"Good morning, dear," she said.

"What's happened, Mrs. Penny? Where's Abby?"

"Mrs. Ironwood just called to tell me that her parents will be stopping by later today to pick up her things," she said in one gasp and sighed.

"Then she's all right? They've found her?"

"Apparently she went into the city last night and called them. Now she'll be leaving the school. She would have been expelled for going off the school grounds in the middle of the night anyway," she added.

"Oh, she would have been expelled, Mrs. Penny, but not for running off," I said, shaking my head, and fixing my angry gaze on our housemother. "That wouldn't have been Mrs. Ironwood's true reason?'

Mrs. Penny lowered her eyes and shook her head sadly. "We never had such problems," she muttered. "It's so troubling?' She looked up and quickly gazed around the room. "Anyway, I know how you girls are always bunching your things together. I wanted you to separate whatever is yours from whatever is hers so that they can come and go quickly as possible. This won't be pleasant for anyone, especially for me" she added.

"I imagine not. All right. I'll take care of it," I promised, and began sorting things out, packing Abby's things in her suitcases and boxes so it would be that much easier for her parents, the tears dripping of my cheeks as I worked.

By the time the girls had returned from breakfast, I had most everything organized and was sitting dumbly on the edge of my bed, staring at the floor. Gisselle paused in the doorway, Samantha right behind her.

"What's going on?" she demanded, looking at the packed suitcases and boxes. "Mrs. Penny wouldn't say a word."

I raised my head slowly, my eyes bloodshot.

"Abby's parents are coming for her things. She's leaving Greenwood. Are you satisfied now?" I demanded sharply. Samantha bit down on her lower lip and shifted her eyes away quickly.

"It's better for all concerned," Gisselle said. "It would have happened eventually anyway."

"If she had to leave, she should have left because she wanted to, not because she was embarrassed by you and your followers in front of the whole student body and all those boys," I complained.

"It's the risk someone like that takes when she tries to be one of us," Gisselle replied, without a note of contrition in her voice. She was so self-satisfied, so confident, it made me sick to my stomach.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore," I said and turned away from her.

"Fine with me," she said and had Samantha wheel her away.

But early in the afternoon, just before Abby's parents arrived, Samantha came to my door alone. She had left Gisselle in the lobby with the others and come back to fetch something for her.

"What do you want?" I demanded sharply.

"Gisselle wanted me to get a record out of the box stored in Abby's closet," she said meekly. "She's loaning it to one of the girls from B quad."

I turned my back as she came into the room and knelt down to search through the boxes on the closet floor. She quickly located what she wanted and started out. Then she stopped in the doorway and turned back to me.

"I'm sorry about Abby," she said. "I didn't expect something like this would happen."

"Well what did you expect would happen when someone is exposed like that in front of all those people? And why? What did she ever do to you or to any of the other girls to deserve that?"

Samantha looked down.

"How did my sister find out about her?" I asked after a moment. "Did she listen at the door to our conversations?" Samantha shook her head. "Well, how then?"

Samantha gazed to her right first before turning back to answer.

"When she came in here to get something else of hers that Abby was keeping in her closet, she looked at her letters from her parents," Samantha revealed. "But please don't tell her I told you. Please," she begged, real fear in her eyes.

"Why, what will she reveal about you?" I asked sharply. Samantha's anxiety made her eyes wide and her otherwise cherry cheeks white.

"You shouldn't have told her anything about yourself you didn't want anyone to know," I chastised.

Samantha nodded, that piece of advice coming too late. "Anyway," she said. "I'm sorry about Abby."

I wasn't in a forgiving mood, but I saw she was sincere, so I nodded. She stood there a few more moments and then hurried away.

Shortly afterward, Abby's parents arrived.

"Mrs. Tyler," I cried, jus ping to my feet when she and her husband appeared in the doorway. "How's Abby?"

"She's just fine" Mrs. Tyler said, her face firm, her lips tight. "My daughters got more grit in her than anyone else at this precious school," she added bitterly. Abby's father shifted his eyes from me quickly.

"I must go to her, Mrs. Tyler. She must know I nothing to do with this horrible incident."

Mrs. Tyler raised her eyebrows. "It was your twin sister who did the dirty work, as I understand," she said.

"Yes, but we're two different people, even though we are twins, Mrs. Tyler. Abby knows that."

I saw from the way she gazed at her husband that Abby had said that too.

"Where are her things?" Mrs. Tyler demanded.

"Everything's set aside. All of her things are there." I pointed to where I had organized everything. Her father looked grateful. "How can I talk to her? When can I see her?"

"She's in the car outside," Mr. Tyler revealed.

"Abby's here?"

"She didn't want to come in here with us," her mother said.

"I don't blame her," I said as I hurried past them and out. In the lobby the girls were keeping their comments under their breaths while Abby's parents were in the building. Even Gisselle's voice was subdued. I didn't pause to look at them. Instead, I rushed out the front door. I saw Abby sitting in her parents' automobile and hurried down the steps and over to it. She rolled down the window as I approached.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi. I'm sorry I kept running away from you last night, but I just couldn't stop once I had started. All I wanted to do was get out of there."

"I know, but I was so worried about you. Miss Stevens went driving around looking for you, because Mrs. Ironwood wouldn't let me leave the grounds."

She smirked and muttered, "The Iron Lady."

"Where were you?"

"I hid for a while until the rain slowed some and then I got ride into the city and called my parents."

"Oh, Abby, I'm so sorry. It's so unfair. My sister is more horrible than I ever h lined. I found out she snooped into your things and read some letters from your parents."

"That doesn't surprise me. Anyway, it wasn't all just her doing, I'm sure," Abby said. "Although she did seem to relish her part, didn't she?" she added. I nodded. She smiled at me and got out of the car. "Let's take a little walk," she suggested.

"What are you going to do now?" I asked.

"Enroll in the public school. In a way this was a good thing. My parents have decided to stop trying to ignore who I am and who they are. No more moving all around the country, no more pretending to be someone I'm not." She gazed around at the campus. "No more fancy schools."

"I've had my fill of fancy schools too."

"Oh no, you're doing well here, Ruby. All of our teachers like you and you have a great relationship with Miss Stevens. You'll do great things with your artwork. Take advantage of the opportunities and ignore the rest."

"I don't like being in a place where there is so much hypocrisy. Grandmère Catherine wouldn't want me here."

Abby laughed. "From the way you described her to me, I think she'd tell you to dig in like a clam, shut yourself off from the phonies like an oyster, and clamp down on what you want like an alligator. Besides," Abby said in a whisper, "you know how to get the bad gris-gris off you. My mistake was last night, when I didn't wear the blue skirt with the good gris-gris sewn in." She winked and we laughed. It felt good, only I realized I wouldn't be hearing her laughter anymore; I wouldn't be having our girl-to-girl talks anymore, and we wouldn't be sharing our dreams and fears anymore. Gisselle was right to have been jealous: Abby had been the sister I never had, the sister Gisselle, despite our identical faces, would never be.