Very bad English / Очень плохой English

Chapter 1

Antipodes

The most common misconception regarding twins is that they all have a similar fate, call their children the same names, though without exchanging a word…

Probably, there is some truth in this. And there are thousands of examples, because they tell about such cases in popular magazines and books. But did anyone mention the dissimilar ones?

I'm afraid it would not seem so interesting…

Our parents decided to arrange a global experiment within a small family.

I still don't get what they wanted to achieve. Apparently, there is still some reasonable explanation, but…

We were nearly copies of each other, or at least as similar as a reflection in the mirror and the one who looks into it. My mole is coquettishly located on my right cheek, while Eva has it on her left. My sister's right eye always betrayed her with a slight squint when she thought of a trick. My left eye betrayed me just as treacherously… But this fact was known only to our inner circle.

My sister and I studied in different classes and at birth we were given different last names. So few people at school knew that we were relatives, not to mention twins… I was the proud owner of my father's last name, while Eva carried the last name of her mother. She did not change it even when she got marriage certificate at the registry office, as she simply did not want to bother with a pile of certificates, diplomas and other documents that required replacement and waste of valuable time.

Parents could not spoil our happy childhood with the recommendations read in Benjamin Spock's В«Baby and Child CareВ». Thank God our Mom had enough wisdom and intuition (or intuition and wisdom) to declare this book not only harmful, but deadly. As time has shown, our mom turned out to be absolutely right.

However, different things happen in life that fit poorly in the head of a thirteen-year-old teenagers we were at that time.

Mom was a very beautiful, but extremely straightforward woman.

She did not hide her affair at work, divorced our father and left to St. Petersburg with her Romeo. She left taking Eva with her.

It was so dishonest, but no one asked us…

I put all my effort and time to school. I also wrote letters.

Paper envelopes were sent across half the country. Sometimes they crossed at the sorting centers with rare Eva's notes and flew in opposite directions.