Identical

"Anne?"

I ignored my kid sister and continued scribbling away at my middle school trigonometry. I'd been struggling with it since right after dinner and here it was past nine and I still wasn't getting anywhere but nowhere.

"Anne?"

I could feel her right behind me like a tiny flame¾hot and intense. But she wasn't going to get to me this time.

No way.

"Anne?"

The pencil dropped from my hand and I turned to face her.

She'd won. She always won. There was something about her¾something that always got to me—always got to everyone. "Listen Hermione, you've got to stop calling me Anne. Sure it was cute when you were a toddler. But you're a big girl now. Now, it just makes everyone laugh at me. My name's Andrew. Do you understand?"

She grinned and said, "I love you," which was a pretty good answer but not the one I'd been hoping for.

"And I love you too."

Don't get me wrong or anything. My little sister is not weird¾just deep¾ like this wise old grandam crammed into the body of a reedy eight-year-old.

Okay, so she is a little weird.

I smiled and put my arm round her frail shoulders. "And you can't keep coming in my room all the time either."

"And why not?"

"It's all part of growing up. Which is something we all do whether we like it or not. I'll be starting high school next year. It's a lot harder there. And it's more than just the schoolwork. I can't be a loner all my life, you know. I'll have to make friends my own age. And I've heard the seniors and juniors can be pretty tough. So I've got to be tough too. And then there's dating. Somehow or other your goofy big brother has got to convince some pernickety girl that he's not as yucky as he is."

I'm afraid I wasn't doing a very good job of clueing her in on the facts of life. I could tell what I was saying frightened her by the way she scrunched her dolly to her. And I didn't blame her. It frightened me too. Point blank, I wasn't ready. But ready or not manhood was right around the bend. "Don't fret, Hermione. You're a very pretty little girl. And by the time you get to high school you'll be a very beautiful young woman. It's a lot easier when you're a woman."

"It is?"

"Sure it is. You'll have tons of girlfriends to gab with. And there'll be loads of sleepovers and makeovers and parties. And talk about boyfriends? Why they'll be falling all around you just like bright red apples from an apple tree. You want one? Why you just reach down and snatch one up. And other than that you don't have to lift a little pinky. All you've got to do is be pretty."

Suddenly, Hermione became very still, her thoughts far away. Then she looked up at me with eyes as dark and wide as any starry-starry night and said, "You'll always be Anne to me."

Then she hugged me and left.

Breakfast

It wasn't like me to be late to the breakfast table but everything that could go wrong had gone wrong that next morning. First off, I couldn't find a blessed thing to wear because my mom had mistakenly put what could only be Hermione's stuff in my closet and drawers. It was all I could do to find a pair of decent jeans and a tee shirt to wear.

My mom and dad are pretty average...I guess. Excepting that is that everyone says they look more like my grandparents.

I'd been a joyous surprise to two late middle-aged professionals who'd given up any hope of ever having kids. When Hermione showed up seven years later they were more overwhelmed than overjoyed.