Almost Identical #1 (7 page)

Way to be humble, Sean.

We continued around the circle until we came to the last person to read—me.

“The thing I like best about myself is that I make myself laugh,” I read. Then I flipped the paper over and saw what I had written for what I liked least about myself. It said
The thing I like least about myself is that I am messy
.

Let's be honest here, Sammie. You know that's not true. Tell the truth, girlfriend. Try it, maybe you'll like it.

The truth was too scary and too personal. I wasn't about to tell these people that I weighed one two six and a half. No, I was going with what I had written. I looked down at the paper and started to read.

“The thing I like least about myself . . .” Then I paused and glanced up to see Ms. Carew looking at me. She seemed so interested, and her eyes were . . . I don't know . . . curious, like she really cared what I was about to say. I don't know what got into me, but I took a deep breath and said the truth.

“The thing I like least about myself is . . . well . . . it's too private to say here.”

There it was: not a lie, but not the truth, either.

“Hey, that's cheating,” Sean called out. “Everyone else spilled their guts. Like me, about the trophies and everything.”

Ms. Carew held up her hand for him to stop talking. “What you did is perfectly okay, Sammie,” she said. “People reveal themselves when they're ready.”

Phew.

Before we went back in the classroom, Ms. Carew asked us, “Does anyone remember our quote for the day? About the true meaning of success?”

Before I knew it, my hand shot up in the air.

“‘Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it,'” I said, surprising myself that I had memorized every word.

“Very nice, Sammie,” Ms. Carew said, and I noticed Lauren Wadsworth look over at Charlie and roll her eyes.

When the bell rang and I got up to leave, Ms. Carew pulled me aside.

“Can I see you a second, Sammie?”

“Sure.”

“Alicia and Sara tell me they think you might be interested in Truth Tellers,” she began.

I looked out the door and saw Lauren in the hall, mouthing the word
Frappuccino
.

“I have a lot of stuff to do after school,” I told Ms. Carew. “I don't think I can make it.”

“You're always welcome, Sammie,” she said. “And even if you don't decide to join us, here's a copy of a poem by Sonya Sones, one of my favorite poets. I'd love for you to have it.”

“Thanks a lot, Ms. Carew. But I have to go to my next class.”

I grabbed the piece of paper and ran out the door.

“What was that about?” Lily asked.

“She wants me to proofread my stuff more carefully,” I lied. “Check out the commas and everything.”

“That Ms. Carew is so old-school,” Lauren said. “I mean, really, what do you like best about yourself?”

I wanted to defend Ms. Carew, but I knew Charlie wouldn't like it if I made a fuss about disagreeing with Lauren. So I didn't say anything, just listened as Lauren launched into a conversation about where we were going to meet after school for our Starbucks date. It was agreed that we'd meet at the flagpole and walk over to the mall together.

Then we went our separate ways. I had to hurry to get to my math class on time.

As Mr. Warner was having kids write their homework answers on the board, I pulled out the poem that Ms. Carew had given me after class. At the top of the page, it said “‘Fantabulous' by Sonya Sones.” I started to read.

 

I don't need to rock
a pair of size 2 jeans
or prance through the pages
of magazines
because I am a woman
who's round and full,
made of wind and wild
and honey.

A woman made
of curve and swerve
and flow and glow
and strong and funny.

I am a woman made
of fire and fierce and free.
I am fantabulous.
Fantabulous me!

I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was fantastic. Amazing. I'm not much of a poem reader except for those funny
Where the Sidewalk Ends
poems my mom read us when we were little. But this poem—wow. It was like the words reached out and grabbed me.

I am a woman made of fire and fierce and free.

I read those lines over and over again. It was like Sonya Sones, wherever she was, had looked inside me and picked out just the words I needed to hear. I couldn't stop staring at that poem—it made me feel so good about myself. I didn't even mind when Mr. Warner got angry because I didn't seem interested in learning how to convert fractions to decimals.

Oh no, Mr. Warner. I'm fascinated by fraction-to-decimal conversions. Oh, and by the way, did you know I'm fantabulous?

This might sound totally corny, and I apologize if it does, but when I read that poem, I felt like I was floating on air, free as a seagull. It's strange. I felt like maybe it set loose someone inside me, a person I didn't know, who had been waiting to get out. I didn't know who she was, but I had a feeling she was fantabulous, and I wanted to meet her.

“What do you mean, you're not going to Starbucks?” Charlie demanded, putting her hands on her hips the way she does when she gets mad. “We're
all
going.”

We were standing at the flagpole after school that day, waiting for the SF2 girls to join us for our Starbucks date.

“I'm not thirsty,” I said.

“Sammie, since when does thirst have anything to do with Starbucks?”

“Earth to Charlie. It's a place for drinks, as in, ‘I'm thirsty, I want a drink.'”

“It's a place for hanging out, Sammie. Everyone knows that.”

“Okay, so the truth is,” I said reluctantly, “I don't want to go because I'm thinking of trying the club that Ms. Carew runs.”

“You mean that truth-talker thing?”

“Truth Tellers. It's Truth Tellers, not talkers.”

“Whatever. Why, Sammie? We're not drama people. We're athletes. We're not like those alternative kids who sit around and fall in love with their every little thought.”

“You don't know that's what they're like, Charlie. I just think it might be interesting, that's all. Alicia says it's really fun. And Ms. Carew is great.”

“Sammie, we've always liked the same things, right? So I don't get it. We don't have anything in common with those kids. Alicia is cool, but what about that friend of hers with the boots and crazy hair?”

“Her name is Sara Berlin. That's not fair, Charlie, and you know it. You can't judge someone just by looking at what they're wearing or how good their hair looks. Oh, and speaking of good hair, here come Lily, Brooke, and Lauren.”

“Please don't tell them about this truth-club thing,” Charlie whispered. “I don't want to have to explain you to them. Just do what you have to do and don't say anything.”

Lauren, Lily, and Brooke were running down the school steps to where we were waiting at the flagpole. Jogging alongside them in his usual camouflage cargo pants was the General, whose full name, Charlie told me, was Dwayne Dickerson. Their history teacher, who apparently calls everyone by their last name, would only call him Mr. Dickerson since he said he didn't think it was appropriate to call him the General. He said there were real generals that actually deserved the title.

“Excellent news, girls,” Brooke said when they reached us. “The guys are going to hang out with us at Starbucks.”

“I only see one guy,” I said.

“But I bet you like what you see,” the General answered, striking a muscleman pose.

Oh, please. Don't tell me you think that's flirty, because honestly, you look like a G.I. Joe action figure with arm cramps.

“Jared and Sean and Spencer are on the track running some laps for the coach,” the General explained. “I'll grab them when they're done and we'll all come by.”

“Eeuuwww,” said Lauren. “Make sure they shower first. I hate sweaty people.”

“Yeah, it's so gross,” Charlie agreed.

Whoa. Did Charlie actually say that? In front of me, the person who sweats so much, she actually produced a leg trickle at the last tennis tournament?

“Sweating is a very natural thing,” I said in my own defense. “It's the body's way of cooling off.”

“That's very scientific,” Lauren commented.

“And oh-so-boring,” Brooke added. “No offense, Sammie.”

Everyone laughed. Yes, even Charlie!

“Listen, everyone,” I said. “Don't all cry at once, but I'm not going to be able to make it to Starbucks. I have . . . um . . . other plans.”

“Really?” asked Lily. “What are you doing?”

Charlie jumped in before I could answer. “She has an orthodontist appointment.”

“Then how come
you
don't have one?” the General asked her. “You're identical. You should have identical teeth.”

“Yes, we do . . . except . . . Sammie has an extra one.”

I do? Since when?

“Like a fang?” the General asked. “Cool! Can I see it?”

“No way,” I snapped at him.

“You can't see it without looking really hard,” Charlie chimed in. “It's a molar, in the back. No one knows where it came from, and it's got to be pulled or it will just keep growing until it's, like, superlong.”

“Eeuuwww, gross,” Lauren said again, trying not to look at my mouth. “You poor thing.”

Thanks, Charlie. Now everyone can truly feel sorry for me—Sammie the overweight tooth freak.

I said good-bye and watched as the four of them took off across the lawn. Just before they reached the sidewalk and headed down Third Street, Charlie turned around and shot me a peculiar look. It's funny—I couldn't tell from her expression whether she was happy or sad.

“Hey, Sam. Are you sure you can't come?” she yelled. Then, realizing what she had said, she added, “I could get Dad to cancel the appointment.”

“It's okay,” I yelled back. “Maybe I can swing by later, depending on how long my . . . um . . . appointment goes.”

Charlie nodded and waved good-bye.

Love you,
she mouthed, giving me three little taps over her heart.

“Love you, too,” I whispered, and tapped my chest three times.

And then she disappeared around the corner. I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. We were only going to be a few blocks from each other, but as I headed back to Ms. Carew's room, I felt that a distance had begun to open up between Charlie and me. And to be honest, I didn't like that feeling one bit
.

The door was closed when I reached the Patio Room, but I could hear voices coming from inside. It sounded like buzzing as if a bunch of bees had gotten loose and were swarming. I pushed the door open a crack. There were about fifteen kids inside. The desks had been pushed against the walls so the center of the room was empty, and the kids were sitting in a circle on the floor with their eyes closed. They were humming.

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.