Nicole

The ball was big. And yellow. With an eye. And another eye. And a smile. And it hit me in the face. Then it was gone.

When I looked up from my place in the grass, I saw my twin sister, Kassandra, running away with the ball; our adopted father, Jason, chasing her, with our dog, Nova, scratching at their knees. The spotted yellow orb bounced back and forth between, hit out of Kassandra's hands by Jason and nudged between his legs by Nova in a messy pattern of swift movements.

I laughed at the ridiculous display, pulling myself to my feet and absent-mindedly rubbing my faintly stinging nose. My jeans were covered with rips and grass stains, and my black hoodie was covered with dry leaves and pine needles, all of which I ignored with the exception of a dry brown leaf caught in the rat's nest that was my hair. I quickly yanked it away and crushed it between my fingertips, still looking at Kassandra. She was my mirror, identical in every way from our electric blue eyes to our interest in astronomy to our torn jeans and dirty hoodies.

Yes, twins are a rare form of best friends and middle-school-drama-waiting-to-happen thrown in a blender. But the situation gets even more complicated when you mix in an ESP bonus.

Yeah, that might need a little explaining.

Our story begins on December 24th, 2004 when Kassandra and I were born. Our mom was poor, sick and quite young, so sadly, several hours after we were born, she passed away. Our Aunt, a wealthy doctor, was there to take care of her in our house, and took us in among her other six young kids… For like a week. It became too much for her to handle, so she had to put us in a nearly empty orphanage for girls, where we grew up to finally understand the world at seven years old. The housekeeper, Ezra, treated us like her own and called us "the miracle children" after hearing our story.

When it came to friends our age, however… Well, Kassandra was really all I got. You'd think that the other eight girls there would appreciate Ezra and the cozy little house a bit more after the things they've been through, and man, they had been through a lot. But they didn't respect any of it, including Kassandra and I, so we knew it was best to keep our distance.

Because of their bratty attitudes, Kassandra and I ended up having an entire empty room to ourselves. We didn't take advantage of the other space for comfort or storage. In fact, you'd think the way that the two of us kept ourselves so tightly compact in a far corner of the room that the orphanage was overflowing with invisible kids. Instead, we used the space for games; hopping from bunk bed to bunk bed, creating jungle gyms out of old sweaters and suitcases hiding in the storage closet, and the best part of it all was Christmas Eve: we would decorate the entire room with whatever we could find, singing happy birthday all night long and sneaking into the kitchen to make birthday cupcakes. However, it was on Christmas Morning of our eighth birthday that changed everything.

We were both tucked in our beds, exhausted from the night before but refusing to sleep, knowing that Ezra was making pancakes for breakfast, served with presents chosen specially for each kid in the orphanage. Kassandra was reading quietly, and I was sitting slack jawed, staring at the TV where the cooking channel was playing and I didn't want to move to change the channel. I was in the perfect state of laziness and comfort when I heard Kassandra say, "EW!" Suddenly, a picture of a brain flashed into my head. Probably because the chefs on the show were being forced to cook with a cow's brain. (Yuck!) Either way, Kassandra's ccomment had me intrigued, as well as agitated because I had to move my face to respond.

"What's ew?" I asked, my eyes still glued to the screen.

"I didn't say anything."

"Okay…."

…

"OH MY GOSH!" I saw the brain again.

"What?" I asked again.

"I didn't say anything!" Kassandra's head leaned over the side of the bed, looking at me with an irritated expression.

I reluctantly rolled off the bed, leaning against the wood bedframe and looked at her. "I heard you say oh my gosh," I said. "You were talking about a brain or something…"

"Well, I didn't say anything, I just…." Kassandra's face filled with worry. "I - I - I just thought it."

I frowned. She seemed to be making a big deal out of nothing.

"Wait, you saw a brain!" Kassandra exclaimed, grabbing her book. She held up a page, and there it was…. The exact same brain I saw in my head.

That's disgusting… I thought to myself, then shook my head.

"I know!" She said, putting down her book.

"Wait, what did I say?" I asked, my heartbeat thumping in my chest.

"You said it's disgusting…." Kassandra's voice trailed off. "You didn't say it, did you? You just thought it."

"Hold on a second, what number am I thinking of?" I thought, placing a number in my head. 51, 769.

"Fifty-one thousand, seven hundred sixty nine!" Kassandra shouted. "What food am I thinking of?" She paused. I swore I could hear her say "Cherry pie!"

"Cherry pie?" I guessed, shifting my weight away from the bed.

"Yes…."

I took a deep breath. Can you hear me?

...Yes.

What are we, Nicole?

I don't know.

A couple years after realizing our telepathic connection,we were adopted by a 27 year old man named Jason, who lived at an RV resort all year round. We didn't dare tell him about our connection. While he was welcoming, kind and sympathetic when he needed to be, we needed to make sure we could trust him, keeping our abilities in our head where only we could see. The campground quickly became home, despite the RV we lived in being quite small.

Jason decided we needed to find a house in the city so we could go to school. So we packed up, took the trailer to storage, and bought a nice house with two floors and a nearby school. I took a room in the basement, mainly because Kassandra and I were forced to share everything, even our thoughts, so this would be a time where the connect was lost. I put a three foot long and three foot wide box made with police tape in front of the door, because that's where the connection started. The walls helped the disconnection, and I finally had my own life.

We loved hanging out with Jason. He knew things, smart things, and he used them in the best way. He knew that people do things for a reaction, the same way a musician performs for and audience, and if you don't react then they stop the performance. That helped me get through my first year at school. He was more of a big brother than a father, but he was the best big brother I ever had.

And the games… Kassandra and I, despite being eleven, were just a few seven year olds in a bare room. We poured paint cans and climbed trees and made games. And once Jason added a smiling yellow ball to the mix, things managed to get even more crazy when we created a game called Smile Ball. All you really have to do is steal the ball and keep it in your possession as long as you can. You're allowed tackling, jumping, but no punching or kicking, cause that gets rough. We loved to play it at night. Sometimes Nova would play with us, jumping on people and crashing into the ball.

Nova is absolutely sweet. She has the build and shape of a husky, but the color of a black lab. One of her eyes is a golden yellow, and the other is icy blue. We love her so much, and she seems more human than dog. She shows more emotion than most dogs, and when we're feeling sad, she'll curl up on our laps or sit on our foot, leaning on us. It's so awesome having a friend like that.

And that's pretty much our story up until now, where we're playing smile ball in our backyard.