"Two beautiful children and a monster."
"I can't believe she gets my name, and not the other girl."
"There must have been a mistake."
~(t)~(h)~(e)~(r)~(e)~
Being a child is one of the hardest things a person can do.
Being a twin, harder.
Being the twin that's always behind, even harder
Being the twin that's behind when your parents are insane? Harder still.
But being me? That's the hardest of them all.
I mean, how many people can say that they're twin of the most perfect girl on earth? Sister of the most perfect boy? Daughter of the most perfect woman and the most perfect man? Only me. Only I can claim such a title.
When we take family pictures, I'm usually near the back, if even in the picture. When Mum introduces us to her newest acquaintances, her words go like this, usually: "This is my son, Ian. Yes, I have told you about him. The chess genius? Of course you remember him. He plays polo excellently, too. And her? This is Natalie, my daughter. Isn't she gorgeous? She's going to grow up just like me, I am certain."
And then the visitor asks who Natalie's "darling little friend" is. And Mum turns to see me sitting in my chair garbling about something, and she glares at me to be quiet. She quickly turns around to the guest, applying a fake smile and saying, "Oh, her? That's my other daughter, Isabel. Yes, named after me."
And the visitor turns to me and puts a giant cheery smile on her face and says really slowly and really loudly, "Hiiiiii, Ihhhhhsahhhbelllll."
And I say, "H-h-h-h-hhhhaiy, m-m-m-marsssusss."
And the lady turns back to my mom, gives her some phony compliment and leaves immediately.
It's come to the time when she doesn't take me visiting anymore.
My name is Isabel Kabra. I am eleven years old. I am the child of the most powerful people on the earth, practically.
And I have cerebral palsy.
~(w)~(a)~(s)~()~(n)~(o)~
When I was born, I seemed perfectly normal. I just had a funny expression on my face, that's all. My father thought I was just in awe at coming into this beautiful world, and since I was out half a minute before my twin, I was given the honor of my mother's name. They named me before the doctors came in to test the both of us, and it was too late to switch names when they came back three hours later and said that something was wrong with me.
Three weeks I stayed in the hospital, being prodded at and analyzed by doctors They finally figured out that I would be disabled forever, and waited for my family to come back to tell them the news. Because I was alone there. Mum and Dad and my brother and even my little twin, they all just left me there. So they wouldn't have to be involved with the whole process.
It's almost as if it was a foreshadowing to the future.
I'm just as alone now as I was eleven years ago, except for that now, I realize it. And I feel what it feels like to be alone.
My mother and father pretended interest in me for a time, but that faded quickly and they simply assigned me to a nursemaid to be watched over.
Anybody who said that Isabel was my mom, I could have shot. True, she was the one who birthed me, brought me into this world, and all of that nonsense. But she wasn't a mom—she should never have been allowed to have children, as she had the whole idea of motherhood wrong—and she most certainly did not want to be accredited the title of "Isabel's mom." And so I basically stayed with my nanny, the one person who actually acted like a mother to me, in the west wing of the Kabra Mansion. I got the whole thing to myself! Wasn't I lucky?
No.
Never.
The first Sunday of every month, my father would condescend to visit me, ask me how I was doing and if I was in need of anything. His "visits" lasted ten minutes at most, and both of us were always dying for the visit to end by the time he left. My mother only came down to scold me when I wasn't progressing at anything at the rate she wanted. My siblings? They forgot I even existed, in essence.
It wasn't that I was dumb or had a weak mind. In fact, the one time Ian tried to socialize with me (it was because he needed money and I received a generous allowance), I beat him at chess. It was that, in front of my mind, blocking anything from escaping, were a portcullis and a gate: my mouth and my appearance. I could think; of course I would think. I still was human. But I couldn't say what I wanted to say, and the sight of me drooling on my sweater with my arms spazzing wildly around me turned anybody against me. Well, not as much against me as not for me. Nobody thought I could win.
And so I started believing it, too. Whereas I had used to try to be of use sometimes, putting my own clothes on and struggling with the buttons for minutes upon minutes, I now accepted that it was pointless to try, because I would never be anything. And so why did it even matter?
Mum came down to my room one night and sat me down in my wheelchair right away. She had the most evil look on her face I had ever seen. As if she wanted to pound me and my problems down into the earth so she would never have to see them again.
"Now listen to me, Isabel. I will say it bluntly. You. Are. A. Failure. Isabel, you are a failure. Today, your siblings left on a journey around the world for a Clue hunt which they are going to win, and you? You are stuck in this chair as a useless, pathetic, challenged idiot, and you will never change. You do not even try, Isabel. When you speak, it's improperly, informally, and so garbled that no one can understand what you're saying. Did you hear me? I know you can hear me. No. One. Just become something, Isabel. You use your idiotism as an excuse; you act like you can't do anything, but I know you're listening to every word I'm saying right now. Isabel, you are worthless. Completely worthless. And nobody will ever really even try to love you unless you do something with yourself. Uselessness is FLO, Isabel, and you're useless. Fix that."
And she left right away, probably to arrange a flight for Ian and Natalie to travel around the world and find their Clues.
When most people cry, it either comes out trickling gently, silently down their cheeks or out of their mouth in sobs. Me? I scream. I scream and scream and scream. And when I'm done, I never feel any better.
Ever.
I had learned, though; I could not wallow in self-pity, or else somebody would strike again. Instead, I found my nursemaid and dragged her to a computer, where she proceeded to send an email on my behalf just as I said for her to write.
"Dear Mr. McIntyre,
"My name is Isabel Kabra. Isabel's daughter. I want to help you. Whatever side you're on, it must be right…"
~(m)~(i)~(s)~(t)~(a)~(k)~(e)~
One month later, and I had won.
I had.
Not my brother, not my sister, not even either of my parents. My mother was in jail. My father? Who knows?
And me?
I had won.
I joined the Madrigal work and gradually helped Amy and Dan Cahill through the hunt, doing as much as possible to help them win, because they were the only team that really could win. The only team who deserved to win. I did feel somewhat guilty, betraying my family and all, but they had never done anything for me, so I didn't see a reason to feel obliged.
I had been feeling sort of differently, though. The whole Madrigal thing was rubbing off on me, I could tell. And for the first time in oh-so-many years, I thought I could do something. And so when my mother almost killed my brother and sister in the gauntlet, I was shocked.
Devastated.
I knew my mother had been mean, wicked, cruel, evil; I had always known. But that much? I never ever would have even thought to guess. And so when my siblings came home again, Natalie limping, Ian looking like all the problems of the world were on his shoulders, I was waiting for them at the gate.
They nodded at me as if I were a servant and continued into the house.
I didn't understand it. Wouldn't the Clue hunt have done at least something to them, made them change just the slightest bit? Had they not felt anything?
No.
Yes.
I was sitting in my room a few hours later when I heard a knock on my bedroom door. "Cuuuhmmm innnn!" I said, and the door opened. Ian walked in.
Ian.
Never would I have expected that right then, but then I told myself that he was probably taking over my father's job of checking on me. "I a-a-ammm ffffiyunnn, Iannn. I a-ammm dowig well in sh-sh-sh-shool. A-and—"
"Shhh," Ian said, and I looked at him funny. He sat on my bed and turned to face me.
"Listen, Isabel," and I knew it was coming again. My siblings were still just the same as they had always been, just the same as Mum. He was about to tell me about how little I had helped them and how loser-like I was and how I was a disgrace to the family and—
"I love you."
It was official. My brother was mad. This whole parents-leaving thing was really getting to him.
"No, really, Isabel. Going through the Clue hunt, as a Lucian, I watched all of the other teams carefully, one team in particular—the Cahills. Yes, I know you helped them. That was a decent choice on your part. As I was saying, I watched them, and I saw the relationship the two had between each other. It was close, bonded, strong, and I couldn't break it. And watching it was incredible. And I needed that. I need that, especially now. So I want to start over again, if I can. Shall you be my friend, eventually? I know that I have not always been as attentive as I should have been, but I wish to start over. May I?"
I dumbly nodded at my brother, wondering how he had become so different. He stood up abruptly.
"Good. Good, Isabel. And do not tell anybody we discussed this. It would seem quite peculiar beside their image of me. We all have reputations we need to keep up." He left my room as quietly as he had came in, but not before I noticed the tiniest bit of red on his cheeks.
Maybe he did have a heart, somewhere in there. Maybe Natalie did, too.
Maybe I did, too.
~(a)~(t)~()~(a)~(l)~(l)`
"Two beautiful children and a monster."
"I can't believe she gets my name, and not the other girl."
"There must have been a mistake."
But there wasn't a mistake. It was all just right.
~(P)~(E)~(R)~(F)~(E)~(C)~(T)~