Elinor didn't retaliate straight away – other than a few childish pranks like swapping the salt and sugar shakers and hiding alarm clocks under the beds – and Charlotte was almost convinced that she was going to get away with the prank they'd pulled on the other girl. In reality, however, Elinor was biding her time until the perfect moment to get her own back. She waited until the dress rehearsal for the afternoon performance where she was playing Rizzo to completely embarrass the other girl in front of the cast and crew.

They were rehearsing the school dance scene when Elinor, with the most innocent expression she could muster on her face, bumped into Charlotte. The glass in her hand had tipped spilling milkshake all down Charlotte's costume. Under the guise of helping her, Elinor had made the situation worse by spilling Charlotte's own drink down her as well, before knocking her off her stool into the floor.

"Oops." She muttered, a triumphant smirk on her face as everyone burst out laughing at the red-faced girl, sprawled on the stage. "I am so sorry."

Growling angrily, Charlotte launched herself at Elinor, grabbing a fistful of her hair and wrestling her onto the ground. Nancy did her best to separate the two girls, gasping as a stray fist caught her on the cheek and she reeled backwards, clutching her face.

"Girls!" She shouted, managing to separate them with the help of some of the boys in the cast. "Stop!" When they started shouting at her, defending themselves and accusing the other of being to blame, she held up her hands. "Enough! Come with me, both of you."

Muttering angrily, they followed her out of the room and into the office that they were using as the director's space. Neither of them spoke as she indicated that they should take a seat, folding their arms and dropping heavily onto the sofa. Looking between the two, scowling faces, Nancy realised that they were even more alike than she'd previously thought.

Ordering them to stay where they were, she darted out for a couple of moments to call their parents, telling them that there was no way they could stay for the rest of the course after their behaviour. Huffing angrily, Elinor felt hot tears jumping into her eyes at the realisation that she had lost her starring role because of the other girl. Charlotte rolled her eyes and shrugged, pretending that she wasn't at all bothered by the situation. They sat in resolute silence, refusing to look at each other, until Nancy reappeared in the office.

"Now, Charley–"

"I'm Elinor!"

"Sorry, Elinor…" She winced at the venom directed towards her at the slip up. "Elinor, your mother's caught up in surgery and won't be able to come and collect you until at least tomorrow. Charlotte, your mother is cutting her trip short, but she wouldn't be able to get here until tomorrow either. I've agreed to let you both stay until the end of the course… it's only two more days, but there is no way you can be allowed to keep your roles in the musical."

"Wonderful."

"I'm trusting you to behave yourselves from now on." Nancy told them sternly, ignoring the sarcasm directed at her. "Obviously there has to be some extra punishment, so I'm moving you to the twin room at the end of the corridor." At once they started complaining against her decision, but the woman stood firm. "Move."

Trudging behind her to the corridor where the rooms were, they disappeared to gather up their things, before following her further along to the room where they would be spending their final nights at the Walden Hotel. Elinor pushed her way into the room first, looking between the beds before throwing her things onto the one closest to the window. Rolling her eyes Charlotte stalked inside and dumped her holdall on the other bed.

Lying on it, kicking her bag off at the same time, Charlotte stared up at the ceiling irritably. The other girl was rifling through her many bags looking for something and that just served to annoy her new roommate even more. Huffing, Charlotte rolled her eyes before sitting up and glaring at Elinor.

"What are you looking for?"

"Nothing."

"Fine!" Charlotte muttered, dropping back down onto the mattress. "I was just going to offer to help."

There was a pause. "My teddy, OK?"

Elinor looked at the other girl as though she expected her to laugh at her. Instead Charlotte shrugged. "Want a hand?"

Reluctantly Elinor nodded and allowed her to help her search through her belongings for the teddy bear. Finally they found it, wrapped up in a t-shirt that looked smarter than anything Charlotte owned but Elinor announced was part of her sleepwear. Once they'd tidied everything away, the two girls sat together on Elinor's bed. She held her teddy on her lap, worrying at his ears as they both tried to think of something to say.

"My mother gave him to me when I was a baby." Elinor said at last, not meeting Charlotte's eyes. "I haven't seen her since I was about one, so…"

"What's his name?"

"Cuppy."

"What?"

"Yeah… weird, I know, but…" Elinor shrugged, clutching the balding teddy to her chest.

Charlotte chewed her lip. "I thought Nancy said that your mum was coming to pick you up tomorrow."

"Yeah, I…" Elinor turned to fix her with a fierce, defensive stare. "I have two mums. Or, I did…" When a smile tugged at the corners of Charlotte's lips, she scowled. "You got a problem with that?"

She shook her head. "No, not at all. My ma's a lesbian. Well… apart from that ridiculous mini-blip known as Marcus. But apart from that absolutely tragic lapse in judgement, she's as gay as they come."

"Ouch… I had a horrendous step-dad too… Edward." Elinor pulled a face. "Worst thing is, even though Mum came to her senses and divorced him he keeps hanging around, hoping she'll take him back. You wouldn't believe what I've tried, but I can't get rid of him."

"Gross."

They looked at each other and started laughing. Neither was really sure why, but the idea that both of their mothers were gay and surgeons and they had terrible stepfathers seemed to be an exceptionally fortunate thing for them to bond over. Ten minutes later they were trading stories about Marcus and Edward, although Elinor had far more to tell because her stepfather had stuck around a lot longer than Charlotte's.

"So, admit it, you hated me so much because you fancy Adam." Charlotte challenged with a smirk on her face.

Elinor shrugged. "Maybe… but I just really wanted to be Sandy, too."

"To be honest, I wasn't that bothered. I would have preferred to be Rizzo, but you were being such a dick about it that I refused to give in."

"Really?"

"Yeah, totally." Charlotte shrugged. "I'm only here because there was no one to look after me. Mama's at a trauma conference and Gramps is at some business retreat thing. My Uncle Fletch would have looked after me, but he's got four kids of his own to deal with while trying to do double shifts, so it was a too tough for him, apparently. He's not actually my uncle, just Ma's best mate. Whenever she gets a new job she talks the management into giving him one too; not that he's not amazing at his job, because he really is." She flopped back onto the bed dramatically. "When I'm fifteen he said he'll pay me for taking care of the kids, but I don't know if he can actually afford that."

"When's will you be fifteen?"

"My birthday's October 11th, so only two months now."

"What?" Elinor blinked at her. "My birthday is October 11th, too!"

Laughing, the other girl sat up. "No way? That's so weird. Are you serious?"

"Yeah, totally serious!"

"Maybe we're secretly twins or something." Charlotte teased.

At her words, Elinor went quiet, thinking hard. After a couple of moments she spoke, changing the topic of conversation completely. "What's your mum like?"

"Chaotic, forgetful, hazardous to my health, but she's also the sweetest human ever and she's so funny. There was this one time she–"

"What about your other mum? The one who left? What was she like?"

Charlotte's face dropped and she shrugged, looking at her hands in her lap. "I don't know. Mama refuses to talk about her. I never pushed it because she was in the army and I didn't want to upset her while she was home. Gramps told me she was brilliant and beautiful and dedicated to her career… but not much else."

"How can you not know much about your second parent?" Elinor asked, arching an eyebrow. There was something in her eyes, however, that Charlotte couldn't quite put her finger on. "You must know what she looks like, at least?"

"We have a photo… just one. It was taken at their graduation with both my mothers and both sets of Grandparents. Mama kept it because–"

"It's the only photo with all of them in it?"

"How did you–?"

"We've got the same one." Elinor murmured. "At least it sounds like the same one. They're standing outside a pub and–"

"Mothers are both wearing blue dresses?"

"Yeah…"

So…"

"This is too crazy." Charlotte shook her head, unable to believe what was happening. "I mean… it can't be…"

"Wait… let's think about this for a minute." Elinor suggested, frowning and shaking her head. "We look similar–"

"Babe, we're identical."

"Yeah…OK. But we've also got the same birthday. We both have two mums, who are surgeons, but we've never met one of them. We have the same photo of our parents…"

Charlotte shook her head. "I know what you're suggesting, but this is huge, El. I mean… that's fourteen years of lying to us. I don't think my mother would do that."

"Mine probably would." Elinor muttered with a frown.

"Would she?"

There was a long pause as she considered her answer. "No. I mean… I think… I think if she thought she was protecting me from something she would."

"If only they let us bring phones to this stupid thing. I mean, I've got about a million photos of my Ma on my phone." Standing up, Charlotte started pacing around the room. "This is so stupid! The only thing I know about my mother is her name and… Mama gets upset if I ask about her so I don't even know where she lives now. And you'd think that Serena McKinnie would be easy enough to track down but–"

"What did you say?"

"Apparently my mother doesn't have social media, so–"

"No, I mean… what was her name?"

"Serena McKinnie. That's all I know."

Elinor put her hands on Charlotte's shoulders. "My mum is called Serena Campbell… but her maiden name was Serena McKinnie." She took a deep breath. "Is your mother's name Bernie?"

"Yes!" She nodded vehemently. "Berenice Wolfe… Bernie." She gazed at the other girl open mouthed. "So if your Mum is my Mum and my Ma is your Ma then we're… you're… we're like sisters?"

"Charlotte, it's better than that. We're like twins."