Alice is seven years old when she learns that she doesn't share everything with her sister.
It was just a test, everyone had to take it, but only she gets to sit between her parents in front of Headmistress Constantine's desk because of the results. Her insides twist with a discomfort she's only felt when sick and daddy sits by the bed reading stories and feeding her soup.
Fear that she's done so awful, her parents had to be called in.
Her legs kick anxiously to and fro, the chair too big for her feet to touch the ground, and she keeps glancing back to the door where Dorothy waits on the other side.
"Stop it sweetheart," Mommy says, a firm hand placed on her knee.
Alice's legs cease instantly, but the hallow feeling in her stomach carries on. Daddy glances down, gives the same goofy grin he's been flashing since she was a baby, but it offers little relief. She wishes she had her book, it always makes her feel better, or her stuffed rabbit Whitey.
At the very least she wants Dorothy in the room, her sister's hand always making her feel braver than she is.
"Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey," the headmistress starts. "I know you must be curious as to why I asked you here today."
"Nothing bad I hope," Daddy says.
Alice stares at her hands, fidgeting endlessly in her lap, her mind scrambling for anything else she may have done to be in so much trouble.
"Quite the opposite," Headmistress Constantine replies in earnest. "Your little Alice here has received the highest score on her mid-year aptitude test."
"In her class?" Mommy asks.
Alice looks up just enough to see the headmistress shake her head.
"Her grade?" Daddy offers.
"That I've ever had the privilege to see," the headmistress says leaning forward, clasping her hands as she does.
Alice's cheeks flush as mommy and daddy share a look, the shock and awe obvious, even to one as young as she.
"I asked you here," Constantine goes on, "to discuss possible advancement."
Opposite hands hug opposite shoulders, Alice feeling like the peanut butter in a sandwich she doesn't remember asking for, while the adults talk about her future and don't even think to include her in the conversation.
She wriggles out of her parents embrace, sits up and high as she can in the big chair, and looks Headmistress Constantine square in the eye.
"Can Dorothy come?"
Her face goes blank a second too long, that awkward silence adults get when they try to figure out just how much a girl like her can understand, even after she's stymied them into realizing she can understand quite a bit.
She feels Daddy's hand on her back, Mommy's on the top of her head.
Well, Alice thinks. That's the end of that.
/\
Dorothy is nine years old when inspiration and mischief combine in the perfect mix of her young life.
Forced to attend some charity art event because the sitter backed out at the last minute, (as if Mom needed another reason to hate Aunt Jenny), she stands one step above Alice at the entrance of the gallery while they are made to promise to be on their best behavior.
Somehow she keeps her mouth shut while Dad lists off all the possible punishments if they step out of line, eyes pointed in her direction, and she knows he's thinking of the Hamptons incident just as she.
For the first hour, she and Alice stand obediently at their parent's sides, Dorothy listening to every (boring) adult's (boring) conversation about how this (boring) event is just so wonderful. She almost screams just for something to happen, when she spots an out.
Mom and Dad are so engrossed talking to some old guy with a pretty noticeable bald spot, that they haven't looked down for almost five whole minutes. She taps Alice's shoulder, before grabbing her elbow, swiftly and quietly pulling her away.
Dorothy almost giggles, she's so giddy with relief and blows the whole thing. They wander through a labyrinth of sculptures perched on pedestals, happily ignoring the signs that ask them not to and sneak touches.
Alice distracts unwitting adults with the cuteness of playing with her glasses and knowledge beyond her age, while Dorothy hides under the hors d'oeuvre table and ties their shoelaces together. They hide away inside a giant piece called 'Excess in Capitalism' (Alice actually read the plaque because only a nerd like her cares what these things are called) that just looks like a bunch of junk held together with wire. Jumping out at random passers by and causing more than one to spill champagne all over their fancy clothes.
The fun comes to an end when Dorothy notices that those gross little fish eggs everyone is eating, look almost exactly like the beads on one of her bracelets. She's in the process of inserting them into the dish, when a painting behind the table catches her eye.
It's not one of those old time ladies posing nude in a room full of vases, or a landscape made out of a million tiny dots, but an explosion of shapes and color that leaves her momentarily still. The stray thought of I can do that, entering her mind.
Alice coughs the signal a second too late, as Mom's hand snatches her wrist.
"That's enough" she hisses in that scary whisper scream of hers. "We're leaving."
She marches them swiftly through the gallery, almost too fast for their shorter legs to keep up, and doesn't lighten her grip on either of their wrists until they reach outside.
"Dorothy Isobel and Alice Eleanor," she starts, teeth clenched in motherly fury. "I have never been so embarrassed in my life. Tell me, did I raise you like this? Did I even once indicate that the behavior you exhibited tonight is acceptable?"
Alice flushes hotly and stares down at her shoes. Dorothy feels a slight sting of shame, if only for getting caught. Dad walks up, stands with arms crossed next to Mom, and surprisingly lets her go on instead of calming her down like usual.
"Your actions are reflective of us," she continues, eyes full of hurt and anger. "Of our family. Those people in there must think we're the worst parents in the world for having children behave in such a manner."
"You're not!" Alice interjects.
Mom's expression doesn't soften, not even when the tears spill down her sister's cheeks, and Dorothy knows then that they're really in for it when they get home.
"Well young lady," Mom demands. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
She looks at both her parents, hands moving to clasp behind her back.
"Can I have a paintbrush?"
/\
The girls are thirteen years old when they get into a fight over a Halloween costume.
Alice holds it with an outstretched arm in the middle of Dorothy's room, a proud smile on her face.
"I'm not wearing that," she says flatly, barely looking up from her tablet.
The smile drops instantly.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to. You wear it."
"But I got it for you! Look there's a basket and everything!"
"Okay," Dorothy sighs, rolling her eyes dramatically. "I get that you're like, totally obsessed with that girl who fell down the rabbit hole, but what makes you think I want to pretend to be some scared little interloper begging every passerby for help to find my way home?"
Alice's face pinches in disappointment.
"You don't like it? Fine! Forget it! Just... Forget it!"
She lets the dress and basket drop to the floor storming out of the room. Dorothy keeps playing her game and doesn't look up a few minutes later when the tell tale tap of her father's knuckles on the door frame is meant for her to.
"Everything okay?" He asks, even though it's obvious otherwise.
"Sure," she replies, still focused.
From the corner of her eye, she watches him stay in the door a few seconds before stepping inside and picking the dress up from the carpet.
"That sounded harsh," he comments, taking a seat on the bed.
"You were listening?"
"I heard," he answers with a shrug. "Doesn't mean I was listening."
Dorothy still doesn't look up.
"It was a nice thing she did."
She sighs, pausing her game and meeting her father's eyes.
"Why does she have to be a baby all the time?"
"Technically, she is the baby."
"Only by minutes. Dad, she acts like she's six around Halloween, and has worn the same costume every year since you started letting us pick for ourselves. And every year she wants us to do some variation of the theme, and I'm sorry but I'm so over it, I have a reputation to uphold."
"Oh boy," he mutters, a slight tremor in his heart at the prospect of dealing with yet another queen.
"I don't know what you and Mom were thinking with this name scheme. It's not cute, you know? People think they know us because they read something once. Like we're the freakin' storybook twins or something."
"That doesn't sound so bad."
Dorothy's scowl conveys that it is certainly bad enough.
"Ally's ridiculous thing with that girl really doesn't help."
Dan looks down at the dress spread across his lap, hands smoothing out the blue gingham.
"You weren't named after the book."
"What?"
"Do you really think," he starts, turning to her with a knowing grin. "That your mother would name you after a farm girl from Kansas?"
Dorothy returns the grin. She really wouldn't.
"We fought over what to call you," he continues. Tooth and nail. Everything I wanted, she hated. Everything she wanted, I found pretentious. So one night, we're watching Carmen-"
"What's that?"
He nods at her tablet.
"Look it up. Anyway, Dorothy Dandridge comes onscreen and we both just kind of looked at each other. Suffice to say, the arguing pretty much stopped."
"Hard to imagine you and Mom agreeing on anything," Dorothy retorts, scrolling through all the new information presented before her.
"A rare moment," he agrees.
"She's beautiful," she says, offering the picture for him to see.
"Call me biased, but I think you have her beat."
"Duh, but still, wow."
"We had no idea that there were two of you," he goes on. "To this day I can't even imagine with all of modern medicine how that happened. But seeing you in your Mom's arms, and holding her in mine, it felt like wonderland. So I called her Alice. It wasn't planned."
"So it's your fault?"
"Please don't talk like you mother, it's unsettling. Though I guess, if you must put it in those terms, it is."
He puts a hand on her shoulder, the other offering another look at the dress.
"I know how the dynamic works, but Alice doesn't ask much of you, it won't hurt to indulge her for one night."
Dorothy groans, reaching out to run her fingers over the fabric. Though it feels beneath her, she does look good in blue.
"I promise nothing."