Birdie’s Other Twin

When I was in the third grade, I used to do things like read Scientific American and write stories about black holes and wonder if there was someone, somewhere in this whole wide world that looked just like me, born to another mother, speaking another language, but who also liked pickles, science, sports, and art.

And I hadn’t thought much about this kind of thinking until our night nanny told us her granddaughter had a doll that looked uncannily like Birdie. So she snuck the doll out of her house and brought it over the other night. And the next morning, just after Birdie woke up, we put them side-by-side on a chair and there it was, her twin in pliable plastic.