A pair of twins cause headaches at Hayfield Hall.

An unauthorised story set in the SPA Universe created by Karen Page. These events are intended to take place one year after the events described in “A New Style of Education.” Reading that story first is essential.

Note: This story assumes the counselling team at Hayfield Hall does not change significantly as a result of events yet to be revealed in Karen's story.

Chapter 7

Jayne, the second year leader, was sitting at the computer in Keith’s office when as Keith entered the room.

Keith was followed by Jordan and Justin — now dressed identically in trousers and matching zippered sweatshirts. Jordan’s hair had been straightened and now hung loosely to just below the top of his shoulders. Justin’s hair, freed from its ponytail, also hung loosely, the same length as Jordan’s. With their clothes and hair the same, there was now no obvious way to tell the difference between the twins.

“Hey!” said Jayne. “Come on over here. I need Jordan first.”

Jordan glanced at his brother and then walked over, looking doubtful. Jayne held up a camera linked to the computer.

“Smile!”

Jordan managed a tentative smile and the camera flashed. Within a second the image was shown on the computer screen. Jayne typed a few keys and the picture on the screen shrunk and joined a row of three pictures: Jordan, then Alice then Peter with Jordan’s full name across the top.

“Now put your right eye to the iris scanner! That’s it! Now put your thumb on this plate! Excellent. We’re done. Now Justin!”

Jayne went through the same process with Justin and then started packing up her equipment.

"Like we talked about before, I'm going to put an extra function on your PDAs. Each morning, you will have a menu, just select whether you are presenting as Jordan or Alice or Peter for the day. Or in Justin’s case, your choices will obviously be Justin or Alice or Peter. You can change it later in the day if you need to. Any messages addressed to Peter will go to whoever is presenting as Peter and will be available to either of you when you're presenting as Peter. Any messages addressed to Justin will go privately to Justin, whoever you're presenting as. Same for Alice and for Jordan. I’m off to do the programming now. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll upload it as soon as I’m done. If you have any problems, talk to me — or to talk to David." She grinned and shrugged. "One of us will help you."

"You won't … tell anybody," said Justin. "About us, I mean!"

"Of course not," said Jayne, looking offended. "You're secret is safe with me. I'm used to keeping secrets. When you decide to come out to the rest of us, I promise to be as surprised as everybody else."

"Jayne is trusted with a number of secrets around the school," said Keith. "She's a year leader and our computer whiz, so she knows a lot more about what goes on around here than even I do."

"I doubt that," said Jayne. "Keith won't tell me what you talk about in a session for example — that's private. The only reason I know about you guys is because you asked for help getting the PDAs to work properly. Did you notice that Keith left it to you to explain what you wanted from me. If he'd said anything, he would be revealing private stuff to another student. Apart from Mr Hobson and the other support staff, absolutely nobody else in the school will know what's going on with you two until you're ready to tell us. I promise you that."

Jayne bundled her equipment into a bag and slipped the bag over her shoulder.

"Well! I'm off to do that programming. See you around."

With a cheerful wave Jayne walked out of the room.

Justin watched Jayne walk out and close the door. Then he turned to Keith.

“Does this mean we don’t have to stay like this?” said the little, wavering voice.

“We don’t want to stay like this,” said Jordan in a similar voice.

“No, you’re like this because of Mix Up Monday. I explained that to you,” said Keith. “Tomorrow you can go back to being Alice and Peter if that’s what you want. Maybe even tonight if that’s what you would prefer.”

The two of them clutched each other’s hands and sat together on the sofa. They were both huddled together and looked very insecure.

“You really are identical twins, aren’t you?” said Keith with an encouraging smile.

They nodded in unison.

“Is there any way in which you look different?”

“Jordan has a little black spot on his hip,” said Justin.

“Sometimes Justin uses a pen to make a matching mark on his hip but it never really looks right,” said Jordan.

“May I see it?” asked Keith.

Jordan nodded and rolled to one side, then pulled down the waistband of his trousers. Keith looked at the mole on his hip for a moment and then sat back on his chair and waited while Jordan adjusted his trousers and sat properly again.

“Anything else?”

“Justin got a cut on the back of his wrist when he was little. It made a small scar. Later on I got a knife and cut myself in the same place so I’d have a scar too, but I cut too big and my scar turned out too big. Then Justin cut himself again so now our scars are about the same — but they aren’t exactly the same.”

“May I see?”

Both boys held out their left wrists and Keith studied the two scars for a moment.

“They aren’t very big or very noticeable. When you start wearing a watch, I’m sure they’ll be completely hidden.”

Both boys looked at each other and nodded.

“Sometimes Alice wears a bracelet around her wrist,” said Jordan.

“Ah yes, Alice. Which one of you was being Alice when I interviewed you?”

They looked at each other and shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jordan.

“We both remember it,” added Justin.

Keith sat and waited. The twins looked at each other.

“I think it was you, wasn’t it?” said Jordan.

“Yes, that’s right. It was me,” said Justin.

Keith looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Do you often have trouble like that? Remembering which of you was which?”

“It’s never mattered before now,” said Jordan.

“We just remember what Alice did and what Peter did,” added Justin.

“But you remember what both Alice and Peter did?”

The two twins nodded in unison.

“If I was talking to Alice, would she remember what Peter has done?”

The twins looked confused.

“Alice and Peter talk all the time so Alice knows what Peter has done.”

“Ah! I see.”

Keith listened to Quentin whispering in his ear for a moment. Quentin had been watching through the closed circuit tv and had an idea.

“Have either of you ever had any blackouts?” asked Keith.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when time seems to suddenly jump and you have no idea what’s been happening. For example, you might suddenly wake up sitting in class at school and the last thing you remember is going to bed the night before.”

They both looked at each other and then shook there heads in unison.

“Nothing like that.”

Keith nodded. “Do you get panic attacks?”

They both shook their heads.

“What about Alice and Peter? Do either of them get panic attacks?”

“Alice hates spiders,” said Jordan. “But Peter stomps on them for her.”

“Alice hates spiders but Peter stomps on them,” repeated Keith.

“Yes!” they said in unison.

“Is that all the time or maybe only every second day?”

The twins frowned and looked at each other.

“You don’t see spiders every day,” said Justin.

“But every time Alice sees a spider, she gets scared and Peter stomps on it.”

“Huh!” said Keith. “What about Jordan and Justin? What do you think of spiders?”

They looked at each other and shrugged.

"We don’t really like them," said Justin.

Keith sat quietly for a moment while he listened to a conversation in his earpiece.

“Have either of you ever had to be Alice for more than one day in a row?”

They both nodded.

“Alice got an ear infection,” said Justin. “And Peter didn’t get it.”

“Alice had to go to the doctor and get ear drops and everything.” said Jordan.

“Peter had to go to school. He wanted to stay home with Alice but he wasn’t allowed,” added Justin.

“So did Jordan get the ear infection, or did Justin get it.”

They both looked puzzled. “It was Alice,” they said in unison.

Keith chewed his lip for a moment.

“How did Peter feel while Alice was sick?”

“He didn’t like it. He was sad all the time,” said Jordan.

“He was angry, too,” said Jordan. “He got into trouble for fighting.”

“Fighting?” asked Keith.

“Yeah. He got punched, right here,” said Justin pointing at the side of his stomach.

“It really hurt!” they both said in unison, each rubbing their stomach where Justin had pointed.

Keith nodded. “I can believe that. How did Alice feel while she was sick?”

“She felt sick!” said Jordan. “Duh!”

“She got sad, too,” said Justin. “And angry.”

“She broke two plates because she threw them on the floor.”

“Oh yeah! I forgot that. She got smacked for that.”

“Right on the bottom!”

“It didn’t really hurt because she was wearing a dressing gown.”

“But she cried anyway.”

Keith nodded.

“Have Alice and Peter ever been away from each other for more than one day?”

They both shook their heads in unison.

“Apart from the time you just told me about, have Alice or Peter ever been in trouble for fighting or for breaking plates or anything like that?”

They both shook their heads in unison.

“Not for bad stuff like that,” said Justin.

“Peter’s naughty sometimes, but it’s always little stuff like not doing chores,” said Jordan.

“Alice is naughtier than Peter,” said Justin.

“Is not,” said Jordan.

“Is too!”

“Is not!”

“Alice got more detentions at school than Peter!” said Justin.

“Oh!” said Jordan and tipped his head on one side. “Maybe that’s true. But mostly that was because of those girls being mean. She got caught a few times getting revenge.”

“Yeah! I guess! But she only did that so the teacher would ask why and then the mean girls got detentions, too.”

Keith nodded. “It sounds like Alice can be a bit sneaky.”

Both twins opened their mouths to object but closed their mouths without saying anything. Then they both shrugged.

“Okay,” said Keith. “Let’s go back to talking about Jordan and Justin.”

The twins had been sitting forward and becoming more and more animated during the previous conversation. Now they shrank back into themselves and looked at Keith with wide eyes.

Keith saw that and silently changed his mind about what he was going to ask.

“Back when you were young — say younger than seven — did you ever dress up like girls?”

They both nodded in unison.

“Did you do it together, or just one at a time?”

“Together,” they both whispered in unison.

“Did you do that a lot?”

They nodded again.

“Did your parents know?”

They nodded.

“Not at first,” said Jordan in a quiet voice. “But then one day, Daddy came upstairs and found us wearing Mummy’s dresses.”

“I think Mummy knew before then,” said Justin. “But she didn’t say anything.”

“Oh!” said Jordan. “I don’t remember that.”

“After that, Mummy and Daddy bought us clothes to wear — girls’ clothes,” said Justin.

“Did you wear girls’ clothes all the time?”

“No!” they said in unison.

“Never to school,” said Jordan. “We always wore boys clothes to school.”

“Besides, boys clothes are better for outside games,” said Justin.

“Like climbing trees, and playing ball,” added Jordan, nodding.

“And playing with boys,” added Justin.

“But girls’ clothes are better for playing with girls,” said Jordan.

“And for looking pretty, and for playing with girl toys,” added Justin.

“You played with other girls when you were dressed as girls?”

“Mummy took us in the car to the next town and we went to Rainbow Guides there,” said Justin.

“It was fun. We did lots of fun activities. We got invited to some parties. But we stopped going after a while.”

“I don’t remember why.”

Jordan shrugged. “Me neither.”

“How would you feel if I asked you both to wear dresses for the rest of today?”

They looked at each other and shrugged.

“How would you feel if I asked you both to be Alice for the rest of today?”

“That would be weird,” said Justin.

“There’s only one Alice,” said Jordan.

“And what would happen to Peter?”

“Yeah! Peter wouldn’t like that.”

“Oh!” said Keith. “Let’s go back to when you were living with your parents and sometimes dressing up as girls. Were there any times when only one of you was dressed like a girl and the other one dressed as a boy?”

Keith watched as the twins relaxed and smiled as they remembered.

“Yeah! Mummy and Daddy were teaching us to dance — Cinderella at the Ball type dancing — not pop music dancing,” said Justin.

“You need a boy and a girl for that, so we took turns,” said Jordan.

“Sometimes, Mummy and Daddy would make it like a grown up date with dining and dancing,” said Justin. “And Peter would bring flowers for Alice and kiss her hand and stuff like that. And then we'd eat dinner with candles and then we'd dance and all the crowd would watch and sigh and say 'What a lovely couple!'”

The two twins had happy little smiles on their faces as they looked off into the distance.

“And sometimes we would be Princess Alice and Prince Peter at the ball and all the crowds would wave and cheer,” said Jordan as he started swaying from side to side.

"And you took turns being Peter or Alice?" asked Keith.

They both nodded happily.

"Which was more fun? Being Peter or being Alice?" asked Keith.

They shrugged without losing their dreamy expressions.

"It was fun to do both," said Jordan.

"Sometimes we would be movie stars at a big opening," said Justin. "The crowd would take photos and ask for autographs while Alice and Peter walked up the red carpet and then we’d go inside and dance while everyone watched and took photos for the magazines."

“It sounds like you had a lot of fun with your parents.

They nodded happily.

Then Jordan went still and a tear started trickling down his face.

“What are you thinking about?”

“That’s what we were doing the night …”

Justin's breath caught in a gasp and he started crying too.

“The night of the fire?” asked Keith.

They both nodded in unison. Now both of them sat silently with tears trickling down their faces.

Keith went over and knelt in front of them, rubbing their outside arms gently. He talked to them softly while they cried.

In his ear, Keith heard Quentin’s voice.

“That was nicely done. You brought them to where Justin and Jordan can begin to grieve for themselves instead of hiding behind Alice and Peter. And you did it quite gently. I doubt if you’ll achieve much more this session.”

Then Rachel’s voice took over. “This was a very revealing session. You’ve made a lot of progress. Let’s talk more when you finish up here.”