The Midnight Twins by Jacquelyn Mitchard

her pancakes into strips of eight, then cutting them into smaller strips of sixteen. “That is how we feel.”
    Campbell said sadly, “Merry, I meant you and me. I meant Mally and you and me. That you girls are part of me.”
    “Oh,” Meredith said. Now she had hurt her mom. “It’s not like we don’t love you, Mom.”
    “I know that,” Campbell answered. “You’re wasting that food. I made it from scratch, not a mix. Why don’t you try eating a bite?” Merry did. It was cold. “So?” Campbell prompted her.
    “Well, we dream the same things.”
    “I know that. You used to sleepwalk and talk about them.”
    “We did?”
    “When you were two or three.”
    “Now we don’t anymore.”
    “Don’t sleepwalk?”
    “Don’t have the same dreams at the same time.”
    “Ah, well. Maybe it’s just a temporary thing. Does it bother you? Does Mally mind more than you?”
    “She minds more than I do, but I would mind more if I let myself think about it,” Merry said. “It used to be like being in the same . . . mmm . . . airplane. Like, you could look out the windows and talk to other people, but you were always going the same place and you could always see where the other one was.”
    “And now you can’t.”
    “Not when we’re asleep.”
    “But you sleep when you’re asleep,” Campbell said helplessly.
    “Although I have to say, part of why I stayed up is that you look like you haven’t been sleeping that much.”
    “Do I look gross?” Merry asked, nearly dropping her fork.
    “No! Just tired.”
    “You know the old joke. When people say you look good, they mean you lost weight. When they say you look tired, they mean you look like . . .”
    “Like crap,” said Campbell. “I know the joke.”
    Tim came into the kitchen, poured his coffee, kissed Merry’s and Campbell’s heads, and wandered out to the car.
    “I never know how Dad gets to work when he’s basically still asleep,” Merry said.
    “Me either. Thank God for seat belts,” Campbell said. “So this dreaming thing . . .”
    “It’s not just dreaming now, but when we’re not—”
    They both looked up, as if they’d heard a crash, an impact of silence. Mallory stood in the doorway, dressed for school, her face linen white, her eyes shadowy.
    “Laybite,” she told Merry softly.
    Merry got up.
    “Mommy, Drew’s honking!” Meredith said, her face pinched with fear and anxiety.
    “Girls, wait . . . I’ll drive you both in.”
    “No, Mom. I have a test first hour,” Mallory said, and was out the door.
    Merry shrugged and followed.
    Campbell noticed that Merry had left her cheerleading bag, her prized green-and-white JV Ridgeline duffel, on the floor, for the first time since she had earned it, a year before. She stood up to run after her, but Drew was already passing their house on the way down the road toward school. Mallory sat in front, not speaking, staring straight ahead. Merry was in back, her head against the seat, her eyes closed.
    As soon as they were out of sight of the house, Drew glanced at Mally. “Put your belt on, Brynn,” he said, longing to touch her hand. You didn’t do that with Mallory, though. “What’s wrong with you?”
    “Didn’t sleep.”
    “How come?”
    “Storm kept me up,” she said.
    There wasn’t a drop on Drew’s car. The old grooved places in the sidewalks were dry. “I slept right through it. Must have been a bad one, to wake you up,” he said.
    Merry answered, without opening her eyes, “It was.”

MEETING PLACES
    With Caitlin Andersen in her proper place behind her, Mer-edith took her stance for “No More Take Backs,” their cheer dance at the Big Twist Junior Invitational.
    It had gotten them this far.
    Ridgeline was third in the competition, on the second day. All the parents had come along and spent the evening in the restaurant of the fancy hotel next to the conference center in Donovan, a ritzy town two hours upstate. Merry and Mallory had been up half the night,