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 4

“I’m getting a strange vibe off Peter and Alice,” said Keith.

“What do you mean?” asked Rachel. “They seem to be settling in very well. They even seem to have made friends amongst their year level.”

“They still block the doors with furniture while they sleep,” said Quentin. “And they watch everybody. A number of the staff have mentioned that.”

Keith shrugged. “That’s just a healthy dose of paranoia. Perfectly reasonable for a pair that have spent the last five years in welfare. That isn’t the problem. They’ll get over that gradually as they learn to trust us. In fact we've already made some progress with that. Over the last week they have definitely started to thaw. My strange vibe is to do with them as twins. As you know, before I came here, I worked with a number of sets of twins. That’s why I was put in charge of Peter and Alice. In the last few days, I’ve had sessions with each of them separately and both of them together. I can’t put my finger on it but something feels just a fraction off when I work with them.”

“Has anybody else had that reaction?” asked Quentin as he looked around the room.

He was met with a circle of shaking heads.

“Tomorrow might bring something out,” suggested Rachel. “The first Mix Up Monday seems to reveal a lot about the character of the new students.”

“I agree,” said Quentin. “We should all keep a careful eye on Peter and Alice tomorrow.”

Alice slipped through the door and closed it behind her. She looked over at Peter and giggled.

Peter was standing in front of a mirror wearing a dress with violet and green stripes. He was struggling to adjust a long red wig.

“This is wrong. I look like a prat!” said Peter.

“You really do,” said Alice. “You look like a boy doing a bad job of pretending to be a girl. I don’t like it. They shouldn’t be making you do this.”

“It feels like they want to humiliate me and my only defence is to play the clown. And it feels wrong to clown around with this stuff.”

"I’ve just been for a walk. This place is so weird," said Alice. "I still can't believe how many people here are like — you know — different. And even the ones who aren't, they accept it so easily. Like today. Everybody I saw is taking this whole dressing up thing so seriously. They’ve all made this huge effort. We can’t go out there and be silly about wearing the wrong clothes. I think we’d offend just about everybody. Anything else we could do is just too weird."

"I agree," said Peter. "Absolutely nobody has been mean to us since we arrived here — either students or staff. In fact most of them have gone out of their way to be kind. It was kind of disconcerting at first. I'm not going to be the first person to be mean to somebody by making fun of their issues with clothing and gender and stuff like that. Besides," he pointed at his reflection in the mirror, "this is just wrong!"

"It's bad enough for you," said Alice. "Even thinking about it feels totally wrong for me. I absolutely do NOT want to dress up like a boy. And this place really is so accepting. I swear I could walk out there and say I want to be a giraffe and they would all just nod and start trying to figure out how to tie my food onto tree branches so it would feel more natural for me."

Peter laughed. "Keith would probably say, 'What are the main things you think are stopping you from being a giraffe?'"

"He would too," said Alice. "Then he would go to you and say, 'How do you feel about your sister pretending to be a person while all the time she was really a giraffe?'"

They both had a good laugh about that. Then Alice sighed and took hold of Peter's arm. She laid her head on his shoulder and looked into the mirror.

"I'm really starting to like this place," she said. "I'm almost starting to feel safe here. I really don't want to mess it up by making fun of them. I can't do this thing today.

“I think we should go with Plan B,” said Peter.

“Be ourselves, you mean?”

“Yeah!”

******

The Year One breakfast table went quiet when Peter and Alice entered the room. They walked over and took their seats without taking any notice of the stares. Then some hissed whispers started up, teasing the twins for not taking part in the day.

Finally Peter glared around the table.

“Look! We tried, okay? And we couldn’t do it. It just felt too weird.”

Keith had been sitting quietly at the table and not saying anything until this point.

“If you had concerns about the day, why didn’t you talk to me about it yesterday. A couple of the other Year Ones spoke to their counsellors about today.”

“Yesterday we were just planning for me to wear an oversized dress and make a joke about it. Today I put on a dress and I felt like a total prat. I felt like I was being insensitive to everything some of the people here go through. Besides, it was even worse for Alice. She doesn’t want to be a boy. She doesn’t want to dress like a boy. It’s just wrong to make her be one. You told us we wouldn’t be forced to do anything we really didn’t want to do. It’s breaking your own rules if you force us to do this.”

Keith had leaned back on his chair and watched Peter during his little rant. He didn’t respond in any way. Peter finished talking and immediately started eating, staring down at his plate. Alice glared aroumd the table — warning everybody, including Keith, to leave her brother alone. Then she reached over and rubbed her hand up and down Peter’s back. After a moment, Peter shrugged his back. Alice took the hint and moved her hand away.

The entire table quietly resumed eating, the silence broken only by the sound of Keith tapping on his PDA. Eventually quiet conversation resumed but the silence hung around Peter and Alice like a cloud until the end of the meal.

Just as their plates were being cleared, both Peter and Alice’s PDAs let out a loud ping. They took out their PDAs and looked at them then looked over at Keith.

“Why do you want us in your office?” asked Peter.

"We didn't do anything wrong," said Alice. "How can we be in trouble if we didn't do anything wrong?"

“I’d just like to talk through in more detail your reasons for choosing not to take part in today’s activities. As Peter correctly pointed out, we can’t force you to take part so you can’t be in trouble for not taking part. But why don’t we have the rest of this conversation somewhere with a little more privacy. Let’s walk together, shall we?”

Keith stood and waited for Peter and Alice to join him before they walked together to his office. Peter and Alice took a seat together on the sofa and Keith pulled a chair over so that he could sit facing them. Alice fluffed out her curly hair with both hands and then adopted her usual upright prim-and-proper pose. Peter slumped back into the sofa the way he always did.

“So, let’s start again, shall we. Help me understand why you’ve chosen not to take part in our Mix Up Monday.”

Keith listened as Alice repeated, virtually word-for-word, the speech Peter had made at breakfast.

“Alice, is that really the way you feel?”

Alice nodded.

“Okay, Alice, I understand where your concerns are coming from. I’ll come back to you shortly. Peter, I still don’t understand why you couldn’t take part. You said you realized it would be wrong to turn it into a joke but with a little effort I’m sure you could have presented as a reasonably convincing girl. You wouldn’t have offended anybody here if you did that. I’m sure that Alice could have helped you.”

“We told you, it just felt wrong,” said Peter.

“Peter is a boy,” said Alice. “It would be wrong for him to dress like a girl.”

Keith looked at Alice and blinked twice.

“Alice!” Keith’s voice was gentle. “You are a boy who is dressed like a girl.”

“That’s different.”

"Why is it different?"

“Because … just because!” said Alice.

“Because Alice really is a girl,” said Peter. “On the inside, I mean. And I’m not.”

Keith looked between the two of them and nodded.

Then he looked back at Peter.

“Nobody is asking you to be a girl, Peter. On days like today we are only asking you to dress like a girl. One of our reasons for today is so that you can get a better idea of what it is like for people like Alice. Don’t you think that is a good enough reason to make the effort — even if it feels a bit wrong?”

Peter looked back for a moment and then shrugged.

“Peter, will you do something for me? I want you to sit up straight for a moment.”

Peter looked puzzled for a moment and then sat up so that he was sitting properly next to his sister.

“Would you mind folding your hands in your lap the same way Alice has her hands?”

Peter looked back at Keith with a strange expression on his face and then folded his hands in his lap.

“Your hair is long enough,” said Keith. “A bit of time with a curling wand and you would look exactly … “

Keith’s voice trailed off as he looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Oh good lord! You really are twins, aren’t you? I should have thought of this before.”

Keith slapped his forehead and shook his head in disbelief.

“You’ve done a switch on us!”

Peter and Alice looked at each other and then back at Keith. They both shook their heads and then sat there looking at Keith with a blank expression on their faces.

“You have, haven’t you?”

“No!” they said together in unison.

“I’m Peter,” said Peter.

“And I’m Alice,” said Alice.

“We haven’t switched,” they said in unison.

Keith sat there and looked back and forth between the two of them. His face displayed the confusion he was feeling. Then his eyes suddenly widened.

“Ah!” said Keith as he jumped to his feet. “I’ve just thought of something.”

He went over to a cupboard and fished out a strange looking piece of apparatus. He sat it on his desk and plugged the cable to the side of his computer. He started up a program and then turned the monitor around to face the room.

“Alice, please come over here,” said Keith.

“Why?” said Alice. “I don’t want to!”

She sat there and pouted, looking suspiciously at the device.

"I don't know why you can't just trust us," said Alice. "We told you we didn't switch."

"I think you're trying to bluff me again," said Keith. "Just come over here beside my computer."

“Go on, Alice” said Peter. “You may as well.”

Alice sighed and stood up. She walked over to Keith.

“Now what?” said Alice.

“Just put your right eye up against this scanner here.”

Alice sighed and did as she’d been told.

A moment later the computer beeped and an information screen appeared.

It had a whole page of details such as birthdate and so on.

There, filling one quarter of the screen, was Peter’s photo.

And directly under the photo, in large, bold print was:

Jason Arthur Fallow (aka Peter Fallow)