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Simone’s thinness verged on boniness.
    â€œI don’t think anyone could tell us apart,” said Hannah at last, “unless they’d memorized the differences.”
    â€œAnd unless we were standing side by side.”
    â€œSo … what’s your story?” Hannah began. “Who are your parents?”
    Simone shrugged as she looked at their joint reflections in the mirror. “I don’t know that much about my biological family,” she admitted. “I was adopted.”
    â€œMe too.”
    The two girls slowly turned to face each other. “Well … I don’t know about you,” Simone continued, “but I was born on—”
    â€œWait, let me guess,” Hannah interrupted. “The fifteenth of June, 1997.”
    Simone just nodded.
    â€œYou were six weeks old,” Hannah continued, “and you were living in an orphanage in—”
    â€œRio de Janeiro, in Brazil,” Simone cut in.
    Now it was Hannah’s turn to nod. “Me too.”
    â€œThen we must be … ”
    â€œIdentical twins,” said Hannah slowly. “But … I’m sure my parents would have told me if I’d had a sister … ”
    â€œIf they knew … ”
    Hannah twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “I’ve always wanted a sister, but it never occurred to me that I actually had one.”
    â€œDidn’t it? Sometimes I wondered … I had a sense that something was missing. But it never occurred to me that I had a twin.”
    Once again the girls were silent. “Where are you from?” Hannah asked after a while.
    â€œMelbourne,” said Simone.
    â€œOf course! Me too. That’s why you saw me at the airport yesterday. What part of Melbourne?”
    â€œNorth Fitzroy,” said Simone. “You?”
    â€œArmadale.” Hannah’s face broke into a grin. “So we live, like, a twenty-minute drive away from each other?”
    â€œIt looks like it. Stranger things have happened,” said Simone.
    â€œIt’s like that movie, The Parent Trap ,” Hannah said.
    â€œExcept that their parents were still alive, and they split the twins up deliberately.”
    The girls left the bathroom and sat cross-legged, opposite each other, on Simone’s bed.
    â€œWe could have gone the rest of our lives without even knowing of each other’s existence,” Hannah said.
    Simone shook her head. “No, I don’t think we could have. I believe in Fate, don’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “You know, I really didn’t want to come to this summer school, but now I’m so glad I did.”
    â€œYou didn’t want to come?” Hannah was stunned.
    â€œI’m so sick of dancing,” said Simone.
    â€œThen why did you come?”
    Simone sighed. “No choice,” she said finally. “I’ve been coming every summer for the last four years. I can’t remember the last time my mum asked me what I wanted. She just books me in.”
    â€œHave you told her how you feel?”
    â€œI’ve tried,” said Simone. “But she … she’s not a great listener, my mum.”
    â€œAnd your dad?”
    Simone shook her head. “It’s just me and my mum.” Her gaze drifted toward the window and for a moment she seemed someplace far away. “Anyway,” she said, snapping back to the present, “it’s complicated because my biological mother—or should I say our biological mother?—was a dancer.”
    â€œ Was she?” Hannah’s heart beat a little faster. “How do you know?”
    â€œMy mum told me,” said Simone. “It’s the one thing she does know about my natural mother.”
    â€œBut how does she know? I mean, my family weren’t given any information about my biological parents.”
    â€œWell, all I can tell you is that they died in a car accident on the