Page 1 of Perfect Order

PROLOGUE - EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO FROM PRESENT DAY

“Come on, Lee!” my younger sister by four minutes shouts as she races across our backyard in New Hampshire.

I race after her, calling, “Go on ahead, Lee! I’ll wait here.”

She flaps her hand behind her and begins running as fast as she can after the bunny we both saw. We’re both positive we can convince our parents to let us keep him—her?—if we can just catch it.

Lee seems to think she can run it down. Maybe she’s right; she’s superfast. But I think if I wait it out, I can catch it right here by waiting.

So, I sit, content to let the warm summer sunshine wash over me. Pulling out one of the carrots we pulled from our mom’s garden out of my pocket, I brush it off and take a bite. The sweet tang rushes into my mouth as I chew.

Every day should be like this, I think as I fall backward and stare up at the puffy clouds dotting the blue sky. Just me and my Lee. Home together, forever and ever. No school to keep us apart during the day.

“And we get to sleep in the same room at night,” she pants as she collapses next to me. Yanking her own carrot out of her pocket, she chomps down.

I smile without looking over at her, knowing she’s done it again—read my thoughts without my having to say a word. “It drives Mom nuts when we do this.”

“Talk without words? I know.”

I roll to my stomach and stare into my own face, down to identical freckles that have sprouted this summer. “She was talking to Daddy. She said the teachers are concerned we cheat at school.”

Lee’s face becomes indignant. “We do not. They put us in separate classes just for that reason.”

I sigh. The one thing different between Lee and me is our tempers. I’m much slower to anger, whereas my identical twin flares at the slightest poke. “Lee, she said the teachers are concerned, not thattheyare.”

And as quickly as it bursts, her fire burns out. “Oh.” Lee chomps down on her carrot again, reminding me I want some more. At the exact same moment, we both moan, “So good,” before we collapse into a heap of giggles—something we get yelled at a lot for doing late at night because we won’t go to sleep.

I think about the rabbit hopping along in the woods and declare, “Lee, we can’t take it away from its family.”

“Why not?” She pouts.

“Because it would be lonely. Imagine if someone ever tried to take you away from me.” Just the thought of ever being without my twin causes my heart to pound in a painful way. The pressure hurts.

Lee rubs her hand over her stomach. “Stop thinking like that. It hurts too badly.”

“Promise me. Nothing is going to ever happen to take you away from me.” Tears leak from the corner of my eyes onto the soft green grass under my head.

“I promise, Lee. I’ll never allow anything to ever take me away from you.” She throws herself into my arms and hugs me so hard I feel it lodge behind my ribs against my heart, which is where all of my memories of Lee and me live.

Suddenly, she stills before whispering, “Look, Lee. Look!”

I twist my head around, and it’s not just one rabbit in front of us but an entire family. “It’s a mommy, a daddy, and babies.” I reach out for Lee’s hand to find it already there. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Let’s give them the rest of our carrots,” she suggests.

Without another word, I begin breaking my carrot into smaller pieces before softly tossing it into the grass. The bunny Lee was chasing before hops forward bravely and snatches a piece in its mouth. I point and whisper, “That one’s you.”

“Why?”

“It’s fearless. Just like you.”

Lee studies the other rabbits and points out another. “That one is you. It’s watchful of the others.”

I giggle. “That’s so not me.”

“Um, yeah it is. Who shoved Baxter Masters because he was bullying Marcie on the playground?”

“Well, he shouldn’t say such mean things,” I say indignantly.