Jenny and Benny, despite being identical twins, had never really gotten along. Benny had always tried to get the better of his sister, no matter the situation. Whether it was something small or large, he seemed to take immense satisfaction in seeing her struggle, or suffer. Jenny learned to watch for these cruel traits in Benny, especially after the incident with the closet.
Benny had done many mean things to his sister over the years. They were eleven, and eleven-year-olds could be cruel, vindictive individuals to one another. Once, Benny had even cut off one of Jenny’s pigtails before picture day, knowing she would have either to take a photo with one pigtail, or cut her coveted, beautiful blonde hair. She had been thoroughly miserable for months until it started to grow back. He had done that, and many other horrible things, but the day he locked her in the hall closet when their parents had to work late, even Jenny was surprised.
She was expected at a party later that day. The party invitation lay, probably forgotten by her parents, on the living room coffee table. Her parents had agreed not to tell Benny about the party, and had asked Jenny to do the same. Jenny had agreed. On this fine spring Saturday afternoon, she wanted to enjoy a party with her friends, and the party invitation in the mail was her ticket to do so. Benny had not received an invitation. It was likely that he had not received an invitation because he was this mean, not only to Jenny, but also to everybody else in their class. Unfortunately, it had only warranted him friendship with people as angry and mean as himself.
For some stupid reason, Jenny now surmised from her place in the locked closet, she had trusted her parents to keep all evidence of the party hidden. When she noticed the invitation on the coffee table, just as she saw Benny’s enraged face standing in the doorway as he rushed toward her, she did not know exactly what she was in for, but she knew it was bad. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, forcing her own arms down toward her torso; she could not move. He walked her backward, quickly, into the closet, shouting inaudibly. Slamming the door, she heard it lock from the outside. Even as an eleven-year-old girl, she wondered how a face identical to hers could express rage across its features that she had never felt in her own body. She did not understand how they could be related.
“LET ME OUT OF HERE!” she screamed.
Benny laughed from somewhere inside the house. She thought it came from inside her room. That would be the cherry on top of this day. Her crazy twin brother would lock her inside this closet over a party invitation she had no control over, and then he would celebrate his victory by ruining her toys. She had not been wearing her watch when he had pushed her in here and locked the door. The last time she had seen a clock it had been a little after one in the afternoon. Her stomach grumbled; she wished she had had a bigger lunch instead of trying to save room for cake. Her parents would not be home until after supper. Her brother laughed again, this time from the kitchen.
“Eventually,” she thought, “I will be stronger than him. He will be sorry.”
