Door and her twin sister get along - just about. But Door has misgivings. She is tall and thin like a beanpole, her sister is petite and beautiful. How on earth can they be family? Door starts to belileve she is from another planet – or else the rest of the family is from outer space. Read the stirring saga of the ungainly sibling who suddenly turns into a beautiful swan.
CHAPTER ONE
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Door and Dee Brevington were non-identical, fourteen year old twins who lived with their parents in Chelsea, which was one of the most expensive areas in London. But, unlike the wealthy residents who lived in the swish houses with intricate security systems and sky-high gates, the Brevington family were impoverished.
The simple reason why the Brevingtons weren’t rich like their neighbours, was because Mr. Brevington was a lowly paid writer whose academic books on the Ancient World didn’t sell many copies. ‘They’re masterpieces,’ he insisted. However, the family was able to live in the exclusive area, because they were sitting tenants in their spacious garden flat, which Mr. Brevington had been fortunate to rent for a very low sum since before the twins were born.
Although the twins were non-identical, they more or
less got on. But, they were so unalike in every way, that
Door secretly thought she was from another planet
or more likely adopted. It wasn’t such a daft idea, for
not only did she look completely different from her
pretty twin sister Dee, but she didn’t remotely resemble
her parents either. While they more or less looked
normal, in comparison she looked like some kind of
freak, for she was a six-foot tall slouching beanpole,
whose wild mushroom brown hair stuck out like a
tangled mess of barbed wire. It was no wonder she
thought she was an outsider. For, while Door looked
liked like an unruly giant, her twin sister Dee was
a dainty creature whose glossy, black hair cascaded
down her back like a rippling waterfall.
Mrs. Brevington’s theory for the twins being so un-
alike was, they were born under different sun signs
which meant they didn’t share the same birthday.
‘Door was born just before midnight on the last day
of Taurus, the sign of the bull while Dee was born
the following day on the first day of Gemini, the sign
of the twins,’ Ma explained. But, Door didn’t swallow
her mother’s mumbo-jumbo, for if she and Dee had
come from the same egg, it wouldn’t have mattered
what sun signs they were born under as they would
have shared some characteristics, whatever they were.
As it was, they shared none.
Although, the twins were like two misshapen peas
in a tin, they had learned to tolerate each other from
an early age, which was just as well, as they had to
share a bedroom. Although, the Brevingtons’ large
flat had a spare room which should have belonged to
one of the twins now that they were teenagers, it was
rented by an endless succession of anonymous lodgers.
That was because the Brevingtons always needed
the extra cash.
However, Door and Dee hadn’t realised they were
poor when they were growing up, because during
their childhood they had been given oodles of love
and affection by their parents. But, now that the twins
were teenagers, they realised their parents weren’t rich
like their neighbours. If Door and Dee wanted extra
pocket money which was most of the time, they had
to work for it. ‘Let’s make some toadstool earrings
to sell to Ma’s friends,’ Dee would suggest. ‘Let’s
make the bumblebee ones instead,’ Door would argue. For, although Mr. Brevington gave his beloved
daughters as much money as he could afford, it was
never enough.
Door and Dee didn’t realise their parents were
eccentric. Even ‘though Mr. Brevington spent most of
his time holed up in his office, a dank and gloomy
cubicle which looked out onto the neat communal
gardens at the back of the flat. Pa never noticed the
ancient trees and rhodedendrum bushes however, as
he was always in another world, dreaming and scribbling
about dead as dodo creatures with his beloved
quill pen. His resultant textbooks on the Ancient
World were so highbrow, that ‘A’ level students who
were forced to study them at school, found the books
so heavy going, that in comparison they found Latin a
doddle. Not that the twins thought Pa was a ponderous
or boring old soul. To them, he was a bumbling
professor type who wore his long grey hair in a be-
draggled ponytail. Although, the girls respected their
father, they thought of him as a rather remote figure,
due to him being closeted inside his cubicle day and
night. They didn’t understand that although Pa was
extremely fond of his family, he loved his work more.
And, when the girls did see him shuffling to and fro
from his study, he was more often than not, dressed
in his ancient slippers, pyjamas and shabby dressing
gown, because most days, he was so immersed in his
work, he simply forgot to get dressed. ‘The man in a
dressing gown,’ Door would grumble and mumble,
wondering why wasn’t he like her friends’ fathers who
went to work early in the morning, dressed in a suit.
While Pa was a shadowy figure, flitting around the
flat like an affable bat, Ma was so vivacious that she
sizzled like an ignited stick of dynamite. She had been
considered such a great beauty in her youth, that she
could have married anyone she wanted. That’s why
none of her friends understood why she picked Mr.
Brevington. But, Mrs. Brevington ended up with
Mr. Brevington for one reason only. She had fallen
in love with him. ‘I could have been a great artist,’
she repeatedly told the twins while relentlessly driving
them around to their ballet classes, piano lessons,
singing classes and any other class, which was classified
as an ‘extra’ on the National School Curriculum.
Private classes which Mrs Brevington paid for out of
her own money, money which she used her wits to
plot and plan and scrape together each week, as Mr.
Brevington who paid the flat’s low rent and bills gave
her just enough cash to buy groceries each week.
There was no question of Mrs. Brevington going out
to work, for she was too busy making sure the flat
didn’t resemble a bomb site day after day. And besides,
what employer in their right mind would hire
her? For, more often than not, she wore moth bitten
mini-skirted costumes and a paintbrush sticking out
of her flame coloured locks, which she usually, absent-
mindedly stuck there after one of her painting
sessions.
Although, Door and Dee didn’t think their mother’s
bohemian appearance was odd when they were
younger, now that they were teenagers, they found
her a bit embarrassing to go out with. But, nevertheless,
they could see she was a very striking woman,
what with her attractive, animated face and flamboyant
manner. ‘You get my good looks from me,’ Mrs.
Brevington often told the twins, which made Door
cringe and gnash the braces on her teeth, for she
knew she looked nothing like her. She was convinced
she was some kind of changeling, as even her toes
looked different from the rest of her family. On the
other hand, it was obvious that Dee was Ma’s blood
daughter, for although their facial features weren’t the
same nor their hair colouring, they had the same porcelain
coloured skin. It just wasn’t fair, Door constantly
thought but she was determined to keep her
suspicions to herself until she proved she was from
outer space or more likely, adopted. Then, she’d show them!
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