A Twin Like Me...(cont'd)

We're on our fourth installment of my sharing a few essays I've written for a non-fiction project. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing each one.

Talking too Much – Age 8
 
Coming home that fateful day from grade school, my twin sister, Jerrie and I walked with slow steps.
“Mom’s gonna be upset,” Jerrie said.
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Tell her we won’t talk in class anymore?” I suggested.
“How are we going to do that?” She asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to think of something.”
Silence fell between us as we turned onto the dusty dirt alley which separated the rows of houses of our neighborhood in the small town of Albany, Georgia. The spring sun shone down, warming our faces and we stepped in unison with each other, both staring down at the dust kicking up from our matching canvas shoes.
“At least we have the whole summer to figure it out.”
I sighed. “I’m not spending my whole summer trying to come up with something. We need to know first—”
“It won’t help us now. When mom sees those red letters in our report cards, we’re in trouble, no matter what,” Jerrie interrupted.
“She won’t stay mad. She never does.” I grinned. “As long as we promise never to do it again.”
“Yeah.”
I stopped. “Wait, I got it!”
“What?”
“Remember that book we read last week? The one about Helen Keller?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Sign language. The finger alphabet that’s in it.”
Her mouth dropped open for a second before splitting into a big grin. “Yeah, we could do that!”
“Teacher won’t know because we’ll be quiet.”
“Think we can learn it fast enough?”
I blinked. “Jer.”
“Right,” she smiled. “Easy-peasy.”
“Easy-peasy,” I said and started skipping. Jerrie did the same and we giggled all the way home.