Unexpectedly Related
Friends, or family?
In Riversdale Town, at the age of 6, Lia Johnson and Zia Wellings found each other as look-alike seat-partners during a month-long inter-school function. They became best friends and found out that they were neighbours, with one house in between their houses. Then, one day, 4 years later, when Lia was going to play at Zia’s house, she found out from the girl who lived in between them, Zara Hillton, that Zia had moved to a different street and Mrs. Wellings had changed her phone number. Since neither Lia, Zia, nor Zara, went to the same school, Lia now thought she had no way of communicating with Zia. So, Lia and Zara became good friends.
However, one day, when Lia was 14 and Zara had moved into an apartment on a different street ‘for higher education’, when Lia was walking home from a café, scrolling on her phone, she bumped into someone, and noticed that it was Zia! When she asked what Zia was doing on that street, Zia said she lived there, and that she thought Lia had moved out, so what was Lia doing there? When the two girls realized that Zara had lied to both of them that the other had left the street, they were furious!
The next day, when Zara came back to her apartment after school, she found someone standing at the door, blocking the doorway and staring at her with cold eyes – Lia and Zia. When she asked them what was the matter (though she already knew), they just asked her why she lied, and what benefit she had from separating best friends, she said that her mother used to say there is no way of separating twins, and she really wanted friends who lived near her and she could visit every day.
Lia and Zia both strongly denied being twins, and just said that having the same faces and the same curly, long blonde hair didn’t automatically make them twins. But Zara said her mother worked in a hospital, and her aunt in an orphanage, and her mother had received a record of a birth of 2 identical blonde girls with the same 4-leaf clover birthmark on the back of their necks, while her aunt had had orphaned twins brought into the orphanage with the same birthmark. When Lia and Zia checked each other, they were astonished to find out that they both had the birthmark!
They were elated to find out that they were twins! When they asked their parents why they had not found out before, the parents said that they thought Lia and Zia would leave them and try to find their real parents, but the twins consoled their adoptive parents that they would never leave them.
They also mended their friendship with Zara, agreeing that her motive wasn’t evil, as she just wanted a friend, and then the girls all formed a trio!
Just a lookalike, or someone more?
A few months later, Lia and Zia were moving to the apartment right above Zara’s, because they had got a full scholarship to Swanston High School, the most prestigious high school in the city.
As they waited for their train to reach Piddleton Town (2 stations away from Riversdale), they talked about how they would surprise Zara when they arrived. However, when the train reached Hamilson Village, between Riversdale and Piddleton, a surprising person came to sit on the empty seat next to them – Zara! When the twins asked Zara why she was there, and vice versa, Zara said she had been to visit her cousin, Jackie, in Hamilson Village, and was now going back to her apartment to get ready for the new school year, which started in a month.
To help pay off the monthly rent, Zara had taken up being a YouTuber and the twins had found jobs as waitresses at Foodie Place, a restaurant close to both school and the apartment.
On the first day of the waitress job, when Lia was toasting a veggie sandwich, she heard a voice saying ‘Mia? What are you doing here?’. When she looked to her right, she found a confused, blue-eyed brunette staring back at her. She clarified that she knew no one named Mia, and she was a waitress at the restaurant.
The brunette apologised for the mistake, saying that her name was Nancy Watson, and her adopted cousin, Mia Watson, looked exactly like Lia. When Lia asked for a bit more information about Mia, Nancy said that her Mia’s best friend, Emma Smith, came with her parents and younger brother, Sam, was a monthly customer whose mother always changed the kids’ orders to veggie meals.
When Mia, Lia, Zia, Emma, Nancy and Zara all officially met each other the next week (on the first day of the new school year), they all instantly became friends, and Lia, Zia and Mia became referred to as ‘the lookalike trio’ at their school (not that they hated it).
One day, Mia asked Lia if she would come help her at an orphanage after school because she was short of just a little money to buy a beautiful dress her parents wanted her buy herself. Mia said Lia was the only one in the whole group who had experience with kids, having babysat many a time in earlier years to help her parents afford the expensive sofa they wanted to replace their broken one.
That day, a girl named Lina who seemed about 19 years old came up to the volunteers at the orphanage and said that they looked quite familiar. She said that, when she turned 20, a year later, she would age out of the orphanage, but she had video tapes of when she was just 10 years old. When she showed one of those to Lia and Mia, they saw three girls with long, silky blonde hair and a 4-leaf clover birthmark on the back of their necks, playing together.
When Lia expressed her curiosity at seeing three identical girls with the signature birthmark while she only knew two, Lina showed them a list of previous orphans who were brought to the orphanage as siblings but were separated. At the very top were three names: TRIPLETS LIA, MIA, ZIA WILSON.
When Mia asked Lia to check for the birthmark at the back of her neck to see if they really were related, the three girls were astonished to find out that Mia was the third triplet!
By Parinita Kawatra
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This book is simply amazing! I would rate it 5 stars! The mysterious tone really fits the story. I would suggest it for all online readers who like to read short stories!