The Different Girl

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    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

    Copyright © 2013 by Gordon Dahlquist

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    Published in the United States by Dutton Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
    345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
    www.penguin.com/teen

    ISBN 978-1-101-59254-0

For Anne

1.
    My name is Veronika. We had been there for years, but I only remember things from part of that time. Living on the island was like that, because it seemed to be always bright, and always hot, and every day passed like the day before. I’m telling this from afterward, from now, but I’m telling as much as I can remember. I hope what I’m telling is what really happened, because if it isn’t—if I’ve forgotten things or lost them—then I’ve lost part of myself. I’m not sure how old I am, mainly because there are so many different ways to tell time—one way with clocks and watches and sunsets, or other ways with how many times a person laughs, or what they forget, or how they change their minds about what they care about, or why, or whom. And there are times when something happens that you don’t understand—but somehow you still know that it’s important—like walking through a door you only notice when you hear it lock behind.
    • • •
    I was one of four. The others were Isobel, Caroline, and Eleanor, and it was always easy to tell us apart because we each had different colored hair. Isobel’s was yellow, like lemons. Caroline’s was brown, like coconuts. Eleanor’s was black as wet tar. My hair is the color of red rust. Aside from that we were all the same size and weight and age and always seemed to be doing, and wanting to do, almost always the exact thing as one another. We were all orphans, without family or even the memories of family, because we were too young when our parents died, which had all happened in the same terrible accident. Irene explained that we were on our island because the plane had crashed on one of the bigger islands, and everyone thought it would be better for the children to be placed nearby rather than sent away on another plane. Since all we knew about planes was that they crashed and killed people, and none of us had any real memories of our parents, and we all loved the island and Irene and even Robbert, we didn’t want it any other way.
    The island was small, but large enough to us. We lived in two buildings on stilts, so lizards and rats couldn’t get in, even though they did anyway. We would chase the rats, and sometimes the lizards, but Irene explained that lizards ate bugs, so we really oughtn’t chase them, but sometimes we chased them anyway, trying to make them throw their tails off. We collected tails.
    We had a bedroom with cots and lockers. On