Hansen and Gracie

Hansen and Gracie — page 5 — And they put you in a place like this It’s on this early cold winter morning that Gracie always the one of us most likely to get in trouble is sneaking around the kitchen sticking her nose into cupboards and cabinets She’s looking for the food the grown-ups save for themselves She does this now and then though all she’s ever managed to find worth snatching was a single banana It was the best banana we ever tasted of course But still With the trouble Gracie would get into if she were ever caught Hansen isn’t a huge fan of these expeditions I can’t find anything Gracie whispers into the silent pre-dawn kitchen frustrated She knows there has to be good fresh bread somewhere in here Then get back here Hansen murmurs into his pillow We’re far apart Hansen up in the dormitory and Gracie deep inside the pantry among sacks of buggy flour dusty cans of corn and carrots and evaporated

Hansen and Gracie — page 6 — milk and boxes upon boxes of powdered potatoes But we can still hear each other We can always hear each other For a long time we didn’t know it was a weird thing But we eventually realized that not all brothers and sisters were like us Not even most twins were like us It turned out it was not only a weird thing it was the weird thing That’s why we could never stay long in a foster home All our foster parents were too weirded out to let us stay more than a month or two They didn’t know why we always answered questions the same way They didn’t understand how we were able to tell them what the other was doing seeing hearing and even thinking at that exact moment Once they found out about our connection they threw us out But we can’t be thrown out of the Lakeview Sunrise Group Home for Boys and Girls The orphanage is the last refuge for troublemakers and freaks That's why we belong here

Hansen and Gracie — page 7 — 2 I'll be back in a second Gracie whispers I just heard something in the hallway I think it’s Ms Young Ms Young is the woman who runs this place She’s not as miserable as you might guess She’s nice enough when she’s in a good mood and we think she probably got into the business of running an orphanage for the right reasons But it’s a miserable job and things never seem to go as well as grown-ups think they will Even grown-ups grown-ups who have the best intentions Oscar is with her Gracie adds and Hansen who could just make out the voices as well hearing them through Gracie’s ears shivers

Hansen and Gracie — page 8 — Oscar as far as we can tell is some kind of building maintenance man Or he’s supposed to be But he really only fixes drips and creaks when he gets around to it He prefers to spend his time trailing behind Ms Young offering advice she doesn’t ask for Unfortunately Ms Young is often too meek to ignore his advice and his advice well that’s what makes the orphanage such an especially unpleasant place Have him sleep next to the boiler for seven nights Oscar might say when a boy hasn’t finished his supper and Ms Young will click her tongue and agree sending the boy to the basement Put her in the courtyard for some quiet time he might whisper in Ms Young’s ear if a girl’s language is foul when she’s doing her chores And off the girl goes though both grown-ups know very well that the courtyard is infested with rats the size of terriers This morning Gracie huddles deeper into the shelves of food where she’ll never be spotted She

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