What Curiosity Kills.

by Helen Ellis.

For Lex Haris,Greek G.o.d among men

She turns herself round and she smiles and she says, "This is it, that's the end of the joke" "This is it, that's the end of the joke"

-The Psychedelic Furs, "Pretty in Pink"

What happens is...

I want to scream for help, but pain that feels like fire ants has found me. The ants crawl up and out of my knee socks and take over every bit of my flesh. They are between my toes, behind my ears, and in every crevice in between. They scamper across my scalp. They bite. Their bites are unbearable. I twist and scratch within the suffocating comforter. I'm trapped.

The boys lean over me, say things-to me, to each other-I can't make out. My hearing is fading. I'm shrinking. The boys' faces get bigger and rise like moons. One of them blinks. When his eyes close, they are chestnut. Open, they are emerald green. He smiles, parts his teeth, and unrolls a long, narrow pink tongue. He licks the tips of his incisors, which have grown past his lower gums to form fine points.

He purrs, his voice velvet. He says, "Don't worry, Kitty. There are no such things as vampires."

What happened was...

chapter one.

I knew something was wrong with me when I fell asleep in school. I never fall asleep in public because it is way too embarra.s.sing. Your face goes slack. If you're sitting up straight, your mouth hangs open. You could say something stupid or say someone's name or make some weird, inappropriate noise. You could snore. Twitch. Drool! In the movies, people watch other people sleep and say that it's beautiful. Those people are crazy-or in love. Trust me. n.o.body at Purser-Lilley Academy loves me that much.

What I did was roll out of the seal position and crash on my Pilates mat. The seal is when you start on your back with your hands clutching your ankles and your knees bent out to the sides, making your legs look like a diamond. You're supposed to clap the soles of your feet three times and then rock forward onto your b.u.t.t and clap your feet three times again. Then, roll back and forth, clapping like a maniac-Ar! Ar! Ar!- Ar! Ar!-until you build up enough momentum to throw yourself forward into a standing position. You're supposed to end up with hands in the air like a gymnast.

I ended up in the fetal position. For five full un-revivable minutes.

My friend Marjorie says I was motionless for so long, she thought I was dead. Marjorie's sister promises me that the rumors I was sucking my thumb are untrue. My My sister will tell anyone she hears spreading lies about me that my hands were curled up under my chin. sister will tell anyone she hears spreading lies about me that my hands were curled up under my chin.

"Like she was all Laura Ingalls and s.h.i.t, tying a bonnet," my sister says.

You might wonder how my best friend, her sister, my sister, and I are in the same tenth-grade gym cla.s.s; how my sister can curse in front of teachers and get away with it; how a high school gets twenty Pilates mats and towers drilled into what was once a basketball court. The answer to all these questions is: money.

Marjorie and her sister Magnolia-nicknamed Mags-are in vitro twins. Sometimes, we call them Baby A and Baby B, which is what they went by before they were born and their parents "deselected" the weaker of the quads, C and D. Kathryn Ann wanted to experience the blessing of childbirth, but not that much of a blessing. She didn't want to be bedridden. She wanted to get back to her call-in cable TV talk show, Chime In with Kathryn Ann. A former district attorney, Kathryn Ann had made her name by charging drunk drivers with murder and now makes a living pressuring upstanding citizens to go after drunks and pedophiles and anyone else who, as she says, could be shot for less.

Kathryn Ann was forty-four when she had Marjorie and Mags. Long story short: She built herself a career and then remembered she wanted kids. But her ovaries were like, What?

Kathryn Ann wrote a check to her fertility specialist. And then another. As did a lot of older couples who wanted kids late in life and found themselves "reproductively challenged." At Purser-Lilley, there are fourteen sets of twins and six sets of triplets.

We also have a bunch of kids who don't look like their folks. You can spot adopted kids because most Upper East Side parents go for Asians. An Asian baby says you have twenty thousand dollars, plus cash to fly to the other side of the world and put yourself up in a hotel for two weeks. Asian babies are also good because their biological parents aren't going to show up to reclaim them. At Purser-Lilley, there are four Korean boys and eight Chinese girls. One of them, Ling Ling Lebowitz, is the meanest girl I've ever met.

Ling Ling likes to tell me that I am white trash. I don't think anybody uses this term anymore, but she read Gone with the Wind and fell in love with the slur. She says, "One day, your real parents are going to kidnap you and hold you for ransom. They're gonna take you back to Ala-bama. Say goodbye, 72nd and Lex! Good-bye, Bravo marathons! Your real parents are so poor, all you'll have to do for fun is fish for and fell in love with the slur. She says, "One day, your real parents are going to kidnap you and hold you for ransom. They're gonna take you back to Ala-bama. Say goodbye, 72nd and Lex! Good-bye, Bravo marathons! Your real parents are so poor, all you'll have to do for fun is fish for crawdaddies in the crick!" crawdaddies in the crick!"

My response to Ling Ling's barbs (another beaut is, "You're so flat-chested, your redneck mama must have breast-fed you Mountain Dew!") is: "Could be." This stumps her and shuts her up, but the next time I run into her, she's prepared with another verbal a.s.sault. I don't enjoy it, but I bear it and say "Could be," and it's over in a minute. I'm not going to argue with her. That will prolong her abuse. Besides, most of what she makes up is actually true: the poor part, the Alabama part-but not the part about rednecks plotting to kidnap me.

As far as adoption goes, my sister and I are an oddity at Purser-Lilley because we came from within the United States, and our folks didn't get us when they were middle-aged and we were infants. When they decided to start a family, they cast their nets wide and took the first kids they caught: me from Alabama, Octavia from Nebraska. Unlike Ling Ling, my sister and I have memories of our eight years before our adoptive parents saved us-memories we do our best to forget.

My birth parents were neglectful. I spent a lot of time alone. I barely went to school. I survived by eating so much generic cereal out of the box that to this day, I won't walk down the breakfast aisle at Gristedes. When a social worker came and got me, my biological parents missed every court date to get me back. If it weren't for my southern accent-which I cain't shake to save my life-I might have been able to blend in at Purser-Lilley. My same-age sister's appearance stopped any chance of that.

Octavia is the only student in the whole school who's black- or, as Purser-Lilley mandates we say, African American. African American. Her minority status was our ticket into private school. Over frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity 3, when Octavia and I were both thirteen, Dad had a brain freeze. He let it slip that success can often be attributed to what you look like. To this day, my sister's greatest discovery is the race card. Her minority status was our ticket into private school. Over frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity 3, when Octavia and I were both thirteen, Dad had a brain freeze. He let it slip that success can often be attributed to what you look like. To this day, my sister's greatest discovery is the race card.

The thing is, she taught herself to keep it real from TV Land reruns of shows older than we are, so 227, Living Single, and Martin Martin are her guides. Our parents ignore her are her guides. Our parents ignore her Yo' Yo's and It's like dis and like dat' It's like dis and like dat's and when she goes, "Can I ax you a question?" because Octavia makes all As, and Mom says trying new ident.i.ties is part of growing up. Mom says when she was our age, she imitated California girls and said Totally! when she agreed with you, and when she didn't, Gag me with a spoon.

In school, Octavia gets away with murder. If she doesn't want to be called on, she folds her arms across her chest and gives the teacher a look that says, Are you calling on me 'cause I'm black? If she wants an extra brownie at lunch, she says to the Jamaican lunch lady, "Hook a sistah up!" If she doesn't want to play basketball, she says, "What, Coach, you think I was born to shoot hoops?" If she wants an extra brownie at lunch, she says to the Jamaican lunch lady, "Hook a sistah up!" If she doesn't want to play basketball, she says, "What, Coach, you think I was born to shoot hoops?"

That's how we ended up with just half a basketball court for dribble drills and H-O-R-S-E. Our last coach told Octavia (in front a bunch of us) that the only reason she got into Purser Lilley was to help us win the city t.i.tle. Other parents were so afraid of being labeled racists that they withheld their second-semester tuition checks until the princ.i.p.al eliminated compet.i.tive sports.

Which brings us back to yours truly being all Little House on the Prairie on a Pilates mat. on a Pilates mat.

At lunch, Ling Ling stops by my table and offers me a baby bottle she snuck from Health and Development. Ha, ha. Very funny. I sucked my thumb, so I'm a baby.

My sister comes up behind Ling Ling and pokes her shoulder hard. Octavia warns, "You better check yo self before you wreck yo self."

Ling Ling doesn't test her. She scuttles off, prop slipped into her book bag, because she wants nothing to do with my sister. Ling Ling teased Octavia once about domestic adoption and was met with a brutally honest tirade about birth parents mutilated by farm equipment; the greedy, heinous devil that is America's health-insurance system; an older brother jailed; a sister pregnant and married at sixteen; another sister missing; and four years of personal foster-care horror stories. Octavia put an end to any and all future Ling Ling hara.s.sment with: "Uh, and if you don't know, now you know!"

Octavia plops down next to me with a brownie the size of two fists. Across from us sit Marjorie and Mags, who are the same shade of pale from their platinum-blond heads to their never-painted toenails (unlike Kathryn Ann, who will not be seen without blood-red tips and lips and a permanent spray tan). Ling Ling calls the twins albinos every chance she gets. Her favorite zinger is that they might have had a little color if their mom had let them cook as directed and not scheduled her C-section a month early to coincide with the verdict of a trial she was covering.

With Ling Ling out of earshot, I ask the group, "Did I really look like a baby?"

Marjorie says, "A dead baby. I kept shaking you. I thought you'd never wake up. I nearly cried."

I gush, "Aww."

Mags says, "It wasn't Aww. It was scary-but you definitely weren't sucking your thumb."

The twins look at each other. They are mentally conferring. Eyebrows arch. Lips twist. Noses scrunch in concentrated worry. It drives me nuts when they do this, but I've known them long enough to read a line or two from their minds.

"What are you deciding to tell or not tell me?"

The twins swing around to Octavia, the official teller of all you might not want to know but should know.

"What?" I plead. "Okay, don't tell me. No, tell me!"

My sister leans into me and whispers without covering her mouth, "Shaniqua..."

(My real name is Mary, which I hate. What's worse is that when I took my adoptive parents' last name, Richards, I was branded with the 1970s TV alter ego of Mary Tyler Moore-a grinning, mousy-haired, perpetually single brunette. My parents say I can legally change my first name when I find one I like better-which I never do-but Octavia's always offering suggestions).

She whispers, "It was weird. I've slept in the same room with you for years and never seen you do this. Or heard you, is more like it. And to tell you the truth-no offense-I don't want to ever hear you do it again. It's not a sound I want to wake up to, trapped in a dark room with you, in the middle of the night. Now, get a hold of yourself. Chill. With the three of us around, Ling Ling wasn't close enough to pick up on it. But we did."

The twins nod. Then, their bobbleheads stop. They pick up their ginkgo frappuccinos, made exclusively by Purser-Lilley's Starbucks, and each take a sip. The drinks stop halfway up their straws as they antic.i.p.ate what my sister says next.

"Girl, you was purring!"

chapter two.

At home, my family sits down to dinner. House rule is that we eat together five nights a week. If somebody has something to do at seven thirty, we eat at six. If my dad stays late at the office, we eat when he comes home. No TV trays, no restaurants. Sometimes, we order in, but then we eat at the table off proper plates, not off paper or out of cool, origami-looking Chinese cartons (which in Manhattan exist only on TV).

Tonight's topic: no more cell phones and no computers in our room.

Mom says, "You girls are wired. In all senses of the word. It's like a constant feed of M&M's. Your every thought, every mundane action, has to be communicated like it's life or death. I'm on the bus. I'm at the movies. Y I'm on the bus. I'm at the movies. You can't think for yourselves. What time does the movie start? Where's the nearest Starbucks? Should I get a tall latte or an What time does the movie start? Where's the nearest Starbucks? Should I get a tall latte or an iced iced tall latte? tall latte? You check your messages every ten seconds to see if your friends need answers. What' You check your messages every ten seconds to see if your friends need answers. What's up? Nothing, what's up with you? You, mind you, spelled with one letter, U. It used to be there was one idiot box. Now they come in all shapes and sizes. You're over stimulated. That's why you're falling asleep in school."

"I fell asleep once," I protest.

Dad says, "Once is enough."It's hard to argue with them about cell phones. My parents don't use them. They're Luddites. Well, they're Luddites in the way that Marjorie and Mags are albinos. To Mom and Dad, old phones are art. The one in their bedroom is a five-pound, black-metal rotary. The kitchen phone is a wall-mounted, yellow, push-b.u.t.ton number straight out of Freaky Friday-the original with Jodie Foster, field hockey, and orthodontia that could be from Saw.

BlackBerries, iPhones, and all the rest were banned from Purser-Lilley last year because it was electronic note-pa.s.sing bedlam; our collective grade average dropped, and the requisite five percent of seniors did not get into Harvard. Teachers thought we had brain cancer. Tumors were the new Uggs. Now you're allowed to use cell phones on the street outside the school, but once you pa.s.s through the front gates, you might as well carry a grenade in your uniform blazer. Per an official addendum to the Purser-Lilley Code of Conduct: you don't snooze it, you lose it.

Confiscated cells have been pa.s.sed around the teachers' lounge for laughs, I'm sure of it. Ling Ling's sweet sixteen was canceled because of phone calls made to her Park Avenue apartment from Scared Straight, Planned Parenthood, and the U.S. Army recruitment office, which her mom refused to believe were phony. I'm almost positive the callers were Ms. Lawrence and Mr. Marks (feminist literature and trig). When we were freshmen, Ling Ling got the whole school to nickname them Fatty Cakes and McLovin.

Octavia tries arguing about cells with Mom anyway. My sister is the youngest-ever captain of the Purser-Lilley debate team, which has been undefeated two years running. I once asked her, just to get a rise out of her: "Do you feel you have to work twice as hard to do as well as you do because you're a minority?"

She said, "No, Eudora, I'm just smart."

Now she says, "Mom, it's unsafe not having a cell. What if something bad happens?"

"Then, something bad happens. We'll find out eventually."

"Like we did with your sister's narcolepsy," jokes Dad.

Octavia groans. "But I didn't fall asleep. It was Enya-"

"Mary," Mom corrects her.

"Mary, not me. Why should I be punished?"

"Believe it or not, your mother and I don't think that we're punishing you. You'll sleep better and go to sleep sooner. Worst-case scenario, you'll do what we did at your age and read in bed with a flashlight."

"Did you really do that?" I ask. Octavia smirks.

"No," Dad confesses. "I had a TV in my room."

Mom says, "And that's why his grades were so bad."

"Hey, are you forgetting I skipped the fourth grade?" Dad asks.

"After the fourth grade, your grades were terrible." Mom rolls her eyes. "Have you forgotten that your shrink attributes all your issues to skipping?"

"What issues? I don't have any issues." Dad often plays dumb.Octavia says, "What does this have to do with anything? We don't have a TV in our room."

Our family has one TV. (Luddites, remember?) It's in the living room. If you're watching, everyone else is watching with you, or they know what's on. And-wait for it-we don't own a DVD player. It's not because my parents are seriously anti-technology or that my sister and I are overprotected. My parents just hate extra stuff. Mom's mantra is: We are not h.o.a.rders. Every year, we give away clothes we've outgrown (or we're too old for), books we've read (or are never going to get to), and extras ("Tell me," says Mom, "do we really need two garlic presses?"). Dad can't be convinced Netflix is necessary when we get all the movie channels. Having never had more than one TV, this isn't a hardship. Octavia and I don't miss out on much-unless you call much vegging out on the sofa and watching Twilight eight times in a row. Every year, we give away clothes we've outgrown (or we're too old for), books we've read (or are never going to get to), and extras ("Tell me," says Mom, "do we really need two garlic presses?"). Dad can't be convinced Netflix is necessary when we get all the movie channels. Having never had more than one TV, this isn't a hardship. Octavia and I don't miss out on much-unless you call much vegging out on the sofa and watching Twilight eight times in a row.

Our folks DVR their old favorites for us. With my dad, it's The Warriors The Warriors and The Taking of and The Taking of Pelham 123 Pelham 123-1970s movies that represent the New York he grew up in; where subways were graffitied, everybody had a switchblade, and after eleven, you could get yourself killed. Mom goes for all things teenageangst. She got weepy when John Hughes pa.s.sed away and then nearly keeled over herself when she found out Marjorie and Mags hadn't seen the Molly Ringwald trifecta (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink). Mom wanted to watch them with us, but Dad dragged her out for Ben & Jerry's because she was reciting every line.

"'I can't believe this. They f.u.c.king forgot my birthday.'"

"Yes, dear," said Dad. "John Hughes was your George Lucas."

Octavia and I tried to get into the original Star Wars trilogy for Dad but couldn't. Luke, I am your father! Luke, I am your father! Well, duh. Who didn't see that coming? Dad and every other Well, duh. Who didn't see that coming? Dad and every other Dungeons & Dragons Dungeons & Dragons fanatic apparently. Dad shrugged off how jaded we were, but he still keeps a lightsaber on the top shelf of his closet, and on Halloween, he makes Mom wear earm.u.f.fs that look like hair cinnamon rolls. fanatic apparently. Dad shrugged off how jaded we were, but he still keeps a lightsaber on the top shelf of his closet, and on Halloween, he makes Mom wear earm.u.f.fs that look like hair cinnamon rolls.

Mom says to Octavia, "You may not have a TV in your room, but you have YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and all that other garbage on your computer that keeps-"

"my mind on my money and my money on my mind!"

"-that keeps you quoting Snoop Dogg instead of Shakespeare."

Dad grins at Mom. "Since when do you quote Shakespeare?"

"'Tis a n.o.bler...'tis a far, far better..." She laughs. "Oh, you know what I mean! From now on, girls, your laptops stay out in the open and go off at eight o'clock. Mary, you'll work in the kitchen. Octavia, you'll work on the dining room table."

The dining room table is in the living room because we don't have a room especially for eating. Yes, this is the Upper East Side, but Anderson Cooper's mom is not our mom. My parents have plenty of money in the grand scheme of things-they can pay our tuition, send us to college, take us on vacation, buy us nice clothes-but they don't have the kind of New York City wealth that takes three or four generations to squander. If we swapped moms with Marjorie and Mags, we'd have our own Vanderbilt-like bedrooms and adjoining bathroom, plus a library and a study. I've never understood the difference between those-except that one has leather couches, which the twins' cats have scratched up and which Octavia refuses to sit on because the claw marks give her the creeps. But I digress. Life isn't a Disney movie where you wake up in somebody else's body and realize you were happy just the way you were. Besides, Octavia and I would never swap moms with anyone.

After eight, my laptop is closed. Mom has put a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies on top to seal the deal. I have to get through four chapters of A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities. Octavia is done with her homework. She's always done first. She's watching TV with my parents in the living room on the other side of the kitchen wall. As a reward for a job well done, she has clicker control. It's a Tuesday night in January. For the next two hours, I'm going to overhear auditions for American Idol.I hate the show, but Octavia loves it. She's always trying to convince me to give it another shot. It's the debater in her. She tries to convince me I should change my mind about everything. The situation in Afghanistan is worse than the situation in Iraq. September 11 was an inside job. Health care should never be free. A woman's right to choose is wiggida wiggida wiggida whack. Arguing is a game to her. She picks pro or con and runs with it until her opponent is too exhausted to catch up. I'm not sure she loves American Idol as much as she says she does, but she puts up a heck of a fight.

Sample debate: Octavia: "It's all about second chances for girls like Kelly."

Me: "Clarkson or Pickler?"

Octavia: "Either. Those girls are one in the same."

Me: "One's rock, one's country."