I went to a nice big house, too. Only it was empty.

    Surprise, surprise.

    "Honey, I'm home," I called, just like the old sitcom fathers called to their wives, before the wives got smart and got out of the unpaid labor of housework.

    (So sue me. Housewives get no respect, no pay, and no tax deductions.) Speaking of "r-e-s-p-e-c-t" (which is the name of a song by Aretha Franklin, in case you didn't know), I decided to put on some music. I am not musical the way my twin sister Anna is (in fact, in many ways I do not resemble Anna at all, which makes me wonder sometimes why we are twins), but I do enjoy cranking my music up loud. I like it to fill up empty rooms and leak out of the windows and doors.

    Loud music makes me less lonely.

    So where was Anna? Where were our parents?

    Good questions. I'm glad you asked.

    But enough about you. Let's talk about me.

    I'm Abby. Abigail Stevenson. I am not a native Stoneybrookian as you might have guessed. I come from far, far away.

    Okay, I come from Long Island, which is not all that far from Stoneybrook. But sometimes it seems like another planet.

    I mean I have things in common with the local flora and fauna, and I'm starting to make friends, but I feel like an alien sometimes. I talk faster, I walk faster, I think faster. And sometimes I say things that make people's mouths drop open and their eyes pop out.

    My schtick is different. (Schtick is a great Yiddish word, isn't it? Yiddish is an old Germanic language originally spoken chiefly by Jews from eastern Europe, which is where my family is from originally.) Schtick, by the way, sort of means "the things I do that make me me." I have a picture of me playing soccer on my team in Long Island (I was the star forward, the leading scorer, and the co-captain) and it's a blur.