I can’t say the name of the school, but I guarantee you’ve heard of it, a world-renowned elementary school that looks like it should be the kind of bucolic liberal arts college where Donna Tartt might murder undergrads, only it was in Manhattan. That’s all I’ll say. I don’t want to give you too many clues. Legally, I can’t. 

I was introduced to the twins my first day. The headmistress had told me about their family during orientation. “We give all our students extra special attention,” she said. “We give the twinses extraordinary special attention.” She then gave me an extraordinarily slow wink. There were three sets of twins in this family. Thus, twinses. I was the only person who seemed to think that odd. Or be bothered by that grammatical choice. Chloe and Zoe were in 5^th grade. Jared and Bryce were in 4^th. Tucker and Buckley were in 3^rd. Jared and Bryce were the ones I was charged with giving extraordinary special attention. They came from…let’s just say means. Their father’s job is courting oligarchs. Their mother’s an ex-soap star and frozen food fortune heiress.

Jared was touted as the smart one. Bryce was the sporty one. This made me hate them. I have a twin. We hate when twins lean into these Olsen inspired identities. They were good looking kids in the delicate, yet generic way these rich boys who grow up to be Republican deadheads tend to be, preciously skinny, just ever so lispy, with inquisitive eyes and foppish hair. Jared wasn’t particularly smart. Bryce wasn’t particularly sporty. In fact, looking back, that’s what’s most chilling about this story. Jared wasn’t creepy. He wasn’t brilliant. He wasn’t a Damien or Haley Joel Osment. The only thing extraordinary about him was that his parents could Aunt Becky his way into being valedictorian at Harvard someday. He was so immemorable I hardly thought about him after work ended, so I was truly shocked when a month into my tenure, he came into the classroom where I was having coffee with my colleague Clementine, tugged on my sleeve and said,

“Hey miss, I killed Bryce.”

“What?”

“I got him in one ear and blood came out the other.”

“Wait…what?”

“In the ball-pit with the pickax,” he said as blithely as if we were playing Clue.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” Clementine knelt down, using an extraordinarily empathetic tone. My powers of speech had been taken away.

“I aimed at his brain.” My legs gave out and I sat on top of Clementine’s desk. I nearly dropped my coffee.

“Drats!” she said. “Ali, could you take care of this?”

“How?”

“Golly, I don’t know? By getting Bryce’s body out of the ball pit and making sure the pickax is disposed of? Jared, could you go lay down on your mat?”

“Yes.”

“Ali, c’mon.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need to go call Nicolette.”

“Who?”

Clementine rolled her eyes and covered Jared’s ears. He looked bored. “The mother. She’ll need to replace Bryce immediately.” I choked on nothing. Clementine rolled her eyes again. “And they said you came highly recommended,” she said with newly excavated vitriol. “…Jared, go take your nap sweetie. We’ll be back shortly. This is just a hiccup Ali—”

“Where’d he get a fucking pickax?”

“Jeez, Louise, Ali. The F-word?” She glared through me, turned, and sauntered out of the room. Jared walked over to his mat, laid down, and started quietly rapping Cardi B’s part of “Finesse.”

Bryce was indeed impaled through the ear with a pickax in the ball-pit.

I’d rather not revisit the specifics

The rest of the day, as you might imagine, was something of a blur. I had a meeting with Clementine and the headmistress. Nicolette attended via speakerphone. She had a charity event to plan so couldn’t come down herself. She said three things I remember clear as day:

1. This is why we got two.
2. I’m just glad it wasn’t another teacher.
3. I guess it’s a twin thing.

I mean, I remember some more things, but I had to sign several NDA’s after that meeting. It wasn’t an option. I was let go by noon. I was compensated decently but can’t even get a public-school gig now. 

Anyway, people wonder how I went from that illustrious school to this very illustrious Banana Republic. That’s how. A twin thing. 

– Patrick Brothwell