Twins

Because the protagonist, Maureen, and her twin Francine are just starting sixth grade—their first year of middle school—the challenges of impending adolescence comprise a central aspect of the ongoing conflict between the two main characters. The twins and their friends experience several different hardships, including navigating shifting friendships and social dynamics, overcoming academic challenges, coping with insecurities, and negotiating their personal identities amidst a host of changes. These challenges are significant and cannot be solved overnight, but ultimately, the characters find strategies to become successful participants in the more complex “civilization” of middle school.

As they slowly acclimate to life in middle school, the twins and their friends struggle to navigate shifting friendships and social dynamics, for in this setting, the student population and the social norms differ greatly from elementary school. In the first few days, for example, Maureen is not scheduled to have lunch with her sister or any of her friends, so she doesn’t know who to sit with and spends the first several lunches hiding in the library. This pattern illustrates the extent of her anxiety about navigating a new social setting. She explicitly reflects that “everything is different. Harder. But everyone seems to be doing fine. Except me” (37). To solve this issue, Francine suggests that she sit with her fellow Cadet Corps students, and Maureen eventually does try this and makes new friends. While this is a social triumph for her, it soon becomes apparent that negotiating new and old friendships will be a challenge in its own right. Just as Maureen feels jealous that her sister and her old friends have made new friends in their different classes, they also feel jealous about Maureen’s new friends. It takes a while, but ultimately, the characters realize that they don’t have to choose one friend group over another; instead, they can maintain a variety of different friendships and even combine friend groups for certain events, like the school dance at the end. In short, they learn that the presence of new friendships does not necessarily negate the importance of old friendships.

Although Maureen and Francine were both in the top 10 of their graduating class in elementary school, they both struggle with academics upon entering middle school. While some students like Maureen struggle with the different academic structure and classes, other students like Francine struggle with the more complex content that is taught in the core curriculum. Although Maureen still excels in core academic subjects like Language Arts and Science, she struggles in Cadet Corps because it is unlike anything else she has ever had to do at school, and it requires her to develop skills that she didn’t previously need. Maureen also struggles with the increased pressure of middle school, and she is daunted by the possibility of earning her first B in a class. To solve this problem, Maureen seizes opportunities to earn extra credit, practices physical drills with her new friends, and joins the Color Guard instead of continuing regular marching because it’s better-suited to her skill set. Likewise, Francine struggles with middle-school level Math and Social Studies because these subjects are more academically rigorous than they were in elementary school. To solve this problem, Francine attends after-school tutoring, but her embarrassment about this necessity presents a different challenge of middle school: coping with insecurities.

Both twins face significant insecurities as they enter middle school, in part because of the new challenges they encounter, and in part because of their tendency to compare themselves to others, especially to each other. Francine has always felt like her academic performance paled in comparison to her sister’s, but her concern is exacerbated when she requires tutoring for middle-school-level Math and Social Studies; Francine even worries that she is “the stupid twin” (218). However, Francine’s fear of this label is based on a comparison to one other person—her sister, the class valedictorian—and she ignores the fact that she received better grades than most of her peers, even if her sister scored a bit higher. This label also depends on a limited definition of “intelligence” and incorrectly assumes that receiving help and putting in extra effort implies a lack of intelligence. With encouragement from Maureen, Francine is able to overcome her misguided insecurity about being “stupid.” By contrast, Maureen is insecure about her shyness, her lack of public speaking skills, and her low self-confidence. As Master Sergeant Fields says, “You have buckets of integrity and discipline, and you seem to be a positive influence on others. But you are sorely lacking in self-confidence. And an essay won’t do anything to improve that” (60). Master Sergeant’s words, while stern, reveal that Maureen’s problem requires a different solution. As a result, Maureen tackles her fears by running for student council, making new friends, and practicing public speaking. However, the encouragement from Francine provides the missing piece that fully solidifies Maureen’s newfound self-confidence. When the twins finally reconcile and use teamwork to solve their problems, they both succeed at their chosen task and find solutions that work with their individual strengths. The power of teamwork is also reflected in Maureen’s buddy system idea, which Francine ultimately implements.