The Other Matilda

There was a large, gold-framed mirror in Matilda’s room, reaching from the floor to several feet above the young girl’s head. It reflected Matilda’s room with crisp exactness; the lush four-poster bed with the gauzy canopy she had begged for at Christmas, and the pictures of ballerinas that her mother had put up after painting the frames a delicate pink. The desk and lamp stood just the same in the mirror as they did in Matilda’s room, exactly the same colors and with the same little cracks and imperfections. The only thing that the mirror did not reflect loyally was Matilda herself.
Sitting on her bed, stroking the bedcovers absent-mindedly, Matilda watched her reflection twirl around her mirror-room. The Other Matilda had her long, dark hair, and the same blue ribbon as the one Matilda’s nanny had tied in her own hair that day.
“I wish we could dance together,” the Other Matilda said longingly as she did a shaky arabesque. “Or go outside. It’s lonely here.”
“It’s lonely here too,” Matilda said sadly, kicking her backpack, which sat on the floor by the bed. It fell over in the mirror, as if by itself. “I asked Margot to come over today, but she said no again.”
The Other Matilda stopped dancing and nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said, “I did that too.”
There was very little difference between the two Matilda’s; whatever happened to Matilda at school was bound to happen to the Other Matilda. Life was very much the same on either side of the uncrossable mirror.

One day, Matilda came up to her room in tears, unable to hold them back any longer after having hid them from her nanny the entire car ride home from school. She threw herself onto the bed, lay there for a moment, sniffling, then stood and crossed to the mirror.
The Other Matilda was there. “Jessica didn’t invite me to her birthday party,” Matilda told her mirror self. The Other Matilda began to blink, and soon tears were filling her eyes as well. “No,” she said in a trembling voice, “she didn’t invite me either.”
“You are my only friend,” Matilda said, holding a hand up to the mirror. The Other Matilda held up her hand as well, looking, for a moment, like a real mirror image, teary and breathless, with one hand raised. “We only have each other,” she told Matilda firmly.

The next week, Matilda came into her room with an armful of craft supplies. Her nanny had gone to a craft store that afternoon and bought her red construction paper, glitter glue, plastic sequins and lace to create Valentines for her classmates, and Matilda was determined to make them sophisticated and beautiful.
She brought her pile over to the mirror, sitting down in front of it and spreading out her supplies so that she could construct the Valentines alongside the Other Matilda.
The girls giggled as they cut careful hearts, glued elegant lines of sequins and lined them with lace. The Other Matilda watched carefully at Matilda’s technique and copied it exactly, which didn’t even bother Matilda, who was told once by her teacher that copying was the greatest form of flattery.
“This one is for Ms. Bird,” Matilda said, holding up the biggest heart, on which she’d drawn a magnificent bird using glitter glue. “She’s the only nice part of school. She says I have the best handwriting in the whole class.” “And she’s beautiful,” the Other Matilda added, “I hope we’re as pretty as her when we grow up.”
“We won’t be,” Matilda told her. “No, we won’t,” the Other Matilda agreed.
When it came down to it, the Other Matilda always agreed with her counterpart. It made Matilda feel safe, to know that her reflection, despite having an apparent will of its own, always eventually saw things her way. Matilda had command over very little, she felt, but she did rule her own room, and the room that existed opposite her.

Friday came quickly, and Matilda left her room wearing a shirt with a glittery pink heart on the front and red ribbons in their dark hair, her Valentines stowed away safely in her backpack. The room was dark and quiet for many hours, perfectly reflected in the gold-framed mirror.
At 3:42 that afternoon, Matilda burst into her room. She threw down her backpack and rushed to the mirror, longing to discuss the day with her friend in the mirror.
            “Wasn’t it horrible?” Matilda asked her reflection, who was watching her curiously. “What happened?” The Other Matilda asked.
“They hated my stupid Valentines,” Matilda cried, “because they didn’t have candy on them. Jessica threw the one I made her in the trash.”
The Other Matilda was very calm. “They loved mine,” she told Matilda quietly. “They said they were the prettiest ones on the whole class.”
Matilda gaped at her mirror twin. “They… they did?” Matilda felt like she was choking, but the Other Matilda nodded, beginning to smile. It was a horrible smile, too big for her face, but Matilda didn't notice. “And Ms. Bird taped my bird drawing above her desk.”
“But why didn’t that happen to me?”
The Other Matilda shrugged. “Maybe my world is better than yours,” she said. She looked thoughtful for a moment, and added, “Does your mother make lasagna for dinner on Fridays?”
Matilda shook her head, feeling dizzy. “My mother doesn’t make dinner.”
The Other Matilda looked very sorry. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “if you wanted to, you could come to my side. Just to see what it’s like.”
 “No I can’t. We can’t cross the mirror.”
“Yes we can, if you open it. Try.”
Matilda’s stomach tightened with unease. “I don’t think I should,” she said. The Other Matilda shrugged, “Okay. I only thought you might want to have lasagna with mother. I can smell it cooking downstairs. She’ll want to hear all about my day, only I don’t really feel like it. But if you wanted to, you could do it instead. Just for one day,” she added sternly, “then you’d have to go back to your side.”
“How do I open it?”
“You only need to pull on the mirror, like a door. You only have to want to.”
Matilda pulled the side of the gold-frame, wanting to. It swung open, and there was the other room, just the same, only opposite.
Matilda stepped over the threshold, closer to the Other Matilda than she’d ever been.
And then, quicker than Matilda could comprehend, the Other Matilda slipped past her, to the real world, and shut the mirror door.

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