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Chapter 5 - Welcome to Biology 101.

Geology week at the camp flew by. Both girls were fascinated by everything they were learning and got totally caught up in the heretofore unknown intricacies of rocks. It was a subject that neither girl had ever spent much time on, so it was relatively new to both.

Quinne was especially interested in the complicated processes of finding, unearthing and dating fossils. She was thrilled when the professor guiding the group praised her steady hand and sharp eye while assisting in the cleaning of a fossil of an ancient marine plant. The professor even let her help in the lab while the grad students were doing the radiographic analysis that would help date the find.

Qianna, on the other hand, found herself more interested in the stratigraphy of the various rock formations they were studying. Who knew rocks could be so complicated or so beautiful. From the grey-blue granites that make up the bulk of the Rocky Mountains that towered over Colorado Springs, to the blood-red Jurassic-era rocks of the Morrison Formation - the rock formation that gave the state they were in its name as well as being the rocks where the majority of all US dinosaur fossils are found - the rocks of Colorado’s front range were amazing. On their field trip the following Saturday to the Garden of the Gods - an outcropping of Fountain Formation rocks that have been tilted upright by the subsequent rise of the mountains underneath - Qianna found herself inspired to draw the dramatic scenes over and over again. If she’d had her paints with her, she would have been in heaven trying to match the virtual rainbow of rock colors she saw.

At the end of the tour of the Garden of the Gods, they all got to try their skills at rock climbing. Quinne, who’d done something similar at a climbing gym back in Pittsburgh, excelled at the task. Everyone else had a good time trying it out, though, and even Qianna made it to the top of the rock spur with a little help from the spotters. Then, on the way back, the entire camp invaded a tiny little ice cream shop called the Colorado City Creamery, for a cool, sweet treat after all their exertions out in the sun.

What with all that going on, it was understandable that the girls didn’t get much further on their investigations during the week. Even Qianna’s ongoing attempts to contact and question her father weren’t getting anywhere much. Justin had responded to a text his daughter had sent early in the week, saying that he was swamped at work trying to get the final touches done on some animation for a tight production deadline, and would call her when he was done.

When they were finally back at the dorm Saturday evening, pleasurably exhausted from the adventurous day, both girls immediately retreated to the peace of their dorm room. Quinne used her tablet to play some soft spanish jazz and then got lost in a trashy paperback novel. Qianna pulled out her watercolors and tried to match the colors of the rocks she’d seen that afternoon. It was a relaxing, comfortable, friendly moment, and helped both to rejuvenate a bit.

The quiet of the evening was interrupted about an hour later by the chirping of Quinne’s phone when she received a text message. Picking up the device, Quinne looked at the screen and started to giggle. Qianna looked up from her painting with a questioning glance so Quinne turned the phone around and let her friend see the picture that had been sent to her.

The text read: “Too much?” And the accompanying picture showed a pair of long-toed feet with sparkly purple toenail polish.

“OMG! Your Auntie Em is hilarious!” Qianna exclaimed with a huge ear-to-ear grin.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Quinne agreed as she tapped at the phone screen to call the man back.

“What do you think?” was the way Emmett answered the phone call.

“I think it’s totally YOU!” Quinne asserted. “And I love the two-toned look with the big toe being a different purple. So, what did Uncle Drew think?”

“Oh, Honey, you know my Drewsie. He’s ALL MAN, so of course he complains about shit like that, but then later, when we’re in bed . . . Well, let’s just say I like having my feet worshiped along with the other parts of me,” Emmett elucidated, then broke out into a rather girly giggle of delight.

“TMI, Em! TMI!” Quinne protested.

“Sorry, Sweetie,” Em apologized. “So, how’s Colorado? Any cute boys there? I love a good summer romance story.”

“Nobody worth my time,” Quinne replied dismissively. “Besides, I’m too busy getting my science on to care about boys.”

“You go, Girlfriend. When you’ve won the Nobel Prize for science you can have your pick of the boys. But you are allowed to have SOME fun along the way, aren’t you? It’s summer break after all. You’re not studying all the time, right?”

“No worries. We’re having loads of fun,” Quinne explained, and then went on to detail all the happenings of the past two weeks for her pedicure buddy.

“Well, as long as you’re having a good time.” Em sounded reassured by all the tales of adventure. “So what’s the plan for tonight. It’s Saturday, you know. Are you going out to paint the town red?”

“Uh, Em, did you forget that I’m only twelve?” Quinne chuckled. “Actually, my roommate, QiQi, and I are just hanging out taking it easy tonight. Say ‘hi’, QiQi.”

“Hi!” Qianna sang from her side of the room.

“Oh, hey there! Nice to meet you, QiQi,” Emmett returned. “Okay, so now that I have your approval on my polish choice, Sparky, I’ve got to let you go. I talked Drewsie into taking me out for the night. We’re going to join your dad at his club and get our dance thing on. I haven’t been out in AGES, so I’m totally pumped. I better jump in the shower, though, if I want to be ready in time. Chat later, okay? Ta!”

“I love your Emmett,” Qianna stated as soon as the big queen had rung off. “He’s so authentic.”

“Right? He’s probably the best friend I had growing up. I kinda miss hanging out with him,” Quinne admitted and then relented. “But at least I’ve found you, so it’s all good, right?”

“Definitely!” Qianna agreed.

After a few minutes of silence, Quinne added, “darn, I forgot to ask Em about the surrogate thing. I’m sure he’d tell me more than Pops has let on. It’s probably too late to get him back now, though.”

“You can try him again tomorrow. And maybe I’ll finally be able to reach my dad then too,” Qianna suggested with a frown. “I’m actually getting kinda worried, you know? I can’t believe I haven’t heard more than a text or two from my dad all week. It’s not like him. I bet stupid Hairy Alex never told him about me calling last weekend. That would totally be like the jerk.”

But before they could delve deeper into the possibility that Qianna’s soon-to-be-stepdad might be blocking her communications with her father, the girls were interrupted by Pooh Bear knocking on their door. “Movie time, ladies. We’re watching ‘Get Smart’ tonight so you don’t want to miss it. Popcorn’s waiting.”

And the topic of fathers, ‘aunts’ and their ongoing personal mystery was put off yet again.

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Sunday came and went and Qianna was still unable to touch base with her father. By that point she was starting to get more than a little concerned. It wasn’t unknown for her dad to get caught up in his work, but he’d never just totally blown her off like this before. And the longer she went without a substantive conversation with her father, the more worried she got. But calls and texts to his phone went unanswered and even the email she sent only got an auto response. Quinne tried her best to cheer her friend up, resorting to the distraction of a shopping trip that afternoon when all else failed.

For kicks, the girls decided to just go with the whole twins thing and get their hair cut in identical styles. It would require Quinne to blow dry out her natural curls, but when done right, it made the similarities between the two even more starkly noticeable. To top it all off, they went out and bought identical outfits. And, by the time they got back to campus that night, they looked as much like one another as was possible without coloring their hair. The rest of the their camp friends exclaimed over the transformation and the counsellors declared they would now start calling the girls Q1 and Q2.

Stella, one of the girls who lived in the room across from them in the dorm, plopped down at the cafeteria table next to Quinne and looked the two of them over before voicing what everyone around was thinking. “Are you guys SURE you aren’t related?”

“Actually, no,” Quinne replied, and after getting a go-ahead nod from her double, she launched into a full explanation of the whole surrogate mystery.

The group that had gathered around them seemed captivated by the odd story. By the time the girls were done relating all the clues they’d already gathered, the entire gaggle of students were ready to dive in and help them figure out what was going on. Before dinner was even over, the crew had pulled out their various smartphones, tablets and laptops and begun researching. That was the benefit of going to summer camp with a bunch of geniuses.

It took no time at all for them to delve into the particular phenotypes - i.e. the outward physical characteristics that evidence a person’s underlying genetic makeup - that the girls shared, which strengthened the assumption that they were, indeed, related. Both girls had the recessive trait that meant they couldn’t roll their tongues. Both exhibited an inward bend in the last joint on their right pinky finger - a trait that is recessive in females - meaning that they had to get that trait from their mother. Most of the other characteristics they exhibited were standard dominant traits, like having detached earlobes and placing their left thumb over their right when they interlocked their fingers. But there were enough oddities that the evidence they were related began to mount.

By the time the students were ready to head off to bed, everyone in the research group was convinced that the girls had to be maternally related. It still wasn’t clear what had happened with the surrogate that their respective fathers had used, but it was obvious that something strange had occurred. However, short of doing a full DNA test, there wasn’t any way to absolutely prove their ancestry. Unfortunately, those sorts of tests required a parent’s authorization and the girls weren’t prepared to go there yet. At least not before they’d done some more sleuthing on their own. Luckily for all, the upcoming week was devoted to Biology and Genetics and the hope was that they’d be able to convince the professor teaching the unit to give them some help.

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“Welcome to Biology 101,” Professor Steadman announced as soon as all 100 of the campers were seated in the large auditorium in the science building. “You are definitely the youngest class of students I’ve ever taught, but since the camp directors tell me you’re all geniuses, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I plan to teach this class the same way I’d teach any freshman intro class at CU. So, be prepared, since I only have three weeks to teach you basically an entire semester’s worth of material.”

There were a couple groans from the audience, but for the most part the middle-school students all seemed excited by the idea of taking a college level science course. Notebooks were out, pens were held ready and handouts had already been scanned. Since the professor didn’t hear any objections, she smiled and continued her lecture.

“Okay. So let’s do this,” Steadman moved to her next point. “You’ve all been assigned to a lab section led by one of my grad students. You’ll be meeting with them every afternoon to put what we’re learning to the test. Morning lectures will start at ten. And, if you manage to absorb everything I’m going to teach you, we’ll be able to solve a series of genetics mysteries that I’ll pose to you every Friday. So, who’s ready to learn about what makes every single living organism on the planet tick?”

There was a huge roar of enthusiasm at the end of this speech. The girls joined in, smiling at each other. A genetic mystery was just what they needed to solve and hopefully this unit would help them figure out their own puzzle right along with the class projects.

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The first week’s genetics mystery was to figure out if two babies were inadvertently switched at birth by the hospital. It involved the genetics of blood typing. After the initial lecture, the camp kids had lunch and then moved off to their various lab assignments. Quinne and Qianna were happily assigned to the same lab group. Everyone was suited up in a lab coat, shown to a bench, and handed the lab protocol for the day. Today’s labs were actually simple. They were going to be doing saliva swab blood typing.

Following the directions in the protocol, the students swabbed each other’s cheeks and then processed the saliva they obtained to determine each teen’s blood type. They got to use all sorts of interesting machines that many of them hadn’t ever had access to, including the university's centrifuges. About 20% of the students didn’t secrete enough of the proper antibodies to determine their blood type, but the rest of the them were able to proceed to the next step and figure out which of the four ABO blood types they had. It was an incredibly fun, hands-on activity, and even the folks who couldn’t determine their own blood types had fun helping the rest.

At the end of the day, the girls were delighted to discover that each of them had both A and B antigens in their blood. Since the AB blood type is relatively rare - that blood type is found in less than 4% of the Caucasian population - they had even more evidence that they were likely to be related. So far everything they’d observed pointed to that same, unmistakable, conclusion.

The only question they still had was HOW had this happened?

And to answer that, they were going to have to pressure their families for more information.

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It was late afternoon on Wednesday before Qianna finally heard back from her father. Except for a few additional text messages saying he was still tied up at work, she’d heard nothing. Meanwhile, she’d left at least three voicemail messages and sent daily texts and was starting to get seriously concerned. So, when the call did come just as the girls were leaving their afternoon lab session, she immediately handed off her books to Quinne and answered the call right there and then.

“DAD! Finally! I’ve been trying to reach you for a week now. Is everything okay?” Qianna practically shouted into the phone.

“Hey, Peanut. I’m sorry I wasn’t around when you called. I misplaced my phone last week and I was too busy at work to do anything about it. I didn’t mean to worry you,” Justin apologized. “We finally put the film we were working on in the can at 3:00 am this morning. Then I came home, crashed for eight hours, and just finally managed to locate my darn phone. Somehow it got buried under a pile of papers in my studio - no idea how it ended up there since I haven’t touched that stack of paperwork in over a month, but whatever. How are you? How’s the camp going?”

“You haven’t had your phone all week?” Qianna asked to be certain.

“Nope. I hadn’t seen it since a week ago Sunday. Thank goodness I found it today - I was just about to run out and get another if it hadn’t turned up,” Justin confessed. “I really am sorry if you were trying to reach me. Everything’s okay there, isn’t it? You know you could have tried me at work if it were an emergency, right?”

“I know, Dad. And no, nothing’s wrong here. I was just freaking out a little when you never called me back. Didn’t Alex tell you that I’d called?”

“Alex? No, he didn’t mention it. But then again, I’ve been so busy the past week he might have just forgotten to tell me. You’ve got me now, though, so tell me everything I missed.”

While they continued to walk back to the dorms, Qianna launched into a fully detailed explanation of everything they’d done so far at camp. Justin was interested in hearing all about their projects and demanded pictures. Qianna told him she’d already sent two emails with pictures, and Justin again apologized for not having gone through his emails yet either. Quinne could tell her friend was angry with her father even though she was holding it back. The ‘What I’ve Done So Far This Summer’ portion of the call ended just as they reached the dorm. Quinne guided her friend in through the doors and over to a quiet corner of the main lounge area.  

“. . . So, like I said, this week we’re doing a really sweet project on genetics,” Qianna launched into the meat of the subject, “which is another reason why I’m glad you called. It’s made me curious about my own genetics and the surrogate you used. You’ve never told me much about her.”

Unlike Brian, the girls didn’t sense any diffidence from Justin. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything really. What was her name? What was she like? Did you get any information about her genetic history? How did you pick her? Stuff like that, you know?”

“Okay . . . Well, her name was Lizette. She was an artist too, with a lot of raw talent, but she was really struggling financially at the time. So, when I told her I was looking for a surrogate, she jumped at the chance to not only do something for a friend but to make some money at the same time.”

Both girls were riveted as soon as they heard the name ‘Lizette’ mentioned.  Quinne pumped a fist in victory and gestured to her friend, encouraging her to get more information. Qianna was already on it though.

“So what happened to her? Are you still in contact? I’ve got tons of questions . . .”

“Sorry, Sweetheart, but I have no idea what happened to Lizette. She kinda just disappeared after you were born. I tried to call her when you turned one, to invite her to your birthday party, but the number I had was disconnected,” Justin explained. “I suspect it had something to do with the guy she ended up marrying. He was one of those Evangelical Christian types; I’m sure you can guess what he thought of his girlfriend acting as a surrogate for fags. I’m just glad that, in the end, he wasn’t able to talk her into backing out of the surrogacy contract altogether.”

This disclosure brought up another thousand additional questions the girls wanted to ask, but right as Qianna was about to open her mouth to speak, another voice came over the line.

“Hey, Babe. We gotta go or we’ll be late.”

“One sec,” Justin advised before returning his attention briefly to his daughter. “Sorry, Honey, but I’m going to have to cut this short. Alex and I have an appointment to look at a possible wedding venue this afternoon and I don’t want to be late. I wish you were here to join in on all the wedding fun, Peanut - I’m sure you’d be better at this than I am - but I swear on a stack of Picassos that I’ll email you with a full accounting later tonight. Okay?”

“But, Dad, wait. I need to tell you . . .”

“Sorry, QiQi. Alex is already giving me that look. Gotta go. I love you. Keep up the good work at camp, Sweetie. Talk to you soon . . .”

The phone call ended abruptly before Justin had even said goodbye. Qianna was left sitting there, scowling at the device as though wishing she could jump through it to get to her dad. But behind the outward anger, Quinne could tell her friend was hurt and confused by the way her father seemed so dismissive.

“Cheer up, QiQi, I’m sure your dad is going to come to his senses sooner or later. I mean, it’s so obvious that Hairy Alex is a total poser. And no way is he going to get away with hiding your dad’s phone again - all you need to do is tell him about the texts that HE supposedly sent last week when he didn’t have his phone, and that should put paid to Mr. Hairy Alex.”

“Yeah, I hope, because I seriously can NOT deal with the idea of Alex being my Stepfather. Seriously . . .” Qianna grumbled, still looking at her phone as if it was the culprit and not the gold-digger currently after her naive father. Then she shook her head, took a deep breath, and finally tossed the phone aside onto the bed. “In the meantime, though, we at least got one part of our mystery solved . . . There can’t possibly be two different surrogates named ‘Lizette’ who gave birth on the exact same day to baby girls that look almost identical. Right, Sis?”

Quinne beamed over at her newly confirmed sister with a smile that almost matched Qianna’s ear-to-ear grin. “I’d say it’s as close to 100% sure as we’ll get, shy of an actual DNA test, Sis.”

“This is so sweet! I have a SISTER! You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” Qianna asserted, tears coming to her beautiful hazel eyes.

“Ditto, Sis,” Quinne agreed, moving over to give her emotional sister a hug. “I’m just glad we managed to find each other.”

There was a long interval with both girls holding onto each other, a little tearful, but extremely happy that they could finally put all doubt to rest. For the two outsiders, it was wonderful to know that they had finally found the one person that understood them the best. Not just a friend or a parent, but someone closer. It was almost as if they completed each other, the way only a twin could. So it was understandable if they both let their emotions get away from them for a few minutes.

“Now . . .” Quinne announced when she eventually pulled away and swiped at her wet eyes, “the question that still remains is how the fuck did this happen? I mean, how did Lizette manage to have two babies with two different fathers who live on opposite sides of the country?”

“And if that WAS what happened, how did we get separated?” Qianna added. “I know my dad - there’s no way he would have agreed to anything like that. At least I don’t think he would. He knows how much I’ve always wanted more family. I can’t imagine him keeping me away from you if he knew I had a sister out there somewhere.”

“I agree. Same for my Pops. There’s definitely something fishy with this Lizette person. I think it’s time to find her and confront her about this mess.”

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