Meet the Siblings

My name is Terra Kitano. No, not Taro, Terra. Do I look like a boy to you?

I honestly don't blame you for mistaking me for my famous half brother. Yes, the rich billionaire that's skied down Mount Everest not once but twice. Honestly, I thought he was blessed with that famous Kitano logic that pretty much stops most Kitanos from doing anything remotely insane. How in the world did he get the crazy idea to ski down the tallest mountain above sea level in the first place, let alone doing it twice?

You wish to know how I could be related to Taro, when he was the only heir to the Kitano fortune? It's quite simple, really. Taro's father had an affair with my mother, and I was the result of that little escapade. I look just like my father, which kills me. Taro does too. It's easy to see see that we are siblings, even if we are only half siblings - we have the same black hair, the same warm brown eyes, we even have the same bone structure if you can believe it. How the media hasn't figured out that I'm his kid is a mystery to me. Let's be honest, they can find anything under the sun to write a story about it, but they can't seem to figure out that this girl who got sent to jail who happens to look exactly like Taro's father, isn't his illegitimate child? It's not like they don't know about the affair. No, they practically had a field day with it.

Am I jealous? What sane fool wouldn't be? Taro is rich and famous. He grew up in a nice home with good money, never had to go to bed hungry, and was educated. He never had to grow up on the streets, go to bed hungry, and know what it's like to be frozen to the bone. He had time to be a child - well, as much as a child as one could be living in the Kitano's strict household - while I had to work and neglect my studies. Even now I sometimes have trouble when I read, write, or do math. It's a pain, but I didn't need an education to fix cars. That's all that I was good at, fixing cars. I just had some kind of gift with them, I guess. So yes, I'm jealous of Taro, but do not mistake that for being angry at him. The circumstances of my birth and my early life were not his fault.

Enough about that, however. My father, nor my brother, do not control all aspects of my life. You wish to know about my car, correct? I call it Welded, since that is probably the only reason why it hasn't fallen apart yet. It's crafted out of several scrap cars that I rescued from the melting pit in the scrap yard I work at. It's not easy on the eyes, but it gets the job done; and the paint job will help. I haven't been able to finish yet, but I hope to complete it soon.

...........................................................................................................

My name is Verity Maddox, and I have the best older brother in the whole wide world! He's named Tork, and he's really nice. He was the one who taught me everything I knew about cars. And when I said everything, I mean everything. We're talking how to fix them, how to build them, how to race in them, the list goes on and on and on! But even though he taught me, once I was old enough to race we became competitors. I couldn't just go easy on him, now, could I?

Well, at least I raced him for a bit. He moved out to California a while ago, probably bordering on three years at this point. He wanted to find some people and form a street racing team, and of course our sleepy little town just had to be too quiet for races. I mean, people come here to race in Headstone Alley, but they all are based out of town. So he moved, but not before giving me the best gift I could ask for: a real bona-fide car! It was just a plain car, but that makes it even better because that meant I got to paint it! I was so happy! Back Alley's my pride and joy, and I'm pretty good at winning races. Tork better be on his watch the next time I run into him, because I'm going to challenge him to a race, and I don't plan on losing.

Wow, you think that we don't look alike? It's not because I'm a girl or anything, is it? I mean, everyone I meet says that we look alike. We have the same coffee brown skin, the same spiky black hair, the same emerald green eyes, we even both have a lot of natural muscle. One time, one of his old teammates saw me in public and the first thing to come out of his mouth was "Tork, when did you get so short?"