So few people know the true story of Hello Kitty and her twin sister, Mimmy.
Mimmy watched her sister’s fame grow as her own importance diminished, even to their parents. She couldn’t understand it. Mimmy was exactly the same as Kitty in every way, except for a preference for yellow hair ornaments instead of red, and a slightly less cutesy manner of speaking. The divide grew a little more every day. Kitty barely acknowledged her own sister, except when photo opportunities demanded it. She wasn’t precisely cruel, just uninterested. She’d shared a womb with Mimmy – wasn’t that enough?
But in the shadows, Mimmy grew mad with jealousy and neglect. Mimmy wasn’t a bad person. She was just so ignored. Kitty had everything: the attention of their mama and papa, fame, fortune…and even Dear Daniel.
Dear Daniel had been nice to Mimmy in the beginning, but Kitty had put a stop to that.
“There’s no need to speak to her when no one is paying attention,” Kitty purred, cupping Dear Daniel’s cheek with her silky paw. “I never do.”
Dear Daniel flushed to the top of his handsome feline head. He knew the price of noncompliance would be almost unbearable. He would be tabloid fodder for months, and he had deep secrets he wanted to keep to himself.
And so Mimmy lost her last ally.
It was easy in the end. All it took was a poisoned apple pie and a quick disposal of her sister’s adorable, rapidly stiffening body. Mimmy took off her favorite yellow hair bow and put a triumphant red bow over her opposite ear. “Mimmy is missing!” she cried to mama and papa in a petulant mimicry of her twin’s cloying voice.
But no one looked very hard for missing “Mimmy.” Most thought it was almost a relief to be rid of such a milksop background character, though no one was tactless enough to say so out loud.
Mimmy slipped seamlessly into Kitty’s famous shoes – into Kitty’s famous life – and she thought no one was ever the wiser until one day the following autumn.
She was walking through an apple orchard with Dear Daniel. They had managed to break free from the paparazzi for once, and were quite alone amongst the trees – just another couple picking apples.
Mimmy climbed down the ladder, carefully balancing her full basket against her leg. She turned when she reached the ground, and was startled to find herself staring directly into Dear Daniel’s eyes.
“I know you’re Mimmy,” he said softly.
Mimmy swallowed, and began to panic. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said as calmly as she was able.
“I know because you’re never cruel to me,” he said, the warmth in his eyes evident. “You can trust me, Mimmy. I’m very good at keeping secrets.”
There was something so sincere in his voice that Mimmy decided to believe him. “Thank you,” she whispered.
They never spoke of it again.
