Hubbs twins could bowl you over with enthusiasm

MATTAWA — I noticed that Kaylee and Katrina Hubbs were twins the day I met them at Wahluke Junior High School. The second time I saw them, they came right up to me to say hello.

I told them to ask their pop if I could interview them for the purposes of writing about twins. The third time, I was walking up to the school when Kaylee burst through the front door and walked briskly toward me.

Rather enthusiastically, she said: “I thought that was you when you got out of the car. When I saw that bundle of newspapers in your hand, I knew it was you.”

Kaylee said her father had agreed, and she went to find her sister while I delivered the bundle to her school. It didn’t take long.

Then I sat down for what could be described only as a rambling interview. These girls were all over the place physically, mentally and verbally.

“They’re always having fun,” said Stephanie Cárdenas, who met the Hubbs two months ago and is a close friend.

“I’ve always seen the together,” close friend Donna Medina said. “I got them mixed up the first time I saw them.”

The Hubbs twins have fun, all right, but they admit their relationship is not entirely delightful. They have quarrels and sometimes fights. Usually it’s because one covets something the other has, such as a candy bar.

“The Camera,” Katrina said. “Hers is usually dead and not mine.”

Most students and other people don’t often get the Hubbs mixed up. Unless the Hubbs want to mix them up for fun.

“We both have hazel eyes and golden brown hair,” Kaylee said. “She usually has hers down. I usually have mine up. My hair is curly. Hers is straight. If I let my hair down and straighten it out, people will think I’m her.”

Katrina related how one time in third grade the twins were dared by other students to trick the teacher by trading places in the classroom. They tricked the teacher all right, but she had the last laugh.

“We had to stand against a wall,” Katrina said.

Kaylee and Katrina had the same teachers every year, every day and every hour through fifth grade. Last year they shared only four classes. Now they attend two together.

The Hubbs twins are seventh graders. They were born on July 18, 2003 at Othello Community Hospital. Kaylee came into the world five minutes ahead of Katrina.

“Mom said Katrina pushed me out because she didn’t want to be first,” Kaylee said. “And she was born feet first.”

Kaylee is still first in most everything. She wins the races, she wins the wrestling matches, she’s an inch taller and two pounds heavier.

“It is frustrating at times,” Katrina said, but Katrina’s never asked such questions as: “Why did she have to be first?” or “Why couldn’t I have been first?’

Besides, Katrina is one up on Kaylee right now in a very critical matter. She calls a certain boy her boyfriend, and Kaylee likes him too. Kaylee respects the claim and says: “I stay away.”

One way the Hubbs twins are quite different, Katrina said, is that Katrina is a tomboy and Kaylee is a girlie-girl. She added that the tomboys are having better boy luck than the girlie-girls.

Kaylee and Katrina wear the same sizes in clothing. Instead of fighting over what to wear, they share. They most often dress differently so their friends and others can identify them. If they switch during the day – not often – then everybody becomes confused.

There are a few favorites on which the twins don’t agree. Katrina likes the song “Sugar” by Maroon 5. Kaylee favors “Hello” by Adele.

Kaylee likes chicken nuggets, Katrina likes orange chicken; they both like Mellow Yellow; They both like Tom and Jerry. In a test, they were asked to respond immediately to one question: What is your favorite candy bar? Both said almond chocolate, explaining they meant Hershey’s with almonds.

According to Kaylee, the twins often crave the same thing at the same time.

“If she’s getting ice cream, I’m getting that too,” Kaylee said.

If Katrina is ill one day, Kaylee will most often be ill the next day. And each sometimes knows when the other as been hurt even if they are apart.

“When Kaylee gets hurt, I can feel the pain in the same spot she feels the pain,” Katrina said. “One time, when a boy started chasing her, she tried getting over a cattle fence and was shocked by an electric wire. I felt it when it happened. She was still shaking when I saw her.”

What the twins share most is love. To the question of why they are seemingly always together, Kaylee threw her arm around Katrina and said: “We love each other, and I don’t like being apart from her.”

“Yes,” Katrina responded. “We don’t like being apart.

“Except when we fight.”