The Sybil Beauty

In life we, as children, are taught to be ourselves in this world. There’s nothing else you can be, or so I thought. This novel has given me a better look into what being “two-faced” or, on a more ironic note, a “Jekyll and Hyde” means. Stevenson’s right, “man is not truly one, but truly two.”, and sometimes more.
Me at school, and me at home are two extremely different things. At school I’m quiet, shy, and drastically soft-spoken. I always have been, and probably always will be. My friends like me for that quality. That’s with friends though. One of my teachers this year constantly harps on my quietness. He says hi to me in the mornings, and it seems to me that he always says something like, “Why do you always sound so timid when I say hi to you? You’re not like that during class. So, why so shy now?” I’ve never legitimately answered him. But, I honestly don’t know why, because I’m only like that in school. Sure, I’m a little soft spoken, and sure I’m not the most talkative in that class, but I’m not unconfident. I’m just naturally soft spoken. I don’t normally raise my hand and blurt out answers, or go up to a teacher and have a random conversation. I don’t like talking in front of people, because I’m afraid of what they think. I’m afraid of being judged. It’s like I’m a whole other person. Frightened, and timid.
On the other hand, at home I am a COMPLETELY different person. If my mom was to hear any of my teachers say, “She’s just an angel.”, or “She’s just so sweet.” .My mom probably wouldn’t believe any of them. At home I’m loud and I tend to speak my mind. Plus, my brother and I NEVER get along. I can get along with everyone else in the world but him. Something about him just sets me off. From the time I was born till about the age of five I was, in fact, a perfect little angel. After my brother had been around for a year things started getting fuzzy. We couldn’t ,and still cannot, stand each other. It’s like putting one cat in a small room with a hundred dogs. The “Shut up’s” and the “No you Are’s” are being thrown across the room to and from one another. It’s normally a ridiculous argument about the dumbest things. For example: If I were to tell him the sky is blue he would argue that it be black. If I say, “Kyle, it’s nine o’clock. You need to go to bed now.” He would say, “Its eight fifty-nine, and mom said nine. Stop bossing me.”(mind you he is eleven) You know the little things like that. It seems that even the sound of his voice, no, of his breathing twist my inside and corrupt my nice demeanor which changes me from the person I was into the evil dinosaur girl ready to rip the head from his shoulders.
These violent “mood swings”, as my mother calls them, go to show you that even the nicest people have a dark side. Yet, even the darkest people have a light side. Either way you decide to look at it, everyone has an alternate ego waiting to emerge and take control. It’s just a matter of if you let it control you, or you control it.