Tarah Perry wishes her brothers would remember to put on deodorant. Other 16-year-olds, after all, don? need to be reminded of that by their 14-year-old sister. Other families don? keep a stick of Degree in the glove compartment to enforce deodorant compliance on the way to school in the morning. Granted, Justin and Jason are different from other brothers ?they are autistic twins ?and Tarah? family is therefore different from other families, and generally speaking she is perfectly O.K. with that. It? all she has ever known. But lately she has been fighting more with her brothers. They irritate her, she says. They stink. She tells them as much, and they squabble about it, as any siblings might ?only when you?e 14 and your brothers are disabled and you don? know whether they?l ever make it on their own or whether you?l be responsible for taking care of them, then even the little things take on greater weight. Because what Tarah also wishes is that her brothers will one day manage to hold jobs and find friends and live the kind of life that regular deodorant-wearing people live, or some semblance of it. And in the meantime, it would be nice if they didn? smell up the car.

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Dan Winters

The Perry kids: Jason, left, Tarah, Justin and Melissa (in front).

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Times Topics: Autism

If you were to meet Tarah apart from her family, there? plenty you might learn about her before the subject of her brothers ever came up. She is in the ninth grade and likes to clown around: one day this fall, for instance, when her biology teacher seemed to be in a bad mood, she drew a large smiley face on a sheet of notebook paper and held it up over her own face to try to coax a smile out of the teacher. (It worked.) Her own face is heart-shaped, sprayed with faint freckles and often demurely animated ?lips slightly pursed, eyes knowing ?by a look of private amusement on the verge of being made public. There is no mention of her brothers on her MySpace page, and she is more likely to talk about the marching band or her best friend, Alex, who sits near her in band, or the music she likes or gossip from school. Or trees. For some reason she can? stand pine trees. The central Texas town of Bastrop, about 30 miles southeast of Austin, is overhung by tall loblolly pines, on account of which Tarah occasionally petitions her parents to move the family someplace else, like Ireland, where they could live in a castle and have free health insurance ?although, she concedes, she wouldn? really want to move away from her friends.

Yet she has no doubt that growing up in her brothers?shadows has shaped her own character. ? think I? a much nicer person than I would have been if they weren? autistic,?she says. ? would have been pretty mean and snobby. Still, I? kind of mean sometimes, but I don? think I? snobby.?All her life, she has been not just their younger sister but their de facto older sister, sometime translator and mom? right hand. (Her biology teacher is not the first stressed-out woman Tarah has tried to cheer up.) When they were young, Jason and Justin spoke only about 50 words, and those in odd, high-pitched voices. But according to Tarah? mother, Jennifer: ?t was like she knew what they wanted when I didn?, and she would help me figure it out. Tarah was mother hen to these boys. I probably shouldn? have put her in that position, but oh, my God, she helped me so much.?/p>

The boys are now easier to understand and cope with, but their unpredictability keeps the family on edge. ?e?l be going along just fine, and then boom, something will happen,?Jennifer Perry says. One day last winter, she took the kids to the hospital to see a friend who had just had a baby. Jason, who is unnerved by strange environments, said that he didn? want to go inside, and so Jennifer let him wait in the car while she went in with the other kids. Once the visit was over, they piled back into her big black Suburban ?Justin on the rear bench, Tarah and Jason in the middle and their younger sister, Melissa, 11, in front. They were headed for the parking-lot exit when Tarah said, ?om, when we get home, the boys better take a shower, because they smell really bad.?

Jason slammed his hand on the seat. ?om, I asked you not to let Tarah say that anymore!?he said. Then he turned to Tarah and pulled back his fist and shouted, ?? going to hit you so hard!?/p>