Mallory and the Trouble With Twins

  “I want an ice-cream sandwich!” she cried.

  “Me too!” cried her twin.

  “Ood-gay. Oh-gay on-hay. Ut-whay are-hay oo-yay aiting-way or-fay?”

  “Talk to us!” demanded the twin.

  “I-hay am-hay alking-tay oo-tay oo-yay. Oo-yay ust-jay on’t-day understand-hay ee-may.” I was speaking as fast as I could, which made the pig Latin sound even odder.

  “Talk in English! Talk right!” yelled the foot-stamper.

  I gave in. “You two haven’t been speaking to me in English,” I pointed out.

  “Malvern toppit samway,” said Marilyn-or-Carolyn.

  “Ut’s-whay is-thay? Ore-may in-tway alk-tay?”

  “Are you going to talk like that all afternoon?” asked one of the girls angrily.

  “Nope,” I replied. “Only as long as you and your sister talk in your language. When you stop, I’ll stop.”

  “Maybe we don’t want to stop,” said Marilyn-or-Carolyn.

  “Aybe-may I-hay on’t-day either-hay,” I answered.

  “Okay, okay, okay. We’ll stop.”

  “Good,” I said. “But now you know how it feels when you leave someone out of a conversation. Or when you’re rude to her.”

  The twins scowled but didn’t apologize. Finally one said, “What language were you talking in?”

  “Pig Latin,” I told her.

  “Pig Latin?” The girls couldn’t help smiling.

  I nodded. “I could teach it to you. Anyone can learn it. My brothers taught it to me. They talk in it sometimes when they need a private language. Of course,” I went on, “you’ve got a language of your own, so you probably don’t need pig Latin.”

  “Oh, yes! Yes, we do!” cried one twin.

  And that was when I decided that Claudia was probably right: twin talk wasn’t much of a language at all, except for a few words the girls had made up. If it was, they wouldn’t be so eager to learn pig Latin.

  “I’ll teach you pig Latin on two conditions,” I said to the twins.

  “What?” they replied. Instantly, they were on their guard.

  “One, that you put your bracelets on — and on right. I’ll just have to trust that you do it right. But I really want to be able to tell you apart. And two, that after I teach you pig Latin, you stop using your own language around me, because I don’t like it. Is that a deal?”

  The twins whispered to each other. Then one said, “If you ask for two things, then we want two things, too. We want to learn pig Latin, and we want the ice-cream sandwiches.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied. “Put your bracelets on and follow me into the kitchen.”

  The girls did so. They sat at the table while I took three ice-cream sandwiches out of the freezer. Then I joined them. I passed out the sandwiches. As we were unwrapping them, I said, “Thank you for putting the bracelets back on. I appreciate that.”

  “Do you really want to be able to tell us apart?” asked … Marilyn. (Bracelet check.) “We are so tired of looking alike.”

  “Yes. I really do. There must be some difference between you. Something besides the bracelets.”

  “We-ell,” said Carolyn slowly, “there is one thing.”

  “Are you going to tell her?” spoke up Marilyn, sounding worried.

  Carolyn nodded. “It’s all right. She said she really wants to know…. Okay?”

  Marilyn nodded.

  “Look very, very closely at our faces,” said Carolyn.

  “Look at our cheeks,” Marilyn added.

  I stared and stared. At last I saw a tiny mole on Carolyn’s left cheek, under her eye. Marilyn had a mole, too, under her right eye. “The moles?” I asked.

  The girls nodded. “It’s the only difference between us that’s really easy to see,” Carolyn told me.

  “Thank you,” I replied. “Now I’ll keep my part of the bargain and teach you pig Latin. It’s really simple. All you do is take the sound at the beginning of a word, drop it, say the rest of the word, and follow it up with that sound plus ‘ay.’ Like, ‘Marilyn’ would be ‘Arilyn-may’. Or ‘Carolyn’ would be ‘Arolyn-cay.’ Or ‘table’ would be —”

  “Able-tay!” cried Marilyn.

  “Right!” I said. “Good. Now here’s a harder one. What would ‘twin’ be?”

  The girls frowned. “Win-tay?” guessed Carolyn.

  I shook my head. “For a word like ‘twin,’ you take the whole sound at the beginning of the word — not just the first letter — and move it around. So ‘twin’ would be ‘in-tway.’”

  “What if a word begins with a vowel?” asked Marilyn. “With ‘a’ or ‘e’ or ‘i’ or ‘o’ or ‘u.’ Then what? What would ‘apple’ be? ‘Apple-ay’?”

  “Nope. That’s the only other rule you have to learn. When a word begins with a vowel, you stick an ‘h’ in there. ‘Apple’ would be ‘apple-hay.’ Or ’island would be ‘island-hay.’”

  “Oh! Cool!” exclaimed Marilyn.

  “Easy!” said Carolyn.

  And the rest of the afternoon was a dream. The girls didn’t use any twin talk, and they didn’t switch their bracelets.

  Then Mrs. Arnold came home and asked me the last question I would have expected to hear.

  “The twins’ eighth birthday is coming up,” she began. “They’re going to have a big party. I was wondering if you and two of your friends would want to help at the party. You know, organize games, keep an eye on the kids. Do the girls in your club ever do that kind of thing?”

  “Well, yes,” I replied. “Not very often, but we have helped at parties.”

  I couldn’t believe she would hire other club members after what had happened with Claudia. But Saturday seemed forgotten. “When will the party be?” I asked.

  Mrs. Arnold told me, and I took down all the information — how long the party was supposed to last, how many kids had been invited, etc.

  “I’ll tell the girls about it at our club meeting tomorrow, and then I’ll call to let you know if we can do it, okay?”

  Mrs. Arnold nodded. She seemed pleased.

  So did the girls.

  When I left, they called, “Ood-gay eye-bay!” instead of “Snod peer,” which was what they had shouted the last time I’d left their house.

  Kristy has said so herself: Her favorite sitting charges of all are David Michael, Andrew, and Karen. Well, I wouldn’t expect anything different. After all, they’re her little brother, stepbrother, and stepsister. Plus, they are awfully cute and fun. If I didn’t have so many brothers and sisters of my own, Kristy’s brothers and sister might be my favorite sitting charges, too.

  Kristy was sitting because her two older brothers were out somewhere, and her parents had gone to another estate sale. That seems to be Mr. and Mrs. Brewer’s new hobby. An estate sale is like a very, very, very fancy yard sale. At an estate sale, the contents of a whole house are being sold, so instead of walking around someone’s front yard, looking at chipped plates and falling-apart couches, you walk through someone’s house, looking at all their furniture and valuable stuff. The big difference between a yard sale and an estate sale is how much everything costs. At a yard sale, you could probably get a lamp for two, maybe three, dollars. At an estate sale, things are in good condition and sometimes cost an awful lot of money.

  Kristy’s mom and stepfather have started going to estate sales to find interesting things for their house and yard. Once, they came back with a birdbath. Another time, they found a chandelier. And another time, they got this big lampshade, that looks like it’s made of stained glass. Kristy thinks the things they find are weird. I think they’re fun. At any rate, the Brewers had gone off in search of wall sconces (whatever those are), and Kristy was left in charge.

  Andrew and Karen only live with their father part-time — every other weekend, every other holiday, and for two weeks each summer. The rest of the time, they live with their mom and stepfather, who are also in Stoneybrook. Believe me, Kristy really looks forward to the weekends with Karen an
d Andrew. She loves them to bits — which I think makes David Michael a little jealous, since he’s so close to their ages. (She loves David Michael, too, of course.)

  When Mr. and Mrs. Brewer had left, the three kids immediately began telling Kristy what they wanted to do that afternoon.

  “I want to play with Hannie,” Karen announced.

  Hannie Papadakis is Karen’s best friend when Karen is at her father’s house. Hannie lives across the street and a couple of houses down. Her older brother, Linny, is David Michael’s friend.

  “And I want to play with Linny,” added David Michael.

  “How about you, Andrew? What do you want to do?” Kristy asked.

  “Daddy said I have to work on my part for the program.”

  “The program?” Kristy repeated. “Oh, right. At school.”

  Andrew’s entire preschool class was planning a program for the parents. Andrew did not want to be in it. He’s terribly shy. But every kid was supposed to be involved, so Andrew had some lines to learn. He was playing a roller-skating bear (on pretend skates) in a circus skit — and he wasn’t happy about it.

  “Okay, Andrew,” said Kristy, “I’ll help you with your lines. Karen, why don’t you call Hannie and Linny and invite them over?”

  “Goody!” exclaimed Karen. “Thanks, Kristy.”

  Kristy took Andrew into the den to work on his lines. She chose the den because it’s a smallish room and very cozy. She thought it might help Andrew to feel more comfortable.

  Andrew stood in the middle of the room, and Kristy sat on the couch, holding the paper that Andrew’s teacher had sent home with him. On it were the lines for the skating bears skit. Andrew’s lines were highlighted in yellow.

  “All right,” said Kristy. “Let’s see. It says here that the ringmaster —”

  “Jason is the ringmaster,” Andrew interrupted.

  “Okay, that Jason the ringmaster says, ‘And now, all the way from Europe, here are the famous skating bears!’”

  “Right,” said Andrew. “Then I’m supposed to stand up and say, ‘I am … I am’ … um … Kristy, I forget what I’m supposed to say, and anyway I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to stand up and talk at all.”

  “I know you don’t,” Kristy replied gently, “but you have to. That’s your job. You know how your daddy and mommy both have jobs and go to work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And my mother and your stepfather have jobs and go to work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I have jobs, too. My jobs are baby-sitting and going to school. Going to school is also a job for Charlie, Sam, David Michael, Karen, and you. And part of your job is to be in this program.”

  “But I don’t want to be in it,” replied Andrew, and his lower lip began to quiver. “I don’t want everyone looking at me and listening to me.”

  “But you know what they’ll probably be thinking while they’re doing that?”

  “What?”

  “They’ll probably be thinking, What a good bear that Andrew makes. He knows his lines so well. I bet he worked very hard.”

  “What if I forget my lines? Then what will they be thinking?”

  “They’ll be thinking, Oh, too bad. He forgot his lines. Well, that happens sometimes. He still looks like a very nice, smart boy.”

  Andrew didn’t seem convinced, so Kristy only worked with him for a few minutes. Then she let him go to his room. He said he wanted to be alone.

  “Karen!” Kristy called. “David Michael! Where are you guys?”

  Kristy had heard the doorbell ring while she was talking to Andrew, so she assumed the Papadakises had come over. Sure enough, she found Linny and David Michael on the back patio reading Basho-Man comics. Then she went to Karen’s room, where she found the girls. They were dressed as twins!

  “Look!” cried Karen. “Look what Hannie got! It’s a dress exactly like ours!” Karen was wearing her sister-outfit dress that Kristy’s grandmother had given her and Kristy the previous Christmas.

  “My mommy bought it for me,” Hannie spoke up, “and as soon as I saw it, I said, ‘That’s just like Karen’s dress.’ So I wore it over as a surprise.”

  “And we both have on white tights,” added Karen, “and our shoes almost match.” The girls were wearing Mary Janes, but Hannie’s had two straps each, while Karen’s had just one.

  “Are we twins?” asked Hannie, putting her arm around Karen.

  Kristy smiled. The girls couldn’t have looked less like twins. Karen is blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and thin, while Hannie is dark-haired, dark-eyed, and stocky, but Kristy said, “You look just like twins.”

  The girls beamed.

  “Let’s do something twins do!” cried Karen. “Let’s … let’s … ”

  Kristy left the girls deciding what to do. She had an idea of her own. She went to her room and found her matching dress. She took off her jeans and turtleneck and put the dress on.

  “Whoa,” she whispered. “This thing’s tight.” Kristy is the shortest kid in her grade at Stoneybrook Middle School, but she must have been growing. The thought made her happy.

  She barely managed to zip up the dress. Then she found a pair of white stockings and looked for some black shoes. She didn’t have Mary Janes, of course, but she found some black flats and slipped into them.

  She smiled at herself in her mirror. Then she returned to Karen’s room.

  “Hi, you guys!” she said.

  Karen and Hannie turned to look at their “triplet.”

  “What do you think?” asked Kristy, pleased with her idea.

  “I —” Karen began. “It’s —” She gave Hannie an odd look. At last she said, “I think — I think we’re tired of being twins.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Hannie.

  “You are?” said Kristy.

  The girls nodded. “I think I’ll change,” added Karen.

  “Then I will, too,” said Kristy.

  Kristy left the girls and put her jeans on again. She checked on Andrew, whom she found muttering his skating-bear lines in his room. Kristy smiled. Andrew was afraid and shy, but if he had to perform, he wanted to do it well. Kristy was proud of him.

  She tiptoed away from his room and ran into Karen and Hannie, who were heading downstairs. Karen was no longer wearing her twin dress.

  Kristy wrote in the club notebook.

  I thought about that for a long time after I read Kristy’s notebook entry. I thought about some of the things Marilyn and Carolyn had said to me. I thought about what Jessi had said — that it’s fun to pretend you have a twin, someone who looks just like you.

  Then I thought about me. I remembered the time a year ago when I had bought this very cool floppy bow for my hair. Vanessa liked it so much that two days later, she bought one, too. I was so angry. Whenever Vanessa wore her bow to school, I wouldn’t wear mine. I wanted to be the only one with that bow. I wanted to be an individual — like Dawn. Dawn never follows the crowd. She insists on being unique, on being herself.

  I thought of all these things, and suddenly something clicked. I had an idea about the troublesome twins. And I had an idea about how I might help them make a little change in their lives … or maybe a big change.

  And I, Mallory, think the party turned out to be fun. Well, maybe not fun exactly, because it was work, and there were some bad moments with the twins. On the other hand, any party is exciting, and there were also some good moments with the twins. The thing is, only the twins and I knew that they were good moments…. Hmm, like I said before, I better start at the beginning.

  The birthday party was supposed to go from one o’clock to three o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Arnold asked us sitters to work from twelve to four so we could help prepare for the party beforehand and clean up afterward.

  Mary Anne and Dawn walked over to my house, picked me up, and then the three of us walked to the Arnolds’. We arrived at ten minutes to twelve, which pleased Mr. and Mrs. Arnold.

  “Happy bi
rthday, Marilyn! Happy birthday, Carolyn!” I exclaimed as soon as I saw the twins. I’d gotten pretty good at telling them apart, even without their bracelets. Once I’d learned to look for the mole, I found other differences between the girls. For instance, Marilyn’s nose is just slightly more rounded than Carolyn’s. And Carolyn’s cheeks are fuller than Marilyn’s. But those are just physical differences. As I came to know the girls better — as they let me know them better — I found personality differences, too. After all, they are two different people, not Marilyn-or-Carolyn, so they’re as different as any two sisters, or even any two strangers.

  “Hi, Mallory!” cried the twins. They were bouncing up and down with excitement, still in their pajamas (matching, of course). They were not going to get dressed until just before the party started.

  I introduced Dawn to the girls and their parents, and then Mary Anne said hello to everyone.

  After that we got down to work.

  “Let’s see,” Mrs. Arnold said. “Dawn, you’re the tallest. Why don’t you help Mr. Arnold put up the crepe paper in the dining room? Mary Anne, you can help the girls blow up balloons. And Mallory, you can fill the goody bags and then give me a hand in the kitchen.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  Mrs. Arnold showed me into the living room, where an assembly line had been set up on the floor — fifteen paper bags with clown faces on them, fifteen packages of neat-looking barrettes (apparently, all the guests were going to be girls), fifteen sets of Magic Markers, fifteen tiny clip-on koala bears, fifteen candy bars, and fifteen beaded necklaces.

  Boy, goody bags had certainly improved since I last got one. When we were little, didn’t goody bags just have, oh, peanuts and a pencil and maybe a plastic ring in them?

  I stuffed the bags neatly and stacked them on a chair in the living room. Then I helped Mrs. Arnold set out paper plates and cups and napkins, and fill candy baskets for the table. After that, we put the finishing touches on the twins’ birthday cake. I wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARILYN AND CAROLYN in pink frosting. Believe me, this was not easy. But Mrs. Arnold thought the cake looked fine.

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “Now let me think. Mallory, could you help the girls dress, please? I’ve laid their clothes out on their beds.”