Girl Wonder and the Terrific Twins (4 page)

I was in a bad mood when I got home from school.

“What’s the matter with you?” Anthony asked.

“Yeah, your face is wrinkled like scrunched-up paper,” said Edward.

I stared at myself in the hall mirror. I turned to the left and I turned to the right.

“Do you think I’m short?” I asked my brothers.

“You’re taller than us,” said Anthony.

“A lot taller,” agreed Edward.

“But I’m not as tall as Sharon in my class at school. She’s taller than
everyone – except the teacher.”

“So?” said Anthony.

“She called me a short dumpling.” I frowned. “I need to grow taller – a lot taller. I want to be taller than Sharon. I want to be as tall as tall.”

“How are you going to do that?” Anthony asked.

“Yeah, how?” asked Edward.

“I’ll have to think about that one,” I replied. “Maybe this is a job for Girl Wonder and . . .”

“The Terrific Twins!” my brothers shouted, whirling around like hula hoops.

“We need a plan – something that will make me grow,” I said. “Come on, Terrific Twins – I need your help. Think!”

We sat down on the carpet, each of us crossing our legs. We each sat very still and thought and thought. I thought so
hard that my eyes began to ache.

“How tall do you want to grow?” asked Anthony. “Do you want to grow as tall as a mountain or only as tall as a tree?”

I thought for a moment. “As tall as a tree,” I decided.

That would be tall enough.

We each thought some more.

“Well, if you plant a little seed it grows into a big tree,” Edward said. “So maybe if you swallowed a little seed it would grow into a big tree inside you and it would push you up and up and then you’d be as tall as a tree. You’d be as tall as tall.”

“That’s a good idea!” I grinned. “I’ll swallow orange seeds. Orange trees are tall and I can get the seeds because we always have plenty of oranges in the house. Are you two going to join me?”

“Nah! We’ll watch you first,” said
Edward. Just then Mum came in from the garage.

“Right then. What would you three like for your tea?” Mum asked.

“Fish and chips,” said Anthony.

“Sausages and chips,” said Edward, clapping his hands.

“Oranges!” I shouted.

Mum just laughed. I think she thought I was joking.

In the end Mum made fish and chips. I didn’t have any even though it smelt scrummy-delicious. Whilst the twins and Mum scoffed the scrummy-delicious fish and chips I chewed on my oranges, swallowing the seeds whole.

“Why are you eating so many oranges?” Mum asked me.

“I like oranges,” I replied, trying to force down the last orange.

Mum looked at me, her eyes suspicious.
All she said was, “Hhmm!”

The next day I had two oranges for breakfast, three oranges for lunch and four oranges for dinner. As soon as dinner was finished I measured myself against our measuring wall in the bathroom. I hadn’t grown one millimetre! And what’s more I was sick – sick of oranges.

When I woke up the next morning I had the worst tummy ache in the world.

“Ooh!” I groaned. “Ooooh!”

Mum called the doctor.

“Now then, Maxine,” Doctor Turner said after taking my temperature, “your mum told me that you’re eating a lot of oranges. She said you’re eating oranges and nothing else. Is that right?”

I nodded. Oooooooh! My stomach was really hurting.

“Why have you suddenly become so keen on oranges?” Doctor Turner asked.

Mum was glaring at me from beside Doctor Turner. She had her hands on her hips.

“I love oranges.” I didn’t exactly lie, but I didn’t exactly tell the truth either.

“Is that the
whole
reason?” Mum asked softly.

I thought hard. My stomach ache was getting worse and I was as miserable as miserable but I didn’t want to tell Mum
why I was eating so many oranges. She might stop me, or worse still, she might get annoyed.

“Yeah, that’s the whole reason,” I replied.

“Doctor Turner, can I speak to you for a moment?” Mum said.

The doctor and my mum went outside my room to stand on the landing.

“I . . . oranges . . . cure . . . oranges . . . oranges . . . oranges.” That was all I heard, even though I pushed my ears as far forward as possible.

Mum and Doctor Turner came back into the room.

“Maxine, Doctor Turner agrees with me that what you need is a diet of oranges and nothing else,” Mum began. “I
was
going to make you a cheese, onion and potato pie, followed by ice cream and chocolate sauce and a long glass of
ice-cold cream soda, but . . .”

“It’s all right,” I said quickly. “I don’t mind having that.”

“Nonsense.” Mum smiled. “You said you love oranges. That’s all you’ve eaten for the last two days.”

“But just to make sure that Maxine gets all her essential vitamins and minerals, I would prescribe a teaspoonful of cod-liver oil three times a day and a chewy vitamin tablet twice a day,” said Doctor Turner, scribbling on a pad. “That way Maxine can eat as many oranges as she likes and nothing else.”

“NO! I DON’T WANT ANY MORE ORANGES,” I pleaded. “Maybe . . . maybe I’m not so keen on them after all.”

“Then why were you eating so many of them?” Mum asked.

Her eyes were glinting and sparkling like when the sun shines on water. When she looks at me like that, it’s as if she can read my mind. I decided that perhaps I should just tell the truth. The truth takes a lot less effort.

“Well . . . Sharon at school called me a short dumpling,” I muttered. “So I was swallowing orange seeds so that they would grow into a tree inside me and push me up. Then I’d be taller than Sharon and she couldn’t call me a short dumpling any more.”

“Oh, I see.” Doctor Turner laughed.

“Oh, I see.” Mum smiled.

“Maxine, it’s the oranges that are causing your stomach ache,” Doctor Turner said. “And it doesn’t matter how many you eat, you’ll never get a tree
growing inside of you. If you want to grow you have to eat lots of different kinds of foods – like carrots and greens, and protein foods like eggs and milk.”

“Yuk!” I said. “What about chocolate? Will that make me grow?”

“Only sideways, not upwards,” said Doctor Turner, smiling.

“Maxine, you’re not short and it wouldn’t matter if you were,” Mum said. “It’s what you are inside that counts, not what you are outside. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mum,” I said, holding my aching stomach.

“OK, Maxine, I’ll prescribe some medicine for you which should take away your stomach ache. No more oranges or you’ll turn into one,” said Doctor Turner, pulling a face.

I smiled up at her. She’s funny.

Mum went downstairs, followed by the doctor. After a few minutes Mum came back up the stairs alone, her hands behind her back.

“I’ve brought you a drink.” Mum smiled, her eyes glinting.

“What is it?” I asked suspiciously.

Mum brought out the glass from behind her back. “Orange juice!” She laughed.

I buried my head under my pillow. “Take it away!” I said. “I never want to see anything that’s orange ever again.”

When I got home from school, I ran into the kitchen where Mum was mashing potatoes for our tea and the twins were laying the table.

“What did you do at school today?” Mum asked me.

“We learnt about energy and how we should all save it,” I replied, dropping my school bag on the kitchen floor. “We should always switch off lights when we’re not in the room and we should switch off all electric appli . . . appli . . . appliances when we’re not using them.”

“Quite right too,” Mum said. “Mind
you, I’ve been telling you and your brothers to save energy for years and you haven’t listened to one word yet.”

“Oh, we will now,” I said.

“Why?” Anthony asked.

“Yeah, why?” Edward repeated.

“Because the more energy we save the longer it will last us and the less we waste.”

“What sort of waste?” Anthony asked.

“Well . . .”

“Maxine means things like not filling a kettle with water when all you want is one cup of tea. It takes more energy and longer to heat up a full kettle than a half full one,” Mum said.

“Hhmm!” Edward said.

“Maxine, could you spoon out
some mashed potato on to the plates next to the sausages. I’ll be right back.”

When Mum left the room, I said to the twins, “I think we should make sure that we save energy.”

“How?” Edward said, for once getting in before Anthony.

“Hhmm!” I thought. “We’re going to need a good plan. I think maybe this is a job for Girl Wonder . . .”

“And the Terrific Twins! Yippee!” shouted the twins. And we spun around until we all fell down.

“How about . . . how about if we make sure that everything is switched off before we go to bed tonight?” Anthony suggested.

“We could go into each room and make sure that all the lights and things are switched off,” Edward continued.

“That sounds like a good idea.” I grinned. “All right then, I’ll do upstairs
and you two can do downstairs.”

“How come we get the downstairs?” Anthony protested.

“Yeah, how come?” repeated Edward.

“Because downstairs is bigger and there are two of you,” I explained.

“Hhmm!” they both said, but they didn’t argue so I got away with it.

After our tea of fat sausages and sweet peas and buttery mashed potatoes, we all sat down to watch telly.

“Mum, shouldn’t we switch off the telly to save energy?” Edward asked.

Mum laughed. “But we’re watching it. We can’t save energy by switching it off and watch it at the same time.”

“But it
would
save energy if we
did
switch it off, wouldn’t it?” Edward persisted.

“Yes it would,” Mum agreed. “But I’m not going to. I like Doctor Who.”

Edward leaned over and whispered
to Anthony and me. “Let’s not watch it. Let’s do something else – then that would save energy.”

“I don’t think it works like that.” I frowned. “The telly uses the same amount of energy whether only Mum watches it or all four of us watch it.”

So we watched telly until it was time for us to go to bed.

“I’m a bit tired, so I think I’ll have an early night as well,” Mum yawned, switching off the telly and pulling out the plug.