Girl Wonder and the Terrific Twins (5 page)

We cleaned our teeth and put on our pyjamas. Then, when Mum was in the bathroom, I grabbed my brothers.

“Come on, Terrific Twins. Now’s our chance to save energy. You two do the kitchen and the conservatory and the living room and I’ll do the bedrooms,” I said.

Five minutes later we met back upstairs.

“We’ve saved energy everywhere,” the twins said proudly.

“So have I,” I said. “Goodnight Anthony, goodnight Edward. See you in the morning.”

Mum read to the twins first, then she came into my bedroom and read me a fairy story. I love fairy stories.

“Goodnight Maxine.” Mum smiled, and she switched off the bedroom light and closed the door behind her. Then I
fell asleep, dreaming of the ways I could save energy.

“MAXINE, ANTHONY, EDWARD – GET DOWN HERE! THIS MINUTE!”

I rubbed my eyes. It was morning but I was still sleepy.

“MAXINE! EDWARD! ANTHONY! NOW!”

I didn’t like the sound of Mum’s voice. It sounded crosser than cross. I hopped out of bed and walked down the stairs behind the twins.

“What’s the matter?” I whispered to them.

“I don’t know,” Anthony whispered back.

“Nor do I,” Edward mouthed.

We walked into the kitchen where Mum was. Her hands were folded across her chest and her eyes were glaring at us.

I knew we were in BIG TROUBLE.

“Which one of you ninnies switched off the fridge last night?” Mum asked.

I looked at the twins. They looked at me. No one spoke.

“I’m waiting for an answer,” Mum said. “I’ll have you know that all the ice in the freezer has melted because one of you three pulled out the plug for the fridge. The ice cream has melted all over my mince and the fridge is one great big sticky mess. It’s full of water and there’s water all over the floor.”

Still no one said a word.

“And which one of you twits switched off the washing machine when it was in the middle of washing my jumpers?” Mum raged. “Now all my jumpers have shrunk. They’re ruined.”

The twins and I looked at each other. We stayed silent.

“And which one of you pea-heads pulled out the plug for the set top box? I wanted to record a late night film and I MISSED IT!”

Anthony started to sniff, then to sob.
“I . . . I pulled out the plug for the fridge. I was only trying to save energy like Maxine said. And I was . . . I was the one who pulled out . . . pulled out the plug to the set top box.”

Edward started to howl. “I pulled out the plug for the washing machine. I was only trying to save energy like Maxine said we should.”

“I never told you to pull out every plug in the house,” I protested. “Mum, that’s not fair . . .”

“That’s enough. Right then.” Mum’s hands were on her hips. “All three of you are going to clean up this kitchen until it’s spotless. And all three of you will get no more pocket money until you’ve paid for my ruined jumpers.”

And Mum marched out of the kitchen.

We got out the mop and some squeezy-cloths and started mopping up the floor.

“It’s all your fault,” Anthony said.

“Yeah,
all
your fault,” Edward agreed. “You were the one who came home and said we should save energy.”

“It was your idea to check and make sure we’d saved energy before we went to bed,” I told the twins.

“But it was all your idea in the first place,” Anthony said.

“I’m not talking to you two,” I said in a huff.

“And we’re not talking to you either,” Anthony whinged. “Your idea was mega-super-duper-ginormous-galactic stinky. We didn’t save
our
energy. My arms are killing me.”

“Mine too,” Edward agreed, giving me a dirty look.

Huh! Sometimes being a superhero is no fun!

We were going to Aunt Joanne and Uncle Stan’s house.

Their house is neat and clean and . . . really boring! They don’t have one single book on the floor. They don’t have any comics on the chairs. Their kitchen never has dirty forks and spoons lying about in the sink. It’s not like our house at all.

We always have to dress up in our best clothes when we visit Uncle Stan and Aunt Joanne. Even Mum dresses up.

As it was a sunny day, Mum decided that we could walk through the park. Our aunt and uncle live just on the other
side of the park. So off we went.

“Maxine, Anthony, Edward, make sure you keep your clothes spotless,” Mum warned. “So there is to be no messing about.”

As if we would!

The park was full of people.

“Mum, can I go on the swings? Please,
please
?” I asked.

“No. You’ll get your dress dirty,” replied Mum.

“Mum, can I go on the roundabout?” Anthony asked.

“Yeah! The roundabout,” Edward repeated.

“No. You’ll get your clothes creased,” Mum said.

I didn’t see the point of going through the park if you couldn’t run and jump and play in the playground.

“Oh, look at that,” I said.

Near us, a girl and a boy were flying a kite painted with a dragon. It dipped and danced in the sky. We all stopped to watch.

“Mum, do you know how to make a kite?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ll show you when we get back home. It’s really easy,” Mum said.

“Hooray!” we all shouted.

That cheered us up.

We were just passing by a park bench when I noticed something very strange. There were two spiders trying to swing down from the bench but they weren’t getting very far. They scurried a little way along the bench and then tried to swing down but they never got all their legs off the bench. Then they scurried further along the bench and tried again but the same thing happened.

“Mum, look at that.” I pointed.

“How strange!” Mum said. “They
can’t get down.”

And we all stopped to watch the spiders.

“Anthony, Edward, do you know what I think?” I whispered to them.

“No, what?” Anthony asked.

“Yeah! What?” Edward repeated.

So I said, “I think this is a job for Girl Wonder and . . .”

“The Terrific Twins!” my brothers whispered back.

And we spun around until the park was spinning with us.

“What on earth are you three doing?” Mum laughed.

“It’s a secret,” I told Mum.

“Well, come on. We can’t stand here all day,” Mum said.

“But Mum, can’t we help the spiders?” Anthony asked.

“Yeah! We should do something. They want to get down,” Edward said.

“Oh, all right then,” Mum replied.

She doesn’t like spiders much. We all sat down on the bench and watched the spiders some more. Then I saw a piece of brown cardboard propped up against the side of the park bench.

“I’ve got a plan,” I said to the twins as I leaned over to get it. “This piece of cardboard will help the spiders to get to the ground.”

I leaned one end of the piece of cardboard against the bench and the other end I placed against the ground so that the piece of cardboard was like a slide.

“Come on, Mr and Mrs Spider,” I said. “We haven’t got all day.”

“No, we haven’t,” Mum agreed, glancing down at her watch.

The spiders hopped on to the cardboard
immediately and scuttled down on to the ground.

“Come on, then,” Mum said, and she went to stand up. Only she had trouble. She was sticking to the bench.

“What on earth . . .?” Mum said.

She put her hand down on the bench. Then she looked at the palm of her hand. It was bright green.

“This bench is wet!” Mum said, springing up off the bench. “Stand up, you three.”

We stood up.

“Turn around,” Mum ordered.

We turned around.

“Oh no!” Mum cried. “Just look at your best clothes!”

We twisted our heads to look at our backs. I pulled the back of my dress skirt out to look at it. It was covered in green paint.

“Why didn’t they leave a warning here to say the bench had just been painted?” Mum asked furiously, her hands on her hips.

She was seriously,
seriously
annoyed!

Then she looked down at the cardboard slide I had used to help the spiders to the ground. She picked it up and turned it over. Then showed it to us. There on the sign, in big green letters, were the words:

“Maxine, where did you get this sign from?” Mum asked.

“From beside the bench,” I replied.