The Page Twins

Wally, Edward, Peanut and I laid in wait outside of Mrs. Page’s home. We had been stealthily stalking her all summer as she waddled through our neighborhood on her daily walks. It was hard to believe someone could get so fat, so quickly, even if they were pregnant. We were careful not to be discovered. Last time we spied on someone we got caught. I still don’t know why we got in trouble. How were we supposed to know Hoppy’s parents would be naked? Shouldn’t they be the one’s who got in trouble? Who walks around the house naked in broad daylight? It had to be illegal. If not, it should be. It did explain why all of their furniture was covered in plastic

It was my mother’s turn, that day, to dole out the punishment and accompanying disquisition. Fran wouldn’t have been able to get through it with a straight face. It didn’t matter who drew the short straw. They shared the same opening question.

“What’s wrong with you?”

 I often wondered that myself. 

Fran started to snigger. My mother shot him a look.

“Don’t start!”

 “I know, but Christ almighty can you imagine what her ass looks like spread out on plastic? That couch must be like a slip and slide in August. I can never go there again.”

Fran had a point. We never wanted to see Hoppy’s parents naked ever again. To this day Wally can’t make eye contact with Hoppy’s mother.

We knew quitting the spy business was out of the question. We were gifted in the ways of espionage. We just needed to hone our skills. We trained like Navy Seals, perfecting a vast array of ninja-like dexterities. Even Wally was able to fabricate a working slingshot with some credibility, although he did shoot himself in the face, twice. We primed until we were virtually undetectable, moving silently through the underground of the heavily hedged yards, confident in our abilities to remain camouflaged at all times.

When we noticed Mrs. Page suspiciously lapping the block every afternoon, our curiosity was piqued. We decided we owed it to our community to make sure she wasn’t up to something. It was the perfect opportunity for us to put our newly acquired skills to good use. We owed it to our fellow man.

We followed her everyday. We wondered why she spent most of her walk laughing to herself. Peanut said that fat people were jolly and that maybe she got jollier the fatter she got. He knew lots of facts like that. It sounded reasonable enough to us, even though Fat Pat from the candy store was far from jolly. Every rule has its exception, I suppose.

Sal threw himself into our bush.

“Did she come out yet?”

“Nope.”

“Well, my mother told me there were two of them in there!”

“Two babies? Is that even possible?”

“Twins.”

“Twins? Creepy. Do you think she’ll give them to the circus?”

“Don’t be stupid, Peanut. You can’t just give babies to the circus. If you could, Wally would be somewhere being shot out of a cannon?”

Wally hit me with a stick.

“I’d rather be one of those clowns that gets to drive the little cars.”

I threw the stick back at him.

“What? I would?” he responded.

“How can she keep them? I bet she donates them to science. They’ll put them in jars, like pickles. I saw it on television, Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Disgusting.”

Finally the garage door slowly creaked open. We took deep cover and waited to see who or what would emerge.  Mrs. Page pushed a two-seated stroller out into her driveway and placed an identical baby in each seat.

We were in awe.  

Peanut was so overcome he waltzed right out of hiding, like he was in some kind of trance. Maybe that’s what happened when you got too close to twins. How would we know? We never even heard of twins before. I understand why he wanted a closer look. From what I could see the babies were red and shriveled, like newborn puppies, with loose skin and old man faces.

Mrs. Page didn’t look surprised to see Peanut crawl out from under the privet. Maybe having twins gave her special powers or maybe she already had powers and that’s how she got twins.  

“Hi Peanut.”

Peanut stared, transfixed, for a long time.

“Peanut? You okay?”

Finally unable to keep himself from imploding, Peanut erupted.

“What the heck is wrong with them? Are they supposed to look like baby hamsters? Are they aliens? Were you abducted by aliens? I bet that’s why you got fat so quick? Why did they make you take two of them? Isn’t one bad enough? Do you remember being on the alien ship? Are you going to donate them to the circus or to science? They’ll keep them in jars. Not the circus people, the scientists, like pickles.”

“Whoa, Peanut, take a breath little man. How do you talk so fast? This is Sara and this is Noah.  I just had them Friday. Pretty cute, don’t you think?”

“No. The one in the hat looks like Sal’s grandfather.”

Peanut was always deadly serious. Mrs. Page laughed anyway.

“So, you’re gonna keep them?”

“Of course! Haven’t you ever seen a newborn baby?”

“No. Do you think we could borrow them? I’m thinking we could set up a freak show right in Erin’s basement. Her mom let us do a haunted house. It was pretty scary even without the eyeballs. We peeled grapes for two days to make eyeballs. Erin ate them, so, they scared no one!” Peanut yelled in the direction of the bushes.

“Anyway, this would be better. We would make a fortune! With those two, and Wally’s deformed Aunt Julie? It could be great. His Aunt Julie has a goiter so big we named it Captain Stubbing, cause it kinda looks like him, except it has more hair, you know, from The Love Boat? She tries to cover him up with a scarf but he’s as big as her head. I don’t know who she thinks she’s fooling. Fran says she should draw a face on it and pretend she has a boyfriend. Ooh, and Mrs. Taft has that three-legged cat, Tripod! Edward has webbed pinky toes! He was gonna get them fixed but kept them in case his real mom is a mermaid and it’s the only way she’ll be able to identify him, kinda like Cinderella and the slipper but with webbed toes, plus he likes winning all the toe cheese contests. Webbed toes collect a lot of gunk.” 

Mrs. Page’s jaw hung. She looked at Peanut speechless.

“We’d pay you, of course, but you’d have to feed them and stuff. No one else is gonna want to touch them. I dared Wally to lick Captain Stubbing once. He didn’t do it. Instead he had to eat a spider and pee on Mrs. Olderman’s Cadillac for welching on a double dog dare.”

“Peanut, do your parent’s know any of this?”

“Yeah, that’s why I have to go to church every Sunday. My mom says it’s my only hope. I don’t know why she sends me. It’s the easiest place to get in trouble. I’m already not allowed to sit next to Erin, well, neither is Wally. She gets the worst church giggles I’ve ever seen. We think something’s wrong with her. She can’t help it and it makes us laugh. Wally says getting church giggles makes him gas-y. Things go bad quick when Wally starts blowing breezers. It’s really Edward’s fault. He’s up there in his alter-boy dress pretending to drink the wine or fall asleep and Erin loses it. So now we have to be separated and each stay in our own corner of the church. I can still hear her though. She snorts when she holds it in too long. She says it feels like her eye is going to pop out if she doesn’t let it out. I believe it. It sounds like that is exactly what is happening.”

Mrs. Page shook her head as she started to push her stroller down the driveway.

“Your parent’s have their hands full with the lot of you. Being a parent is going to be a tough job.”

Peanut yelled after her.

“It will be much harder for you, Mrs. Page, with them being freaks and all. Let me know if you change your mind about Erin’s basement. Her mom really will let us and we won’t put them in jars unless you say its ok.” 

As soon as Mrs. Page was out of sight we bombarded Peanut with rocks, sticks, acorns, anything we could find.

“What?” he shrieked as he tried to protect his vital organs.

“You got caught. She’s going to tell on you and then we are all going to get in trouble. Again!”

“I couldn’t help it! Did you see those things?”

Sal nodded.

“The one with the hat did look like my Grampa.”

I was panicked. I couldn’t afford to get into trouble. I had just gotten my bike back that day from my last punishment for the aforementioned church snort. 

“We have to split up. Pretend we didn’t see each other all day. Make people think we aren’t friends anymore.”

“Aw, c’mon! That means I’ll get in trouble alone! No fair.”

Edward reminded him that he did just saunter right out from hiding and that he did get us caught last time too. We could have gotten away from Hoppy’s house without incident if Peanut hadn’t started screaming like he’d just seen the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

“Fine. I’m never going to be able to quit church, am I?”

“Nope. None of you are. My soul is saved. I’m an alter boy.”

Mrs. Page never told Peanut’s mother about his offer to make stars out of her infants. It was a good thing too. Our plan to pretend to not be friends lasted exactly forty-two minutes. It was a long forty-two minutes.