"Babysitters Club 021 Mallory And The Trouble With Twins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babysitters Club)

Well, it sure was an easy sitting job. It was Sunday afternoon, and my parents had been invited to a reception. The reception was to be held indoors, which was lucky since it was pouring rain. And I mean, cats and dogs, streaming down the windows, rattling the gutters. That kind of rain. As Jessi pointed out in the club notebook, rainy days like this one can be a baby-sitting disaster if the only thing the kids want to do is go outside.
But - for once - every one of my brothers and sisters was busy and happy. The triplets were down in the rec room watching a movie that we'd rented for the weekend. Our entire family had watched it the night before, and now the triplets were watching it again. Personally, I don't see how they can do that. I can read a book over and over again, but there aren't too many movies I could watch twice in one weekend.
Nicky was upstairs in the room he shares with the triplets, working on a science-fair project. He was creating a solar system, and it wasn't easy. He had to find balls of various sizes to represent the planets, and then he had to figure out how to get them to revolve around the sun (a yellow tennis ball). It would keep him busy for hours.
Vanessa was in the bedroom she shares with me, writing poems. She keeps a fat notebook full of her poetry, and she said the rainy weather had inspired her, so she would be busy for hours, too. When Vanessa gets on a roll, she can write eight or ten long poems.
Finally Margo and Claire were upstairs in their room. They were playing Candy Land. Ordinarily, that causes endless arguments, and even a few tears, but they were also quiet.
"We're playing the best out of seven games," Margo informed Jessi and me when we stuck our heads in their room to make sure they were still alive.
The best of seven. That could take all day.
Jessi and I settled ourselves in the kitchen with cups of hot chocolate. (There is just nothing like hot chocolate on a rainy day, summer or winter.)
"Do you think we should split up?" Jessi asked me. "I'll sit upstairs, you sit downstairs - in case an argument breaks out or something. This seems too easy."
I smiled. "I really think everyone is okay. At the first sign of trouble, we'll separate. Right now, let's leave the kids alone and just relax."
Jessi didn't have a problem with that! We finished our hot chocolate, went into the living room, and sprawled on the rug.
"What would you do if you had a million dollars?" Jessi asked me.
"Get my ears pierced," I replied.
Jessi giggled. "Okay, after that, you'd still probably have, oh, about nine hundred thousand nine hundred and ninety bucks left. Then what would you do?"
"Get contacts. And get my hair cut and styled."
"And after that?"
"Pay the orthodontist not to give me braces."
Jessi couldn't stop laughing. "Then what?" she managed to say.
"Buy a nine-bedroom house for my family."
"So each of you kids could have your own room?"
"Exactly."
"Hmm. You'd really want separate rooms?"
"After sharing all our lives? Of course."
"Even the triplets?"
"Definitely. I mean, they spend a lot of time together, but they are different people. They have different interests and stuff. And sometimes they do get on each other's nerves."
"You know, it's funny. I've never had a bit of trouble telling the triplets apart," said Jessi. "Well, maybe a little when I first met them. But after that, never."
"Most people don't have any trouble," I
said. "Okay. What would you do with a million bucks?"
"Get my ears pierced," replied Jessi, and we both began laughing again.
"You know," I said, "I feel like a baby because Mom and Dad won't let me get my ears pierced or my hair cut or wear cool clothes. But when I think about it, maybe they're the babies. I mean, ear-piercing is safe if you have it done professionally. It isn't safe to have a friend do it with a needle and an ice cube, but - "
"Oh, EW! That is so disgusting! A needle and an ice cube!" cried Jessi. Then she calmed down. "But," she went on, "I don't think your parents - or mine - are babies. I know what you mean, but they must have good reasons for what they will and won't let us do."
"Whose side are you on?" I demanded, but I wasn't really angry.
Jessi smiled. "I'm just being diploma - Hey, look! Twins!"
I turned and saw Claire and Margo coming down the stairs hand in hand. Each was wearing a pair of pink sweat pants, a white turtle-neck, and running shoes, with a pink bow in her hair.
"What happened to Candy Land?" I asked the girls.
"We got tired of it," Claire replied.
"Claire got tired of it," said Margo pointedly.
"Silly-billy-goo-goo," Claire said, and giggled. She's going through that five-year-old silly stage.
"So we decided to have a fashion show," Margo went on. "This is the first fashion of the year. It's the Terrific Twin outfit."
"Stunning," said Jessi.
"Superb," I added.
Claire turned around gracefully. Margo spun around and fell down.
Then they ran back upstairs.
"Gotta change," Claire yelled over her shoulder.
"New outfits coming up!" called Margo.
When they were out of earshot, Jessi said, "Remember how much fun it used to be to pretend you had a twin?"
"1 guess," I answered slowly, trying to remember.
"Oh, Becca and I used to do it all the time. Once, we were wearing matching dresses and Mom took us shopping and we told everyone we were really twins. The only problem was, Becca and I are three years apart, and I've always been tall for my age, so I was, like, at least a whole head taller than Becca was. People must have thought we were crazy!"
I laughed. "I know Kristy and Karen" (Karen is Kristy's stepsister) "have a matching sister outfit that they get a kick out of wearing together. But I really don't remember ever pretending I was a twin. I do remember once, though, when our family was on vacation and Vanessa and I tried to convince people we were French. We said oui and non and spoke with an accent."
"Okay! Here we come again!" called Margo. "We're the fashion beauties. Close your eyes. When you open them, you'll see another new fashion."