Twin Trouble Read online

  This book is for

  Elizabeth Strutton

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  1 TERRI AND TAMMY

  2 SCHOOL

  3 THE READATHON

  4 READING FEVER

  5 STAR READER

  6 SAMESIES

  7 SCHOOL CHOIR

  8 TERRI’S SECRET PLAN

  9 SNEAKING AROUND

  10 CHEATING

  11 GOOD NEWS

  12 DIFFERENT AGAIN

  13 GRANDMA DORIS

  14 PRIZE DAY

  15 THE LONG, LONG CATERPILLAR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  Terri and Tammy

  Terri Barkan was a twin — an identical twin — and she liked it. She could not imagine anything so boring as having just a regular old brother or sister. Or worse, no brother or sister at all. Terri liked being just the same as Tammy. Samesies.

  “Girls!” the twins’ father called up the stairs. “What do you want for supper tonight? Pasta or chicken?”

  “Pasta, please!” Terri called back.

  At the same time, from the next bedroom, Tammy called, “Pasta, please!”

  “Pinky swear!” cried Terri, and she ran into her sister’s room. “Samesies! Same words, same time.”

  The twins locked pinkies for the pinky swear. They had lots of pinky swears every day. They were always saying the same thing at the same time.

  Terri was seven years old. Tammy was the same age as Terri, minus one hour. “I was born first. I am the big sister,” Terri used to boast. That was when the twins were five. Now, being an hour older or younger did not seem to matter much.

  Terri eyed the clothes lying on her sister’s bed. “Is that what you are going to wear to school tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Yup,” replied Tammy.

  “Hmm. I was going to wear my fish sweater too. Maybe I will change to my striped sweater. We just dressed samesies on Friday.”

  For a long time Terri and her sister had dressed alike every single day. But in first grade, their classmates had started to call both of them Twinny instead of Terri or Tammy. That was too much sameness. Now they usually dressed differently, at least at school.

  “We do not want to drive Ms. Colman crazy,” Terri had said to Tammy at the beginning of the year.

  “No,” agreed Tammy.

  Ms. Colman was the twins’ best teacher ever. In fact, she was the favorite teacher of most of her second-graders. She thought up fun projects, she smiled a lot, she almost never yelled, and she hardly ever got mad. Plus, she was fair and honest.

  “Pasta time!” called Mr. Barkan from downstairs.

  “I will have to choose my outfit later,” said Terri. “Come on.”

  The girls ran downstairs to the kitchen. They sat at the table with their parents. When the pasta had been served, Terri said, “Did you know that Ian’s mother is going to have a baby?”

  “Mrs. Johnson?” said Terri’s mother. “How nice for Ian’s family.”

  “Mom?” said Tammy. “Do you think we will have another baby?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Barkan glanced at each other. “Probably not,” replied Mrs. Barkan. “We think two kids are just right. But you never know.”

  Terri thought two kids were just right too. She did want a pet, though. She and Tammy had had a frog once. Frank. But Terri wanted a dog. Or a cat. Still, she thought her family was pretty nice the way it was. A mom, a dad, and two samesies.

  That night Terri finally decided to wear the striped sweater. And jeans, since Tammy was wearing leggings. Then she and Tammy played Scrabble Junior.

  “I won!” cried Terri.

  “I won last time,” said Tammy.

  “And I got the same score you did when you won.”

  The twins grinned at each other. Then they began a new game. They played Scrabble until bedtime.

  School

  Terri and Tammy hurried along the hallway of Stoneybrook Academy. They paused when they reached the doorway to room 2A. Then they stood side by side and entered the room together.

  “Hi, Terri! Hi, Tammy!” called Karen Brewer.

  “Hi, Karen!” said the twins.

  Karen was sitting on her desk in the back row. Nancy Dawes was standing in front of her. Karen was braiding Nancy’s hair. Next to Nancy, Hannie Papadakis was waiting patiently for Karen to braid her hair. Karen, Nancy, and Hannie were best friends. They called themselves the Three Musketeers.

  Terri and Tammy put their coats in their cubbies. Then they put their things in their desks. Terri wished that her desk was next to Tammy’s, but it was not. Ms. Colman had seated the kids where she wanted them, and that was that. So Terri sat at one end of the third row, and Tammy sat one row up and two seats over. Oh, well. At least the twins could see each other easily. Sometimes they even passed notes.

  Terri looked around the room. She wanted to see who else was there. She pretended she was taking attendance.

  Okay. Over in the reading corner were Sara Ford and Natalie Springer. Sara was new to Stoneybrook Academy, and Terri liked her very much. She was glad Ms. Colman had seated Sara next to her. (Otherwise, Terri might have been surrounded by boys. Ricky Torres sat behind her, and Chris Lamar sat in front of her.) Natalie Springer was sloppy and messy, but Terri liked her, too. She had known Natalie since kindergarten.

  In the back of the room, Leslie Morris and Jannie Gilbert were playing with Hootie, the class guinea pig. Leslie and Jannie were best friends — and they were the best enemies of Karen, Nancy, and Hannie.

  Terri heard a crash then. She looked toward the door of the classroom. Of course I just heard a crash, she thought. The boys have arrived. There were sixteen kids in Ms. Colman’s class. Ten girls and six boys. Four of the boys had just arrived in a big, noisy bunch. Chris and Ricky, plus Hank Ruebens and Bobby Gianelli. Terri did not mind Chris, Ricky, or Hank. But Bobby … well, Bobby was a bully. Sometimes Terri was afraid of him.

  Then another boy entered the room. Omar Harris. Omar was okay. He had a sheepdog named Buster. Omar was followed — very quietly — by Ian Johnson. Terri liked Ian, too. Ian’s hobby was reading. The last kid to arrive was Audrey Green. Audrey hung her coat in her cubby, then peered into Mr. Berger’s room next door. Mr. Berger was the other second-grade teacher. In the mornings the door between his room and Ms. Colman’s room was always open. Mr. Berger kept an eye on all the kids until Ms. Colman arrived.

  “Hey, Terri,” said Tammy. “Come here.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s play cat’s cradle.”

  “Okay.”

  Terri took her cat’s cradle string to Tammy’s desk.

  “I can show you something new,” said Audrey. She hurried across the room to the twins.

  “Cool,” said Terri and Tammy.

  “Pinky swear!” cried Tammy.

  “Good morning, class,” said Ms. Colman.

  Terri looked up. Their teacher had arrived. Terri put the string in her pocket. Cat’s cradle would have to wait.

  The Readathon

  Ms. Colman took attendance. “Everyone is here,” she said. “That is good, because I have an announcement to make. I would like all of you to hear it.”

  Terri wiggled in her seat. This sounded interesting.

  “Our school,” Ms. Colman began, “is about to start an exciting project. How many of you know Burger Town?”

  Terri raised her hand. So did Tammy. So did almost every kid in the classroom. They had eaten plenty of hamburger meals at Burger Town. It was one of Terri’s favorite restaurants.

  Ms. Colman smiled. “I thought so. Well, the people at Burger Town have come up with a very generous offer. They have told our school, and several other schools, that they would l
ike to run readathons to help our school libraries. They said that for every one thousand pages the students read, they will give the school a hundred dollars to buy books and materials for the library.”

  Terri slumped in her seat. And Bobby Gianelli said just what she had been thinking. “A thousand pages? Ms. Colman, I cannot read a thousand pages!”

  “Oh, no. Of course not, Bobby. That is not what I meant,” said Ms. Colman. “Nobody has to read a thousand pages alone. We will work together. Every student in the school. You will read as many pages as you can. All the pages will be added together. With so many kids reading, we will read thousands and thousands of pages. But you just read as many as you can. You will see.”

  “How much time will we have to do the reading in?” asked Tammy.

  “A month,” replied Ms. Colman. “Let me explain. Starting today, every student in every class in our school will read books for the readathon. You may choose any book you like. Each time you finish reading a book, let me know. I will ask you a few questions about it so I know you understood it. If you can answer the questions, then the book counts for the readathon. I will mark down the number of pages in the book. The next time you finish a book, I will add those pages to the ones you already read.”

  “Can we read short books?” asked Audrey.

  “Certainly,” replied Ms. Colman. “But you will not earn as many pages for them.”

  “Can we read at home?” asked Karen Brewer.

  “Yes,” said Ms. Colman. “I will give you half an hour to read in school every day, too. But you will probably do most of your reading at home. Just tell me each time you finish a book, okay?” The kids in Ms. Colman’s class nodded. “Another thing,” she went on. “At the end of each day, the teachers will total the new pages their students have read. Then they will add the new pages together to see how many pages all the students in the school read. We will keep track of the pages out in the hallway, where everyone can see. Our art teacher is making a big paper caterpillar for us. Each time we read two hundred and fifty more pages, another link will be added to the caterpillar’s body. We can watch our caterpillar grow.

  “When the month is over, someone from Burger Town will come to our school. He will give us a check for the pages we read. He will also give a prize to the class that read the most pages, and to the student in each class who read the most pages.”

  “Cool!” exclaimed Ian.

  “Very cool,” agreed Sara.

  And Terri passed a note to Tammy that said, “Let’s read the books in the Becky Morton series.”

  Reading Fever

  After recess that day, Ms. Colman said, “Okay, class. For the next month, we will have our half-hour reading period every day at this time. Now is your chance to start reading for the readathon. You may choose books from our classroom library. If you have a book from home or from the public library, that is fine, too. If you want to go to the school library now, you may go with Mr. Berger. He is taking some of his students there.”

  Four kids went off with Mr. Berger. But Terri and Tammy and the others stayed behind. Terri and Tammy made a dash for the bookshelf in the reading corner. Quite a few Becky Morton books were there. They were the twins’ favorites. They were stories about the adventures of Becky Morton, a girl their age who lived in colonial America, hundreds of years ago.

  Terri chose a book called Becky Morton Rides Again. She carried it to her desk. She opened it to the last page. The number on the page was 63. Wow, thought Terri. When I finish this book, I will have read sixty-three pages.

  Terri flipped to the front of the book. She began to read. She read and read and read. She forgot about her classroom and the other kids and even the readathon. So she was quite surprised to hear Ms. Colman say, “All right, class. I am afraid you must put your books away. The half hour is over.”

  Terri blinked. The half hour had felt like five minutes. She checked to see what page she was on. Twenty-four. She had read three chapters and part of a fourth. She leaned across Sara’s desk and called softly, “Tammy? Tammy?”

  Tammy turned around. “Yeah?”

  “How many pages did you read?”

  “Forty-one. How many did you read?”

  “Forty-one? I read, um, twenty-four.”

  Now that was odd. Terri and Tammy were almost always samesies. They did everything the same. Hmm.

  At the end of the day, Ms. Colman said, “Did anyone finish a book today? I can ask you some questions.”

  No one had. Not on the first day of the readathon. But at the end of the second day, four kids had finished books. Ms. Colman quizzed them on the stories. Then she announced. “Excellent! Ian has read forty-seven pages, Karen has earned forty-five, Sara has earned fifty-five, and Tammy has earned forty-six.”

  Out in the hallway, on the other side of the school, the caterpillar’s head had been taped to the wall. It was a friendly caterpillar with eyes made of cotton puffs, and antennae that really bobbed. On Tuesday afternoon the teachers attached a round red link to the head. The kids at Stoneybrook Academy had read their first 250 pages. The caterpillar had started to grow.

  Terri and Tammy read the Becky Morton books all week. On Wednesday, Terri finally finished Becky Morton Rides Again. Tammy had finished Becky Morton and the Dirty Dozen and was halfway through Becky Morton and the New Baby. By Thursday afternoon, Tammy had finished Becky Morton and the New Baby, her second book of the week. She thought she would finish a third book by Friday afternoon.

  “Your third?” exclaimed Terri. Terri was not sure she would finish her second. She did not mind that, but she did mind being so different from Tammy. Something felt wrong.

  Star Reader

  The caterpillar was in a hallway on the opposite side of the building from Ms. Colman’s room. Terri did not get to see it often. She and Tammy had peeked at it on Tuesday to see what it looked like. Now, on Friday, Terri wondered how much it had grown. She thought another link or two might have been added.

  “Let’s go look at the caterpillar, Tammy,” said Terri as the girls ran into school that morning.

  Tammy grinned. “Okay.” Then she said, “Hey, Terri, I know what kind of caterpillar it is.”

  “You do?”

  “Yup. It is a bookworm. Get it?”

  Terri grinned, too. “Yeah. A book —”

  Terri stopped speaking. She stopped walking, too. She had turned a corner in the hallway, and now she was simply staring.

  “Terri? What is —” Tammy started to say. Then she stopped talking, too. She was looking at what Terri had seen. “Wow,” she said. “Wow … oh, my gosh … ”

  It was the caterpillar. A lot of other kids were looking at it too. The last time the twins had seen it, it had had a head and one round body piece. Now the caterpillar stretched halfway down the hall. Terri could not believe it.

  “Come on. Let’s count,” she said to Tammy. “Let’s see how long it is.” Terri and Tammy started counting with the red piece. “One, two, three, four,” they began. A few minutes later they were still counting. “Eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight.”

  “Eighty-eight!” cried Tammy.

  “And each piece stands for two hundred and fifty pages,” said Terri. “How many is that all together?”

  A fifth-grade girl was standing nearby. She was holding a calculator. “Twenty-two thousand,” she announced.

  “Twenty-two thousand? That must be wrong,” said Terri.

  “Nope.” The girl shook her head. “There are two hundred and thirty kids at Stoneybrook Academy. If each kid read about ninety-five pages this week … yup, that would work out.”

  “Whoa, baby,” whispered Terri.

  The caterpillar was all the kids in Ms. Colman’s class could talk about that morning.

  “Did you see it? It is so long!” exclaimed Jannie.

  “I read over a hundred pages this week,” said Karen.

  “I read eighty-nine,” said Sara.

  “I am going to finish my third bo
ok today,” said Tammy.

  Terri did not say anything. She had not even finished the second Becky Morton book.

  “Class,” said Ms. Colman later that morning. “I am very proud of you. You have done lots of reading this week.”

  “Did you see the caterpillar?” Karen asked Ms. Colman. “It has eighty-eight links. That is gigundoly long.”

  “It certainly is,” agreed Ms. Colman. “And do you know what? Our class is responsible for almost four of those links. You kids read nine hundred and sixty pages this week. And three of you have been star readers. Karen, Ian, and Tammy, each of you has read more than one hundred pages since Monday. Congratulations!”

  The kids in Ms. Colman’s class clapped politely.

  Terri clapped along with them. But she did not feel very happy. She did not exactly feel sad, either. She just felt confused.

  She was not used to being so different from Tammy.

  Samesies

  Terri made a decision. She was going to spend as much time as possible reading over the weekend. She would have Friday afternoon and then two entire days for nothing but reading. Maybe, she thought, if she just had more time, she could read as many books as Tammy.

  So on Friday, as soon as she got home from school, Terri settled down with Becky Morton and the Dirty Dozen. She read until dinnertime. After dinner, she read until bedtime. She finished Becky Morton and the Dirty Dozen.

  “Yes!” cried Terri.

  On Saturday morning — first thing — Terri began Becky Morton and the New Baby. By bedtime that night, she had finished it.

  “Yes!” she cried again.

  On Sunday morning, Terri decided she was a little tired of Becky Morton. So she started a book called Fantastic Mr. Fox, by Roald Dahl. By suppertime she had finished it.

  “Tammy, Tammy! I finished two and a half books this weekend! Isn’t that great? That is a record for me! How many books did you read?” (Tammy had been reading all weekend too.)

  “Well, um … ” Tammy began. “Um, I read five and a half books.” Tammy looked sorry. “I did not mean to. I was just reading along, and before I knew it … ”