The Templeton Twins Make a Scene Read online

  That is why, instead of screaming in horror or fainting dead away, Abigail said, “That’s interesting, Papa,” and John said, “Neat. With some kind of lens?” and the Professor said, “Yes! Good thinking, John. Come on, I’ll show you.” And all of them, including Cassie the You-Know-What dog, marched into the building of the Department of Lighting and Allied Illuminatory Sciences, which was shaped like a gigantic stage light.

  Inside, the twins meandered around the Professor’s workroom, admiring the long workbench and its clutter of equipment, wires, tools, and sheets of transparent plastic. They glanced at the whiteboard on one wall, with its calculations and rough, squiggly diagrams. They examined the surprisingly large array of batteries lined up on another table.

  Then they heard the Professor mutter, “Hmm. What’s this?” Looking up, they saw him standing beside his desk, holding a long sheet of lined yellow paper on which they could see a handwritten message.

  “Someone left this for me,” he said, and handed it to John.

  “ ‘Professor,’ ” John read. “ ‘Dropped by to see you but you weren’t here. Steve Stevenson.’ ” He looked up. “Who’s Steve Stevenson?”

  “I have no idea,” the Professor said.

  “That man we passed in the quad was carrying a piece of paper like this,” Abigail said. “Maybe that was Steve Stevenson.”

  “Why didn’t he say anything?” John asked.

  His sister shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t know who we were.”

  “But why doesn’t this note include a way to contact him?” the Professor asked.

  All three Templetons would have fallen silent and pondered this thought-provoking question, had not they all suddenly jumped with fright when they heard a loud, somewhat musical voice trill,

  HEH-LOOO! PROFESSOR ELTON TEM-PLETON!

  FOR FURTHER STUDY

  If you store your arms in an armoire, in what do you store your legs? A legoire.

  A leg storage facility.

  That is a very silly question and I refuse to answer it. The “arm” in armoire refers to the armor and weapons a knight in the Middle Ages used.

  What is the opposite of “obvious”? Write your answer in the form of a recipe for chocolate pudding.

  What is a hyphen? Of course I know. I want to see if you know.

  2. If you have read the Introductions, you know just how seriously to take this explosive, thrilling, thought-provoking news. If you haven’t, then you don’t. Let’s move on.

  3. Please remember this, because it is quite possible that I will ask you for a favor later on in this very book.

  4. Frequently Asked Questions, as you may know, are questions that are asked frequently. I have my own list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Here it is:

  The Narrator’s FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

  1. Huh?

  2. Are you serious?

  3. How come?

  4. Wait—what?

  5. Really?

  6. What time is it?

  7. But why?

  8. Do we have to?

  9. How should I know?

  10. What do you mean?

  5. “Armoire” is a French word. You pronounce it “arm-WHAH.” It means—I think—“a place to keep your arms.” Or maybe not. Look, never mind what it means.

  6. I have no idea what those last four jobs involve. Do you? Oh, please. You do not.

  7. As You Would Know If You Had Read The Templeton Twins Have an Idea.

  8. See footnote on the next page.

  9. Oh, please. Did you even try to figure it out? Very well: The answer is BASEBALL. “Base” means, among other things, “bad, hateful, vile, detestable,” and so on. Perhaps you didn’t know that, but now you do. A “ball” is a kind of dance. Baseball itself is, of course, a game. Isn’t that clever?

  10. As you can see, it isn’t here. You will have to keep on reading.

  Standing in the doorway, resplendent in a flowing green and purple scarf and a deep-red blouse and a shimmering turquoise skirt, was a woman. She had fabulous jet-black hair fashioned into an elaborate “do,” and wore numerous sparkling jewels on her wrist and around her neck.

  “De-LIGHT-ed to meet you at last,” she sighed. “They told me you were here, and I said, NO, no, I CAN’T be that lucky. But lo and behold: Here. You. Are.” She extended her hand to be shaken, kissed, or admired. “Gwendolyn Splendide. Dean of TAPAS.”

  I shall assume you know how to pronounce the name “Gwendolyn.” As for this lady’s last name, it is pronounced “splen-DEED.”

  “How . . . I mean . . . that is . . . how do you do?” the Professor said. But it wasn’t easy for him to say this, and you will need me to tell you why.

  To Abigail and John, Gwendolyn Splendide was simply a rather flamboyant lady around their father’s age. (If you don’t know what “flamboyant” means, look it up. Not now, we don’t have time.11) But to Professor Elton Templeton, meeting Gwendolyn Splendide was like meeting a movie star. Indeed, it was exactly like meeting a movie star, because when she was a younger woman, Gwendolyn Splendide had in fact been a movie star.

  The Professor had seen her in many films. She had always played beautiful, smart, ruthless women who committed crimes and manipulated people and who, in the end, either did or didn’t get away with it. And, while the Professor had known that she was the dean of the Thespian Academy of the Performing Arts and Sciences, it had never occurred to him that he would actually meet her. And yet here she was—an older version of her movie-star self, but still quite spectacular. He was dazzled, and for this reason it was slightly difficult for the Professor to speak.

  “Miss Splendide,” he began, “allow—”

  “Oh, please. DEAR Elton. Call me Gwendolyn.”

  “Really? Well. Um . . . Gwendolyn, allow me to introduce my children. This is John—”

  Gwendolyn Splendide turned to John, held out her hand in order to grasp his, and cried, “And YOU must be John! So handsome!”

  Before John could say anything, Gwendolyn Splendide wheeled on Abigail, then put her palm to her cheek in rapt contemplation, and said, “And this, surely, is Ardith.”

  “ABIGAIL,” Abigail said.

  “Amaryllis.”

  “ABIGAIL.”

  “Agatha.”

  “THIS IS ABIGAIL,” the Professor said.

  “Of COURSE it is,” Gwendolyn Splendide said. “How strikingly similar to your brother you are.”

  “We’re twins,” Abigail said.

  “You MUST be twins,” the lady said. “Oh, I think we’re going to be VERY good friends, don’t you?”

  Abigail shrugged.

  “I just know it. And when Gwendolyn Splendide KNOWS something, she knows it.”

  Abigail indicated the dog. “And this is Cassie.”

  Gwendolyn Splendide bent down slightly toward Cassie and murmured, “Enchantée.”12 She turned to the Professor and started to say, “Now. Elton. Darling. What—” She stopped. She thought a moment. Then her face lit up with an expression meant to convey “I am thinking and I have just thought of something.” Then she said, “I have a brilliant idea. Brilliant. Tell me, Elton.

  DO THESE UTTERLY PERFECT CHILDREN REQUIRE SOME SORT OF CHILD CARE?

  “No!” cried John and Abigail at the same time.

  But the Professor nodded and replied, “Well, I was thinking about hiring some sort of nanny. Just to be in the house when they get home from school.”

  “This is PERFECTION ITSELF,” Gwendolyn Splendide cried. “I have just the person for the position you are advertising.”

  “We’re not advertising,” Abigail said.

  “SUCH a literal girl,” Gwendolyn Splendide said. “What is more charming than that? In any case, I shall bring him to your home—shall we say tomorrow?”

  “How about twelve o’clock?” the Professor said.

  “Will noon suit you?”

  “Twelve o’clock is noon,” John said.

  “How very right you are, Jason,
” Gwendolyn Splendide said. “Twelve o’clock is noon. Isn’t it wonderful?” She leaned toward the Professor and pretended to kiss him on both cheeks by kissing the air on either side of his face. “Until then, all!” And with that, in a whirl of silk and a clatter of jewelry, she turned and left the workshop.

  The twins turned to each other and exchanged a look that said, wordlessly, “ICK!”

  Then Abigail began to say, “Oh, Papa, do we really have to have a nanny?” But before she could finish, she stopped, because she noticed that the Professor was staring at the doorway as if in a trance.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said quietly. “I was just kissed by Gwendolyn Splendide.”

  FOR FURTHER STUDY

  Have you ever met a movie star? Did he or she mention my name?

  Gwendolyn Splendide referred to John and Abigail as “perfect children.” Are you a perfect child? What proof do you have to support your answer?

  Write an essay on the topic “It is probably not a good idea to speak French to dogs.” It should be exactly three words long.

  11. I will tell you—as, once again, I do your job for you out of the goodness of my heart—that it means something like “colorful, showy, outsized, or ostentatious in manner of appearance and/or demeanor.”

  12. “Enchantée” is a French word and is pronounced “awnh-shawn-TAY.” I know it is very difficult for you to enunciate the sound “awnh,” but you’re simply going to have to try. It means “enchanted” or “charmed,” and you generally say it to someone when you are not particularly enchanted to meet them but you want them to think you are.

  The next day the Templeton twins were upstairs while their father was downstairs, listening to a recording of classical music, when the doorbell rang. This, of course, brought Cassie charging energetically down from Abigail’s room, barking and wagging her tail in an especially ridiculous manner. Professor Templeton paused the music and answered the door.

  “Elton!” a by-now-familiar voice cried. “ISN’T it the most MAGNIFICENT day?”

  Upstairs, John opened his bedroom door just as Abigail opened hers. They looked at each other. She rolled her eyes. He shrugged. They went downstairs. As they did so, they were joined by the barking, wagging, leaping, being-ridiculous Cassie.

  Standing in the doorway was—as you no doubt have already guessed—Gwendolyn Splendide. She wore a sort of beige-colored jacket and beige-colored slacks ending in beige-colored shoes. That sounds like a lot of beige, but she also wore a deep-red blouse under the jacket, and a dark-purple scarf at her throat. Her makeup was perfect. She looked like (because, as you already know, she had been) a movie star.

  Standing beside her was a young man of college age. He wore a white T-shirt with a big yellow smiley face, black jeans, and black sneakers.

  “THIS,” Gwendolyn Splendide said once Cassie had been quieted, “is my nephew. His name is Emmanuel Mann, although . . .” (here she leaned toward the Professor and spoke in a quiet voice, as though confiding a shameful secret) “he insists on being addressed as ‘Manny.’ ”

  The Professor held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Manny. Come in.”

  Manny Mann gave the Professor’s hand a merry shake. He and Gwendolyn Splendide entered as the twins arrived. “And these,” Gwendolyn Splendide sighed, “are the twins. Emmanuel, meet Jack and Adelaide.”

  “John and Abigail,” Abigail said.

  “Of course,” agreed Gwendolyn Splendide.

  The twins said hello to the young man, Cassie was quieted down again, and everyone moved to the living room, which was a pleasant, sunny space with a sofa, a coffee table, several comfy chairs, and many, many shelves completely filled with books.

  Gwendolyn Splendide gestured and said, “Just LOOK at all these books. DON’T tell me you’ve written them all, you brilliant man.”

  “I haven’t, actually,” the Professor said. “Although I have read many of them. And so have the twins.”

  “Isn’t that the most wonderful thing you’ve ever heard?” Gwendolyn Splendide said to no one in particular. Then she said, “Emmanuel, you should read more books, darling. But then, I should, too, shouldn’t I? It’s true. Gwendolyn Splendide should read more. Because shouldn’t we all? Oh, but who has TIME?” Before anyone could reply, she said, “Let’s get down to business. I understand that you are looking to employ a nanny. I should like to recommend my nephew for the job. He is excellent with children.”

  “Is that so?” the Professor asked politely.

  “You bet!” Manny Mann said, perhaps louder than was necessary. “I think kids are great!”

  Now, both John and Abigail were a bit put off by the young man yelling about how great kids are. And they could tell from their father’s guarded responses (“Really? Oh, well, my goodness . . .”) that the Professor was wondering whether Manny was just saying that to make a good impression. But the twins could also tell that, to the Professor, Gwendolyn Splendide was simply too wonderful and dazzling in her radiant beauty for him to say anything but “Is that so?” Besides, the twins had some vague understanding that this lady was their father’s boss. So they kept their objections to themselves.

  The matter was settled. Manny was hired as the Templeton twins’ new nanny. It was in this manner that he became—there is no other way to put it—Nanny Manny Mann.

  After Gwendolyn Splendide and Manny Mann left, the twins took Cassie for a walk around the block and discussed this latest development. Abigail pointed out that, while it was probably a good thing for a nanny to be perky and upbeat, Manny looked like he might be too perky and upbeat.

  Still, John pointed out, since they really didn’t want a nanny to begin with, at least they could be glad that they had one who was happy to be there. Abigail agreed that it was certainly better than having a bossy, tyrannical nanny, like the one they had had previously.13

  By the time the twins had walked Cassie around the block, they had decided to stop being cranky and to give Nanny Manny Mann a chance. Then they removed Cassie’s collar and went up to their rooms to catch up on their hobbies.

  You are, no doubt, wondering how the Templeton twins were proceeding with their hobbies. I will be happy to tell you—well, that’s putting it too strongly. I’m not “happy” to be writing any of this, as you know. But I am willing to tell you.

  First, John. John’s hobby is playing the drums. The last time we looked, John’s drum set consisted of a big bass drum with a pedal, a snare drum on a stand, a tomtom mounted on the bass drum, and a floor tom-tom standing on legs. He had a hi-hat (two small cymbals on a pedal-operated stand that came together in a nice chik sound) and two regular cymbals: a heavy one (a “ride”) for keeping time, which stood on a stand to his right; and a lighter one (a “crash”) for making big, loud, splashy noises, which was mounted on a stand to his left.

  Well, the news regarding John is that now he had a third cymbal, given to him for his birthday by his father. (John’s birthday is also someone else’s birthday. I will give you three guesses as to who that is.) John’s present was a kind of crash cymbal called a “China-type” that, instead of making a bright, shiny noise when you hit it hard, made a rough, raspy noise. The sound it made was only slightly better and more musical than the sound you’d get by taking a hammer and hitting a metal trash-can lid, or a big metal sheet for baking cookies. He loved it.

  Of course, as you know if you’ve ever acquired something new (for your birthday, Christmas, Chanukah, Arbor Day, or National Fig Week), the new thing makes certain demands of you. You have to do the “work” of learning how to use the new thing in order to obtain the benefit (and the fun) of it.

  So John took up his seat at the drums and, as he had been doing for the past month or so, practiced in a slightly new way. Instead of doing what he had traditionally done—reaching to his left to make a big, crashy sound—he taught himself to reach just a little bit to his right (where the new cymbal was) to make a different big, crashy sound.

  And in doing
that, he noticed something.

  In order to make good use of the new cymbal, he had to pay special attention to it. And so he worried about the old cymbals less. He just played them. This meant, to John’s surprise, that he played the whole drum set better.

  You are no doubt wondering, “Why is the Narrator taking valuable time out of his day to tell me all this?” The answer is: Because it will have very important consequences later on. For now, let’s just say that John was playing and practicing and having a wonderful time, so he didn’t hear the phone ring.

  Meanwhile, Abigail was in her room, being irritated at her latest cryptic crossword puzzle. Why “irritated”?

  To answer that, we should pause here to remind ourselves that puzzles, like stories, articles, and everything else on the printed page (including books about the Templeton twins) are written by people. Although, actually, puzzles are not “written.” The correct term for creating a crossword puzzle is “setting.” You don’t write a puzzle. You set it. (Do not ask me why. I find this fact as tedious as you do, believe me.) And among the books Abigail was given for her birthday was a book by a puzzle setter who ignored all the rules.

  Here is the clue she was pondering:

  D (6)

  Yes, a six-letter word with only a single letter for a clue! There was no definition, no wordplay, no hints or hidden answers or real words to unscramble. Abigail stared at this and thought about it for half an hour (during which the phone rang downstairs, but she was so deep in concentration that she ignored it) before giving up and looking in the back of the book, where all the solutions were.14

  She hated doing that. Having to look up an answer in the back of the book felt like losing the game. Then she came to the next impossible clue: