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could have foreseen the trouble the twins caused over their new boots! They reckoned that the other kids laughed at their boots as they were the only girls in their class who had to wear them.
    They had also been in trouble at school for swapping the initialled jumpers. Barbara had also sat in Rosalie’s desk and messed up her books by trying to write left-handed. Rosalie sat in Barbara’s desk and tried to write right-handed. They had hoped that no-one would notice!
    Joan and Valda had to drag those screaming, kicking girls all the way to school. Instead of taking ten minutes to go to school it now took them one hour to go the same route. All the way to school they were aware that all the housewives were either out the front of their houses or looking through their windows as the performance went past. The twins didn’t seem to care that everyone laughed to see them being dragged screaming and kicking all the way to school. It took Joan and Valda fifty-five years to find out what all the fuss was about!
    One day both twins lay down on the road outside our house and kicked and screamed so much that Joan and Valda couldn’t move them. A fully laden log truck came up the road on its way to the mill and the driver nearly had a heart attack when he realised that they weren’t going to move and had to stand on his brakes to stop the truck. He got out of the cab and gave them such a fright with his telling off that they very meekly got up off the road and went to school without any more fuss. That was the turning point. Ever after they went to school in a more ladylike manner.
    It was no wonder that one of the twins’ class teachers had a nervous breakdown as they were not the only ones to cause trouble in class. At the beginning of a new year the new senior master was checking each child’s name. As each child said his or her name they ended with “sir”. One boy omitted to do so and was told to say “sir” when addressing him and ordered to start again. The result was “Sir Marcus Smith”! There was a nervous titter in the room as the teacher stormed at the unfortunate boy who thought he was being clever.
    During the war years the senior master held a daily discussion on what developments were taking place “on the front”. Among the casualties of the war were the unfortunate people of Europe who had no home—no country.They were recognised as refugees or displaced persons. One boy who stuttered badly wasn’t paying attention when the teacher looked at him and asked what DP stood for. Quick as a flash the boy answered “d-d-d-d-d dog poo”! The look on the teacher’s face was priceless but because punishments in school were harsh, not one student dared to laugh.
    A few years later the twins played an ingenious trick on Valda who was absolutely terrified of spiders. One morning Valda was sitting in her bed calling for someone to bring her some clean undies from the washing basket and the twins quickly called back that they would do it for her. They ran to the basket, grabbed the clothing and ran to the sideboard where Mum kept her sewing box. Valda kept calling that she would be late for work if they didn’t hurry, but the twins assured her that they were hurrying and that they were still looking. What they were actually doing was finding an old trouser button and threading the four holes with twisted black cotton to roughly resemble a horrible black spider. When they threw the undies to Valda they got the reaction they hoped for. Poor Valda! When the “spider” fell on her bed she nearly had hysterics. So did they—theirs from laughing and hers from sheer terror. That was the twins’ idea of fun but it was for their own good that they gave Valda a wide berth for the next few days.
    Wilma hated every minute that she shared a bedroom with the twins; she always felt left out and on her own. She slept in a single bed while the twins