HOME ALONE NOT

Yesterday while Kasumi and a school friend went off and had great fun shopping and Echo and Kaya went off to soak luxuriously in the local hot spring, I was alone in the Moriyama house on the other side of the Lake for TWO hours, with no escape and no hope of escape (and no desire to escape, if the truth be known) with the identical duo Mitsuki and Miyasa (also known as The Indistinguishables) their circus of stuffed animals and their deviously crafted plan.

Their knowledge of every nook and cranny of that house, and their instinctive understanding that this was an opportunity that might never come again, blended with all the cunning that is native to two-year olds, but in this case geometrically compounded by their twinhood, made it an unfair match. They knew where all the soda was stashed, all the candies were hidden, all the cookie places, the makeup, the tools, the gooey things, the things that stain or are pointed and so on.

When they were near they were noisy as a catfight; when they were far they were quiet as a puddle of honey. One would keep me busy while the other drifted off; then the one remaining would show me how she could open a door and pass through and close it again, then there would be silence... that would grow... that would force me to open the door and pass through into unknown horrors... but there would be no one... I would go upstairs and into the rooms there (the twins move as silently as mayonnaise), and then into the closets where I'd find one attempting to open a can of soda with her teeth, the other brushing her hair with a vacuum cleaner brush.

Talking gently while putting away the soda and vacuum cleaner, speaking as though I were promising even more and better things, I'd make up a game to get them downstairs, then another game to keep them there, then another... so now I'm good for pretty near two hours of games, which I could stretch to three with a cage made of chocolate bars...