There's one!

There's another one! Or is it the same one? Identical twins make face-counting a complicated question.

Close enough!

"Hi!" she says, brightly, after weaving through the halls towards them. "I'm Edie, I'm the unofficial welcome wagon, no one else knows about you yet but I have sources, welcome to our lovely little school!"

"Ooh, sources," says the one with longer hair. "Hi, nice to meet you! I'm Merry and this is my brother Lucky."

"Congratulations," she says, "you're the second set of out-of-towners to move here and start attending high this school in, like, a decade. Are you twins, my sister and I are the first set and we're twins, I call shenanigans."

"What would we be besides twins? Hiding a triplet in our closet, maybe?"

"Why is that the first place your mind goes? Like, not just triplets, but specifically brother-imprisoning criminal triplets?"

"Not enough excitement in my life."

He cracks up. "God help us all."

"Sometimes siblings look really similar even when they're not twins!" she points out.

"Same face, sure, it happens. Same height, at this age? I don't buy it."

Shrug. "Just because I couldn't think of an explanation besides 'twins' doesn't mean none exist, and asking's politer."

"Okay, new topic. What are these 'sources' you speak of, are you secretly running a spy ring? If so, can Merry join? It'll keep him out of trouble."

"I am not secretly running spy ring. As far as you know. My mother's a part-time lecturer at Boston University and uses this to gently lever the principal into telling her things."

"Nooo, chasing your imaginary spy ring is going to do the opposite of keep him out of trouble," says Lucky.

"I swear I am not nearly as troublesome as my brother would like you to believe," says Merry.

"When I introduce you to my sister," she says solemnly, "I swear I am not nearly as troublesome as she will attempt to get you to believe."

"Well that sounds promising."

"Is it too late to move to Salem instead?"

"Yes. There is no escape."

"Merry, she's scaring me," he says, jokingly stepping behind his brother.

"Don't worry," he says, "if she's secretly some kind of nefarious criminal mastermind, I'm sure I can handle her."

"Who, me?" she asks, placing one hand over her heart in mock offense. "Sir. I will have you know that I am an entirely virtuous criminal mastermind."

"See? Nothing to worry about."

"I'm going to wake up tomorrow to a postcard from Vegas soliciting my congratulations on your elopement. It will have mysterious bloodstains on it and you will protest innocence when I ask who you shot at your wedding."

She bursts out laughing.

Lucky grins.

Merry tries to look innocent for a few seconds, and then gives in to the giggles.

"I would absolutely love to introduce you two to my sister immediately but unfortunately class starts soon. What're your schedules like?"

"I've got English first, Lucky has History..."

"We are in zero of the same classes - excuse me, we do both have gym, just not at the same time - but we've both got lunch at noon."

"Oh, good, Emily and I have lunch at noon--American History?" she asks, "And is it AP English or English 10?"

"Assume all Merry's classes are AP unless specified otherwise, I think the only one he's got that isn't is World History because there wasn't an advanced option."

"And yes, American History."

"Turn right, take the staircase on your left, and American History is just across the hall. The teacher, Mr. Phelps, he's terrifying if you don't turn in the homework or get caught cheating but otherwise very nice. AP English you share with a friend of mine, her name's Anna-Sophia, she'll be the quiet brunette with the, mm, she's wearing a light blue shirt today I think...she's fairly shy but she trusts me, tell her Edie told you to say 'chestnut waterboarding grasshoppers' and she'll warm up."

"Waterboarding a grasshopper sounds like a hell of a logistical challenge," he remarks. "Thanks. What did I do to merit the recognition password on such short acquaintance?"

"I'm a good judge of character?"

"I await the bloodstained postcard," says Lucky.

"Lucky," she says solemnly, "I promise you, if I ever elope with your brother and shoot someone at the wedding, I will take the time to find a postcard they didn't bleed on."

"Thank you! I appreciate that!"

"It's the least I could do, under the circumstances."

"People underestimate the importance of the little things!"

"Sad but true."

"Anyway: class. See you!"

"See you!" She heads off.

When Merry gets to AP English there will already be at least one student there; a quiet brunette in a light blue shirt.

He sits next to her.

"Hi," he says. "Merry Nelson. Edie told me to tell the quiet brunette in the light blue shirt 'chestnut waterboarding grasshoppers'."

She glances at him nervously when he sits next to her, but dissolves into giggles when he tells her the password.

"Nice to meet you too," he says.

"Sorry, sorry," she says, still giggling. "Anna-Sophia Sayers. Edie and I don't have a password, she just correctly identified giving you one anyway as being an inimitably her thing to do."

"Wow, no wonder my brother thinks I'm going to marry her sometime this week."

"Oh?"

"I believe his exact words were 'I'm going to wake up tomorrow to a postcard from Vegas soliciting my congratulations on your elopement. It will have mysterious bloodstains on it and you will protest innocence when I ask who you shot at your wedding.' This when we'd known Edie for about two minutes."

"I'm sure if Edie shoots someone it'll be justified."

"I do get that impression!"

She gets a brief wistful look and then shakes her head slightly. "So what're you like to merit your half of the marriage? And the password?"

"It actually does normally take me longer than two minutes to convince people they should let me join their secret spy rings. And I prefer to let my twin be the one to talk me up because I sound less egotistical that way. But if you insist, I'm a frighteningly charismatic, slightly manic-depressive overachiever who will settle for being the first Asian-American President if being the next Steve Jobs doesn't pan out."

"Edie doesn't actually have a secret spy ring. I'm less sure about her mother. So what are you going to do if being the next Steve Jobs doesn't work out and another Asian-American gets elected President before you're old enough to be eligible?"

"I'm sure I'll think of something," he says cheerfully.

"Alright then. If you're seriously considering President maybe ask Edie to tell you all of her political opinions sometime you have a few hours going free, if you're not the type to be scared off by unendorsed vitriol."

"Asking Edie her political opinions results in unendorsed vitriol?"

"Edie has a temper, and while she's gotten pretty good at not blowing up at people she's trying to argue around, if you ask her to tell you about all of her political opinions, there are policymakers she'll call things like 'homophobic pox-mucous' and 'problem-solving abilities of a banana slug in a bucket of pretzels'."

"I'd think a banana slug in a bucket of pretzels would be highly motivated to solve problems!"

"And yet, I imagine that if you put one there, it's probably not going to end up with its newfound problems solved."

"Depends on the slug, I guess."

"I think enough slugs are like that to make it a valid insult."

"Okay, that much I'll grant you."

"So, yeah, she has a temper. I've only seen it like once, though, she's good about--stuff like that."

"Ah. Yeah." He looks like he's considering saying more than that, but class seems like it's right about to start.

Yep. Class! Afterwards Anna-Sophia would like to know if he wants directions to his next one.

"Yeah, thanks -" He consults his timetable. "AP Calculus?"

Directions!

AP Calculus!

AP Calculus and AP English are relatively far away from each other; several other students have arrived by the time he shows up. One of them is probably familiar!

"My future wife! Hello!" he says, sitting next to her.

That gets the two of them strange looks from the other students present.

"Hello! Fancy seeing you here."

He giggles. "English was good! Anna-Sophia explained that you don't have a password! I feel like that's a really easily hackable system. Like, it's hard to guess that that's the setup, but guessing that that's the setup and being really good at bluffing are all the work that needs to be done."

"It's not really a system, I'd never done it before."

"Well, yes, but the fact that you could do it represents a security vulnerability in your friendship. Not that most people optimize their friendships for airtight security protocols, I'm just saying."

"I promise if I ever have reason to believe someone wants to infiltrate our friendship I'll tighten the OpSec."

"Good! I'm sure the members of your secret spy ring will thank you!"

"Anna-Sophia probably wouldn't actually be in my counterfactual spy ring; she'd find it stressful."

"That's just what I'd expect you to say if she was a key member of your secret spy ring!"

"If she was a key member of my secret spy ring, why would you believe her when she said we don't have a password?"

He laughs. "You got me there."

She giggles. "And that is why I counterfactually have a secret spy ring and you don't."

"The reason I don't have a secret spy ring is because I don't want one."

"True, it was your brother who suggested you join mine, not you, wasn't it."

"Lucky is constantly searching for ways to keep me occupied because if he doesn't find enough of them I fill the gaps myself and his life ends up more exciting than he prefers."

She snorts. "And he's willing to predict that we'll elope to Vegas and shoot someone but not that being a part of my secret spy ring would end up being the troublesome kind of occupying?"

"Being a part of your secret spy ring would totally keep me out of trouble."

"Maybe I should create one, then."

"Sounds like fun."

"...The secret part would be a challenge, though," she adds, glancing around the room at the relatively large number of eavesdropping classmates.

"Pff."

She winks.

"But not," she murmurs, just loud enough for him to hear, but not loud enough for the eavesdroppers, "a prohibitive one."

"Marry me."

She grins at him.

At this point the teacher comes in and would like the students to focus on calculus, please.

Calculus is fun!

It is! And after calculus Edie has French and Merry has Not French, but the block after that they apparently have Phys Ed. together.

Yup.

"Oh look it's my least favourite class."

"Oh?"

He looks up at her from his 4'9" vantage point and raises his eyebrows. "Most people don't need further explanation."

"Is it going to sound weird if I say you're so full of energy I sort of forgot that you had physical traits that would make gym class unpleasant."

"No, that's perfectly understandable."

"Well, we're doing miscellaneous racket sports right now, which is, you know, not dodgeball, so that's not nothing," she shrugs.

"God save me from dodgeball. Racket sports are vastly preferable."

"What even is the point of dodgeball?" she wonders rhetorically.

"Socially acceptable form of war?"

"You have a point."

The gym teacher comes in and wants everyone to pair up for racket sports.

They can do that.

Racket sports! Today the racket sport is tennis. Look, he's standing right next to Edie, it totally makes sense for them to pair up. They are issued a pair of rackets and a tennis ball.

"Tennis! Exciting!"

"I like the idiosyncratic scoring system," she says. "Do you want to serve first, or should I?"

"Go ahead."

She tosses the ball in the air and bats it at him.

Edie isn't what one might call experienced with tennis, or particularly in possession of knowledge about tennis techniques more complicated than "underhand" or "overhand." But she has good reflexes.

Merry has good reflexes too. For someone who hates this class he's surprisingly good at it.

Edie is aware of the possibility of being good at something and also hating it! They can probably get a reasonably good volley set up like this.

Success!

Success! Good! The eventual end of class! Even better!

"Well that was less painful than it could've been. Lunchtime!"

Lunchtime! Might that brunette over there waving to the two of them possibly be relevant to their interests?

Probably!

"And that would be my twin."

"My future sister-in-law," he says brightly.

"Indeed."

"So I'm assuming you're Merry, then," Emily says. "If you marry my sister and the combined troublesomeness of your children destroys the world somehow I just want to be on record as having called it."

"Noted."

Lucky chooses this moment to appear.

"Has he proposed yet?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"That's a yes, if you couldn't tell."

"Remember, no blood on the postcard. I am holding you to that."

"I wasn't going to forget!" she protests.

"Well, I don't know you that well yet!"

"I was the one who assured you it wouldn't happen!"

"But are you the sort of person who'll remember your bloodstain-related commitments when faced with the reality of the Vegas wedding with added spy-show drama?"

"I'm pretty sure if it didn't happen to cross my mind beforehand I would remember when I looked at a postcard and saw the blood on it."

"Fair enough."

"Oh, is yours not going to drag you along? I know Edie's going to make damn sure I'm at the crazy spy wedding."

"Merry respects my chosen role of Boring Twin!"

"Well, yes, but you see, the wedding doesn't start out crazy spy, it just starts out elopement, boring twins are allowed to come see their siblings elope."

"My original vision for the spy-show Vegas wedding involved getting the postcard tomorrow morning. Do boring twins come see their siblings elope when it involves buying a same-day cross-country flight? I feel like you're already in definitively non-boring territory at that point."

Shrug. "Maybe the two of them being in the same five foot square has begun producing a troublesomeness singularity that has begun to warp my idea of boring."

"See, Merry does that all by himself, so we've learned how to account for it."

"Oh, I see. What has he actually done that's so troublesome?"

"When we were ten we went to a science museum -"

"Oh, come on, anybody could've done that."

"The thing which my brother asserts anybody could've done," says Lucky, "is use the interactive kinetic sculpture to pull the fire alarm from across the room -"

"It was not across the room. Five feet away at most. And it seemed obvious that they must have had some way of preventing me from doing that and I wanted to know what it was!"

"My brother, knee-high to a grasshopper and already pursuing a career in grey-hat pen testing."

"Well that's much more impressive than the time when we were seven and Edie decided that the responsible approach to reading that flour was explosive was to test it in the backyard where it wouldn't set the house on fire if it was true."

"Hell, I would've done that."

"Would you have decided to try again when your first attempt failed, but with more flour?"

"Nope, that would've been the point at which Merry took over."

"Mother had the contractors put in an ornamental pond rather than trying to fill in the hole. The really clever part was how she got her hands on that much flour, though."

"Ooh, do tell."

"Organized a bake sale for a local girl scout chapter--keep in mind that we weren't actually girl scouts--and convinced everyone to turn over all the baking to her, mostly by pretending to everyone that everyone else who was supposed to do any of the baking hadn't actually done it, then found enough recipes for things that didn't actually involve flour that she was able to embezzle almost all of it."

... He looks at Edie.

"You cannot afford plane tickets to Vegas," Lucky says firmly.

"Details, details."

"I didn't even get caught, after," she volunteers. "I mean, at the girl scout shenanigans, I totally got caught blowing up our backyard with a flour bomb. But no one wanted to admit to having accidentally offloaded an event's worth of cooking to a seven-year-old.

...I think Dad guessed. But he--approved of my cleverness, if he did, he thought the whole thing was great, he was a lot less mad about the hole in the backyard than Mom was."

"Sounds like a pretty great dad," says Merry.

"He was."

"We never met ours."

"I--am sorry to hear that, insofar as condolences are warranted."

"Thank you."

"Always good to get details like this out in the open before the wedding. Other relevant details include the fact that his parents were Holocaust survivors and Mom's been paraplegic since before we were born."

"Our family situation is less easily summarized."

"I can do an elevator pitch. Sixteen-year-old girl vanishes for months and comes back pregnant, gets committed to mental hospital by well-meaning friend, wins epic court battle to keep her kids out of the foster system..."

Anna-Sophia walks up carrying a lunch tray. She looks between Merry and Lucky. "Huh. I assume I'm not seeing double. Which one of you did I have class with this morning?"

Edie gets up from the table very abruptly and runs off.

"...What did I miss?"

"...Hi, I'm Lucky, Merry's twin brother. I... was just sharing some needlessly depressing family history?"

"Their mother came very close to unfairly losing custody of them. Edie--didn't want to--" She shakes her head. To the twins: "There's context."

"It sure looks that way, yeah."

...She sits down. Quietly: "Their mother has been trying to help me get taken away from my parents since they got here. She's got money for good lawyers, but so do they, and--the contrast of the courts fucking up so dramatically in opposite directions--

I don't like it when people are angry around me so she left."

"Makes sense."

She puts her tray aside, folds her arms on the table and puts her head down on them.

Emily pets her hair. "I think this might be a record for highest concentration of confessions of personal information within such a short time of meeting."

"Plausible. I dunno, it made sense at the time."

"I mean, yes, but so did the flour bomb."

"And the fire alarm."

"Yeah. Well." Pet pet. "It'll be alright. Overshare isn't the worst thing in the world."

"Yeah. Uh. Sorry."

"It's alright. You had no idea that landmine was there to step on, and it was a very enjoyable conversation before that. I like that we were getting along well enough to feel comfortable saying those things."

"Yeah, me too."

"Jokes about marriage aside, your sister is amazing."

"That is true. Are you referring to the things we were discussing about her earlier or the fact that she gets mad enough over Anna-Sophia to upset her and has the presence of mind to leave so it doesn't?"

"The flour incident and also that."

"There is a reason I brought up the flour incident," she agrees. "She likes you too, she talked about you a lot in French, the teacher doesn't care what we say in class as long as we don't say it in English."

"Are you and Lucky going to start a betting pool about the date and circumstances of our marriage?"

"Not yet, but I am going to non-jokingly suggest you ask her out, and if you don't do it I'm going to suggest the converse to her."

"I think if she does the asking-out there's a lower overall chance of them ending up in Vegas tonight."

"I mean, I think even in Nevada it's not legal for fifteen-year-olds to marry, and Edie doesn't know anyone who can make fake ID that fast yet, so..."

"Yet."

"And it'll take her long enough to find one that I really don't think we're in actual danger of Vegasing until, like, day after tomorrow, tomorrow at the very earliest."

"Don't call things impossible in front of Merry, he takes it as a challenge."

"Right right right, I'm not saying you can't get to Vegas tonight, I'm saying if the goal is to not go to Vegas tonight it's totally achievable."

"It's Lucky's goal, at least."

"If you literally drag my sister to Vegas tonight I require that you also drag me; I am not missing my twin sister's wedding."

"I will not drag your sister to Vegas tonight. However tempted I am by flour-related anecdotes."

"Good. I'll tell her to ask you out."

He grins.

Anna-Sophia picks her head up off the table and starts actually eating her lunch.

"So what else do the two of you have for the rest of the day?"

"Lucky has gym, theatre, and Writer's Craft; I have physics, World History, and statistics."

"Edie has physics; Anna-Sophia and I have statistics."

"Cool."

"I guess it's not that surprising we have a lot of overlap; there's not that many advanced classes open to sophomores."

"I wanted to be in more advanced math but it turns out there are in fact not enough hours in the day."

"That didn't seem like it was going to deter you when Vegas was on the table!"

"Only one of these problems can be solved with summer classes."

"Really? How do you solve Vegas with summer classes?" she teases.

Giggle.

"It occurs to me to ask, once you discovered an absence of fire-alarm-related precautions, did they add any?"

"Yep!"

"Good. So it was productive trouble after all."

"I try to trouble productively where possible!"

"Yeah." She looks at Lucky. "Wanna start a betting pool on whether their kids blow up the planet or cure cancer?"

"I'm gonna go with 'bring about world peace and usher human civilization into an age of unprecedented prosperity'. If they don't manage that themselves by the time the kids are our age."

"Edie and Merry do that, the kids locate sapient alien life and usher them into a golden age?" she suggests.

"See, but then I have to decide whether I believe in aliens!"

"There's almost certainly non-sapient alien life, at least," she shrugs. "It's a big universe. I don't see why other planets shouldn't have evolved people too."

"I don't really think we have enough information to decide that yet!"

"True enough. Well, meeting aliens is only one possibility; maybe they'll develop AI or something."

"That does sound like the sort of thing they'd do."

"General sort of thing, yeah. Hard to predict specifics without having met 'em yet."

"Yeah, maybe they'll all take after their uncle Lucky."

"I think all is pretty unlikely. Ooh, maybe one of them'll take after Mom enough to revolutionize genetic engineering."

"Oh?"

"Mom's a brilliant geneticist."

"Aha."

"Her work's mostly theoretical, though, no amazing advances in hybrid crops yet or anything."

"Yet," he echoes.

"She's only forty-six, there's time."

"Yeah."

"And she's been kind of--slowed down--since Dad died."

Nod.

"The worst part is we don't even know how. He went for a walk one night and just never came back, the police obviously thought he just up and left us but he would've never, and after he failed to turn up anywhere for long enough they had to issue a death certificate, but..."

"...Did I just step on a landmine?"

"No, sorry, just - reminded us of the Nelson family drama, but it'd seem kind of like a dick move to respond to that with 'well we don't know what happened to ours coming or going'..."

"Feel free to tell me to fuck off if you don't like the question, but is it more complicated than 'your mom had a one-night stand'?"

"She disappeared for a few months and came back pregnant, when she confided in a friend about what had happened the friend had her committed, and now she won't talk about it to anybody ever at all no exceptions. And we know it wasn't a one-night stand because every so often she'll drop a comment like 'you get that from your father' or 'your father would be proud', and then stonewall all followup questions..."

"Some friend."

"Yeah."

"I wish..." she shakes her head. "Well. If wishes were horses."

"Mm?"

"I wish both our dads were in our lives."

"Yeah. Me too."

"...I'm glad I at least have something to mourn."

"I'm honestly not sure which I'd prefer if I had a choice."

"I mean, it's not just 'that I can mourn him,' it's that we had twelve good years with him."

"Yeah."

"But in some senses it's easier, like... not having anything, because we don't know what we're missing so we don't miss it as much."

"...Yeah. This way isn't easier. But it's worth it."

Shrug.

"Sorry, I didn't mean--I think it's better to have than not, I don't think that means you're--"

"Yeah, no, I get it, it's okay."

"Okay."

She finishes eating and grabs the remains of Edie's lunch.

"I'm going to see if I can find my sister and at least let her have a little more food before classes."

"Good luck."

"Given your name I shall feel hopeful!" she says brightly, and leaves.

He laughs.

When Merry gets to Physics Edie is already there. If Emily failed and she's starving she shows no signs.

"Hi."

"Hi. Emily caught me up. I'm sorry about your dad."

"Thanks."

"And your mom's shitty 'friend'."

"Yeah."

"...Would you rather I not talk about it, I can do that."

"No, it's okay."

"So have you already taken chemistry, because that wasn't the only thing Emily told me about that conversation, and I can't think of a good way to ask someone out using physics puns."

"Are puns a necessary component of the process?"

"I guess not! Wanna do something Friday?"

"Sure!"

"Cool. ...Possibly I should have thought more about what kind of thing to do on Friday, um."

"We could go see a movie but I don't know if there's anything playing that we'd both like..."

"Yeah...we could find out what's playing, we've got till Friday."

"Sure."

And now, physics.

Physics! They're so sciency!

The scienciest!

And at the end of the period Edie has to dash off with a cheerful wave--

--And Merry can probably successfully arrive at World History before her sister.

Yep.

"Hi again. This school does not have enough advanced classes, huh?"

"It does not!"

"It's kind of ridiculous."

"I feel so inadequately educated."

Giggle. "We'll just have to graduate early or something."

"Every so often I'm tempted to throw up my hands, declare that school can't keep up with me, and become a pure autodidact, but a depressingly large fraction of the interesting things it's possible to do with one's life demand a college degree. School totally can't keep up with me, though."

"Also, school is a good place to meet people. Like my sister."

"It has many advantages! Just, as an educational resource, it lacks... flexibility."

"Very true."

Time to learn about the history of the world! This class is actually really interesting. And the teacher's pretty great. Merry approves.

It is so approveworthy. And then they both have Statistics next so which one gets to class first is sorta moot. They get there before Anna-Sophia, though.

Anna-Sophia turns up not long after, but the teacher got there first so there isn't really time to talk before class.

But after class, Emily says, "do you ride the bus, or walk, or...?"

"Mom drives us."

"Okay. Edie's and my bus is usually late, and Anna-Sophia comes home with us more afternoons than not, so we can wait with you if you want."

"Are you trying to chaperone them to prevent Vegas?"

"Somehow I feel as though that would fail to have the desired effect."

"No comment."

Lucky approaches.

"Oh look, it's the Bad Idea Face."

"Anna-Sophia asked if I was trying to play chaperone, I said I suspected that wouldn't work out how I wanted it, and Merry said no comment."

"Your suspicions are entirely correct."

"They frequently are," Edie says, walking up. "What's she being suspicious of?"

"That if she tries to act as a chaperone between you and Merry it's going to end in Vegas."

"Aww, but what if I want to humor her?"

"As a general rule, if you don't want Merry to do something, making the thing more difficult is exactly the wrong response."

"I mean, sure, I don't think she is trying to chaperone us, I'm just saying, Vegas is by nature a two-person exercise."

"I didn't mean 'going to end in Vegas' like 'definitely, for sure, he'll abduct you if necessary', just like, 'this raises the odds of the thing you don't want to happen happening'."

"I didn't think he was going to abduct me, I was wondering how hard he'd try to persuade me."

"My brother is a very persuasive person."

"You make it sound like I con girls into marrying me on the regular and I have five other wives in the basement Bluebeard-style."

"I think this is the second time you've decided that the correct nefarious assumption is that you're keeping people locked up, is there anything I should know?"

"I have a morbid imagination?"

"I guess the sample size isn't large enough for me to conclude you've got a suspiciously specific morbid imagination," she allows, "yet."

"You can change what things I morbidly imagine by feeding me differently aimed prompts!"

She considers this.

"Once a month at 9:12 sharp five seemingly random students all throw up and need to be sent home; it occurs on a different day each month; the students have no obvious connections; discuss."

"Weirdly specific serial poisoner?"

"I'd argue but I made that up off the top of my head and it literally doesn't have a right answer so."

He giggles.

"Although given the prompt I wouldn't call your answer especially morbid."

"What would a more morbid explanation be, then?"

"Testing ground for a low-powered version of a hideous death curse?"

"There'd be no reason to do it to exactly five people at exactly 9:12 once a month! And if it's reliably a different day each month then it's not something obvious like the phase of the moon because you'd end up pretty close come February - that or the scenario is underspecified, which is what happens when you make it up without an answer in mind, I guess -"

"Wow are you ever overthinking this."

"Overthinking things is fun!"

"Maybe I should invent a less underspecified version of the scenario."

"Be my guest."

"Well, we'll see."

"Maybe I should be encouraging this, silly mysteries sound relatively untroublesome," Emily murmurs to Lucky.

"Silly mysteries are very untroublesome!"

"Unless our siblings take that as a challenge, I suppose."

"That's not the kind of thing Merry would find intrinsically challenging."

"Good, because I'm having a hard time thinking of ways to make it troublesome besides poisoning five people a month at 9:12 in the morning!"

"Mom would be mad if he poisoned people without a very good reason!"

"Edie could probably find people worth poisoning."

"Five students a month worth poisoning by our mother's standards? I doubt it," says Lucky.

"Well, not all at this school."

"Let's not get into a detailed discussion of the logistics of poisoning five people a month," says Merry.

"Emily likes to pretend she's less twisty than me but really she's mostly just less proactive about executing it."

"I see."

"Sorry Lucky, you will have to find someone else to share Actual Boring Twin status with."

"I have no particular need to be surrounded by people as boring as myself."

"That's probably a good thing."

"I'd have a hard time with it if I did, considering all the trouble magnets in the family."

"Sounds like it."

"Fortunately for me, I don't care how much trouble my friends attract as long as they're pretty good about not getting any on me."

"They're pretty good at that."

"That's what I like to hear!"

"Admittedly they have less incentive with you than with me."

"Mm."

Hug. Hairpet.

Yes good.

Aww.

A car pulls up, nondescriptly silver. A woman sticks her head out the window.

"How was your first day at school?" she asks the boys.

"Merry met his future wife!" says Lucky, pointing at Edie.

"Actual affiancement is facetious but we're going out Friday! Do you know what's good and in theaters?"

"I hear Red Eye's not bad. Congratulations on your facetious engagement. Carita Nelson, pleased to meet you."

"Edie Lehnsherr, pleased to meet you. Coincidentally, also a twin." She jerks a thumb at her sister. "My other half, Emily."

"Any particular reason why you're facetiously betrothed to my son?"

"When I was seven I organized a bake sale for an organization I didn't belong to in order to embezzle enough flour to blow a hole in my backyard."

"Welcome to the family."

She laughs. "Thank you!"

"I should take my boys home, but I look forward to seeing you later."

She retracts her head into the vehicle.

Merry waves cheerfully to everyone and gets in the passenger seat, leaving Lucky in the back.

The girls wave goodbye and get on the bus when it arrives.

The next day in Calculus Edie says, "So I got tickets to Red Eye on Friday."

"Excellent."

"It's the seven o'clock showing, do you want to get dinner first?"

"Sounds good! Know anywhere?"

"Sure, there's a cute little Italian place not far from the theater."

"Cool."

"We should probably also figure out who's paying for what."

"I'll get dinner, you get the movie, other way around next time?" he suggests.

"Sort of depends on whether you're looking for, like, fairness or relative advantage, because my mom is independently wealthy and I could just pay for everything but if you'd rather divvy it up I won't argue."

"And here I was thinking that 'analyze our relative financial situations to determine who can best afford it' was a needlessly complicated approach. Feel free; I think it's entirely fair if you're offering."

"It's probably more complicated in most circumstances," she agrees.

"Yeah."

And then the teacher arrives and requires of them that they math instead of talking.

That is acceptable.