Girl Wonder and the Terrific Twins Read Online Free

last orange.
    Mum looked at me, her eyes suspicious.All she said was, “Hhmm!”
    The next day I had two oranges for breakfast, three oranges for lunch and four oranges for dinner. As soon as dinner was finished I measured myself against our measuring wall in the bathroom. I hadn’t grown one millimetre! And what’s more I was sick – sick of oranges.
    When I woke up the next morning I had the worst tummy ache in the world.

    “Ooh!” I groaned. “Ooooh!”
    Mum called the doctor.
    “Now then, Maxine,” Doctor Turner said after taking my temperature, “your mum told me that you’re eating a lot of oranges. She said you’re eating oranges and nothing else. Is that right?”
    I nodded. Oooooooh! My stomach was really hurting.
    “Why have you suddenly become so keen on oranges?” Doctor Turner asked.
    Mum was glaring at me from beside Doctor Turner. She had her hands on her hips.
    “I love oranges.” I didn’t exactly lie, but I didn’t exactly tell the truth either.
    “Is that the
whole
reason?” Mum asked softly.
    I thought hard. My stomach ache was getting worse and I was as miserable as miserable but I didn’t want to tell Mumwhy I was eating so many oranges. She might stop me, or worse still, she might get annoyed.
    “Yeah, that’s the whole reason,” I replied.
    “Doctor Turner, can I speak to you for a moment?” Mum said.
    The doctor and my mum went outside my room to stand on the landing.
    “I . . . oranges . . . cure . . . oranges . . . oranges . . . oranges.” That was all I heard, even though I pushed my ears as far forward as possible.
    Mum and Doctor Turner came back into the room.
    “Maxine, Doctor Turner agrees with me that what you need is a diet of oranges and nothing else,” Mum began. “I
was
going to make you a cheese, onion and potato pie, followed by ice cream and chocolate sauce and a long glass ofice-cold cream soda, but . . .”
    “It’s all right,” I said quickly. “I don’t mind having that.”
    “Nonsense.” Mum smiled. “You said you love oranges. That’s all you’ve eaten for the last two days.”
    “But just to make sure that Maxine gets all her essential vitamins and minerals, I would prescribe a teaspoonful of cod-liver oil three times a day and a chewy vitamin tablet twice a day,” said Doctor Turner, scribbling on a pad. “That way Maxine can eat as many oranges as she likes and nothing else.”
    “NO! I DON’T WANT ANY MORE ORANGES,” I pleaded. “Maybe . . . maybe I’m not so keen on them after all.”

    “Then why were you eating so many of them?” Mum asked.
    Her eyes were glinting and sparkling like when the sun shines on water. When she looks at me like that, it’s as if she can read my mind. I decided that perhaps I should just tell the truth. The truth takes a lot less effort.
    “Well . . . Sharon at school called me a short dumpling,” I muttered. “So I was swallowing orange seeds so that they would grow into a tree inside me and push me up. Then I’d be taller than Sharon and she couldn’t call me a short dumpling any more.”
    “Oh, I see.” Doctor Turner laughed.
    “Oh, I see.” Mum smiled.
    “Maxine, it’s the oranges that are causing your stomach ache,” Doctor Turner said. “And it doesn’t matter how many you eat, you’ll never get a treegrowing inside of you. If you want to grow you have to eat lots of different kinds of foods – like carrots and greens, and protein foods like eggs and milk.”
    “Yuk!” I said. “What about chocolate? Will that make me grow?”
    “Only sideways, not upwards,” said Doctor Turner, smiling.
    “Maxine, you’re not short and it wouldn’t matter if you were,” Mum said. “It’s what you are inside that counts, not what you are outside. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, Mum,” I said, holding my aching stomach.
    “OK, Maxine, I’ll prescribe some medicine for you which should take away your stomach ache. No more oranges or you’ll turn into one,” said Doctor Turner,