Girl Wonder and the Terrific Twins Read Online Free Page A

pulling a face.
    I smiled up at her. She’s funny.
    Mum went downstairs, followed by the doctor. After a few minutes Mum came back up the stairs alone, her hands behind her back.
    “I’ve brought you a drink.” Mum smiled, her eyes glinting.
    “What is it?” I asked suspiciously.
    Mum brought out the glass from behind her back. “Orange juice!” She laughed.
    I buried my head under my pillow. “Take it away!” I said. “I never want to see anything that’s orange ever again.”

Saving Energy
    When I got home from school, I ran into the kitchen where Mum was mashing potatoes for our tea and the twins were laying the table.
    “What did you do at school today?” Mum asked me.
    “We learnt about energy and how we should all save it,” I replied, dropping my school bag on the kitchen floor. “We should always switch off lights when we’re not in the room and we should switch off all electric appli . . . appli . . . appliances when we’re not using them.”
    “Quite right too,” Mum said. “Mindyou, I’ve been telling you and your brothers to save energy for years and you haven’t listened to one word yet.”
    “Oh, we will now,” I said.
    “Why?” Anthony asked.
    “Yeah, why?” Edward repeated.
    “Because the more energy we save the longer it will last us and the less we waste.”
    “What sort of waste?” Anthony asked.
    “Well . . .”
    “Maxine means things like not filling a kettle with water when all you want is one cup of tea. It takes more energy and longer to heat up a full kettle than a half full one,” Mum said.
    “Hhmm!” Edward said.

    “Maxine, could you spoon outsome mashed potato on to the plates next to the sausages. I’ll be right back.”
    When Mum left the room, I said to the twins, “I think we should make sure that we save energy.”
    “How?” Edward said, for once getting in before Anthony.
    “Hhmm!” I thought. “We’re going to need a good plan. I think maybe this is a job for Girl Wonder . . .”
    “And the Terrific Twins! Yippee!” shouted the twins. And we spun around until we all fell down.
    “How about . . . how about if we make sure that everything is switched off before we go to bed tonight?” Anthony suggested.
    “We could go into each room and make sure that all the lights and things are switched off,” Edward continued.
    “That sounds like a good idea.” I grinned. “All right then, I’ll do upstairsand you two can do downstairs.”
    “How come we get the downstairs?” Anthony protested.
    “Yeah, how come?” repeated Edward.
    “Because downstairs is bigger and there are two of you,” I explained.
    “Hhmm!” they both said, but they didn’t argue so I got away with it.
    After our tea of fat sausages and sweet peas and buttery mashed potatoes, we all sat down to watch telly.
    “Mum, shouldn’t we switch off the telly to save energy?” Edward asked.
    Mum laughed. “But we’re watching it. We can’t save energy by switching it off and watch it at the same time.”
    “But it
would
save energy if we
did
switch it off, wouldn’t it?” Edward persisted.
    “Yes it would,” Mum agreed. “But I’m not going to. I like Doctor Who.”
    Edward leaned over and whisperedto Anthony and me. “Let’s not watch it. Let’s do something else – then that would save energy.”
    “I don’t think it works like that.” I frowned. “The telly uses the same amount of energy whether only Mum watches it or all four of us watch it.”
    So we watched telly until it was time for us to go to bed.
    “I’m a bit tired, so I think I’ll have an early night as well,” Mum yawned, switching off the telly and pulling out the plug.
    We cleaned our teeth and put on our pyjamas. Then, when Mum was in the bathroom, I grabbed my brothers.
    “Come on, Terrific Twins. Now’s our chance to save energy. You two do the kitchen and the conservatory and the living room and I’ll do the bedrooms,” I said.
    Five minutes later we met back