The Twin Test

by Rula Sinara

  The girls returned to the bathroom with the supplies and Dax turned on the faucet. Pippa marched outside and sat on one of the patio chairs with her head hanging forward. She caught an upside-down view of a couple in the next bungalow staring as they walked by. The girls ran back and forth from the bathroom, getting water and pouring it on her head to wet the mud. It started to glob and drip onto the ground.

  She had no pride left. She couldn’t possibly get any more embarrassed than this.

  Then Dax showed up with another container of water and began rubbing the mud out of her hair himself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DAX LEFT BEFORE breakfast the next day. He figured the earlier he left, the sooner he’d get back. And the sooner he got back, the less chance Pippa would have to stay the night again.

  He’d barely been able to sleep the night she’d stayed over, and it wasn’t because he’d slept on the floor. Like her, he’d camped out plenty of times over the course of his career, taking seismic readings well into the night. Not in the past couple of years, sure, but it hadn’t been the floor that had kept him up. His back was fine. It was his brain that was weak.

  He couldn’t seem to grasp what it was about her, but she kept popping into his head last night. Her scent had lingered in the room long after she’d escaped to the twins’ bedroom. It wasn’t the noxious perfume Nanny Number Five had worn until he broke down and told her it triggered his migraines. Pippa smelled of mangoes and something citrusy, light and fresh. He liked it. That scared him.

  He didn’t want to be thinking about her. He sure as heck didn’t need to be. He had enough to worry about.

  He hadn’t missed the look on Ivy’s face when he’d invited Pippa to stay. He’d also heard her protest loud and clear. His girls were determined to chase Pippa off, just as they’d done with all their previous nannies.

  But from what he could tell, Pippa Harper wasn’t easily fazed. She hadn’t even ratted on them about the torn book. Oh, he’d noticed the crumpled book page. He’d have bet money it hadn’t been an accident. The fact that she’d kept that to herself spoke volumes about her.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. Then there was yesterday and the mud fiasco. He’d thought for sure she’d quit on him, but she didn’t. She had shown up right on time this morning. She was either stubborn and tenacious or patient as a saint. Whichever it was, it meant she was good for the twins. And that was the only reason he wanted her to stick around.

  Except washing her hair had been so...personal. He could still feel the softness of her hair in his hands and the warmth of her skin lingered long after he’d held her arms to steady her when she’d risen from her head-down position too quickly. He rubbed his palms against his jeans and tried to focus on setting out more of the geophone grid. They had another four square miles to cover before they could start using the Vibroseis trucks.

  He leaned over and pressed another geophone stake in the ground as his crew laid out a parallel grid line. The seismic data he’d looked at when he’d arrived early this morning was also bothering him. It had nothing to do with their survey, but he wondered if the fracking in the adjacent drilling field had had any bearing on it.

  Despite Ron’s comment on day one, Dax had set up his own equipment—a separate seismograph, high precision GPS and a few other basics. He hadn’t brought anything like lasers or strain gauges that he’d used in research before, so data would be limited, but to come out here near the famous Rift Valley and not get any readings would have eaten away at him. His team knew it, too. They also knew not to let Ron, Steven or anyone else touch his personal equipment when he was at Tabara.

  Syd, Lee and Alberto were the ones who’d handed him a cup of coffee this morning and the readouts they’d registered after he’d left yesterday. There were definitely tremors in the area. Some crust movement was expected so close to fault lines, but compared to older data he’d seen for the area, there seemed to be an increase...a few anomalies that correlated with Erebus’s fracking schedule.

  He set up another geophone and straightened out to work the tension from his neck. Their cook stepped out from the food trailer and signaled lunch. Dax grabbed his sandwich and headed to where his “personal” readouts were. He ate as he examined the data his seismograph had registered.

  Steven walked over and glanced over Dax’s shoulder at the readout.

  “It’s not enough to mean anything,” Steven said. Clearly, he’d noticed the kick in the readout, too. Interesting that he’d hadn’t really studied them, yet he was ready to brush them off so quickly.

  “I’m not so sure. I think it’s worth watching. If you look at the schedule of Erebus’s water injections, then compare it with the timing of the anomalies shown by these readings, the seismic activity is more than a coincidence,” Dax insisted.

  “But it’s not statistically significant. You’re new to this area. We get activity all the time. Most of it goes unnoticed by the average person. But occasionally we hit four Mw’s. You may have seen a correlation here, but it’s only data from one night. You need more than that.”

  Dax nodded, not because he was conceding, but because it was clear Steven was going to turn a blind eye in order to be loyal to the company. Dax wasn’t from Kenya, but he’d done his homework. He’d studied past Mercalli intensity scale records and even records from as far back as when the Richter scale was used, as well as more recent—and more accurate—moment magnitude readings. Yes, readings from one night weren’t enough—obviously—but to brush it off wasn’t right. Dax had good instincts. He knew when something was worth following up on. He felt it in his gut the way some people could sense a storm brewing before the clouds arrived. He lived and breathed quakes. But he also had two girls he needed to support.

  “You’re right,” Dax said. “Just excited to be back in the field. I’ve always loved this stuff. Gets the blood pumping. I wasn’t going to jump the gun. Just pointing out interesting activity. It shows our instruments are working, at least.”

  He’d keep gathering data until he amassed enough to prove there was a concern, then he’d report it to the chief engineer, as protocol dictated.

  “True. Always good to get a baseline. You know you love quakes when you get a rush from a readout.” Steven laughed. “And, hey, I didn’t mean to come off strong there. I’ve just been out here awhile.”

  As an assistant. Dax wanted to point that out, but decided he’d let it go for now. Sometimes there was a benefit to keeping quiet and taking note of the people you were dealing with before setting your foot down.

  It was going to be a long day.

  * * *

  PIPPA KEPT LOOKING in her rearview mirror. Having Ivy and Fern sitting behind her in the back seat of her jeep made her a little nervous, but she had stopped the argument over who got to sit up front by telling them they were both banned from the front all week because of the stunt they pulled on her yesterday. She eyed them again as she drove along a dirt road that ran through the savanna grasses toward an enkang just under an hour away. Had they switched headbands again? She narrowed her eyes at them, but they seemed more focused on the scenery and giraffes in the distance than playing tricks. She needed to keep them distracted.

  “Do you want me to pull over so you can get a better look through your binoculars?”

  “Yes, please.” Fern nodded and held on to her pair. “Do we have to stay in the car?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Over there. What are those? They look like deer with curvy horns.” Ivy pointed to a herd of animals gathered near a mass of brush.

  Pippa slowed and pulled to a stop beside a rocky outcropping that cast shade over them. She looked to where Ivy was pointing.

  “Those are impala.”

  Both girls aimed their binoculars and focused in on the animals.

  “Oh, and you see that acacia tree, the one that’s shaped like an umbr
ella? Look to the right of it.” She waited for them to spot the two rhinos.

  “Wow,” Fern said.

  “That’s pretty cool.”

  “They are cool, but not cool tempered. It’s a good thing we’re not too close,” Pippa said.

  “That horn is incredible,” Ivy said.

  “That, it is. But it also puts that bull at risk of poaching. It’s really sad and unimaginable what poachers kill for. Some people think a rhino’s horn has medicinal powers. Others just want to carve them like they do elephant tusks. So, poachers hunt the rhinos down and kill them for the horns. Illegally. These animals are being threatened to the point that, when you’re all grown up and have your own kids and grandkids, you might be telling them stories about the time you went to Africa and saw a real live rhino or elephant before they went extinct.”

  “Oh my God. Really?” Fern said, the corners of her mouth falling.

  “That’s so depressing. Maybe we should become vegetarians for real. Are you one?” Ivy asked Pippa.

  “Yes, but the nonjudgy kind. I have some family and friends who are vegetarians and some who aren’t. But even the people I know who aren’t vegetarians only eat meat or poultry that has been treated humanely and fed on pasture their entire lives. It’s about doing what’s best for all life on earth and the environment as a whole. There has to be balance in all things. The more you look into it and dig into both views, the more you’ll see that becoming a vegetarian is a complex decision. And, by the way, it’s a personal choice, too. You may be identical twins, but you’re two distinct individuals and you each have the right to make your own decisions.”

  Fern lowered her binoculars and gazed off into the distance.

  “Got that, Fern? You, too, Ivy?” Pippa asked softly. Fern finally nodded.

  “Yes. Got it,” Ivy said, keeping her binoculars glued to her eyes. She was a proud one. Independent. But Pippa could tell she was listening. She needed to hear it.

  “Quick, look there, past that boulder,” Pippa said, lightening up the conversation.

  “Elephants!” Fern jumped up onto her knees. “Wow. Ivy, can you see the babies?”

  “Man.” Ivy sighed as she spotted them. “I can’t believe anyone would kill them.”

  “I wish we had cell phones so that we could take photos,” Fern said.

  “Yeah,” Ivy said. “Dad’s punishment yesterday was to tell us we can’t get cell phones until we’re sixteen now. I’m not worried. He’ll forget he said that in a month.”

  That was Dax’s punishment for mud in her hair? Curious.

  “You do know you don’t need a phone to have a camera, don’t you?” Pippa asked.

  “Well, yes, but no one has just a camera anymore. It’s kind of silly. Why bother if you have a phone that can fit in your pocket?” Ivy said.

  “Unless you’re a professional, maybe, but she’s right. Cameras are old-fashioned. You wouldn’t use a giant box computer from the ’80s if you could have a thin laptop would you?” Fern pointed out.

  “I disagree. Sometimes old is better, or at least special in its own right. For example, a phone wouldn’t be able to zoom in enough to take a photo of those elephants. The clarity would suffer, too, especially when taking night photos or capturing a full moon on a clear night out here in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I should take you two camping so you can see for yourselves.”

  “We’ve been camping with Dad,” Ivy said.

  “Ah, but have you camped in Africa’s wilderness surrounded by lions and hyenas?”

  The girls tucked their chins in and shook their heads as if that might be a little too daring.

  Pippa pulled her camera out of a case in her backpack.

  “This, my dears, is a real camera. Not old enough for film, but still old. And, Fern, I do take photos for my family’s elephant rescue, Busara, so I guess in some ways, I’m a professional. It has great zoom, too. I’ll let you try it, but first let me snap a shot of that baby elephant with its mother. It’s so perfect. The lighting is magnificent. I like capturing happy moments, too, you know? Not just the sad ones, where the babies are orphaned. People need to have hope and see the beauty in life. One of you keep an eye on the herd so we don’t lose sight of them.”

  Pippa turned in her seat and switched the camera on. It didn’t respond. She tried again. The herd was moving away, though neither girl was warning her. She glanced up at them and they were watching her apprehensively. She tried the on button again. No luck. The herd moved behind a distant copse of trees and underbrush. Completely out of view.

  “No! I missed it. My batteries must be bad. I replaced them recently. They shouldn’t have died on me so soon.” She rested her forehead in her hand. Overreacting wasn’t going to make that shot happen. This was what life was about. Missed opportunities. But the shot she’d wanted wasn’t just about the animals; it had also been about the composition of the boulders, trees and clouds. It had been the shot she’d been after for months. The one she’d pictured in her mind. The one she’d been planning to take and frame as a gift for her parents’ anniversary.

  Ivy stared down at her lap. Fern slumped down next to her, looking miserable and biting her lip. Ivy never did that, she’d noticed. Ivy picked at her thumbnail when she was nervous. She stopped picking at it, reached into her pocket and pulled out the batteries.

  Pressure filled Pippa’s ears. She glared at the girls and grabbed the batteries from Ivy’s hand.

  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

  “I cannot believe you two,” Pippa said, as she put the batteries in the camera and returned the camera to its case. She stepped out of the jeep and slammed the door behind her.

  “Get out. Both of you.”

  Ivy and Fern looked at each other wide-eyed, then back at her as if she couldn’t mean it. They didn’t move.

  “Now!” Pippa yelled, pointing at the ground outside the jeep. Her voice caught in her throat. She never yelled. She never lost her cool, especially not with kids, but these girls were possessed or something. She gripped her hair back from her face and let the sun sting her skin.

  The girls climbed out of the jeep slowly and stood very close to one another. Fear crinkled their faces. Guilt sliced through Pippa, but fury and duty won out.

  “You can’t leave us out here. That’s child abandonment and abuse,” Fern said.

  “Yeah. Like in Hansel and Gretel. Dad would kill you a million times over,” Ivy added, her voice shaking.

  They thought she was going to leave them out here? Not a chance. She was angry but not insane or abusive. But she’d allow them to assume what they wanted. Letting them simmer a little bit might teach them a lesson.

  “Riding in my jeep and taking these outings is a privilege. I don’t have to put up with your antics. We can stick to your strict schedule like hardened sap for all I care,” she said, raising her voice and pointing at each one. “I have never in my life dealt with more disrespectful, manipulative, ungrateful and infuriating children than the two of you.”

  They didn’t say anything, but tears brimmed in their eyes.

  “That shot was perfect and I missed it, but what bothers me more is the fact that you touched my camera. You tampered with an item that doesn’t belong to you and you have no right to touch. You might think it’s just an old camera and no big deal, but it is a big deal to me. You have to learn to have respect for things that don’t belong to you, and that starts now. A person learns respect of another’s belongings as a child so that it hopefully impacts decisions they make later...even things like choosing not to kill a rhino and steal its horn. That camera is special to me. It was given to me by my father and to him by his adoptive parents. He was adopted as a teenager because he lost both of his birth parents. And my father didn’t know I existed when I was born, but the love he and my mother had for each other brought us all together and made us a family. I was t
aking that photograph as an anniversary gift for them. Because I love them and respect them and because family is important. Because a father or mother’s relationship with their child is important. But I missed that photo because you two needed to pull another one of your inconsiderate, selfish pranks. Don’t you ever stop and think before you act? Couldn’t you for once pause and consider the consequences of your actions?” Pippa stopped ranting to catch her breath.

  The twins looped their arms and Fern buried her face in Ivy’s shoulder. Ivy swiped a tear away with the back of her hand. Pippa paced. What in the world would it take to get them to change their behavior? Kids didn’t act out like this without reason.

  “Look, I’m not trying to get revenge here by making you cry. Seeing you upset doesn’t make me happy. I don’t want to sit here and lecture you, but I’m trying to make you understand that you’re not alone in losing your mother. I have family members who’ve gone through what you’ve gone through. My father lost both of his parents. My cousins lost their mother, just like you did. And all of them ended up with the gift of second moms who love them to the ends of the earth. Yet, they all still honor and remember their first moms, or dads. So, if all these pranks you’re playing are because you’re afraid that a nanny will take your mother’s place, you can stop it because nobody can do that. Nobody. And if your pranks are to get your dad’s attention, is having him frustrated and stressed or upset the kind of attention you want? If you love him that much, stop doing this to him. Give him a chance. He loves you both. That’s why you’re here and not off in some boarding school. Think about that.”

  Neither one responded. She’d said enough. She felt drained.

  “Get in the jeep...and remember it’s a privilege.” She climbed into the driver’s seat, and Ivy and Fern rushed into the back seat, clearly relieved that she wasn’t leaving them out here to get eaten alive.

  She started the ignition and resumed course for the enkang. They’d be there in less than fifteen minutes. Maybe that would be enough time for the twins to process all that she’d said.