The Pumpkin Principle

by Cynthia Blair

  “Funny, your date with B.J. this Saturday night is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, good!” exclaimed Susan.

  Chris could already tell that this was going to be even more difficult than she’d imagined.

  As the girls walked upstairs together, toward the girls’ bedrooms, Susan kept up a steady stream of excited conversation.

  “I suppose I should just wear jeans and a nice sweater,” she chirped happily. “But I’d like to look extra nice, somehow....”

  “Sooz ...”

  “Oh, I know it’s not a big deal. It’s just a movie date and all, but—”

  “Susan, listen to me. There’s something I’ve got to say ...”

  “I don’t know, I just want it to be special—”

  “Susan Pratt!” Chris nearly shrieked.

  Susan looked over at her twin and blinked.

  “Why, Chris! What on earth has gotten into you?”

  Chris opened her mouth to explain, then closed it and sighed. “Look, why don’t we both sit down in your room? There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “Okay.” Susan looked puzzled, but it was clear from the sparkle in her brown eyes that she was still lost in her dream world—at least a little bit.

  Once they were comfortable in Susan’s bedroom, with Chris sitting on the edge of the bed and her sister leaning back in the family’s old wooden rocking chair she had latched on to long before, claiming it for her own, Chris began to speak.

  “All right, Susan. Now, this is really kind of hard for me to say ...”

  “It’s okay, Chris. Whatever you have to tell me, I promise I’ll understand. Really!”

  Susan was just beginning to realize that her sister was being very serious about all this. Apparently she had something important to tell her, and it was something she wasn’t exactly looking forward to saying.

  “Well, it’s about your date.”

  “My date with B.J.?”

  Susan was surprised. What could Chris possibly know about that?

  “Actually, it’s about B.J. himself.”

  “But Chris! You’ve never even met him!”

  “I’m afraid that’s not entirely true.”

  Nervously, Chris tugged at the barrettes that were holding her shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair off her face. They were lemon yellow, the same color as the sweater she was wearing with her jeans. “You see, Sooz, I also met B.J. this week.”

  “You did? Where?” Susan was so curious about their meeting—and the fact that Chris hadn’t mentioned it before—-that she forgot to worry about whatever it was her twin was about to tell her.

  “At the Halloween Dance Committee meeting.”

  “But Chris! That was yesterday! How come you didn’t say anything before this? I mean, I kept talking about him, and ... Well, I guess it’s not really that important, but it is kind of strange that you didn’t let on that you already knew him.”

  “There’s a good reason for that.” Chris tried to keep her voice even. “You see, Susan, I didn’t say anything at first because I thought that B.J. was just being friendly to both of us.”

  “Well, that’s possible, isn’t it?”

  Chris sighed. “I thought so—and I certainly hoped so, but ...”

  “Besides,” Susan said defensively, “B.J. asked me out.”

  Chris looked at her sister soberly. “Susan, he asked me out, too.”

  It took a few seconds for Chris’s words to register.

  Susan just stared at her without blinking, without saying a word. And when she finally did speak, it was clear that she didn’t know what to say.

  “But ... when . . .if. . .” she sputtered.

  “Look, Sooz,” Chris said, surprising herself by how calm she sounded. “B.J. asked me out for this Friday night.”

  “And he asked me out for this Saturday night!”

  All of a sudden, both girls started to laugh.

  “That’s incredible!” Susan cried. “Why would he do that? I mean, he must know we’re twins!”

  “Of course. And he must have realized we’d both find out, that we’d tell each other.”

  “Well, at least we know one positive thing about B.J. Wilkins.”

  “What’s that?” Chris asked curiously.

  “He’s certainly consistent in his taste in girls!”

  Chris and Susan burst out laughing again.

  Suddenly, however, Chris grew serious once again.

  “I’m glad you’re taking this so well, Sooz. I was afraid you’d be upset.”

  “To be perfectly honest, I’m more flabbergasted than upset! I just don’t understand it!”

  “It’s true. This B.J. Wilkins fellow certainly is a puzzle,” Chris agreed. “Anyway, at first I wasn’t sure if I should even tell you.”

  “Of course you should have! I’m glad you did! But what made you change your mind?”

  Chris grinned. “Let’s just say that I got some good advice from someone who’s very, very wise.” She paused, then asked, “So are you still planning to go out with B.J. this weekend?”

  “Absolutely not! Why, I can’t imagine going out with someone who would try to—try to ...”

  Chris finished her sentence for her. “To put something over on the Pratt twins!”

  “Right! Now, all I have to do is decide what I’m going to say to him.” Susan frowned and thought for a minute. “I think I’ll just tell him fee truth. That I knew he asked both me and my twin sister out, and that neither of us appreciate it!”

  “Good idea. Let’s confront him!”

  Susan’s eyes-opened wide. “‘Let’s’? You mean, both of us?”

  “Sure! Why not? After all, B.J. was willing to take on both of us Pratts before. So let’s show him that we’re quite a team to contend with! That we twins stick together, no matter what!”

  It didn’t take long for Susan to agree.

  “You’re on, Chris!”

  Suddenly, Chris grew serious. “Sooz, there’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, no! Now what? Don’t tell me you found out that B.J. is also married or something!”

  Chris laughed. “No, this isn’t about B.J. It’s about Mrs. Carpenter. And her haunted house.”

  Susan glanced at her sister and smiled. “Come on, Chris. You know there’s no such thing as a haunted house. Why, you’re the one who was telling me that just the other day.”

  Chris took a deep breath. “That was before I stumbled upon this. Here, take a look.” After explaining where she’d found the book, she opened it to the place she had marked and indicated where she wanted her sister to begin reading.

  “What’s this? A book about ghosts? Oh, my gosh! ‘Crabtree Hill’? Why, that’s where Mrs. Carpenter lives!”

  “Now you’re catching on. Read it, Sooz.”

  A minute later, Susan sat back and looked at Chris. “Whoa! What’s going on here? Does this mean there really is a ghost haunting that house?”

  “I don’t know, Sooz. But I do know that I’m dying to find out!” When her sister didn’t readily agree, as she’d expected, she prompted, “Well, aren’t you dying to find out, too?”

  Susan eyed her twin warily. “I’m not so sure. I’ve never gone on a real ghost hunt before. Hey, let’s look at the other book. Is there anything about Jonathan Spring in that one?”

  She opened up the book, expecting to see more reports on ghosts. Instead, the pages were printed with photographs, very old-looking photographs.

  “What’s this? This isn’t a book about ghosts.”

  “Oh, dear,” sighed Chris. “Did I pick up the wrong book? I ran out of that basement so fast ...”

  “Chris, it’s a yearbook! From Whittington High!”

  “Oooh, let’s see!”

  The two girls pored over the old high school yearbook, a memento of a class that had graduated fifty years earlier. For the moment, ghosts were completely forgotten.

  “
Look at their hairstyles!” Chris shrieked. “And their clothes! They’re hilarious!”

  “I think they’re kind of nice,” said Susan. “I wonder if it was Mr. Peterson’s graduating class.”

  “Let’s look him up. The pictures are in alphabetical order.”

  Under the name Peterson, however, was a pretty young girl. The caption read, “Cecilia Peterson. Class Flirt.”

  “Look! It’s Mrs. Carpenter!” Chris squealed. “Gee, she looks so young here!”

  “She is young here,” her sister pointed out. “Oh, look. Not only was she the ‘Class Flirt’; she also belonged to a million clubs. Just like you, Chris.”

  “Yes, but she was in a sorority. Sigma Delta Alpha. She was even president during her senior year!”

  “Oh, this is so exciting, being able to see Mrs. Carpenter when she was so young. And so pretty, besides!”

  “Yes,” Chris agreed, her voice suddenly heavy. “Whoever would have predicted that she’d end up living in a haunted house?”

  Susan closed the book and sighed deeply. “Oh, Chris. What are we going to do? I’d love to help Mrs. Carpenter. In fact, now that I’ve seen her when she was our age, I want to help her out more than ever.”

  “I’d like to help her out, too. But Mr. Peterson said the other day that he’d tried everything: talking to her, reasoning with her, even offering to move into her house with his wife. She was afraid the ghosts would hurt them, though.”

  When she looked over at her twin, she saw that Susan’s eyes had taken on a gleam that she had seen many times before.

  “Uh-oh. You’ve just come up with an idea, haven’t you?”

  “I think so. Chris, how about if you and I spend the night in Mrs. Carpenter’s house? Then we can see firsthand whether or not the ghost of Jonathan Spring lives there!”

  “And if it does?”

  Susan shrugged, suddenly matter-of-fact. “If it does, we’ll tell her that she should try to get used to him.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Well, if we don’t see any signs of him, then maybe she’ll come to believe that he’s not really there. You know, we’d be someone with an objective opinion, so we might have better luck than her brother did.”

  Chris was still skeptical. “This all sounds good in theory, Sooz, but there’s one detail you’ve left out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How do we get Mrs. Carpenter to agree to let us stay in her house overnight? She doesn’t even know us!”

  “You’ve got a point there.” But Susan remained undaunted. “We’ll just have to come up with some kind of scheme, that’s all!”

  “As easy as that, huh?”

  “As easy as that. You don’t think we could possibly ruin our track record now, at this point in our careers, do you?” Susan teased.

  “I suppose you’re right. Okay, then, back to the drawing board. Gee, we sure have a lot of planning to do. Coming up with a great idea for the dance, getting Katy and Wayne together—and now plotting a way to get Mrs. Carpenter to invite us over as houseguests. How do we ever get ourselves into these situations?”

  Susan grinned. “That’s easy, Chris. The reason we get ourselves into them is because we love getting out of them!”

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, Chris and Susan did something they didn’t usually do.

  They dressed exactly the same.

  The two girls were totally unalike in almost everything except their physical appearances. And they nearly always looked so different that it was difficult to tell that they were identical twins.

  Chris tended to be flamboyant, wearing stylish clothes, fun costume jewelry, and some kind of combs or barrettes in her shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair. Her usual outfit for school was a nice pair of jeans or corduroy pants and a shirt or sweater, more often than not in a bold, cheerful color. Susan, on the other hand, liked to wear subdued clothing, She preferred skirts to pants, especially traditional plaids or solid colors. She generally didn’t bother to do anything special with her hair other than to make certain that it was well brushed and neat. And the only jewelry she felt comfortable wearing was tiny earrings or delicate necklaces.

  Today, however, was an exception.

  Deciding to make a point of being sisters—twin sisters, at that—had something to do with wanting to present a “united front” to B.J, Wilkins.

  “After all, this is war!” Chris exclaimed over breakfast, taking a large bite out of her English muffin in order to emphasize her point. “We need to teach this B.J. a lesson.”

  “Right,” Susan agreed. “And that lesson is that no one messes with the Pratt twins!”

  “Here, here,” said Chris. “Especially when it comes to toying with our affections! We should nominate B.J. Wilkins for this year’s ‘C!ass Flirt’!”

  So the girls both wore black corduroy pants and powder-blue sweaters. They didn’t own many articles of clothing that were exactly the same, since their taste in fashion differed so widely. But these sweaters were birthday presents from their Aunt Lillian, who always sent them identical articles of clothing, sweaters or blouses or even dresses. She couldn’t help it, she always said. She remembered only too clearly the days when they were little girls and their mother liked to dress them the same. Every now and then, Chris and Susan had discovered, having a set of matching clothes could come in handy.

  They also wore matching combs that were supplied by Chris, and tiny gold earrings, two very similar pairs, that were supplied by Susan.

  And, indeed, the two girls looked like mirror images of each other.

  “There. This should impress B.J.,” Chris said with a satisfied nod. They were about to leave for school but had stopped for one final glance in the mirror. “Having him see us both looking like the same person should make him understand the seriousness of what he’s done. Imagine, trying to violate the Twins’ Code of Honor.”

  “The what?” asked Susan.

  Chris shrugged. “It’s something I just made up. But it certainly sounds good, doesn’t it?”

  “Definitely. Very official. Well, even if we don’t manage to impress him with how upset we both are about all this, we should at least manage to confuse him!”

  Chris laughed. “All set, Sooz?”

  “Ready! Let’s go! At this point, I’m ready for anything!”

  As the girls walked to school, they discussed the peculiar behavior of B.J. Wilkins, something neither of them understood yet. Chris told Susan that she was certain she would be the first to encounter him. And knowing this, her heart was pounding with anticipation as she and her sister strode purposefully through the main entrance to Whittington High.

  Sure enough, just as she’d expected, Chris ran into B.J. the very first thing. As she was standing at her locker, right before homeroom, gathering her books for her morning classes, she suddenly heard that familiar voice—just as she had the morning before.

  “Hi, there, Chris!” he said cheerfully, coming up behind her. “Did you find out if you’re free Friday night? I checked with my parents, and it’s okay for me to borrow their car.”

  Chris had expected to be cool and calm as she confronted him.

  Instead, as she whirled around to face him, she found herself blowing up like a small volcano.

  “B.J. Wilkins! Of all the nerve! Why, I can’t believe you’re just standing there, as cool as a cucumber, talking to me about going out Friday night as if it were the most—the most normal thing in the world!”

  B.J. looked totally astonished. “I don’t understand, Chris. What’s abnormal about it? Besides, I thought you wanted to go out with me. At least that’s what you said yesterday. Or did I dream the whole thing?”

  “Ah, yes. Yesterday,” Chris repeated. She was beginning to fume. “Yesterday was a different matter entirely. That was before I found out ...”

  “Before you found out what?”

  Chris’s brown eyes flashed angrily.

  “Before I found
out that you asked my twin sister out for Saturday night! You—you two-timer! Did you think we wouldn’t find out you were trying to date both of us? Or was it that you simply didn’t care?”

  Chris was ready for all kinds of possible reactions. He could get mad. He could act as if he didn’t care. Or he could get defensive, making excuses for his outrageous behavior.

  The one reaction she wasn’t prepared for, however, was the one she got.

  B.J. started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Chris demanded.

  B.J. just shook his head slowly. And he continued to laugh.

  Which only made Chris even more furious.

  “Goodness gracious, what on earth is wrong with you, B.J.?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me, Chris,” he finally replied, still chuckling.

  “Then go ahead and explain!”

  “There’s nothing to explain!”

  “Aha! So you admit that you were being a two-timer, asking both me and Susan out!”

  But B.J. persisted in remaining calm. “I’m not admitting anything. Least of all that I’ve done anything wrong.”

  Chris’s mouth dropped open.

  “B.J. Wilkins,” she cried, “you’re even worse than I ever imagined!”

  He looked at her innocently, with his blue eyes open wide.

  “Gee, Chris, does this mean our date for Friday night is off, then?”

  Chris just let out a yelp of total exasperation. Then she stomped off, slamming her locker door behind her.

  As she stalked away, B.J. just stood there. And he was still chuckling.

  I have never ever in my entire life met anyone like this boy! Chris thought, hurrying away. For once, she was actually glad that it was time for school to start for the day.

  Susan’s experience with confronting B.J. wasn’t very different from Chris’s.

  She ran into him right after second period, as she was coming out of math. He was waiting for her, right outside the classroom.

  “Hey, Susan! Over here!”

  “B.J.!”

  Susan was caught totally off guard; she hadn’t expected to ran into him this early in the day. Yet it appeared that he had made a point of finding her.

  “How did you know where I’d be during second period?”