by Alan Katz
To Nathan and David, the twinniest twins
in the twiniverse
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The new nanny at the front door said his name was Myron Hyron Dyron. But the way he looked, the way he spoke, even the way he smelled, told twin brothers Nathan and David Wohlfardt that the man standing before them was, in fact, their previous nanny, Martin Healey Discount.
“Martin! You’re back!” exclaimed Nathan.
“Yes! You’re back!” David said gleefully.
“What do you mean?” asked Myron.
“What do you mean, ‘What do you mean? ’ ? ” asked David.
“What do you mean, ‘What do you mean, what do you mean? ’ ? ” asked Myron.
“What do you mean, ‘What do you mean, what do you mean, what do you mean? ’ ? ” asked Nathan.
“What I mean is my name is Myron. Myron Hyron Dyron. There is certainly no reason to address me as Martin.”
“But you are Martin,” David informed him. “Martin Healey Discount.”
“Martin Healey Discount,” Nathan added, “who was our nanny for about five months and twenty-nine days!”
“Actually, it was six months. Six months exactly, to the day,” Myron said. “But as I said, that wasn’t me.”
“Oh, come on, Martin, give it up!” Nathan said. “We know it’s you! Same face, same out-of-control mustache, same breath . . .”
“Yeah, plus Martin Healey Discount and Myron Hyron Dyron have the same initials. You look the same, and . . . and . . . and . . . you knew how long Martin lived here before!” David said, as if reciting the charges against a wanted criminal. “So you are you!”
“I am indeed myself,” Myron said. “But I am not Martin.”
“Well, then, you must be twins!” David said.
“That’s the first correct thing you’ve said,” answered Myron. “Martin Healey Discount is my twin brother.”
“You’re a twin?” David gasped. “Just like us?”
“Well, not precisely like you,” Myron told him. “For one thing, while the two of you live in the same house and are together constantly, such as in your room, at school, and on your recent ski trip, Martin and I have not actually seen each other for fourteen years, three months, and thirty-seven days.”
Nathan and David didn’t ask why he hadn’t said that as fourteen years, four months, and seven days. Not because they weren’t curious, but simply because they were both shocked that Myron knew about the ski trip the family had just taken. Also, it frankly never occurred to either one of them that there aren’t any months with thirty-seven days.
“That’s quite remarkable,” Mrs. Wohlfardt said. “You are, in fact, the spitting image of Martin, Myron.”
“Including the spit,” David whispered to Nathan, having suddenly realized that he was soaked from the way Myron spit a little when he said words starting with P or T (just as Martin had always done).
“We knew Martin had five brothers and two sisters,” Nathan said. “But we never knew he had a twin.”
“Ah, I’m sure there are many things about Martin you don’t know, little guy,” Myron told him.
“Like what?” Nathan wanted to know.
“That’s hard to say,” Myron said. “Remember, he and I haven’t seen each other in fourteen years, two months, and sixty-seven days.”
Again, neither boy questioned Myron’s unusual calendar wording.
“Well, any twin of Martin’s is a twin of ours, Myron,” Mrs. Wohlfardt exclaimed, trying to say that she was glad he was there.
“Thank you, Mrs. Wohlfardt,” Myron said.
“It’s absolutely wonderful that you’re here, Myron,” Mrs. Wohlfardt continued, un aware that she was finishing every comment she made to Myron by saying his name—a habit she’d been unable to break whenever she spoke to Martin. “Because since Martin left us, these boys have failed to maintain the organizational skills, study habits, and tidiness that he somehow inspired in them.”
“You have my word, Mrs. Wohlfardt, that I will dedicate my days and nights to helping them achieve greatness once again,” Myron said, so convincingly that even he believed it. “Now, if you will excuse me, I will go to my room and unsuit my suitcases, delug my luggage, and distrunkify my trunk.”
Nathan and David thought that meant Myron intended to unpack, but they weren’t sure . . . until he grabbed his things and headed directly to the room that Martin had previously occupied.
The fact that he knew about the ski trip and knew where to go confirmed David’s suspicion that this man, who said he was Myron, was, in fact, their previous nanny Martin. Nathan also thought there was an extreme possibility that was true. It was all pretty confusing.
As for Mrs. Wohlfardt, well, she didn’t know what to think. Whether it was new Myron or old Martin, she was glad someone was there to watch her boys. And she summed up the whole tricky situation quite well when she said, “My, it’s certainly been an interesting eleven minutes and three hundred twenty-seven seconds since he got here!”
While the newly arrived (or possibly old and returning) nanny was setting up his room, the boys retreated to theirs—to think, to ponder, to strategize, and to mull things over.
“I know he said he’s Myron, but I can’t help thinking he’s really Martin,” David said.
“I’m very surprised,” Nathan told him. “Not so much about the whole Myron and Martin thing, but about the fact that you’re actually thinking.”
“Very nice,” David harrumphed. “I think. I think all the time. At least I think I do.”
“Look, if Martin was back, why would he bother acting as if he’s someone else?” Nathan wondered aloud.
“Based on my just-arrived, new and improved, Double Super-Secret Special Spy Kit and Bad Breath Detector, I have four theories about that,” David informed him.
“Let me hear the fourth one, then the second one, then the third one,” Nathan said. “And if two out of the three of them make any sense at all, I’ll possibly be willing to listen to the first one.”
“Okay,” David said. “Fourth, Martin could be in some kind of trouble and he’s here to hide out from international pickle smugglers.”
“No,” Nathan said. “Next?”
“Second, Martin could be in some kind of trouble and he’s here to hide out from international paper clip smugglers.”
“No,” Nathan said. “Stop with the trouble and smugglers. And remember, if someone’s trying to hide out, they change how they look. He would have shaved his mustache. He would have shaved his head. He totally would not have shown up as his own identical twin!”
David had to admit that was a good point. And since his other two theories both had to do with smuggling (toenail clippers and yellow bouncy balls), he decided not to share them with his brother.
“Then I got nothing,” David
said. “We’re simply gonna have to figure out a way to find out if he’s who he says he is, or if he’s who we think he might be.”
“We could ask him,” Nathan suggested.
“No! No, no, no, no, no!” David said. “He insists he’s Myron. If we ask him again if he’s Martin, that would be insulting.”
“We could call the FBI. Then the CIA. Or the IRS. The FCC. The FDA. Or even NASA,” Nathan offered.
“Wrong,” David said.
Nathan took it further: “Well, how about NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and Fox?”
“You’re waaaaay off, bro,” David told him. “And yet, your extremely rotten ideas have given me a good one.”
“Thanks!” Nathan said, beaming with pride.
“See, we need to be the FBI, CIA, and all those other governmental investigative agencies. We need to watch this guy like a hawk. We need to monitor his every move. We need to record everything he says and does. We need to be observant. We need to be heedful. We need to be attentive. We need to use his words and actions as evidence that he’s Myron . . . or that he’s Martin,” David said, by now totally breathless.
“Yeah,” Nathan answered. “But most of all, there’s something else that has to happen right away. . . .”
“What’s that?” David asked.
“You need to stop starting all your sentences with ‘We need to . . .’ ”
“Okay,” David said. “But one more: as we’re investigating the Mysterious Case of Myron or Martin, we need to treat Myron as if he really is Myron. We can’t assume he’s really Martin. We can’t call him Martin. We can’t act like he’s Martin. We can’t treat him like we treated Martin. We can’t expect him to treat us as Martin did. And we can’t—”
“We can’t keep starting sentences with ‘We can’t . . . ,’ ” Nathan interrupted.
“We can’t?” David asked.
“No, we can’t,” Nathan said.
“What if we need to?” David wanted to know.
“We don’t need to. We can’t,” Nathan insisted.
“Okay,” David said.
“Okay,” Nathan said.
“Okay,” David said.
“Okay,” Nathan said.
“Okay,” David said.
“Okay,” Nathan said.
“Okay,” David said.
Nathan wanted to say, “We can’t keep saying ‘okay,’ ” but he knew that they’d agreed not to say “We can’t . . .” anymore. So this went on for a while. It’s probably best if we move on to . . .
What happens when a new nanny enters your life and acts like your old nanny? Well, it’s kind of like switching brands of peanut butter and jelly. It tastes like peanut butter and jelly, and it looks like peanut butter and jelly, but it probably doesn’t taste or look exactly like the peanut butter and jelly you’ve always known.
When it came to interacting with the man who said he was Myron, Nathan and David immediately recognized the jellyish flavor of his personality. And they sure knew the nuttiness. It was, in fact, much the same as Martin’s brand of nuttiness.
If they were different people, Myron and Martin were clearly nuts from the same family tree. The boys realized all this the very second that Myron rejoined them after having unsuited, delugged, and distrunkified.
David was busy making a Myron or Martin Evidence Chart at the kitchen counter. It looked something like this:
(The third column was for a school science project that David thought maybe, perhaps, he had due next week. Or last week. Or sometime last year.)
Anyway . . .
David quickly hid the chart as the nanny emerged from his room to address the boys.
“Okay, Nathy and Dathy, here’s Myron Hyron Dyron’s Fast Five for this morning: it’s time to do the dishes, scrub the kitchen floor, alphabetize the soups, dust the telephones—”
“Do the dishes?” David interrupted.
“Scrub the kitchen floor?” Nathan asked.
“Alphabetize the soups?” David asked.
“Dust the telephones?” Nathan asked.
“The fifth item on my list was ‘Take a hearing test.’ But clearly you’ve both passed,” Myron told them.
“Myron,” David said, “your brother Martin never made us do chores. Never.”
“I believe that is not true,” Myron said. “Is it, Nathman?”
Nathan thought about what to say. He didn’t exactly want to lie, but he definitely didn’t want to do chores. In fact, he wanted no part of Myron Hyron Dyron’s Fast Five.
“Welllll,” Nathan finally said. “It’s not true, but it’s also not not true.”
“It’s not?” Myron wanted to know. “Or it’s not not?”
“Right! It’s not not not not!” David explained.
“Not not not not not not!” Nathan added.
But David and Nathan had gone too far. Because after hearing what they’d said, Myron took out a large easel—one the boys had never seen in the house before—and drew what he called his Diagram of Truthfulnessness.
Myron wrote the word “TRUE” on the easel.
“ ‘True,’ my friends, means something is true.”
The boys nodded in agreement.
Then Myron added the word “NOT” in front of the word “TRUE.”
“ ‘Not true,’ dear Wohlfardtians, means something is untrue.”
The boys nodded in agreement again.
Myron added the words “NOT NOT” in front of the words “NOT TRUE.”
“ ‘Not not not true,’ little baby boys, means something is not not untrue. And since not untrue is true, not not not true is . . . false.”
David gulped hard. Caught!
Myron added the words “NOT NOT” in front of the “NOT NOT NOT TRUE” that was already there.
“ ‘Not not not not not true,’ you lucky lads, also means you’re starting with true, then going to untrue, then back to true, then back to untrue, then back to true, and then back to untrue.”
Nathan gulped even harder than David had. Also caught!
“So, by that very fact, or as they ought to say in Latin, ipso fatso ,” Myron boomed, “the answer to the question of whether or not Martin made you do chores is . . . yes, without question. Let’s begin, and you’ll see how chores can be fun!”
Nathan and David both thought about adding “NOT” to Myron’s “chores can be fun” statement. But suddenly, they both were extremely confused about how to use that word.
“Before we start, can I ask you one thing?” David asked.
“ May I ask you one thing,” Myron corrected him.
“ May I ask one thing?” David said, rolling his eyes in a way that he hoped Myron wouldn’t notice.
“Yes, you can,” Myron said. “What is it, oh child of great curiosity?”
David took a deep breath and said, “Are you really gonna make us work around the house? Are you really gonna boss us around? Is there really such a thing as Myron Hyron Dyron’s Fast Five? And is it possible to alphabetize the soups, and even if we could, who’d want to?”
“Because that was five questions instead of just one, I will answer all of them, but not necessarily in the order you asked them,” Myron said. “So . . . no, yes, people who like to be able to find their soups in a soup emergency, yes, and yes.”
Did the boys do all the chores from the list known as Myron Hyron Dyron’s Fast Five? Well, let’s just say that if you’re looking for the Chicken Noodle soup, you’ll find it right between the Chicken Gumbo and the Chicken with Rice.
“Good morning, Daybreak. Good morning, Nightfall,” Myron said to the boys as they sleepily slid into their seats at the breakfast table. “How are you both this bright, sunny Saturday morning?”
“Two things, Myron. First of all,” David said. “My name is David, not Daybreak.”
“Yeah, and I’m Nathan, not Nightfall,” Nathan added.
“You call us everything but our real names!” David complained. “What’s up with that?”
“Yea
h,” Nathan said. “You’ve been calling us Nathy and Dathy. Nibble and Dibble. Nay-Nay and Day-Day . . .”
David picked up where his brother had trailed off. “Nixon and Dixon. Nipper and Dipper. Even Napkin and Dapkin.”
“What’s ‘Dapkin’ even mean?” Nathan said.
“Yeah! And what’s a Napk . . . oh, never mind,” David said. Though he’d never actually used one, he did know what a napkin was.
“Myron, you’ve been living here as our nanny for more than seventy-one hours now, and we think it’s time you called us by our real names!” Nathan insisted.
“If you both feel that way, it is certainly not unreasonable of you to ask me to do so,” Myron told them. “But first, we must take a vote. And in the true spirit of democracy, it must be a secret ballot. I will turn around and close my eyes; each of you must close your eyes as well.”
Myron closed his eyes and turned around to face the wall.
“Okay, let’s close our eyes,” Myron said.
Though it seemed silly, both boys did as he suggested.
Myron used his important-sounding voice to announce the voting.
“As to the matter of whether or not Myron Hyron Dyron should address the Wohlfardt lads by their birth names, raise your left arm and right leg if you vote yes, and your right arm and left leg to indicate no.”
Each boy raised his left arm and right leg. David fell over once, but he got right back up and assumed the “yes” position.
“Bzzzzz! Bazzzert! Pfiffft! The official voting period has now concluded,” Myron boomed. “You may put your limbs down.”
The boys did just that.
“The final vote must now be tallied,” Myron told them. “Let’s see, two plus seventeen divided by the square root of sixty-four, times eleven plus infinity minus three, carry the fifty-nine. Aha, yes, point six, multiplied by zero . . . and the final results are . . .”
The boys stood there, impatiently waiting for what Myron would say next.
“Sorry, guys,” Myron said. “I have no idea how you each voted. See, my eyes were closed and I was facing the other way.”
