Part One: The Strange Treehouse
Jenny and Mimi Clarke liked adventures. Well, to be exact, Jenny liked having them, and Mimi liked reading about them. Jenny considered herself to be the elder sister, which she was, but only by sixteen minutes and thirty-five seconds. The thing about Jenny's old, though, was meaning braver and smarter and a whole lot of other nonsense. On the other hand, Mimi liked to think herself sixteen minutes and thirty-five seconds younger. It meant she could cuddle up in bed with a nice book, while her sister made first impressions and scrambled up trees and raced the big boys.
"Why don't you come with me, Mimi?" asked Jenny. She always asked this, but this time, Mimi didn't refuse. She had been reading a queer little book called The Enchanted Mansion, and wanted to take a stroll.
"My eyes are sore," replied Mimi, rubbing them, "my hands and lips are dry. Yes, if we're going on a stroll into the forest, I'll come with you."
The girls had just moved to the country, and whilst Jenny whooped and sang and raced and climbed, Mimi quietly did chores, and read, and cooked, and wrote in her little pocket-diary. She'd never gone exploring with Jenny, the big boys and the adventurous girls. She was a rather shy, timid type, into coding, art, books, technology, and chemistry. Jenny actually was interested in chemistry as well, because she liked exploding stuff.
"Great!" Jenny exclaimed, showing excitement and delight at her twin's agreement. "You'll love it, Mimi! The boys and the girls aren't coming today, so it'll just be us! There are so many trees and flowers you can sketch in your diary-well, fifty-nine oak trees, sixty-seven fern trees, ninety-eight willow-"
"Stop there," commanded Mimi, opening her little scarlet diary, opening to the two hundred and seventy-fifth page, and scribbling away in her neat cursive , "and say that again." She placed the tip of her sharpened pencil at the top of a new page and looked expectantly at Jenny.
"Never mind the details," Jenny told her, hastily. "Put on a pair of clean, old jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. You can't dress like a doll when we're going to be climbing trees and rolling down muddy hills!"
"Climbing trees? Rolling down muddy hills? Are you serious?" Mimi backed away, her face pale and her eyes wide. A temple was twitching. Jenny scowled. It was a sign of fear or anger or indignity if a Clarke's temple twitched. She suspected her own was, as well, and this suspicion was confirmed when she felt the strange, sudden movement in her left temple.
"Go change. Tell Mother we'll be back before afternoon tea. No way I'm missing shortbread again. Come on, quickly, there's a strange treehouse I want to show you."
