(prompt: 'twin' Jan 29 2021)

"I'm sick of this. A full hour and only two people walked by—"

"And one frowned, and the other said, 'Hallo girls... nice day' and kept on going—"

"Straight past our sign as if it weren't even there!" I changed a hefty sniffly snuffle into a mock sneeze.

What a let-down! We'd been so sure we'd pocket a decent sort of moolah with our large handmade sign on the end of a long springy branch, promising —

FORTUNES TOLD

by 2 truly royal Princesses direct from Egypt to you.

ONLY  3d. a reading.

(Author's Note: 3d. = 3 pennies or <5 cents... a fair price in the early 1950s in suburban Australia)

My second-best friend Marion, from across the road (where our parents couldn't see our enterprise, being hidden from their view by a large hedge) had most carefully prepared not just one, but TWO folded-paper fortune-telling 'thingies' where you lift one flap to find writing underneath, and then another and another until the last tells you who or what you will grow up to be. We also had scarves and old lacy curtains and many beads draped around us to add authenticity. Deciding to take our show on the road, we raided someone' s mum's cupboard for a jam jar with a lid for all the ill-gotten gains we would surely make. We achieved reasonable success, even if a white lie became necessary now and then to little old ladies whose Destiny was to grow up into a wicked old witch. Definitely not. These had to become PLPs (Pretty Little Princesses). I believe we made enough out of this enterprise to buy two Blue Lagoon milkshakes and a couple of Freddo chocolate frogs at the local Deli. A fair day.

It was an improvement on a few days before when we had gone door to door promising to clean up gardens of the current Great Grasshopper Plague, 'about to get a whole heap worse', we'd tell them. I armed we two intrepid hunters with the largest preserving jar in my mum's cupboard, and by golly, we filled it with the squirming 'wee beasties', and our money jar was quite healthy, too. Alas, when we returned home, our mothers were unamused, and they forced us to turn on our heels, retrace our steps, and return every penny.

Our most inspirational scheme was to walk the streets, collecting money just for 'being there' — both in my mum's petticoat (nicked off the clothesline), with our inside arms around each other, the other two hanging out, and two legs strapped together. (We were superb at this, having won the School Picnic 3-legged race by a country mile; that everyone knows is much further than a city one). The plan this day, as I carefully explained to Marion, was to present ourselves as the 'Siamese Conjurer's Twins'. Marion never questioned this, as I was the older 'woman', by at least 3 months, and she knew I just knew, that's all.

On our return, my Mum growled, "WHAT did you say?"

Sheepishly, "Siamese Conjurer's Twins, because it takes magic to stick us together?!?"

She put her hand over her face, ostensibly in exasperation, but actually to hide her laughter. "What will I do with you, CHRISTINE? It's CONJOINED twins, sometimes called Siamese twins, because that's where the first ones became known! Now give me back my petticoat!"

"Ohh..."