Girl Wonder and the Terrific Twins Read Online Free PDF Page A

Anthony, Edward, make sure you keep your clothes spotless,” Mum warned. “So there is to be no messing about.”
    As if we would!
    The park was full of people.
    “Mum, can I go on the swings? Please,
please
?” I asked.
    “No. You’ll get your dress dirty,” replied Mum.
    “Mum, can I go on the roundabout?” Anthony asked.
    “Yeah! The roundabout,” Edward repeated.
    “No. You’ll get your clothes creased,” Mum said.
    I didn’t see the point of going through the park if you couldn’t run and jump and play in the playground.
    “Oh, look at that,” I said.
    Near us, a girl and a boy were flying a kite painted with a dragon. It dipped and danced in the sky. We all stopped to watch.
    “Mum, do you know how to make a kite?” I asked.
    “Yes. I’ll show you when we get back home. It’s really easy,” Mum said.
    “Hooray!” we all shouted.
    That cheered us up.
    We were just passing by a park bench when I noticed something very strange. There were two spiders trying to swing down from the bench but they weren’t getting very far. They scurried a little way along the bench and then tried to swing down but they never got all their legs off the bench. Then they scurried further along the bench and tried again but the same thing happened.
    “Mum, look at that.” I pointed.
    “How strange!” Mum said. “Theycan’t get down.”

    And we all stopped to watch the spiders.
    “Anthony, Edward, do you know what I think?” I whispered to them.
    “No, what?” Anthony asked.
    “Yeah! What?” Edward repeated.
    So I said, “I think this is a job for Girl Wonder and . . .”
    “The Terrific Twins!” my brothers whispered back.
    And we spun around until the park was spinning with us.
    “What on earth are you three doing?” Mum laughed.
    “It’s a secret,” I told Mum.
    “Well, come on. We can’t stand here all day,” Mum said.
    “But Mum, can’t we help the spiders?” Anthony asked.
    “Yeah! We should do something. They want to get down,” Edward said.
    “Oh, all right then,” Mum replied.
    She doesn’t like spiders much. We all sat down on the bench and watched the spiders some more. Then I saw a piece of brown cardboard propped up against the side of the park bench.
    “I’ve got a plan,” I said to the twins as I leaned over to get it. “This piece of cardboard will help the spiders to get to the ground.”
    I leaned one end of the piece of cardboard against the bench and the other end I placed against the ground so that the piece of cardboard was like a slide.
    “Come on, Mr and Mrs Spider,” I said. “We haven’t got all day.”
    “No, we haven’t,” Mum agreed, glancing down at her watch.
    The spiders hopped on to the cardboardimmediately and scuttled down on to the ground.
    “Come on, then,” Mum said, and she went to stand up. Only she had trouble. She was sticking to the bench.
    “What on earth . . .?” Mum said.
    She put her hand down on the bench. Then she looked at the palm of her hand. It was bright green.

    “This bench is wet!” Mum said, springing up off the bench. “Stand up, you three.”
    We stood up.
    “Turn around,” Mum ordered.
    We turned around.
    “Oh no!” Mum cried. “Just look at your best clothes!”
    We twisted our heads to look at our backs. I pulled the back of my dress skirt out to look at it. It was covered in green paint.
    “Why didn’t they leave a warning here to say the bench had just been painted?” Mum asked furiously, her hands on her hips.
    She was seriously,
seriously
annoyed!
    Then she looked down at the cardboard slide I had used to help the spiders to the ground. She picked it up and turned it over. Then showed it to us. There on the sign, in big green letters, were the words:

    “Maxine, where did you get this sign from?” Mum asked.
    “From beside the bench,” I replied.
    “Why didn’t you read it before we all sat down and ruined our clothes? That’s why the spiders couldn’t get down. Their feet kept sticking to