Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 23:04:02 -0700
From: Douglas DD DD <thehakaanen@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Puget Posse  Chapter 8

Welcome back to the Puget Posse. Thanks for continuing to read the
story. Remember you must be 18 to read, the story is mine, and the
whole thing is fiction.

In this chapter you will start to get to know the Twin Things. Mark and
Matthew listen to their own drummer, and what they hear often gets
them into trouble as it adds gray to the heads of their sometimes
beleaguered parents. Enjoy.

Please donate to Nifty to keep the great enterprise going. I love
hearing from readers—reader feedback is my salary. So, please
write. thehakaanen@hotmail.com



CHAPTER 8
MARK AND MATTHEW

Kristy, their mother, called them "Thing 1" and "Thing 2". Mark was
number one because he was the first to show his face to the world.
The names referred to the mischievous personality of the second set
of twins Kristy gave birth to in just over a year. Michelle and Megan
were born eighteen months before their roguish brothers.

"It's not that the boys are bad," she'd tell her friends and relatives, "it's
just that they seem to attract trouble. It's like there is a whirlwind of
mischief following them everywhere."

Mark and Matthew truly were not bad boys. As they grew, they
showed themselves to be polite, studious, athletic, hard working, and
loyal. But, there was always that cloud of mischief that they couldn't
seem to get rid of. They never intended to create trouble, it just seem
to happen.

Scott, their father, once told a friend, "I'd like to call them hellions, but
I can't. They're a pair of great kids and have hearts of gold. It's just
they don't always think things through before doing them. On the
other hand, they never do the same stupid thing twice. They learn
from their mistakes and move on. But it seems they find new ways to
be stupid. They are often just too smart for their own good. I just hope
they learn their lessons with all of their limbs intact." He and Kristy
could both testify that hadn't always been the case.

An early example of trouble finding them was an attempt at
architecture. When the two of them were four, they saw a picture of a
tall tower on the cover of a science fiction book their father was
reading.

"Let's build one," Mark said to Matthew.

"Okay," his twin answered.

They had no idea just what they were going to build, or how they
were going to build it, but they liked the idea of building something.
Later that day, they watched their mother preparing dinner in the
kitchen. They looked at what was in the lower cabinets. The twins
looked at each other and nodded. They had already learned the art of
wordless communication with each other.

A couple of afternoons later their parents were working out in the
yard. The two preschoolers shuffled into the kitchen and opened the
lower cabinets next to the stove. They took out pots, pans, and bowls.
They made a lot of racket, but the noise couldn't be heard outside of
the house. They laid a base of pots, and then placed a baking sheet
over the pots. Spoons, forks, and knives helped level the sheet. More
pots were placed on top of the sheet. They then placed another sheet
on top of them. They quietly worked on their architectural
masterpiece, trying to see how high they could make their kitchen
skyscraper.

Matthew opened a cabinet that contained casserole bowls. Some
were glass and some were crockery. He pointed to the top of the
growing structure. The twins silently agreed that a couple of the
colorful crockery bowls would give their creation a vibrant look, just
like the bright colors of the tower on the book cover.

They set a glass bowl upside down on the highest baking sheet,
agreeing that it looked perfect. It was here that Mark made their first,
and, as it turned out, only error. He placed the first crockery bowl on
one side of the baking sheet so they could place a second bowl on
the other. The act also put their entire construction out of balance and
pots, pans, sheets, knives, forks, spoons, and casserole bowls went
tumbling to the floor. The one piece of crockery they had used fell
onto another bowl they had set on the floor, and both of them broke
into pieces.

At this point many four year olds would have broken out into tears of
panic. But with the twins it was a matter of Mark looking at Matthew
and saying, "Oops."

Since there was nothing sneaky about the two, they headed out to
the yard to tell Kristy that there was a problem. When their mother
saw the mess on the floor, she said what was beginning to become a
mantra with her as far the twin boys were concerned: "Why me?"

"It could be worse, honey," her husband said as he entered the
kitchen and surveyed the architectural ruins. "They could have filled
the pots with food, first."

The thought of that mess made her shiver. "Lord, give me strength,"
she muttered, a plea that was becoming her second mantra.

"Are you mad, mommy?" Matthew asked. He had visions of a time
out or losing a dessert, things that had happened before.

"No, sweetie, but I am disappointed that you used mommy's things
without asking for permission first."

"We were making a building," Matthew said, in case their parents
couldn't figure it out.

The twins tried to help their parents clean up the mess while they
received a quick lesson on how to handle items that didn't belong to
them, as well as what was proper behavior in the kitchen. The final
lesson was on the importance of cleaning up a mess after mistakes
were made.

Another example of trouble finding the twins happened just after they
turned six. Their great-aunt Connie had given them a watercolor set.
She thought it was a good idea for young, hyper boys to learn about
being artistic. Kristy didn't agree and put the paint sets away until
they grew older.

"Michelle and Megan have paint," Matthew pointed out.

"They are older than you are," Kristy pointed out. "They learned how
to use them in school," she lied.

"Can we use our paint when we're older?" Mark asked.

"Yes, when you are older." She was careful not to mention how much
older—like maybe after they graduated from college older.

"Thanks, mom."

But, that didn't end the issue. The twins spent time in their bedroom
discussing the paints. The two of them had shared the same
bedroom since they were born. Their house was a large house in a
rural part of the Seattle suburbs. It sat on a tract of wooded acreage.
The two-story house had five bedrooms, which meant the boys could
each have his own bedroom if he wanted. They preferred sharing the
second largest of the five rooms, the only one other than the master
bedroom with its own bathroom and shower.

Each girl twin had her own bedroom. When Kristy and Scott decided
to split them up, they were amenable to the idea. When it came time
to give each of the boys his bedroom, they would have nothing to do
with it. They wanted to be together. That togetherness often meant
sleeping in the same bed. They didn't do it for sexual reasons, they
were preschoolers and too young for that. They wanted to sleep
together simply because it felt right to them.

Kristy and Scott wondered if the different reactions of the two sets of
twins was because of the difference in gender or because the girls
were fraternal twins and the boys were identical. Whatever the
reason, they went with the flow. The boys' decision opened up one
bedroom as a guest room. They were told one of them could claim it
as his own bedroom should they ever change their minds.

On a Tuesday night, the two six year olds came up with a plan. They
were together in Mark's bed, dressed in pajamas. It would be a while
before they started sleeping in their underwear or less.

"The hall is stupid," Matthew said. "It's boring."

"It has some pictures hanging on the wall," Mark said.

"But the wall is all white. It needs to be colorful."

"I bet if we made it really pretty, mom would be happy."

"She will really like it," Matthew agreed.

On Saturday, the two kindergarteners brought their plan to fruition.
They knew where the paints had been hidden, just like they knew
virtually every "secret" of the house. They took the paints from the top
shelf of a hall closet. Mark was barely able to reach them by standing
on a chair that they had pulled out of their bedroom. They carefully
placed newspaper on the floor, showing some careful thinking for a
pair of six year olds.

"We don't want to paint the floor," Matthew said. "That would make
mom mad."

Brushes were supplied with the water color kit, so all they needed
was water. They filled two glasses and set to work on one of the
walls, painting what they saw as mountains, trees, the sun, their
house, even a rainbow. The twins were very proud of their artwork.

Kristy was home alone with the boys. The girls had gone to the mall
with their father. She was worried about the two boys; they had been
too quiet for too long. When the twins became quiet, it usually meant
they were plotting some kind of mischief. She decided to head up the
stairs to see what they were up to.

What she saw had her shaking her head. "Why me?" she asked as
she stared at the wall covered with water color paintings.

"Hi, mom," Matthew said cheerfully. "We're painting the wall."

"So I see," she said, trying hard not to scream at the two boys.

"Yeah, it was boring looking," Mark said. "Now it's all colorful."

"Look, mom, we even put a rainbow on it." He pointed to a line of
colors that looked like a dripping mélange of colors to her.

"Lord, give me strength," she muttered under her breath. She knew
the boys meant well, as they always seemed to, but she also knew
they needed a lesson on what road was paved with good intentions.
Yelling at them was not the solution; the two of them had not intended
to make trouble.

"See the tree?" Mark said. "We put McKenzie in it." McKenzie was
their big tom cat. Kristy figured that the brown stripe on the branch of
the tree was the cat. Art was not a strength of the twins. Their
painting was abstract, even for six year olds.

"And we got newspapers so we wouldn't paint the floor," Matthew
said seriously.

"That was very good thinking," Kristy said. "But I think the wall would
look better if it was painted the way it was."

"You don't like our picture?" Mark said with a hurt look.

"Oh, I love it," Kristy said sincerely. "But I think if you painted your
pictures on paper we could hang those on the wall and change them
every now and then. That wall would still be colorful and the different
pictures would give it a lot of variety."

The faces of the boys beamed at the suggestion. At that point they
learned some lessons. They learned how to clean water color off of a
wall. They learned that taking something they'd been told not to use
meant two days of time out in their room. They also were restricted
from various activities such as television and electronic games for a
month. But, because they had shown responsibility in protecting the
floor, they were told they could have the paints to make their wall
pictures as soon as the restrictions ended.

After finishing with the cleanup, all of which was supervised by their
mother, the twins asked her if she had liked their wall picture.

"I loved it. You just put it in the wrong place. Walls are for adults to
paint. But we will put a place on the wall for your pictures to hang
once you paint them."

A month later a large cork board appeared on the hall wall. It was
situated down low so the boys could reach it. As far as the boys were
concerned, they had won a major victory. For the cost of doing
cleanup work, a two-day timeout, and a few other inconveniences,
they were able to have the paints in their room to do their own
artwork.

"I think mom liked our picture," Matthew said. "That's why she let us
have the paint so she could see more pictures." Mark agreed with his
brother. There was no doubt, at least for the moment, that they were
great artists.

The boys attended kindergarten at a small school that featured
preschool as well as kindergarten. They were enrolled in North Lake
Day School when they entered first grade. It was a private school that
had high academic standards, as well as a high-powered athletic
program.

An incident occurred not long after the start of the school year that
showcased the twins' well-developed sense of justice. Mark was
placed in Miss Schuler's class, while Matthew was in Mrs. Carson's
class. First grade students were required to eat lunch with their class,
meaning Mark and Matthew had to sit at separate tables. In their
minds it was bad enough that they had been assigned to separate
classrooms—not being able to eat lunch together was almost
intolerable.

Mark sat between two boys in his class, Peter and David. Mark liked
Peter, who was a shy, skinny redhead. He didn't care much for David,
who was a well-built six-year old. From what Mark observed during
the first week of school, David was a bit of a bully.

David liked Mark however. He saw a kindred soul in Mark, who was a
handsome, solid athletic boy. For David, size meant might, and he
was thinking of ways he and Mark could rule the playground.
However, he knew he would eventually have to beat Mark up to make
sure it was plain who the real boss was.

Mark chatted with Peter, ignoring David. He had learned early on that
Peter liked to play soccer and t-ball. "He looks like a wimp," Mark had
told Matthew. "But he's really nice and can kick a ball real good."

David did not like being ignored. He thought about taking his rising
anger out on Mark at recess. But he wasn't ready yet for a fight with a
boy who looked as strong as he was. He decided he needed to do
something to get Mark to be his friend, instead. Bullying and teasing
Peter was the way do to it, he thought. He would show Mark what a
loser Peter was and then Mark would talk to him instead of to Peter.

As soon as the students were dismissed for recess, Mark met
Matthew and they went to the playground together. Matthew had
checked out a junior sized football and they planned to throw it
around with a couple of friends Matthew had made in his class.

"I want Peter to play with us," Mark said. "And David, too." While Mark
didn't care much for David, the boy had done nothing bad to him.
Both of the twins were outgoing boys, and they wanted to make as
many friends at school as they could. It wasn't hard for them to do;
their personalities attracted others without their even trying. "I'll be
right back."

He looked around the lower playground hoping to find the two boys;
he was looking for Peter more than David. When he didn't see them,
he went to the upper playground, which consisted of a large grass
field. He saw the red hair of Pete. David was standing in front of him.
He saw David give Peter a little push and picked up his pace. Peter
looked like he was trying to leave, but David then pushed Peter to the
ground. He was looking down at the smaller boy when Mark arrived.

"What are you doing?" Mark asked.

"Being the boss," David said. "Want to help me?"

When Peter saw the threatening figure of Mark arrive, he knew he
was doomed. While Mark had been nice to him, he had also sat next
to David at lunch. He was sure the two of them were friends, which
meant there were now two big kids ready to bully him. He quaked
with fright as David walked over to him and gave him a kick in the
ribs. Peter was so frightened he lost control of his bladder and the
front of his khaki quickly turned dark with urine.

"Peter's peter went pee pee," David smirked and he took a step to
kick Peter again. Before he could do anything, Mark came between
David and the crying boy on the ground. "You can kick him now,"
David said.

David had gone to a public school kindergarten. He had been the
king rooster at preschool and in kindergarten. Nobody had stood up
to him, including his teacher. He was spoiled by his parents, who
were convinced their bully of a son could do no wrong.  When he had
problems the year before, his parents took his side, which neutralized
the influence of his teacher. He did not yet realize that the
environment at North Lake was entirely different.

 "Pee pee, pee pee, Peter's peter went pee pee," David chanted. "I
can say that all the time," he said. "So can Mark. Every day. Pee pee,
pee pee, Peter's peter went pee pee in his pants." He giggled and
then told Mark to kick Peter.

He didn't notice another boy walking into the fray, but Matthew
quickly made his presence known, standing next to Mark, ready to
back his twin up even though he had no idea what the affair was
about. Mark looked around for a playground monitor, but didn't see
one. Helping Peter was going to be up to him.

"Kick him," David demanded. "Kick pee pee Peter."

"No, please don't," Peter said, his body shaking with sobs, his arms
covering his head for protection. Matthew's coming meant there were
three boys ready to get him.

Mark knew that kicking little boys who had been humiliated was
wrong, just like he knew that being a bully was wrong. His instincts
told him that if he didn't do something right away David would make
Peter's life miserable for a long time.

"Crying pee pee Peter," David repeated. "Kick him and make him cry
more."

What Mark did surprised everyone there, including himself. He closed
his eyes and peed in his own pants. Matthew's eyes got wide as he
saw a big wet spot forming on the front of Mark's uniform khakis and
then detected urine dripping on the ground beneath his pants.

"You make fun of Peter then you make fun of me. You kicked Peter,
now you kick me." Mark said. He turned his back to David and helped
Peter get up on his feet, while Matthew emulated his brother and wet
his pants as well. David wanted badly to push Mark down, but
Matthew's presence, even as he pissed his pants, intimidated him, so
he turned around and walked away.

As with so much the twins did, no matter how well-intentioned, there
were consequences. The headmistress had never had a situation like
this one before. David, she knew how to deal with. She had already
pegged him for a little bully. Unlike the public school David had gone
to the year before, the headmistress was not intimidated by self-
important, moneyed parents. She dealt with them on a frequent basis.
Without a quick turnaround, she knew David would not be a student
at North Lake for long. She ended up sending David home for the day
and meted out a three-day in school suspension.

Peter, she could deal with. Spare uniform pants were kept in a closet
just for such emergencies. She felt for the boy and had sent him to
talk to one of the school counselors.

Mark and Matthew were an entirely different issue. She had never
encountered pupils who intentionally wet their pants, both as a
symbol of support for a friend and as a symbol of intimidation for a
bully. From what she'd been able to piece together from the
participants and the young witnesses, that is apparently what had
happened. Like Peter, Mark and Matthew were given fresh pants to
wear. All three had to go commando, however. The twins found they
rather liked not wearing underpants.

The headmistress decided to send all three boys home for the day,
but not as punishment. It was best that the incident be given a day to
start blowing over.

After the twins' mother heard the story, she looked at the
headmistress and shook her head. "Why me?" was all she could think
of saying at the moment. What other mother has a pair of six year old
sons who intentionally wet their pants on the playground? she
wondered.

That night she and Scott had a discussion with both boys on
appropriate behavior regarding bullying and how they should find an
adult to take care of the problem.

"But, dad, David was kicking Peter. He was hurting him. Peter is my
friend and that was wrong," Mark said.

"Yeah, Mark stopped David," Matthew said.

While the twins acted like they had listened to their parents' concerns,
what they really had done was serve notice at school that nobody
was going to mess with their friends. Nobody.

It was during winter break that the twins won another victory after
sending their parents nearly screaming into the yard. It all started on
Sunday night, which was the night before their birthday. The next
day, Monday, December 22, would see the two first graders turn
seven. What happened that morning had been planned the night
before while the boys shared Mark's bed. But it took some
cooperation from their older twin sisters, Michelle and Megan, to
successfully pull off their plan. The girls were eight and in the third
grade at North Lake Day School.

What happened Sunday night was spontaneous, but it set the stage
for Monday morning. Kristy told her brood that it was time for them to
take their baths. She reminded them that it was the boys' turn to go
first. Each set of twins bathed together. Kristy and Scott had decided
to maintain the status quo until the end of the school year, and then
would look into exchanging showers for baths.

Matthew was the first to step out of the boys' room. The boys'
bathroom had a full size shower, which they didn't use yet, but not a
bathtub. He was naked, as was Michelle, who was coming out of her
room. "Mom said we go first," Matthew said, knowing why Michelle
was out of her room. The brothers and sisters had seen each other
naked often, so neither one of them was stunned by what they saw.

"She said we were first," Michelle said, knowing that wasn't the case.
She was trying to play the big sister in charge, but she was going up
against the conniving little brother. She and Megan had never had
much success when trying to push their little twin brothers around. It
wasn't that the boys fought back, it was more that they out-schemed
their twin sisters.

"I'm taking my bath now," Matthew said.

"I'll tell mom."

"No you won't. She said me and Mark were first. But you and me can
be first."

Michelle looked at Matthew like he'd lost his mind. "You mean we
take a bath together?"

"Sure, why not?" When they'd been toddlers one of the boys had
sometimes been bathed with one of the girls, but that hadn't
happened in years.

"I don't know." She hesitated a few seconds. "I'll do it," she said
agreeably.

Matthew's idea ended the sibling squabble. He looked into the boys'
bedroom and told Mark that he and Michelle were taking their bath
together.

"Okay," Mark said as if it was no big deal.  "I'll tell Megan and we can
take our bath together." Matthew nodded and joined Michelle in the
bathroom. The three of them were acting as if boys bathing with girls
was routine. Megan would see things the same way.

Scott and Kristy gave their offspring increasing freedom as they
reached school age. One of their freedoms the girls had was drawing
their own baths. One of the parents checked on them frequently while
they were taking their bath, however.

Neither Matthew nor Michelle was concerned about being caught in
the bath together by their parents; they simply didn't see anything
wrong with what they were doing. Matthew let Michelle get the
bathwater going and watched her pour in some bubble bath. He could
be a stubborn boy, but he was also willing to sit back and learn. The
next time they did this, he knew he would take charge.

The brother and sister soaked and washed. They stood up and
compared their sexual organs. While they'd frequently seen each
other naked, they'd never looked at each other closely.

Michelle touched Matthew's tiny penis. "It feels like rubber," she
observed. That didn't last long as his sister's ministrations quickly
gave him an erection. "Now it's hard. What happened?"

"It's called a boner. I get one when Mark touches me for a long time,
too. And he gets one when I touch him for a long time. You really look
weird without a wiener," Matthew said as he touched her private
areas as well.

They were interrupted by Mark walking in. "Hurry up," he said. "It's
our turn." He looked at his two siblings standing in the tub fondling
each other. "You are being nasty."

"You and me do it," Matthew said.

"That's different. We're both boys."

"But now you and Megan can do it, too."

Mark smiled. "Yes, we can," he said as if the weirdness had suddenly
gone away.

"Let's finish washing," Michelle said. "We'll be fast," she told Mark.

After Michelle and Matthew finished, they dried each other and
returned to their own bedrooms. Mark and Megan replaced them.
Matthew and Michelle told their siblings about how they touched and
washed each other, making Mark and Megan eager to do the same.

They didn't have the same luck as their siblings, however. They had
just filled the tub and sat in the warm, soapy water, when their mother
walked in.

"You girls need to hurry," she said. She stopped short when she saw
that Megan was in the tub with Mark. Even though Mark and Matthew
were identical twins, Kristy could always tell one from the other,
although she couldn't explain how.

"What are you two doing in there?" she asked.

"Taking a bath," Mark said with a total lack of guile.

"Well, your bath just ended," Kristy stated with authority.

"Why?" Mark asked. "Matty and Michelle got to do it."

"Why me?" Kristy muttered as she wondered how bad things were
going to get when her seven-year-old was already uttering the
dreaded "Why?" word.

"Look, let's just get the two of you washed and into bed. We'll discuss
this later."

"Can't we finish by ourselves?" Megan asked, disappointed that she
wouldn't be able to touch Mark the way her sister had touched
Matthew. That led to a definite no and Megan didn't argue. Unlike
their twin brothers, the girls knew when an argument was over.

The bath is what led to the Sunday chat between the boys as they lay
in bed together conspiring to do something "special" the next
morning, which was their seventh birthday. Their special revelation
was hard to miss as the two of them came into the kitchen where
their mother was preparing a birthday breakfast.

"Good morning, boys, and happy birthday," Kristy said. "Come over
for a big birthday hug." She thought nothing of seeing the bare
shoulders of the boys. They often came out of their room in the
morning wearing nothing but their pajama bottoms or just a pair of
shorts. She almost dropped her mixing spoon to the floor when they
came around the counter and she saw they were wearing nothing at
all.

"Boys, get some clothes on—now!" she admonished.

"But, mom, it's our birthday," Mark said. "We want to go naked."

"Yeah," Matthew said. "It's like our birthday present. It's called our
birthday suit so we get to wear it on our birthday."

"I don't want your sisters to see you naked," Kristy said.

"We took a bath with them yesterday," Matthew reminded her.

"Yeah, and we were all naked."

"Oh, why me?" Kristy said quietly under her breath.

Scott entered the kitchen and worked hard to suppress a smile when
he saw the bare, white bubble butts of his twin sons. "What seems to
be the fuss?" he asked, as if he didn't know.

"You're looking at the fuss," Kristy said. "Your boys don't have any
clothes on."

"It seems to me they do. I mean it is their birthday and they are
wearing their birthday suits. I would equate that with being dressed.
Right boys?"

"Right, daddy," the twins said in unison, happy that their father agreed
with their logic.

Their dad gave them a big hug, wrapping his arms around the two of
them. "Happy Birthday, boys."

"Does this mean we can stay naked all day?" Matthew asked.

"Yeah, and stay naked every day?" Mark asked.

Kristy glared and Scott, and he smiled back. For Scott it was
compromise time, if it could be done without stomping on his wife's
toes too hard.

"Michelle and Megan seen us naked and took a bath with us," Mark
told him, even though he knew his dad knew about the baths of the
night before.

"They can be naked, too," Matthew said.

"Yeah, and you and mom can be naked too," Mark added, thinking it
might be a selling point.

"How about the two of you going up to your rooms while your mom
finishes up breakfast and we discuss this."

Before the boys could react, their sisters came into the kitchen.
Megan was wearing a pink and blue flowered nightgown, while
Michelle had green and red striped pajamas on.

"Mark and Matty are naked," Michelle said, in case nobody had
noticed.

"Happy Birthday," Megan said.

"You can be naked too," Mark told them, as if that was a done deal.

"Oh, fun," Michelle said as she pulled her nightgown three-quarters of
the way off, revealing her hairless little pussy.

"Hold on," Scott said, taking charge. "Nothing has been agreed on
yet." However, Michelle's inertia apparently couldn't be stopped and
she was quickly as naked as well. Megan sensed it would not be a
good idea for her to follow suit. "All of you go to your rooms while
your mother and I discuss this."

"I don't see what's to discuss," Kristy said, violating the rule she and
Scott had about discussing disciplinary matters in front of the
children.

"Can we watch television downstairs?" Mark asked.

"Not in the nude," Kristy said.

"Sure, go watch TV," Scott told them. The situation was deteriorating
rapidly and it was time to just get the kids out of the kitchen.

By the time the four children got to the room with the home theater,
they had convinced Megan to take her pajamas off. All four of them
were now comfortably naked, and quickly found some children's
programming that they enjoyed. Somehow they had conveniently
missed their mother telling them not to watch television in the nude.

About ten minutes later, Scott came into the room. He wasn't
surprised to see that Megan had joined her siblings by stripping off
her pajamas. While the girls would never instigate something like this
morning's nudist revolt, they sometimes would become part of the
wild schemes of their brothers. But they also could go into the
opposite mode and let their brothers know how stupid they were and
how they had no compunction about tattling to their parents. The
boys loved their sisters, but would tread lightly around them because
they weren't always sure where the girls were coming from.

Before his father could say anything, Matthew shouted out, "Well, can
we be naked?"

"Yeah, we all want to be naked all day on our birthday and every
other day, too," Mark said.

Scott was used to getting verbal shots from both barrels of the twin
shotgun and maintained his poise. "Be patient now, boys. You know
I'm here to tell you what your mother and I have decided." Scott did
not fail to notice that the girls had not added their voice to the
discussion. That usually indicated that they were willing to go in
whatever direction the wind blew.

"Here is the decision. Since it's the boys' birthday, they can be naked
all day if they wish."

"Hooray," the two boys shouted out. However, all of their questions
had not been answered.

"What about tomorrow?" Matthew asked.

"What about next week?" Mark asked.

"Yeah, and what about all of the time?" Matthew asked.

"Patience, boys, patience. With certain rules which your mother will
lay down, you may be naked anywhere in the house or in the yard on
Mondays." The suburban Kirkwood residence sat on a large wooded
lot, and the property was far from any passing traffic.

"What rules?" Mark asked.

"Yeah, tell us the rules," Matthew said.

They ended up hearing the rules from their mother while they ate a
sumptuous Monday morning birthday spread. Essentially, the rules
were that nobody should feel forced to shed their clothes on Monday
nudist day, that they must be dressed if there was company at the
house, whether it was their friends or guests of their parents, and that
they had to remain on the secluded parts of their property if they went
outside. Since it was winter, being outside wasn't an issue at the
moment. Kristy was hoping that the enthusiasm about nudity would
wane with the coming months and being naked outside would remain
a nonissue. That ended up not being case.

"Are you going to get naked on Mondays, too?" Matthew asked his
parents.

"No, we're not," Scott said.

"Why not? The rest of us are nudyists," Mark said.

"The word is nudists, and the reason is because our clothes are our
authority symbol," Scott told them. "Do you understand what that
means?"

"That means they make you the boss," Megan said.

"Exactly."

"But dad, if we get to be naked only on Monday, that's not fair," Mark
protested.

"Why isn't it fair?"

"We go to school on Mondays." Matthew said, knowing exactly where
his brother was coming from.

"You aren't in school today."

"We are most of the time," Mark pointed out.

"Yeah, the day should be Saturday."

"Monday it is," Kristy said. "Take it or leave it."

The girls were willing to take it. As for the boys, they accepted it for
the moment, but Scott and Kristy both had the feeling they would be
conspiring for a change.

That night the family went to Larry's Steak and Chowder house,
which was near the shore of Puget Sound, for a birthday dinner. Mark
and Matthew each received a card and a gift certificate to Toys R' Us.
Because their birthday was only three days before Christmas, Scott
and Kristi kept the celebration small. In June, after school was out,
they would have the big celebration on their half-birthday, spreading
out the presents and the celebrating. Mark and Matthew were good
with that, since it gave them more presents to look forward to when
summer started.

There are many illustrations of Thing 1 and Thing 2 finding
themselves getting into mischief, and only a few of them can be
related without putting together an entire tome about The Things.
Erecting a crashing building made of pots, pans, and crockery;
painting the hall with water colors; pissing in their pants at school;
convincing their parents to let them be part-time nudists—examples
of how the two managed to live on the edge while being polite, hard
working, loyal, and, for the most part, lacking in guile.

Next: Twin Things