"Rosamund and Hector Peabody."
The fraternal twins froze when hearing their names. They had been caught sneaking into their Grandpa Sherman's lab. They had thought it was a good idea-until now. They turned to meet the amused face of their grandfather.
"Hello, Grandpa." Rosamund, the twin who took after her grandfather the most, waved, trying to give her brother something to grip on so that he wouldn't fall into his usual rant of telling everything that they had done that day without a lie in the mix.
Hector waved too, "Hello."
"What do you two think you are doing down here in my lab?"
"Nothing!" "We were looking at your new invention!"
Rosamund huffed, sending her signature 'thanks a lot, brother' glare at Hector. Hector dipped his head, not only because of be caught by the man he looked up to most, but also because his sister was now unhappy with him. He lived by one maxim: Keep your sister close and happy. He knew it wasn't really a maxim, but it worked for him. Sherman walked to them and took their hands and led them out of the room before closing and locking the door. The twins started when they saw their Grandma Johanna around the corner. She put her finger to her lips and winked. Oh, they were getting it.
"You won't guess where I caught these two." Sherman told their mom and dad at dinner.
"Let me guess, Dad." Their dad, Peter, chuckled, "in your lab?"
"Correct, son. They wanted to see my invention."
Their mom, Lucy, gasped, "You mean the rebuild of that machine that made my mother clone so many times while your dad was away?"
"That same one. How is your mother anyway?"
"Mom's good. She's been thinking back to when you would drive Mr. Peabody to his limits and back again. You two were so reckless. Why was that?"
"We weren't too reckless, Lucy. Historical trouble just was particularly attracted to your mother, and since I was her friend and guide to most of the time periods I got dragged along. Which meant my dad had to throw himself into the mess to get us out of it. Plus kids in historical societies are unpredictable. We were. Peter was. And so are these two guys."
Dinner finished up with boring adult talk about politics and other stuff that seven-and-a-half year-olds that are not as famous as their grandparents or great-grandfather find incredibly dull. They were excused after they got their desert and right before the adults pulled out the champagne for the nightly glass of wine that the adults had with their 'grown-up' desert. From what the twins knew, the desert was one of their great-grandfather's recipes and that there were so many custom recipes from him that their grandfather had to make one each night to keep his promise of 'I will make each and every one of them'. Apparently, according to Grandma Johanna, he was little over ninety-seven percent done and it had taken him so long because for ten years after their great-grandfather had died Grandpa Sherman had misplaced the boxes of recipes. If Hector's calculations were correct, they would be old enough to taste their grandpa's last rendition of the recipes—the rendition of their great-grandfather's favorite desert recipe. But, unlike the person (or dog) he was the namesake of, Hector wasn't so shockingly intelligent and was prone of forgetting to carry over when multipying.
They got wind that they were staying the weekend while their parents went to Panama for work. They celebrated by fist-pumping in front of their great-grandfather's portrait and saying hello and goodnight to it. They then brushed their teeth, got into their pajamas and slid into their bunkbeds.
Sherman grabbed his chair and sat down, "I know you're enjoying The Hound of the Baskervilles, but I want to tell a story about when your Grandma Penny and I were kids. We were in the fifth grade and…