Hey guys! Sorry for the pause, the holiday season is pretty crazy and I was unable to access a computer for most of it, so thus the lack of updates. Still, I hope the holidays have been good to all of you and that you will have a happy New Years as well. I'm going to be updating this story regularly again, provided the requests continue to come, so I hope that's good news to everybody.
This idea from this chapter comes from one of Dylan'sSis101's suggestions.
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The two twins laughed and pushed at each other as they raced down the stairs to the kitchen. Thinking fast, the girl mounted the banister and slid down, hopping off when she reached the bottom in front of her brother, who was actually the faster of the two.
"Cheater!" Edward laughed, catching up with his sister on the straight-away dash to their destination. Alice just blew him a raspberry. In the final stretch, the ginger pulled ahead and skidded across the kitchen floor on his socks.
"I win!" Edward announced proudly as Alice, who had also taken advantage of the smooth tile, slid right into him. The pair collapsed on the floor, unable to restrain laughter as they untangled themselves.
"I so let you win," Alice insisted out of habit.
"Yeah, right," Edward poked his sister in the ribs, making her giggle and slap his hand, "I won fair and square, and you know it."
"Well, not all of us can be freakishly fast, ya know," Alice teased, poking him back even harder.
Edward opened his mouth for a a retort, but their verbal game was cut short by their mother as she walked into the room, "Are you two ready to dye some eggs?" Mrs. Mason asked loudly, immediately causing both children to completely forget their ribbing.
"Yeah!" Both twins cried in unison as their mother set the supplies down on the vinyl table cloth.
While Mrs. Mason set about mixing the dyes, Alice and Edward watched, transfixed. The instant her mother's back was turned to the sink, Alice edged forward to poke her finger into one of the dye cups.
"Look! My finger's pink!" She exclaimed, holding up her stained finger to show her brother.
"Looks like you've been eating strawberries," Edward observed, less than impressed, "or like you're diseas—hey!" the boy tried to dodge away as Alice poked him.
She smiled upon seeing the pink splotch she had left on his face, "Now you've got chicken pox!" Alice informed him gleefully. Of course, this meant war, and Edward instinctively reached for the green dye, splashing a little bit at his sister who balked and dove away, crying, "Don't you dare get any on my clothes!"
Edward just laughed, swirling his index finger in the dye.
"I mean it!" Alice hollered from under the table.
"Fine, truce?" Edward suggested, and Alice poked her inky head up from beneath the tablecloth.
"Promise?" She demanded cautiously, not ready to jeopardize her favorite pair of capris.
"I promise," her twin insisted, holding up his hands to show he wasn't crossing his fingers.
"Okay, truce then," Alice smiled and allowed Edward to pull her up from under the table, "pink isn't your color anyway," she added helpfully as she got another look at the hot pink stain she had left on her brother's pale face.
"Oh, really?" Edward tried to quirk an eyebrow like he'd seen people in movies do, but it didn't quite come out right, and the other eyebrow sort of sidled up too. Oh well, practice makes perfect.
"Mmm," Alice hummed knowingly, "You're much more of an Autumn, really..."
Two pairs of identical jade eyes met, and the twins shared a giggle before Edward gave his sister a light push, which Alice returned immediately. After a while of exchanging shoves, their mother broke in once again,
"Now, are you just going to fight all day, or are you going to decorate these Easter eggs?"
"We weren't fighting!" Alice defended quickly.
"Yeah, we were just..." Edward trailed off, trying to find the right word.
"Playing!" His sister finished for him.
"Yeah, playing," Edward agreed, nodding his auburn head fervently.
Mrs. Mason shook her head, trying to conceal her amusement as she scolded, "Well you should play nicer, and preferably in a way that won't result in broken vases." At this the twins had the decency to look embarrassed, both remembering how their last shoving-match ended.
"Sorry mom," the two mumbled at the same time, and now both sets of emerald eyes were firmly fixed on the floor. Now their mother did laugh softly at the twins' perfect unison, unable to even pretend to be angry anymore.
The children occupied themselves by looking repentant for another few seconds before Alice popped her head up, "So...eggs?"
"Yeah, please mom?" Edward mirrored his sisters hopeful expression.
"So long as you promise not to break anything," Mrs. Mason conceded, "Here, let me show you how to dip them..."
Once she was completely sure that the children knew what to do, and fairly sure that they would behave, Mrs. Mason retired to the next room where she flipped open her magazine and darted wary glances into the kitchen after every few minutes.
"What color should we make the first one?" Alice demanded excitedly, deft little fingers ghosting over the clean, white, ready-to-be-dyed eggs, "How about purple? Or orange? Or yellow?"
"I think I'm gonna do one blue," Edward said reflectively, liking the deep, midnight color affected by one of the little colored pools.
"Well, I think I'm gonna do my first one pink," Alice decided, "with glitter!"
"Glitter?" Edward asked dubiously, not seeing any glitter on the table.
"Yeah! See?" Alice produced a little tube of sparkling golden powder from her pocket, "I always keep some on me."
"Of course you do," Edward shook his tousled head. It made sense, anyway—clearly, Alice was a pixie, "if you sprinkle some on me and I think happy thoughts, will I fly?"
Alice scoffed at her twin, "As if I'd waste any of it on you."
Both siblings continued the stream of gentle teasing as they set about coloring the first eggs, never once hurting the other's feelings in the slightest.
Once Edward had his blue egg, and Alice had her glitter encrusted pink egg, Alice had another idea.
"Ya know what would be cool?" She asked slowly, "If you could make an egg that's all different colors, like tie-dye." And, without giving it another thought in typical Alice fashion, she reached for the dyes to mix them all together.
Knowing his sister well enough to understand exactly what she was doing, Edward reached forward faster and grabbed her wrist, "Wait! If you mix'em together, they'll just be all brown," he reminded her, though by now his own mind was already thinking on the potential coolness of a tie-dyed Easter egg, and then he had an idea.
Edward grabbed the bottle of olive oil from the counter, and, for once, Alice was the one who was completely baffled over her sibling's actions. Edward's motives slowly became clear as he layered the different dyes in with the olive oil, and the pixie girl laughed with delight when she understood.
"Eddie, you're a genius!" She praised, amazed at how perfectly the dyes now sat atop of each other.
"Yeah, yeah," Her brother grinned, and it made him happy to astound his sister for once, because she amazed him all the time.
Once again, the twins' verdant eyes met, and understanding passed perfectly between the two; they made a pretty good team.
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Aww. See, up till now, I haven't done anything with just Alice and Edward, so I thought this would be kinda sweet. Tell me what you think!
