After another half hour of cat torture, Mrs. Connor returned to pick up the twins. The Patrinsky household looked much better than she expected; it was still standing, all the furniture was intact (though one couch cushion was sagging a little from being leaped on) and, except for the poor cat, the living inhabitants were mostly unharmed.

The twins weren't even paint-splattered, which she'd been dreading. In fact, except for some cat scratches on their hands and faces, they looked good as new. That came as a shock, especially when the babysitter told them how messy they'd been when she left. But Laurelynne just shrugged and accepted it as a mystery of life. Strange things did tend to happen around Adrian and Neil.

At home, Mrs. Connor dared to ask the little twins about their day. All she got was a mildly interested look from Adrian, and a "Nuth'n," from Neil.

Mirellah was a little more direct. "Didja get in trouble? Huh? Huh?"

"We dunno." Adrian reached for his cup of juice. Unfortunately, he was a bit too far away.

"Whaddya mean, you dunno? Either you did or you didn't!"

"We do'no if we're gonna be in trouble next time we there." He stretched out his arm for the cup again.

"Gonna be in trouble? You mean you got away with whatever you did?"

"May-bee." Neil, sitting closer to the all-important cup, tried to pass his brother the juice. Unfortunately, he chose the exact same moment that Adrian did to reach for it. The cup overturned on the table.

Both twins stared at it, as Linnelly came over to them. "Oh, nooo..." she groaned.

"What? We do someting bad?" they asked, staring at her with innocent but curious faces.

"Um... sort of." In a futile effort, she tried to mop up the spreading puddle.

"Sor-da? Whad'ya mean by sor-da?" They looked even more curious.

"Never mind. I'll just clean it up." Getting more frustrated by the minute, Linnelly tried, once again, to mop up the puddle. "Oh, forget it, I'll just go get Mom." She dropped the cloth.

That night, after the apple juice had been cleaned up, dinner served (which had its only interruption when Neil stuffed macaroni and cheese up his nose) and everyone was in bed and asleep, the two boys found themselves wide awake.

"You sleepy?" Adrian asked, looking at his brother. Although they had separate beds, they preferred to share one. Which one got used changed often.

"Nope."

"What we do? This boring."

"Hmmm..." Neil went quiet as he thought. There were lots of things the two of them could do together at night, but some of them would wake up their mommy and sisters, which would be bad. Finally, he had an idea. "I know!"

Adrian leaned over as his brother whispered into his ear. "Soun's good."

"C'mon." The door had been left open, for light from the hall. They pushed it a little further open, and walked a bit further down the hallway, towards the next open door.

It was Lilluai's room. The sixteen-year-old was asleep in her bed, facing the wall and snoring very softly. The twins tiptoed over to the open makeup case on the dresser.

"This the stuff she puts on her face," Adrian whispered to Neil.

"Why just her face?" He picked up a tube of lipstick and drew on the wood of the dresser. "Is good drawing stuff too."

"She not draw on her face though."

"Oooh!" Neil had spotted a container of blush, as well as some bright orange nail polish and a makeup brush. "Lookit this, Adrian!"

"What it?" He leaned over.

"I dunno." The boy used the brush to smear blush on the mirror. "But look a' it on dis thing."

"Oooh. Lemme try." Adrian reached for the nail polish. Drawing the little brush out of the container, he painted a big, orange, smeary smiley face on the same mirror. "Hey, I godda idea! Let's put dis stuff on her!"

"You sure she like it?"

"It always take her a mill-yun 'n' three hours to put it on in da morning. She be glad we did it for her."

"Okay." They proceeded to put lipstick on her nose, eyeshadow all over her chin, blush on her forehead, and more lipstick- this one was blue- on her cheeks.

The little twins stood back and admired their handiwork. "You sure dat byoodeful?" asked Adrian, skeptically.

'"She put it on alla time. Maybe she like look like dat. 'Member when she made her hair all purply?" That had actually been an accident- she had been trying to dye her hair red- but the twins didn't know it.

"Truu. Now we go backa sleep."

"O-kay." They walked back to their room, where they promptly crawled back under the covers of Adrian's bed and went right to sleep.