When Abra and Cal and Aron went out, they stood side by side on the small covered porch, looking at the rain splashing and dripping down from the wide-spreading oak trees. The cloudburst had passed into a distant echoing thunder roll, but it had left a rain determined to go on for a long time.

Aron said, ‘That lady told us the rain was stopped.’

Abra answered him wisely.

‘She didn’t look. When she’s talking she never looks.’

Cal demanded, ‘How old are you?’

‘Ten, going on eleven,’ said Abra.

‘Ho!’ said Cal. ‘We’re eleven, going on twelve.’

Abra pushed her sunbonnet back. It framed her head like a halo. She was pretty, with dark hair in two braids. Her little forehead was round and domed, and her brows were level. One day her nose would be sweet and turned up where now it still was button-form. But two features would be with her always. Her chin was firm and her mouth was as sweet as a flower and very wide and pink. Her hazel eyes were sharp and intelli­gent and completely fearless. She looked straight into the faces of the boys, straight into their eyes, one after the other, and there was no hint of the shyness she had pretended inside the house.

‘I don’t believe you’re twins,’ she said. ‘You don’t look alike.’

‘We are too,’ said Cal.

‘We are too,’ said Aron.

‘Some twins don’t look alike,’ Cal insisted.

‘Lots of them don’t,’ Aron said.

‘Lee told us how it is. If the lady has one egg, the twins look alike. If she has two eggs, they don’t.’

‘We’re two eggs,’ said Cal.