Twinsome.

[slemslempike]

I found a piece of a quiz thing I was going to do a while ago in honour of alltheleaves, and then completely forgot about. Better late than never, eh? And hopefully it might entertain some people. Or at the very least, me, as I like comments but can't be bothered to earn them right now. Answer as many or as few questions as you choose in preferably more than one word where applicable.

Which school do Pat and Isobel O'Sullivan attend? (correct spelling please!)

What are the middle names of the Maynard triplets?

Joey Maynard produces triplets and two sets of twins over about a decade. Rosamund Kentisbury produces two sets of twins within one year. Which is the greater achievement?

You awake to find yourself in bed surrounded by incredibly posh women in country dancing frocks. Apparently you have had the temerity to be injured by some psychopathic twins, and now as a penance you are expected to stay in some sort of ruins and work unpaid.
a) How were you injured?
b) How will you escape your fate? Please pay particular attention to the correct use of gentlemen's titles.

Nicola and Lawrie Marlow are identical twins. You have captured one of them but can't work out which. What are some tests you might set to discover their identity?

What is the best ever set of twins you have ever encountered in fiction?

What is the worst ever set of twins you have ever encountered in fiction?

Which twin set would you most like to be one of?

Comments

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

1) St Clare's

2) Their names are Mary Helena, Mary Constance and Mary Margaret, which means that Mary is their first name so their middle names are Helena, Constance and Margaret.

3) I assume you mean Joey Maynard? And Eustacia wins through not having any children at all and never marrying a doctor.

4a) Falling through the ice trying rescue someone who was breaking bounds while ignoring my little sister who was skating after me to tell me she was sorry she burnt my manuscript after I was stupid enough to destroy all the drafts.
b) Being good at cricket and rowing and also beautiful even after participating in such activities which makes everyone else hot, sweaty, red-faced and muscular and still being able to attract the attention of the rich and handsome and young Count von und zu Wertheimer. My lung capacity developed from all that cricket and rowing then stands me in good stead when we are playing hide and seek in the secret tunnels in his Schloss.

5) I'd ask which ever twin it was to light my Bunsen burner while singing a song while doing an impersonation of Miss Cromwell.

6) The Marlows.

7) Kevin and Kester Russell. They're just boring and pointless and just send Joey's and Mollie's ovaries into overdrive so they can have more children than Madge. But I do feel sorry for them being earmarked for the army and the navy. Still, maybe they get seduced by Polly from The Camomile Lawn as she has a thing for twins and one becomes a confectioner and the other a stage lighting technician.

8) The Marlows.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

3. Yes - have fixed now. Oh, POOR Eustacia! All she ever does is become a renowned expert on classics, get a doctorate and publish learned works! Never will she know the joy of changing a nappy getting a poorly paid underling to change a nappy for you.

7. I always forget about Kevin and Kester - I feel quite sorry for non-girl twins in girlsown, because they're really just largely pointless, we learn nothing about them except that they have brought glory to their mammas.

8. Would you rather be the twin of Nicola or the twin of Lawrie?

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

3. And Oxford makes everyone sleepy apparently, presumably too sleepy to capture a doctor and make babies, hundreds and thousands of lovely, adorable, multiple babies.

7. I know! Hmm, maybe they run off to join Kester Bellever on his puffin island (or guillemots or kittiwakes or whatever) and they become the mad three birdmen of that little island whose name I forget.

8. I'd much rather be Lawrie than Nicola because everyone expects Nicola to be competent and a great leader and First Sea Lord etc. etc. but I'd rather hang out with Lawrie. I think Nicola would regard me as too much of wet mess. On the other hand, Nicola is very handy to hide behind while one is being a wet mess. It's tricky.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Good lord, imagine two Lawries. Or two Nicolas, come to that. But a twin set composed of two Lawries is unimaginably dramatic.

[anglaisepaon.livejournal.com]

3. I'm not sure I want to read much further if all they do is pop out twins and triplets. Was there something in all that fresh mountain air?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It's not all they do. Just most of it. Also there are avalanches and thunderstorms and lessons and Lessons.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I will answer the last question, because the rest have been done so admirably already, and request to be part of Marc Remillard's twin set. As Marc is the only living one this means I get to be an immortal sexy genius would-be galactic conqueror.

Oh, and Rosamund's achievement is the greater - Jack Maynard is possibly, in his early days, vaguely physically attractive.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Ha! Yes, Rosamund needed to be pretty determined, though it must have been a shock to only produce girls and know that you had to go through it all again to get the all important heir (and disinherit your own brother...).

I don't know Marc Remillard! Who he?

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Rosamund definitely gets bonus points for beating initial (literal) handicap by dragging the Earl to a doctor to render him capable of having sex in the first place.

My son has a small friend called Kester and I have great difficulty not treating the poor child with great suspicion because of it.

Your fourth question is a work of genius but I can't answer it.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Little did EJO realise the prurience that issue would lead to. You can't help wondering...

I'm sorry for little Kester as I've always found Kester senior the most boring man in Chaletland.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I know! I mean, from absolute write-off to fecund god so quickly...

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

I find Kester Bellever faintly creepy. Presumably the mother of the one I know isn't a Chalet reader as I can't imagine naming anyone after him.

I love early Rosamund but she goes seriously downhill once she starts doing nothing but produce twins.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I quite like the name Kester, I think. But I've never seen it anywhere else.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

It's the name of the hunky travelling weaver in Mary Webb's Precious Bane - Kester Woodseaves.

[jinty]

I have a feeling Georgette Heyer uses it as a nickname for Christopher in her twin-swopping romp False Colours.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

But Marc would have strangled you in utero.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

1. St Clare's.

2. Constance, Helena and Margaret.

3. Rosamund, because according to Joey's rules of Winning at Childbirth, if she'd done it in the year the Maynard triplets were born, she would have been ahead.

4. I have no idea. I would be terrified.

5. Ask her what a binnacle is.

6. Nicola and Lawrie.

7. I don't have any strong feelings, but Felix and Felicity always struck me as particularly pointless, and their names are revoltingly twee.

8. The Marlows. I've always wanted to be competent. (I am assuming I don't turn out to be Lawrie.)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

3. Good point! And it is very nearly the quads that Joey keeps threatening.

5. I think I should find out what a binnacle is myself.

7. I think independently the names are just about okay, but together they are a bit much. Though Fee and Flixy are DIRE.

8. How do you think you'd cope with having Lawrie as your twin (also assuming you don't turn out to be Lawrie)?

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

5. I think it's a thing you have a compass in.

7. Yes, exactly. It's the coordinating I object to.

8. HELP I did not think of that. I don't think I'd be as understanding of her as you'd expect. On the other hand, I wouldn't expect her upper lip to be quite as stiff as Nicola wants it.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

5 Has she got her hands in her pockets, or is she hitching her stockings?

[gair.livejournal.com]

1. St Clare's.

2. Have never read a Chalet School book in my life I BET YOU WILL DEFRIEND ME NOW.

3. The triplets + twins in a decade, definitely.

4. For some reason the only associations this calls up for me are from Misery, so I suppose (a) in a car wreck while thinking too hard about my SRS WRITERS BUSINESS and (b) by agreeing to write, er, lengthy fanfic where everyone in England cares about folk dancing again, then running away while readers are engrossed.

5. I would kiss her tenderly and see whether she (a) went red and went er, oh gosh, terribly flattered old thing but... (Nicola), (b) pushed me away indignantly and said You just wait until Tim gets here! (Lawrie) or (c) kissed me back enthusiastically (also Lawrie).

6. The Marlows.

7. Erk. The ones Anne of Green Gables has to look after?

8. I want to be Tim! Or possibly the bossy one in Jacqueline Wilson's Double Act - Ruby - because her sister gets sent away to boarding school and she gets to stay home with ALL THE ATTENTION AND LOVE ahahahaha.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

2. Gosh! I didn't know that. I am not defriending you, but I am PITYING you.

5. I LOVE THIS ANSWER.

8. I found Making Hate while I was packing and I will totally send it to you when I am moved, v. sorry about forgetting for so long.

[gair.livejournal.com]

2. So much more hardcore!

5. It has caused me much innocent pleasure all day today.

8. Oh, awesome - thank you! Whenever a space comes up in unpacking though - I know what that's like.