Lisa and Lottie. Erich Kastner

recovering from his first astonishment, the photographer, a certain Mr. Appeldauer, worked with great efficiency. He took six separate photographs. The prints were to be ready in ten days.

      When the two girls had gone, he said to his wife, “You know what I think I’ll do? I’ll send a few glossy prints to some of the big picture papers and magazines. They’re often interested in things like that.”

      Safely outside, Lisa was undoing her “silly” braids, for that sober hair style imposed a certain strain upon her. When she could shake her curls freely, she really felt she was herself again. She invited Lottie to have a glass of lemonade. Lottie objected. Lisa said emphatically, “You must! The day before yesterday Daddy sent me some more pocket money. Come on!”

      So they walked out to the house of the forester, who kept a little restaurant. They sat down at a table in the garden, drank lemonade, and talked. There were so many questions to ask.

      The hens ran to and fro, pecking and clucking, between the tables. An old retriever came up to sniff the two children and found no objection to their remaining.

      “Has your father been dead long?” asked Lisa.

      “I don’t know,” said Lottie. “Mommy never mentions him.”

      Lisa nodded. “I can’t remember my mother at all. There used to be a big photograph of her on Daddy’s piano. But once he came in and caught me looking at it, and the next day it was gone. I think he locked it up in his desk.”

      The hens clucked. The retriever dozed. A little girl who had no father was drinking lemonade with a little girl who had no mother.

      “You’re nine too, aren’t you?” asked Lisa.

      “Yes,” Lottie nodded. “I’ll be ten on the fourteenth of October.”

      Lisa sat up as straight as a poker. “On the fourteenth of October?”

      “On the fourteenth of October.”

      Lisa leaned forward and whispered, “So will I!”

      Lottie went as stiff as an icicle.

      A cock crowed beyond the house. The retriever snapped at a bee that was buzzing around him. Through the open kitchen window they could hear the forester’s wife singing.

      The two girls looked into each other’s eyes as though hypnotized. Lottie swallowed hard and asked, hoarse with excitement, “And where were you born?”

      Lisa answered in a low, hesitant voice, as though she were afraid. “At Linz on the Danube.”

      Lottie moistened her dry lips with her tongue. “So was I!”

      In the garden all was still. Only the tips of the trees were moving.

      Lottie said slowly, “I have a picture of—of my Mommy in my locker.”

      Lisa jumped up. “Show it to me!” She dragged Lottie from her chair and out of the garden.

      “Wait!” shouted an angry voice. “What’s the idea!” It was the forester’s wife. “Drinking lemonade and going off without paying!”

      With trembling fingers Lisa rummaged in her purse, pressed a coin into the woman’s hand, and ran back to Lottie.

      “What about the change?” shouted the woman. But the two children did not hear. They were running as fast as they could.

      “Now where are those young monkeys off to?” muttered the forester’s wife. She went back into the house, and the old retriever trotted after her.

      Back at the camp, Lottie hurriedly searched her locker. She dug the photograph out from under a pile of clothes and held it out to Lisa, who was jumping with eagerness.

      Lisa took one shy, frightened glance at the picture. Then her face brightened, and her eyes stayed firmly fixed on the face of the woman in the picture.

      Lottie watched Lisa expectantly.

      Exhausted with sheer happiness, Lisa lowered the photograph and nodded blissfully. Then she hugged it passionately, and whispered, “My Mommy! It’s the same picture!”

      Lottie put her arms around Lisa’s neck. ‘‘Our Mommy!” Two little girls clung tightly to each other.

      The gong boomed through the house. Children ran laughing and shouting down the stairs. Lisa started to put the photograph back in the locker, but Lottie said, “You can keep it.”

      Miss Ursula was standing before the desk in Mrs. Muther’s office. She was so excited that on both her cheeks were round spots, red as apples.

      “I can’t keep it to myself!” she blurted out. “I must confide in you. If only I knew what we ought to do!”

      “Come, come,” said Mrs. Muther. “What have you got on your mind, my dear?”

      “They are not astrological twins.”

      “Who aren’t?” asked Mrs. Muther with a smile. “King Edward and the tailor?”

      “No! Lisa Palfy and Lottie Horn! I’ve checked back in our registration book. They were both born on the same day of the same year at Linz. It simply cannot be a coincidence.”

      “I don’t think it’s a coincidence either, my dear. In fact, I have some ideas of my own on the subject.”

      “So you know?” asked Miss Ursula, panting for breath.

      “Of course. When little Lottie arrived, I got her date and place of birth and entered them in the book. Then I compared them with Lisa’s. That was the obvious thing to do, wasn’t it?”

      “Yes, yes. But what do we do now?”

      “Nothing.”

      “Nothing?”

      “Nothing! If you don’t keep quiet about it, I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do to you!”

      “But—”

      “There’s no ‘but.’ The two children suspect nothing. They have just been photographed together, and they’ll send the pictures home. If that helps to unravel the knot, well and good. But as for you and me, we’ll not interfere. Thank you for your sympathetic understanding, my dear. And now, please, will you ask the cook to come in and see me?”

3

       New worlds are discovered • Mystery piled on mystery • The bisected first name • A serious photograph and a funny letter • Can children be cut in half?

      Time passed.

      The two girls collected their photographs from Mr. Appeldauer. The inquisitive Miss Ursula inquired whether they had sent the pictures home. Lisa and Lottie nodded their heads and said yes.

      But the pictures, torn into little pieces, are at the bottom of Lake Bohren. The two girls told Miss Ursula a lie. They wanted to keep their secret to themselves. They lied shamelessly to anyone who tried to pry too closely into their affairs. Their consciences did not prick them—not even Lottie’s.

      The two girls stuck together like burrs. Trudie, Steffie, Monica, Christine, and the rest were sometimes angry at Lisa and jealous of Lottie. What good did it do? None at all!

      They had slipped off to the locker room. Lottie looked through her locker, took out two identical sweaters, gave one to her sister, and put on the other herself.

      “Mommy bought these,” she said, “at Pollinger’s.”

      “Ah!” exclaimed Lisa. “That’s the store in Neuhauser Street, near—what is the name of that gate?”

      “Carl’s