Mommy Mouse (sequel to City Mouse)

Chapter 21: Nighttime Chatting

"You found our talkie-talkie?" the first voice asked.

"Is that what this is called?" Leo answered.

"Yeah, unh hunh, because first you talk, then we talk, then you talk, then we talk, get it?" More laughter.

"Oh, yeah, I get it." Leo nodded under the covers. "It was stuck in the chair in the lobby where I live."

"Where do you live?"

"In New York?" Leo had been taught never to give his address, either with his voice or in written form, and he remembered this, though he didn't think he could be hurt by two little girls.

"Hey, us, too! We live in Tribeca, in the brick building by Ice Cream Dreams. Do you live by us?"

"I live in an apartment with bricks, too!" Leo said, forgetting to keep his voice down. "It's on the corner by there, and The Whole Bean Coffee and Book Store."

"Yeah! Us too!" Leo could hear squealing and giggling, though he could tell that they were trying to be quiet, like him. "Is Mr. Bobby your doorman?"

"He is!" Leo laughed loud enough to make Happy come to snuff around his head, to see what her boy was up to all buried under his blanket. "I live on the eighteenth floor. Where do you guys live?"

"We live in the penthouse, on the very top. Lottie bought the talkie-talkies at the thrift store when she went with our daddy, but when she opened the bag there was only one inside."

Leo could hear the speaker asking, "Did you sit in the big chairs in the lobby that day, Lottie?" The voice got louder. "Lottie says she sat in the big green chair while she waited for Daddy and Mr. Bobby to move something. That must be how that one got there."

Leo nodded again, and realized that they couldn't see him. He also realized that he was going to suffocate if he stayed under the covers much longer. "Hold on, you guys," he said. He scrambled out of bed and ran into his closet, waiting for Happy to follow him and shutting the door all the way after turning on the light. It shared a wall with the rarely used guest bathroom, and he didn't think his parents would hear him.

"Okay," he panted, sitting under where his shirts hung, scooting as far back as he could. Happy looked at him curiously, decided everything was okay, and circled a couple of times before settling down next to the door with a thud.

"I can talk louder now," he told them. "And I know who you are! I've seen you guys! You're the family with all the girls! And you all have curly hair! And you have a new baby, right? A boy baby? Your mommy has lots of red hair? And you have a HUGE doggy!"

More laughing. Wow, these were the happiest kids Leo had talked to in a long time.

"Yeah, we're them! That's us!"

"Which ones are you?" Leo tried to remember what they looked like when he saw them coming or going in the lobby.

"We're the twins."

Twins?

"I thought twins looked exactly the same," Leo said, scratching his head. As far as he could remember, the four little girls all looked different.

"I'm adopted, from Haiti," the lower voice said. "I'm Lottie."

"And I'm the one with red hair," the other voice said. "Brina."

"How are you twins? I thought twins meant you grew inside your mommy at the same time."

"I was born here in New York and Lottie was born all the way in Haiti on the exact same day." Giggling. "And her birth mother died, and we wanted her, and so we adopted her, and we turned into twins."