To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
“Give it back, that’s mine!”
“No it isn’t, it’s mine!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!”
Mother sighed. The twins were at it again. She wasn’t sure what made them do it, but Jack and Jill were constantly at each other’s throats. Perhaps it was that had to spend so much time together, being the same age and all. Or perhaps it was in their genetics to be contrary all the time. Maybe it was that they were as close to being identical as they could be as
fraternal twins. Whatever the reason, it certainly made their house lively and especially loud.
Jack and Jill came sprinting into the dining room adjacent to the kitchen where Mother was, racing to get there first, because, of course, whoever got there first was obviously right. Obviously. The same went for whoever was loudest, which was why they both began shouting even though Mother was only a few feet away from them.
“MOTHER! Jack stole my lucky pencil! It was my best one and he took it all for himself! Make him give it back!!” Jill was half yelling, half whining. She had her hands folded and held out in a please-oh-god-reign-fire-from-the-sky-and-smite-my-annoying-twin-brother fashion. She molded her face into and expression of sheer innocence combined with her perfected puppy dog eyes. For being only 11 she was quite a little conniver, but only about petty, unimportant things. Like a mechanical pencil.
“She’s lying!” Jack yelled, glaring at Jill. Turning back to his mother, he added, “She must have lost her pencil, cuz this one’s mine! I’ve had it in my room since forever and she’s trying to get me trouble!” He put on his version of the angelic face, though he missed heavenly creatures and landed more among the small, helpless children. Either way, he was just as manipulative as his twin sister.
Mother watched as they bickered back and forth. She wondered how long she should let them go at it. Perhaps it made her a bad mother, but hey, this was better than daytime TV and cooking supper got boring after a while.
“That’s not true, he’s the liar!”
“Nuh-uh, she is!”
“He is!”
“She is!”
“MOOOOOOM!” They screamed this last bit in unison.
“Alright, that’s enough!” Okay, every now and again it would give her a headache. “You know what, I don’t care about the pencil. I’ll buy you another one, alright Jill?” That seemed to appease her. “Now, I need you to go fetch me a bucket of water. I need it to finish the soup for supper.”
“WHAT?!” Mother was not aware that Jill’s voice could reach those decibels at that pitch. “I did it last time! It’s Jack’s turn!”
“No, I did it last time. It’s your turn!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“IS NOT!”
“FINE!” Mother raised her voice so that the twins could hear her over their screeches of indignance.
“Is too,” Jill whispered under hear breath.
“You can both go do it! And don’t think I didn’t hear that Jill.” Jill jumped, and then they both opened their mouths as if to protest, but she stopped them, “No buts. I’m not going to argue this one. Now hop to it.”
Jack and Jill looked at each other annoyedly, and then Jill started to giggle. She then proceeded to hop like a bunny rabbit down the hallway. Jack shook his head, apparently in disgust, but Mother heard him start hopping as well when he was out of her sight. She shook her head. What precocious children she had!
Jack and Jill raced each other to put on their coats and shoes; they knew what was coming. The last one finished with their outer garments had to carry the bucket up the hill. As it turned out, Jill was just a second slower than Jack, so she begrudgingly picked up the wooden bucket and followed Jack out the backdoor into the yard.
“Whoever designed and built this farm must have been mentally challenged,” Jack said. “They built the well on the top of the only hill on the entire farm! Sheesh. I’m only eleven and I could have come up with a better plan than that.”
“Well, dummy, that’s where the water was. Duh!” Jill looked at her brother as though he were the epitome of stupidity.
“Well, then maybe God was dumb when he made this farm. Why else would he force us to walk up the hill each time we need water?”
“Awwww, I’m tellllllinnngggg. You insulted God!”
“No, I was just kidding, don’t tell,” Jack pleaded. Goodness knows what Mother would do if she found out he had insulted God, not to mention what God would do. He gulped. He hadn’t thought of that; it had just come out!
“What’s in it for me?” Jill asked shrewdly.
“I’ll let you have to pencil, no questions asked. Just please don’t tell.”
“Alright, done.” Jack handed her the pencil, which he had placed in his shirt pocket. Jill pocketed the pen in her skirt and said, “Pleasure doing business with you Jack.” He looked relieved. Secretly, she agreed with him, but she would never tell him that.
They finally got to the large hill near the back of their property. Luckily the farm was rather wide instead of being long, so they weren’t terribly far from the house. Still, it had been a decent walk. After they scrambled up the hill, they were both kind of tired, so they laid down in the shade of the well and pointed out cloud shapes.
“Ooh, look. There’s a banana,” Jack said, pointing vaguely upwards.
“I don’t see any banana, but I do see an elephant.”
“No, see, it’s right there. There’s the curvy part, and there’s the stem.”
“I still don’t see the banana, only an elephant.”
“It’s a banana!”
“Elephant!”
“Banana!”
And so on and so forth. After a while, they noticed the sun starting to go down and realized they had better hurry to get the water. Jill refused to stand up, saying she was still too tired from carrying the bucket all the way up the hill, so Jack was forced to be the one to draw the water. He set the bucket Jill had carried next to the well and he started cranking the winch next to him. Ugh, the bucket attached to the crank was incredibly heavy. You wouldn’t think that water weighed that much, but it definitely did. Jack would attest to that.
He finally got the bucket all the way up.
“Jill, I need your help now.” She didn’t move. “Jilllll!”
“Alright, fine.” She slowly made her way to standing and ambled her way over, making him hold the bucket still for as long as she could. He glared at her and she smiled back. She knew it was heavy. She grabbed the bucket and pulled it over to the edge.
“Ugh, why does water have to be so heavy? Why can’t it float?” She managed to get it far enough over and set it on the wall that surrounded the well. Both she and Jack bent over, wheezing for breath. Of course, they were both overreacting, but still, it was fairly hard work. When they decided they had had enough acting, Jack grabbed the empty bucket and Jill tipped the full one from the well so that it emptied into the other. After all, the bucket in the well was larger than the bucket they needed; they hardly ever needed that much water.
Once they had filled the bucket from the house, Jack dropped the other back down into the well. Jill had set the full bucket on the ground, acting as if she were completely drained of energy. Faker.
“So, since I did all the work with the water, you should carry the bucket back to the house,” Jack said, trying his best to be fair.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m too tired to carry it. You should do it,” Jill said lazily.
“That’s not fair!” Jack was getting indignant. He knew Jill was lazy, but still. She still had to do SOMEthing.
“Get over yourself.” Jill was feeling much too lazy to do much of anything. She was thinking about staying up here awhile longer, just to keep from having to walk down the hill.
“Fine. I’m just gonna take this back to the house and tell Mom you didn’t do any work at all. She’s definitely going to side with me this time,” Jack said, as he bent down and grabbed one edge of the bucket.
“No, don’t! I’ll do it!” Jill leapt to her feet and made a grab for the bucket.
Jack dodged the grab. “Nope, you’re too tired. I’m going to do it.”
“No, I’ll do it!” Jill made another grab, and this time she hooked her hands to the side of the bucket. They proceeded to play tug of war with the bucket while shouting back and forth, “I’ll do it!” “No I’ll do it!”
Finally, Jill didn’t feel like playing this anymore. She was so mad at Jack, she never wanted to see him ever again. “Fine,” she shouted, “Have your stupid bucket, you butt-kisser!” And with that, she gave the bucket a shove as she let go. What happened next was the kind of thing that happens only in the dreams of a small child growing up with older siblings.
Jack, who had also been pulling on the bucket, was unable to correct for the sudden change. The bucket, full of water, flipped up onto his head, where it emptied its contents. Jack also started falling backwards from the force of the shove and the lack of balance. He took a step or two to try and fix himself when he tripped over a rock. That was the point of no return. He fell backwards onto his head and ending up rolling every helter-skelter down the steep hill.
Jill was slightly worried about him. After all, that had looked like an awfully nasty fall. However, her laughter overpowered her worry. She couldn’t breathe, her eyes watered, she was bent over double, laughing hysterically. That was, without a doubt, the most hilarious thing she had ever seen. How she wished she had had a video camera!
Out of control with laughter, Jill started falling forward. Still in hysterics, she couldn’t do anything. She fell on her side and started rolling around. One roll took her too close to the edge and momentum took over. If Jack had been un-dazed enough to think, he should have taken the bucket off of his head. He would have found the picture of Jill rolling down the hill, hair everywhere, skirt flying every which way, and still laughing absolutely unbearable. He would have been in the same condition as Jill, except he was already at the bottom of the hill.
Jill’s landing at the bottom was a lot softer than Jack’s had been. Perhaps because she had landed on Jack. Jack was still wearing the bucket but was no longer woozy, and Jill had calmed down slightly, partly because her sides hurt. But just one look at each other, Jack with a bucket on his head, soaked through to the skin, and Jill with her hair tangled and leafy, red-faced and teary-eyed, was enough to send them both into hysterics.
As they sat there, laughing until tears streamed from their eyes, all prior arguments forgotten, Mother looked out the window to see where they had gotten off to. She shook her head at the scene and smiled to herself. Kids.
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