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A CIP catalogue record for the print edition is available from the British Library

All correspondence to:
RHCP Digital
Penguin Random House Children’s
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL

About the Book

Hi, I’m Sam. I like being a twin, cheese sandwiches, our dog Surprise and being a secret comic-drawing superhero. I do not like hummus – or heights.

I’m Sammie. I like being a twin too, but I don’t like secrets or new girl Emily’s best-friend-stealing ways. I also don’t like it when people don’t realize that I am obviously, definitely, the Best Twin.

About the Author

Susie Day grew up in Penarth, Wales, with a lisp and a really unfortunate choice of first name.

She has had lots of jobs, including guiding tourists and professional nappy-changing – but she always wanted to be a writer. Her first book, Whump! in which Bill falls 632 miles down a manhole, won the BBC Talent Children’s fiction prize, and was published in 2004.

Susie now lives in Oxford, England, and eats a lot of cake and drinks a lot of tea.

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Sam pulled on his spider-web socks and his spider-web hat, and hurried downstairs to the kitchen.

‘Yes, Sam, this is exactly the outfit I’ve chosen to wear out of the house,’ said Mum K dryly, pointing to the soggy towel wrapped around her head.

‘Haircuts, then cinema,’ said Mum Gen, steering Sam towards a kitchen chair beside his sister.

‘No!’ she yelled, folding her arms and hunching up her shoulders. ‘It’s my hair on my head and you can’t make me chop it off! My hair has human rights.’

‘I’m not at all sure it does,’ said Mum Gen, flexing the scissors doubtfully.

Sam tugged a bit of his fringe, where it flopped into his eyes. ‘Hmm. It is alive.’

Mum K scratched at her towel. ‘Your argument would be more persuasive if you hadn’t quite cheerfully dyed the dog green last week, Sam.’

Surprise dribbled on his fuzzy blanket-bed by way of protest. (He’d been washed six times, but still looked vaguely mouldy.)

‘I’m not Sam, I’m Sammie!’ Sammie shouted, scrunching down even further in her chair.

The Paget-Skidelskys were two mums, two Sams and a puppy – or they had been until four weeks ago. Sammie had been Sam too – or Sam Two – for eleven years, until she loudly declared herself Samara, then Samanda, briefly Jennifer-Jo, and finally Sammie, in a permanent, written-on-the-register way. Mum Gen said it was a natural evolution, like a tadpole to a frog.

Sam wasn’t going to bother with it. Everyone already liked him just the way he was.

‘That’s dog hair. Dog hair doesn’t have human rights,’ Sammie continued, ducking away as Mum Gen attempted to sneak up on her with a comb.

‘Aha – but should it?’ Mum K leaned in close. ‘Does it have dogs’ rights? Is it a human right to have more rights than a dog?’

Mum Gen groaned. ‘I can’t do philosophy and haircuts on a Sunday morning. Please, pick one, or we will never get out of the house.’

Soon, Sam’s once-living floppy hair was in tragic dead bits all over the kitchen floor.

‘But you’ve always had the same haircut,’ said Mum Gen, frowning as she looked from twin to twin.

This was true. The Sams were not identical – boy-girl twins never are – but that hadn’t ever stopped people from mixing them up. There were photographs dotted all around the house: two matching figures in stripy tops and jeans, with narrow freckly faces and floppy brown hair that turned curly at the tips of the ears.

But now Sammie’s hair was swept across her forehead into a clip with a banana on it, the rest long enough to tuck behind her ears and tickle her collar – while Sam’s was, by the looks of it, mostly on the kitchen floor.

‘Appalling,’ she said, resting her soggy-towelled head on Mum Gen’s shoulder. ‘When did our babies turn into such decrepit grown-ups, eh?’

‘We’re eleven, you weirdo,’ said Sammie. ‘You want to get new glasses.’

Sammie rolled her eyes. ‘Mum K, I’m sorry for calling you a weirdo,’ she said, in a dreary sing-song voice. ‘This was wrong because I’m not meant to say things like that, even if they are undeniably true because of . . . reasons. In future, I will only call you a weirdo when you aren’t here.’

This was known as Sampologizing, and usually resulted in long dull arguments that Sam didn’t listen to – but apparently Mum Gen was too distracted now to bother.

‘You don’t mind not having the same hair, Sam?’ asked Mum Gen in her Professionally Gentle voice, resting one hand on his shoulder. ‘I think it might be a twin’s right to mind.’

When she wasn’t being their mum/hairdresser, Mum Gen was Dr Paget: Child Psychologist and Family Therapist. She listened to unhappy people on velvety golden sofas in their front room, deploying the Professionally Gentle voice until they stopped being unhappy. Every now and then she forgot to turn it off.

Sam liked the Professionally Gentle voice. He felt like a rabbit having its ears stroked.

‘I don’t care about hair,’ he said, ‘so long as no one tries to put any bananas in mine.’

Sam cared about Spider-Man 5, which was starting in twenty-eight minutes. And they had to leave time for buying popcorn.

‘Fine!’ said Mum Gen, dropping the scissors in defeat. ‘Your hair has rights, Sammie. At least it does this morning.’

‘Ha!’ Sammie hopped off the chair with a smirk, and prodded Mum K’s elbow. ‘I’m just being helpful, giving you more fascinating things about me to put in your book.’

When she wasn’t being their other mum, Dr Skidelsky was also a Child Psychologist and Family Therapist – but the sort without a golden sofa. She mostly wore superhero T-shirts and jeans, but underneath she was terribly serious and clever. Ever since the Sams were small, she’d spent weekdays in Edinburgh, teaching at the university and researching her book: an important-sounding one about having two children named Sam. (‘Sammie’ was a rather unwelcome development; it meant adding a whole new chapter.) Every Sunday evening they used to wave her off as she headed for King’s Cross station and the sleeper train, and not see her again until Friday.

But not any more. Now that she was ready to write the book, she was going to stay in London all week too. Tomorrow they would begin the New Routine, and be two mums, two Sams and a puppy all the time.

Ten minutes later they were striding through the park towards the Lexi Cinema, Mum K now with bright blue streaks in her hair like a mad badger.

Sundays were Paget-Skidelsky Family Days Out. After Mum Gen got home from church, they would head off together for important bonding and arguments, within a strict monthly budget. On Sam’s turn to pick, it was always the Science Museum or the cinema. The Science Museum had rockets and actual real astronaut gloves, and upstairs you could try on actual real spacesuits and have your picture taken (Sam had three already) – and once they’d stayed in the shop so long the security guards had begun to shut the doors and they were almost locked in all night, to sleep under the big white rocket and the endless bouncing light of the huge energy wheel . . .

Spidey spun and bounced and heroically saved multiple humans, a herd of cows and a pretty girl. (His mums grumbled at that bit – ‘She could have done that herself!’) He swung off high buildings without a care. He was basically Samazing.

He was Co-Creator and Head Illustrator of The Continuing Adventures of Captain Samazing – his own invented comic for only certain people to see. Captain Samazing looked a tiny bit like Buzz Lightyear, but mostly like Sam. Only wider. And made of pencil. And in space. Captain Samazing didn’t have superpowers, but he had a spaceship (the Pocket Rocket) and a sidekick called Pointy to help his endless battle with intergalactic squids, and one day someone was going to make films based on his comics too, definitely.

That night, after dinner, instead of Mum K hauling her wheelie suitcase down the road and vanishing for another week as usual, she joined Sam and Mum Gen in their traditional Sunday night spot, to watch Tiny Robot Unicorn Friends.

There were only two squashy bean-bag chairs tucked into the kitchen corner by the little TV, so Sam sat on a cushion, resting against Mum Gen’s knees. Sammie eyed the scene suspiciously, then squeezed in too in front of Mum K.

‘What is this?’ said Mum K, wrinkling her nose as the first unicorn powered across the screen on pneumatic hooves.

‘Only the best TV show in the universe, Kara,’ said Mum Gen. ‘Now shush. No talking during Unicorn Hour.’

Mum K ignored her entirely, and kept loudly whispering, ‘Who’s she?’ and ‘How did they get over there?’ and ‘Oh, that’s clever, that’s an homage to Battleship Potemkin, did you know that?’ – until Mum Gen put a hand over her mouth. After that she stayed quiet, apart from the occasional stifled chuckle.

That night Sam went to sleep wearing his spider-web socks, the Tiny Robot Unicorn Friends theme song playing in his head.

Sammie whittled the end of her javelin into the sharpest point the bread knife could manage, arched her back and let fly.

The javelin (it was the white plastic pole of a patio umbrella really, with the flowery shade snapped off) sailed high into the Monday morning blue sky, over the rusty monkey bars at the bottom of the garden, over the target swinging on the door of the shed, and over the back wall. She watched it drop out of sight. Far in the distance came the happy tinkle of breaking glass.

It wasn’t her fault she’d missed. She’d asked for a proper javelin for her birthday last week, and a proper javelin would’ve hit that swinging target square in the face. (The target was a squashy old pillow with a girl drawn on it: blue-eyed and swishy-haired, with pale pink spectacles and two big dots for nostrils; the sort of face that deserved a good javelining.) She’d asked for a proper penknife too, because it was hard to whittle the end off a not-javelin (this one was a broom handle) with a bread knife without stabbing yourself in the leg a bit. But no, it was all school supplies and book tokens and, mortifyingly, from Granny Freya, a bra.

The only consolation was that Granny Freya always gave the Sams matching presents – Twins ought to look like twins, don’t you think? – and Sammie had the pleasure of watching Sam nervously pick up his own squashy parcel and reluctantly peel back the sticky tape to unwrap it.

Emily Roche didn’t have a bra. Emily Roche, with her swishy hair and her pale pink spectacles and her stealing-Sammie’s-chair-next-to-Reema-at-school. Emily was like a doll: neat, dainty; her head would come off with a satisfying pop if you pulled her hair hard enough, probably.

Confusingly, Sammie felt fairly certain that, while having a bra for your birthday was criminally grim, not having a bra ought to be worse, because bras were old and old was best. (She was nine minutes older than Sam, which was why she was so totally definitely the Best Twin.) So when Emily Roche had watched her changing for PE, and saw her stretchy cotton strawberry print, and whispered to Reema behind her little doll’s hand – whispered and giggled as if Sammie was doing something wrong, as if Sammie was breaking some secret Class Six rule that no one had mentioned – well, that wasn’t fair at all.

Sammie weighed the broom handle in her palm, finding the balance, then drew her arm back and hurled it as hard as she could.

Plop, went the javelin, arcing high then driving hard into the middle of the lawn. It quivered, then toppled over, uprooting a big chunk of grass.

Sammie glared at the innocent, unstabbed face on the pillow. Maybe she should’ve asked for a bow and arrows for her birthday. Anyone would want to be best friends with a girl who had a bow and arrows.

Sammie shaded her eyes against the morning sun and peered up. Through the little window on the landing she saw a sudden white blur, and there was another loud thwump! – this time followed by a high-pitched whine of pain.

Sammie sprinted through the back door and hurtled up the stairs – to find two dusty cardboard boxes on the landing, one of which had split open on hitting the carpet and spewed forth piles of typed white paper. Beside it, her brother was already clutching a whimpering, wriggling Surprise tightly in his arms.

‘He’s all right,’ Sam promised, catching her eye. ‘Just a bit spooked.’

‘Did nasty Mum K drop a box on your head?’ crooned Sammie, giving Surprise’s green-tinged ears a comforting ruffle.

Surprise dribbled mournfully all over her wrist. (He was still a puppy really; a teething one who left trails of dribble, chewed things and the occasional tooth in his wake – which made a nice change from puddles of wee, according to Mum Gen, and didn’t, according to Mum K.)

‘I told the ridiculous animal to get out of the way!’ came Mum K’s voice, crossly floating down from the attic above.

Mum Gen stepped out of their bedroom, pinning her wispy brown hair up into a sort of knot and staring unhappily at the mess. ‘Do you have to start hurling boxes around now?’ she called up. ‘You have remembered you’re taking the twins to school? And usually I feed them before that happens. Sammie – is that blood on your leg?!’

‘Only a bit. What are you doing?’ Sammie clanked steadily up the ladder, and swung her slightly stabbed leg over the lip of the trapdoor and into the attic.

It was a gloomy room, with one small slanted window set into the slope of the roof at the front, and a single bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Stacked high in every corner was the usual grimy clutter: old lampshades, suitcases, a tartan picnic blanket; multiple cardboard boxes, labelled SAMS: 18–24 MONTHS and LANG. DEV’MENT: NOTES; and, covered in cobwebs, some actually important stuff.

‘Lego pirate ship!’ Sammie recognized the twisty palm tree at once, and dragged the box out under the light bulb to root through all the bits of boat and tiny plastic swords. Sam had wanted space Lego that year, but she’d sat on him until he wrote a new letter to Father Christmas, declaring his sudden change of allegiance. She slotted a cannonball into the cannon, and leaned over the edge, aiming carefully.

Sam slipped Surprise off his lap and gripped the ladder. He put one foot on the first rung, and tentatively climbed up to rung number four.

Then he shut his eyes and climbed straight back down, and in a rather pale voice said he would much prefer to stay right where he was and look after the dog, just in case, thank you very much.

Under the pirate ship was more ancient treasure: a telephone on wheels, some rubbishy drawings Sam had done (aged five, according to his wonky handwriting), and a grubby plastic rabbit whose ears moved up and down and made a carrot go in and out of its mouth. It made a horrible grinding noise and played a plinky tune as it did so. Sammie didn’t remember it at all, and threw it down with all Mum K’s rubbish.

Mum Gen picked it up with a misty smile. ‘Whirry Bunny,’ she sighed. ‘This used to be in your cot when you were tiny—’

Mum K stamped her foot. ‘No! This is a clear-out. That means throwing things away, not cooing at them and then putting them back!’

‘But,’ said Sammie, grabbing the pirate ship and clutching it to her chest, ‘not the pirate ship. And look – that’s my shell collection. And the doll’s house that Big Uncle Boris made. You can’t chuck them out. That’s like our whole actual childhood.’

Mum Gen put her hands on her hips. ‘See? I’m trying to protect our children’s beloved possessions!’

Mum K glared. ‘No you’re not, you’re being a weird hoarder who can’t bear to throw anything away – which is why this attic is so full of junk.’

‘It’s not junk!’ said Sammie. ‘We might change our minds and want to play with it again.’

You were allowed to still like Lego, even when people gave you a bra for your birthday.

‘It’s not only their things, Kara dear,’ said Mum Gen, toeing the fallen pile of paper meaningfully.

‘At least my book notes are useful, but I’m clearing those out too. Once they’re all in the book, off to the recycling with the lot.’

Mum K scooped up a box marked TWIN STUDIES, and clanked down the ladder with it tucked under her arm.

Sammie knelt, carefully placing the pirate ship on one side and pulling out another smaller box. It was full of photographs – two small Sams on a beach, both buried up to their necks in sand; two bigger Sams dressed as two halves of a pumpkin for Halloween; baby Sams, one crooked in the arms of each mum – along with a notebook, Sam and Sam: First Words lovingly written on the cover, and a hand-drawn card, rather scribbled, with HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY in crayon, the apostrophe underlined twice.

Sammie stuck her head out of the trapdoor. ‘Is she really going to throw us away?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Mum K, at exactly the same time. She gave Mum Gen a stern look. ‘Come on, we agreed. We need a clear-out. A proper one.’

Mum Gen and Mum K grinned at one another, at exactly the same time: one of those secret-sharing grown-up smiles.

‘Oi!’ yelled Sammie. ‘You’re not allowed to have secrets! House rules!’

Mum K was a firm believer in treating children like adults – which meant no secrets, no vague promises to do something ‘one day’ when really that meant ‘no’, and no kind pretending that Pogle the hamster had gone to sleep; no, Pogle was stiff and cold and buried in the garden in a Carr’s Table Water biscuits box. Mum Gen, meanwhile, was an equally firm believer in hamster heaven.

Mum Gen tapped the side of her nose, smiling annoyingly – until the doorbell rang and made her jump.

And she hurried off to welcome Mr and Mrs Stravinksi (marital strife) onto the golden sofa.

‘That’s not what that question means,’ whispered Nishat, walking round the Otters table to collect up the homework.

Sam frowned. It had seemed a bit odd. In fact, the whole Treetops Homework Quiz had seemed a bit odd. Miss Townie already knew how much he liked cheese sandwiches; she was that sort of teacher. And what was a Treetops Homework Quiz anyway?

‘Nothing,’ said Nishat very quickly, keeping her own homework clamped tightly to her chest.

Sam fetched his Stranger Danger poster out of his tray. It was last week’s art project, but Miss Townie said Sam could have extra time to finish due to his ‘lovely attention to detail’. On Sam’s Stranger Danger poster, Captain Samazing was rescuing a little girl from a Terrible Kidnapper. Or he would be, once Sam had added that bit; at the moment it was mostly squids, tiny robot unicorns, etc.

Gradually Class Six filled up: the Otters table, Sharks, Sticklebacks, Dragonflies and Herons. (The Sharks were the Natterjack Toads table really. But when Sammie had written SHARK NOM-NOM-NOM and drawn a big toothy shark eating the Natterjack Toad on their table name instead, Miss Townie said it was ‘a valuable learning opportunity’ and made her teach everyone why Sharks do not live in Streams & Rivers. After that it had sort of stuck.)

Sam felt a strange hush of excitement in the air while Miss Townie took the register.

‘Who did you put as your best friends?’ whispered Nishat across the Otters table, anxiously eyeing the crumply pile of homework on Miss Townie’s desk.

‘And I put Luanna-Bella and Justina and Reema and Emily, in case there are six people sharing each room. Just to be definitely sure we won’t be with—’

Sam was quite busy drawing the Terrible Kidnapper’s hat, but he noticed them shooting the Sharks table a wary look, then looking apologetically back at him.

Also by Susie Day

About the Book

About the Author

Your story starts here …

It all started with a scarecrow …