Sunday Festive Shorts: The Double-Dip Horror

Sadly, despite what the title may imply, this story is not about evil sherbet (though I would totally read that). Instead, it's about identical twin sisters, Wynona and Rachel, who are working part-time at a ski lodge as instructors for a week. As 12 year olds do. However, the people who work there don't know that Wynona exists, and have never seen the 2 in the same room together, so they've formulated a plan too clever for standard humans to come up with: they take shifts being Rachel. Pretty much, one of them teaches the class for a bit as Rachel, while the other goes off skiing for a bit. And nobody's bothered to check? Also, they get an entire day of free skiing on the last day of the week, so the fact that there's 2 of you has messed that up. The plan works, because the staff have the collective intelligence of a lobtomised walnut. And nothing much happened, and the sun went down over the mountains. The end. Of course not; that'd be lame. I'd be very concerned if you fell for that. Anyway, the conflict of this story arises in the form of Bobby Judd, an annoying kid, but because Wynona and Rachel are under the age of 30, they actually see that he's an annyoing little (*the rest of this sentence has been removed by order of Charlie's parents*). He keeps bugging the girls for a private lesson. Then give him one, and he'll probably shut up!

The twins come up with a cunning plan. And by "cunning plan," I only mean that in the sense that Baldric would probably come up with it. They'll challenge Bobby to a race, and each time they pass him, they'll switch places, ensuring victory. Gripping. So, Bobby agrees, on the condition that they do it on the Double-Dip of dooooooooooom!!!!! I'm glad that I didn't suffix that with of doom! (*looks left*)(*whistles innocently*) It's apparently a black diamond course, whatever that means. Whichever one of the Rachels agrees, so off they go. The race starts, and Wynona waits for Bobby to show up, but he never does. Coward. She goes and finds Rachel, and they come up with their 3rd idea and 1st good one: go inquire as to Bobby's wearabouts. Meanwhile, Rachel waits on the slope. I'm pretty sure that they've won by default at this point.

So, Wynona asks the head instructor if she's seen Bobby. The instructor tells her that there is no Bobby. And nobody noticed? I think they've just downgraded from lobotomised walnut to lobotomised almond. Wynona describes Bobby, but his existence is still denied. In fact, the instructor tells her that Bobby was the son of some random lady called Mrs Voorhes, who drowned because all the counsellors were busy doing... you know a ski instructor, who ended up dying on a ski course. Mustn't have been a very good ski instructor. His ghost reportedly haunts the lodge and tricks kids into racing him. Why didn't you tell Rachel about this? Wynona panics and tells the instructor that her friend (Rachel) is up there, but the instructor tells her not to worry, since the ghost only tries to murder (this is a children's story, right?) identical twins. Bit specific, don't you think?

The Double-Dip Horror is... passable. I mean, the ending's pretty good, but the rest of the story's pretty boring. Pretty much, 7 or 8 pages are about 2 identical twin ski instructors commiting fraud in order to get free skiing time, and bbeing tormented by some kid. OK, the identical twins part is pretty cool, but as far as the rest of the story goes, it's pretty forgettable. However, I still think it's worth a read.