The club

The twins have two neighbours whom they have literally grown up with. One is a year older and the other was in their kindy class and now is in the same school as Jordan. Sufficed to say, they are thick as thieves and are often up to no good. They also treat each others' home as their own and one has even stayed over even though her house is a corridor and a lift ride away.

Their new thing is the night walk. On Fridays, we bundle them all up into the car and set them free somewhere they can use their torches and come up with stories to scare each other with. Last time round it was a nearby park connector and last night, it was the Botanic Gardens.

What amuses us is how their play and interaction with each other has changed, Muffin included. Where it was once parallel play, their play is fully interactive, imaginary and plot based. And during last night's walk, the older four have decided that they all belonged to a club and part of what they did was to find 'suspicious' things during night walks.

When I overheard the hushed discussions about the club, the thought in my head was 'how they have grown up.' Some of my favourite books growing up were about children who had secret clubs with club houses and passwords. And now, the twins were old enough to form their own.

They haven't figured out the manifesto of the club but it does have a name; the Neighbour Adventurers. They have however decided that there shall be a club house, there will be a password and the club house will be a tent or made out of boxes. In the clubhouse, there will be games like Uno, chess, checkers and there will be tables and chairs. But that's about it. Whether they are going to solve mysteries or go on adventures or basically just be busy-bodies, we don't know yet.


Time to start them on Secret Seven, Famous Five, the Five Find-Outers among other books.