It forced researchers to become super-secret spy scientists that the twins parodied by making them ninjas in their videos. In every scene, they had one or more ninja anthropologists, sometimes well hidden, sometimes badly. It made every video an Easter egg hunt for scientists.
The true trigger for their videos was an “eyes only” paper on elf names and why they were taking English nicknames.
“When elves are born, they’re taken to Summer Court and the royal fortune-tellers give them these amazing, lyrical names with great deep meaning. Their real names are really like ‘Pavana Gali Vento Ceyandalo Nagi Taeli,’ which kind of means ‘bare branches swaying in night wind.’ There are rich layers of meaning to the entire name, since most of the words don’t really have matching English words. Like ‘Ceyandalo’ means the ‘alive but not in foliage’ kind of ‘bare,’ not the ‘naked’ kind of ‘bare.’ Then the word order is different, so the name really is ‘moving back and forth to brush dark hair, branches that are bare from winter, in the night wind.’ All the elves in Pittsburgh are Wind Clan, so their ‘last name’ is always some form of ‘wind.’ Humans, being humans, started to shorten the elves’ names, chopping off the wind part and such like. Since most humans didn’t understand the nuances of Elvish, they were really butchering names and pissing off the elves. Like they accidently called that elf ‘Hairbrush.’ The elves started taking English nicknames to stop that.”
Zahara giggled just like they had when they’d first read the paper. But then she gasped as she followed back the implication. “Wait. You mean there’s a real Hairbrush and Umbrella?”
“Kind of. Hairbrush actually uses the name ‘Winter’ and Umbrella is ‘Sunny.’”
“Really?” She laughed. “What about ‘Suppository’?”
“We made that one up.”
“Prince Yardstick?”
“That’s Viceroy Windwolf. His real name is Wolf Who Rules Wind. Ruler. One-third of a yardstick?”
Zahara giggled again. “That’s so funny. My sister loves Prince Windwolf. She’s got this poster of him on her wall. But she thinks Prince Yardstick is a stick-in-the-mud.”
Technically Windwolf wasn’t a prince even though he was a cousin to Queen Soulful Ember. All the reports on him stated that he was unflappable and resolute. The twins translated that into a character who was completely unfazed by the madness that they unleashed around him. Usually he didn’t appear until the video hit maximum insanity, which he would then view with mild confusion but utter calmness. Often he also was the person that put the world back in order — usually with a massive show of magic. She found it odd that anyone would consider him as dull, fussy, or old-fashioned. Maybe Zahara’s sister didn’t know what “stick-in-the-mud” really meant.
Mrs. Pondwater came to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. “Zahara, it’s your turn for photographs.”
“Come on.” Zahara hopped up. “You should try the makeup. It’s fun. And your parents will love the photos.”
Their mother would. Considering everything they’d been doing behind their parents’ backs, it would probably be good to do something nice for them. Scooping up the kitten, Louise let Zahara lead her back downstairs.
The makeup artist blinked at her in surprise. “Didn’t I. . oh, wow, your sister didn’t tell me she had a twin! She had me make her up as an elf princess.”
“She did?” Louise thought they were going to keep that secret.
“I have a whole box of these cool ear prosthetics.” The makeup artist held up ear tips. “Elfhome parties are very popular.”
Louise’s heart leapt in her chest and she blurted out, “Oh, yes, please,” before she even thought it out.
“Your sister is so cute and funny.” The artist tilted Louise’s head and painted something cool onto her ear tips.
“Yes, she is.” Louise felt the familiar uncomfortable twinge of envy. She couldn’t understand how it was that most people couldn’t tell them apart and yet it was always Jillian who was described as “cute.” What was it that made Jillian prettier? They had nearly the same hair — well, before Louise’s was burned off. Same shade of brown eyes. Same chin. “Can you make me just as cute?”
Thirty minutes later, Louise looked like an elf. The makeup girl somehow made her eyes appear very almond-shaped. The elf ears peeked out between hair extensions braided with ribbons and little silk flowers and pinned cleverly into Louise’s blast-shortened hair. She was dressed in a lovely copper lamé ball gown and had her face and bare shoulders dusted with glitter.
If she ignored how short she was, she looked completely like an elf.
There was the small matter that everyone else was probably made up to be a princess or a mermaid. At least, Jillian was also an elf — wherever she was. Louise hadn’t seen her twin since they’d arrived. Still carrying the purring kitten, Louise went in search of Jillian.
The rest of the party was down the hall, laughing and shrieking loudly. As Louise walked cautiously toward it, she realized she could hear Jillian’s voice slightly above the rest, quoting from their video, The Queen’s Pantaloons. Louise stopped at the doorway, surprised to find that Jillian was the center of attention. Obviously Jillian was using their fame to take over the party. Elle had a stone-hard smile locked into place even though her eyes stormed. All the other girls, though, were laughing as Jillian played the part of the clueless anthropologist, the extremely nearsighted Dr. Forthwright, the only non-ninja scientist from their videos.
“Such fancy needlework.” Jillian held up a facial tissue that was standing in for a lacy pair of oddly shaped underwear. The scene was based on odd wording used in academic papers to describe the elves’ method of dealing with no elastic or zippers to create clothing. “What do you suppose it is? A table doily? A handkerchief? It has such wonderful perfume.”
“The — the — the queen’s pantaloons!” Zahara was standing in as Hairbrush, who they often portrayed as a hapless victim of cultural misunderstandings. She always managed to say the worst possible thing and then react wildly to the resulting confusion.
“Pantaloons,” Jillian muttered as she mimed typing the word into a translator. “Pantaloons. Pan-ta-loons. Pan. Ta. Loons.” She paused, eyeing the tissue that was standing in for the lace panties. “Canadian water bird? No, I think not. Forgiveness. What are pantaloons?”
Zahara did a very good job of copying Hairbrush’s wild takes — that was half the humor of the scene. “Knickers. Drawers. Bloomers. Tanga.”
“Hmm, tanga.” Jillian consulted the nonexistent translator again. “Currency of Tajikistan. Ah, I see: it’s money. What’s the exchange rate?”
“Once per day?” Zahara sputtered out after a full minute of surprised and confused looks.
Jillian tossed up the tissue and the room burst into squeals of excitement. One girl after another snatched the white tissue out of the air and quoted a ninja anthropologist line and then tossed it up again. Not all the quips were from The Queen’s Pantaloons, displaying a slightly scary range of knowledge.
Elle’s smile started to tremble, and the anger in her eyes turned to hurt. It was her birthday party and she was about to cry.
Louise darted forward, caught the tissue, and tossed it to Elle. “The queen! The queen!”