Two
After James Henry Trotter had been living with his aunts for three whole years there came a morningwhen something rather peculiar¹ happened to him. And this thing, which as I say was only ratherpeculiar, soon caused a second thing to happen which was very peculiar. And then the very peculiarthing, in its own turn, caused a really fantastically peculiar thing to occur.
It all started on a blazing hot day in the middle of summer. Aunt Sponge, Aunt Spiker and Jameswere all out in the garden. James had been put to work, as usual. This time he was chopping wood forthe kitchen stove. Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker were sitting comfortably in deck-chairs near by,sipping² tall glasses of fizzy lemonade and watching him to see that he didn’t stop work for onemoment.
Aunt Sponge was enormously fat and very short. She had small piggy eyes, a sunken mouth, and oneof those white flabby faces that looked exactly as though it had been boiled. She was like a great whitesoggy overboiled cabbage. Aunt Spiker, on the other hand, was lean and tall and bony, and she woresteel-rimmed spectacles that fixed³ on to the end of her nose with a clip. She had a screeching⁴ voice andlong wet narrow lips, and whenever she got angry or excited, little flecks⁵ of spit would come shootingout of her mouth as she talked. And there they sat, these two ghastly hags, sipping their drinks, andevery now and again screaming at James to chop faster and faster. They also talked about themselves,each one saying how beautiful she thought she was. AuntSponge had a long-handled mirror on her lap, and she kept picking it up and gazing at her own hideousface.
‘I look and smell,’ Aunt Sponge declared, ‘as lovely as a rose!
Just feast your eyes upon my face, observe my shapely nose!
Behold⁶ my heavenly silky locks!
And if I take off both my socks
You’ll see my dainty toes.’
‘But don’t forget,’ Aunt Spiker cried, ‘how much your tummy shows!’
Aunt Sponge went red. Aunt Spiker said, ‘My sweet, you cannot win,Behold MY gorgeous curvy shape, my teeth, my charm ing grin!

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