Secret Santa Surprise: Book 29 in the Kindred Tales Series - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,56

Aunt Marge demanded.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Strong nodded at her.

“And he won’t be back,” Clear added.

“That’s good.” She gave them both a smile of approval. “He never did treat Melly right. She ought to be treated like a queen.”

“She will be,” Strong assured her. He gave Melanie a significant look. “If she wants to be, she’ll be treated like a queen the rest of her life.”

Melanie wasn’t sure what to say to that, especially when she saw that Clear was giving her the same look. She took another bite of green bean casserole and the conversation moved on, though her heart kept pounding.

After the Christmas feast, the twins helped clean up and then they all gathered around the Christmas tree.

“We hope you don’t mind, but we have some presents for you both,” Clear said, nodding at Aunt Marge and Melanie. He picked up a brightly wrapped package and handed it to Aunt Marge. “For you, kin of our female.”

“For me?” Aunt Marge’s wrinkled face broke into a wide smile that showed every one of her false teeth. “You shouldn’t have!” But she was already tearing into the wrapping as she spoke.

Inside was what looked like a stack of multicolored bowls in red, yellow, green, orange, pink, and blue. The bowls were small and held together by thin, silver, mechanical arms.

“Eh?” Aunt Marge frowned at the stack. “What’s this, then?”

“Put it down on the floor and see.” Strong’s dark blue eyes were sparkling and Clear was smiling widely.

Aunt Marge did as they said, placing the stack of bowls down on the floor in front of her.

At once, the bowls began unstacking themselves lengthwise, until at last there were fifteen of them laid out neatly in a long row among the wrapping paper. Then, to Melanie’s surprise, a tiny opening appeared at the top rim of each bowl and about half a teaspoonful of tiny, hard brown specks tinkled down into the bottom of each one.

“What—?” she began but Strong held up a hand.

“Wait—it’s not finished yet.”

As Melanie watched, another pinhole-sized opening appeared at the top of the bowls and a trickle of water ran into each one. As soon as the water touched them, the tiny brown granules began to grow and swell until each bowl held a very respectable amount of what appeared to be pet food.

Aunt Marge’s cats noticed at once and came, mewing, from every direction to dine on the impromptu Christmas feast.

“That’s amazing!” Aunt Marge’s eyes were wide. “What in tarnation is it?”

“This is a self-filling, self-cleaning pet bowl set,” Clear explained. “I filled it with a year’s worth of feline mix that’s specially nutritionally formulated to keep cats of all ages healthy.”

“You say it’s self-cleaning too?” Aunt Marge demanded.

“Just watch.” Strong pointed to the last two bowls on the right side, which had already been cleaned out by two of Aunt Marge’s fatter cats—a tabby named Sylvester and a Norwegian Forest cat by the name of Mr. Flufferpants.

As they watched, more water ran into the bowls and washed away all the crumbs. Then they stacked themselves together again, the silver mechanical arms lifting the first bowl to nestle it into the second. As the cats finished their food, the other bowls did the same. Any food left in the bottom of the dishes was instantly dehydrated and sucked in the form of tiny granules back into the bottom of the bowl for later use.

“As you can see, none of it goes to waste,” Clear explained as the last of the bowls stacked themselves, resulting in a single, colorful stack again.

“Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” Aunt Marge breathed.

Strong frowned.

“You will?”

“How can you be the male relative of a primate?” Clear asked, also frowning in confusion.

Melanie laughed.

“It’s an Earth saying, you guys. I think Aunt Marge is just overwhelmed by your present.”

“Overwhelmed? Why, I’m amazed!” the old lady cried. “Do you know how much my back pains me when I’m bending over all the time, feeding these ungrateful critters?” she demanded, looking at Melanie. “And those big bags of cat food aren’t easy to lift, neither! Or cheap! And now your two new fellas have solved all my problems at once!” She gestured to Clear and Strong. “You two come here right now and let me give you a hug! I just don’t know what to say, I’m so happy!”

Both the twins hugged the old lady gently and Melanie felt another warm glow in her heart. Steve had never touched her aunt if he could help it—he didn’t even