The twins planned to use the artwork to make money off their videos. They’d tried to set up a store using an online retailer that would use their uploaded art to create customized items, everything from posters to coffee cups. For a small percentage of the profit, YourStore would handle everything from creating the goods to mailing them out to customers. The twins had gotten all the artwork in place and the prices set. The last step, however, required that they provide bank account information. Their parents wouldn’t allow the use of their bank account, citing everything from possible identity theft to tax reporting. Their parents didn’t want to be held liable for some financial mess that YourStore might suck them into.
Since the twins couldn’t collect income, they’d assumed that the store never went live. Had the store been selling their stuff all this time?
“A Queen Soulful Ember poster?” Louise asked. “A Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo brand from YourStore?”
“Yes! You’re famous!” Iggy laughed. “Don’t tell me that you don’t socialize online, either.”
“We hang out at Sundance and Vimeo and Vicker.”
He cocked one eyebrow in puzzlement. “What are those?”
“Filmmaker sites.” They maintained gender- and age-neutral identities on the sites, posting so that no one would track the messages back to them. It was mostly because their parents were sure that they would be cyberstalked by dirty old men. Louise doubted that anyone would be interested in them, but the secrecy kept their parents from discovering their activities on questionable sites.
“So you’re totally unaware that there are kids in this school that can quote all of
“All of it?”
“They totally mess up the timing of the jokes, but yeah.”
The news went through the fifth grade like a virus, visibly moving from kid to kid. The students that had been told they were Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo
After the first bell, Louise had logged quickly into their store and checked their account balance.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Jillian leaned over and frowned at the screen. “What is that?”
“That’s what YourStore is waiting for us to claim. They’ve been selling our stuff. Lots of our stuff.”
Jillian slapped a hand over her mouth to smother a squeal.
“We still have to figure some way to claim it,” Louise said. “We need a bank account.”
“We’ll get Mom and Dad to set up an bank account for us. With that much money involved, they’d be crazy not to let us claim it!”
Louise squinted, trying to see the future events unfolding implied by the numbers on the screen. “I don’t think they’ll let us keep it.”
“Why not?” Jillian cried. “It’s ours! We earned it! It’s not like we can give it back, either.”
“I mean ‘keep it’ as ‘spend it the way
Jillian huffed as she grudgingly acknowledged that their parents would take control of the money. “A new playhouse at least would be cool.”
“We were saying we need a lot of money to save the babies.”
“This is not a million dollars. It’s not going to be a million dollars anytime soon. Besides, like Mom said, we can’t just pay for the babies to be born. They need a mom and dad and a place to live.”
Louise considered the possibility of using the money to talk their mom into having the babies. She was always snarling how she hated her boss. But she really did like her job, and knowing their mom, she’d feel as if she should quit working until the babies were in kindergarten. The money at YourStore seemed like a lot of money to them, but it didn’t equal their mother’s salary for four years.
“Think April would help us set up a bank account?” Jillian asked.
“No,” Louise said. Their mother’s work had made them aware of salaries and taxes. “If she did, this would look like taxable income for her. She would have to report it and pay taxes on it.”
Jillian frowned at the numbers. “I wish Alexander could help us. It must be great to be all grown up and have all this stupid kid stuff over with. I would love for once to be able to stay up as late as we want, to eat pizza every night for a week, and not have to clean our room all the time.”
Louise nodded. Claiming the money would be no problem for an adult.
“Oh! Oh!” Jillian cried and started to sort through data on her tablet. “We just need an adult’s Social Security number. Someone that doesn’t have to worry about added income. Esme is in another solar system. She doesn’t have to worry about filing taxes. We can use her number as the adult on our account.”
