At breakfast, Johnny hurried through his poached sea-turtle eggs, salted fish and bread, and asked to be excused to go to the out-house. Milly was just about to put the dishes away when in came Johnny again, and asked for a second helping.
   ‘Why! You have a healthy appetite this morning!’
   ‘He’s a growing boy!’ said grandpa.
   That was the accepted explanation for the time being — even though no one had heard of a boy going into his growing stage actually doubling his appetite. Lunch tea and supper were the same. Of course, the pattern was always the same. First he’d have one helping, and then disappear behind the out-house, and then return for the second helping.
   Another pattern that seemed to be doubling were the reports of Johnny’s mischief.
   The first order on the Johnnies’ agenda was to forever silence the island tattle-tale. It seemed that everyone believed little Sally, and they rarely believed Johnny. Whenever Sally reported Johnny’s misdeeds to the proper parental authorities, Johnny invariably landed in the soup.
   That quickly came to a stop. The very next time that Sally came screaming that Johnny had grabbed her straw dolly and raced into the jungle, all the other children, and even one or two of the grown-ups gave assurance that it couldn’t have possibly been Johnny, as he had been right there with them all the time, playing marbles with the boys.
   ‘But aren’t you supposed to be filling the water pot?’ asked Grandpa.
   ‘The water pot’s full already, Grandpa,’ said Johnny.
   ‘So quickly?’ (In actual fact, Johnny hadn’t gone all the way to the pool to get the water, but only to the thicket about half way and traded buckets with the other Johnny, who went back and forth from the thicket to the pool.)
   After just a few more episodes like this, Sally’s credibility was completely shattered, and people simply stopped listening whenever she stamped her foot, crying, ‘It was Johnny! It was Johnny! I tell you it was...’
   Aside from that, Johnny was accumulating quite a collection of swords, coconut shell helmets, shields, horses and numerous other trinkets on wagers he was making with the other children.
   Sleeping was not as big a problem as one would have imagined, as Johnny had always thought it would be grand to sleep up in his secret hideout up on the ledge. This, they did, taking turns night after night. As it was the dry season, the weather presented no difficulty.
   Things would have probably gone well for the Johnnies for a little longer anyway, had it not been for the problem of school. The maxim, ‘two heads are better than one’, so recently discovered by the Johnnies, didn’t carry as far in the class room. The simple fact was, half a day of school didn’t produce a full head of knowledge.

‘Johnny!’ Miss Greschen, the teacher said one afternoon, ‘How many times have I told you not to wear that hat in here?’
   ‘But you haven’t told me at all, Miss Grissel.’
   ‘I told you three times this morning before lunch!’
   ‘You did?’ said Johnny, bewildered.
   ‘Well! Your memory is getting as bad as your father’s! Okay, what year did William the Conqueror fight the Battle of Hastings?’
   ‘I don’t know.’
   ‘You don’t know!’ scolded Miss Greschen. ‘Your memory is bad! Why, this morning you were repeating it more loudly than the rest! Class?’
   ‘Ten-sixty-six!’ said the class.
   ‘Johnny, you will stay after school and write twenty times, "The Battle of Hastings was ten-sixty-six."’
   ‘Yes, Miss Grissel.’
   ‘Why are you calling me "Miss Grissel"?’
   ‘Because you are Miss Grissel,’ said Johnny.
   ‘Grissel was my sister who died in the shipwreck.’
   ‘But you said your sister who died in the shipwreck was named Greschen!’
   ‘Hiiii! Johnny! What’s happened to your mind? What’s Billy’s father’s name?’
   ‘Thurston.’
   ‘And I suppose Bertram died in the shipwreck?’
   ‘Yes Miss Grissel — er — Miss...’
   ‘My daddy did not die in the shipwreck!’ cried Billy. ‘That was my uncle Thurston!’
   ‘And what’s Joey’s mother’s and father’s name?’ continued Miss Greschen.
   ‘Mildred and Alex?’ said Johnny weakly.
   After an uproarious afternoon, Johnny had not only to write the year of the Battle of Hastings, but the name of his teacher and all his friend’s parents. Then, he went to find the other Johnny and demanded to know the names of everyone on the island. The other Johnny’s answer confirmed the names given them by the teacher.
   The other Johnny — the confused one — only became redder and redder. Having another of himself had been rather a novelty, but having his whole perception of things changed like this was becoming a trifle tiresome.
   ‘Okay, what’s Grandpa and Grandma’s names?’
   ‘Thomas and Jill.’
   ‘No it isn’t! It’s Timothy and Julia!’ Here, he felt more at liberty to make an argument.
   ‘Timothy and Julia drowned in the sea! Thomas and Jill are our grandpa and grandma!’
   The Johnnies weren’t exactly in their hideout — just out of sight of most of the others. That is to say, all except little Sally.
   First, she had simply heard Johnny’s voice, and decided it best to go somewhere else, lest he terrorise her again, only to appear in the presence of witnesses who would confirmed that he had not, in fact, terrorised her.
   But she stopped. ‘Who’s he shouting at?’ she wondered. ‘The other voice also sounds like Johnny!’
   She just had to take a peep around the other side of the bush. What she saw almost made her eyes pop out. Immediately, she turned tale and went running towards the huts.
   ‘Mummy! Daddy! Uncle Philip! Joey! Grandpa! There’s two Johnnies! I saw them! There’s two Johnnies!’
   After all the to-do about Johnny-this and Johnny-that, most of the islanders were inclined to believe that little Sally was entering into a difficult stage of her childhood, if not a little bit off her bean.
   ‘That would make a bit of sense, though, wouldn’t it,’ said Joey to Billy.
   ‘What would?’
   ‘Two Johnnies.’
   ‘Two Johnnies makes sense?’
   ‘Well, that’s the only part about it that doesn’t make much sense — the part about there being two of one boy, but...’
   ‘You’re bonkers!’ said Billy.
   ‘But look at Sally! She’s never been such a liar before all this, and she says it like she really saw something.’
   ‘She’s just crazy. That’s all.’
   ‘Well, but, then there’s Johnny,’ Joey went on. ‘Winning all these races! Stuff that — if you really think about it — I mean, how can anyone run around the East side of the mountain and climb up to the pool in five minutes?’
   ‘Johnny did it, didn’t he?’
   ‘But I tried it, and it just can’t be done! And I’m a faster runner than Johnny! Now, if there were two Johnnies...’

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