Moments after the twins’ birth, Fox had given Fibber a black eye for being born three minutes sooner than her and that was to set the tone for the rivalry to come. When they were barely a year old, Fibber knocked over Fox’s crib back in Bickery Towers when his parents weren’t looking. Fox then retaliated by biting the head off Fibber’s favourite teddy and Fibber had fought back by flicking the brake off Fox’s pram the next day which very nearly sent his sister hurtling under a lorry racing down their street.
The Petty-Squabble parents delighted in these feuds and even named their children in such a way as to heighten the sense of conflict: Fibber because they hoped he’d turn out to be a brilliant liar (which he did) and Fox because they hoped she’d turn out to be as sly as the animal itself (which she didn’t, because being impulsive makes it near impossible to be sly). So this sibling rivalry, fuelled by their parents, went on – through early childhood, nursery and school – reaching a peak a few months ago when Fibber tricked Fox into flushing her homework down the loo, causing Fox to dangle her brother by his ankles from a fifth-floor window in Bickery Towers (to the cheers of their parents down below).
But Fox was uneasy. Since the dangling incident, Fibber hadn’t tricked or cheated or – his favourite – lied to his parents to get his sister into trouble. For months, she had waited for her brother to fight back, but instead Fibber had remained uncharacteristically quiet and thoughtful. So now, as they sat together in the hotel suite booked by their parents, Fox watched him with narrowed eyes. He was sitting in an armchair opposite her, his briefcase parked by his feet and a pad of paper open on his lap. Fox craned her neck to see what he was up to, but he inched his pad higher to shield the page from her.
Fox plucked at her plait. ‘What are you scribbling about?’
Fibber didn’t look up. He didn’t stop writing either. Fox was used to her brother’s calm, collected manner when he was stamping all over other people’s feelings, but she had always found it easy to bait Fibber into bickering with her when it was just the two of them alone together. These new-found silences were starting to unnerve her because Petty-Squabbles who were silent were usually plotting something. Like the aforementioned Great Uncle Rudolph who apparently hadn’t said a word for forty-three years, then announced he was digging a tunnel from Munich to London so that he could kidnap the Queen and hold her hostage for an unreasonable sum of money. Great Uncle Rudolph had got as far as Poland before realising he had been digging in the wrong direction; he was then silent for another forty-three years, for different reasons.
Fox tried to conjure up some mutinous money-making thoughts of her own, but she couldn’t help feeling that kidnaps, robberies and large-scale revolutions might be more effective when performed with other people. And Fox was very much a solo act, both at school (where avoiding being stamped on meant insulting classmates and teachers on a daily basis) and at home (where conversations were limited to business, smiling was frowned upon and hugging was completely out of the question).
Fox pulled off her tie, wedged it down the side of the sofa, then looked across at her brother again. ‘You’re working on the Petty Pampering business plan, aren’t you?’
There was an edge to her voice now because she knew that if Fibber was putting in the hours attempting to rebrand the Petty Pampering products, it meant she should be doing the same for Squabble Sauces. The twins knew that both companies were based on lies, but there was too much at stake to start messing around with the truth. Customers had slowly but surely been starting to realise they’d been duped and now profits were falling and contracts were being dropped, which was why the twins spent every holiday traipsing round luxury hotels while their parents tried to persuade the spas and restaurants to stock their products.
But Fox and Fibber weren’t brought along on these trips because Gertrude and Bernard couldn’t bear to be parted from their children. Oh, no. They were here to work. Their parents had cornered them at the end of Year One and informed the twins that only one of them would inherit the Petty-Squabble empire; if Fox came up with a way to save Squabble Sauces, it would be her, but if Fibber swept in and rescued Petty Pampering first it would be him. So, just like that, the rivalry between the siblings deepened.
And Gertrude and Bernard didn’t stop there. To spur Fox on to recover the family fortune as quickly as possible, her parents frequently told her that Fibber’s cunning lies would, eventually, be the key to his success. While at the same time (unbeknown to Fox) her parents goaded Fibber into believing that Fox really was sly enough to rebuild the Petty-Squabble empire without him even noticing and would push him out in the process. This meant that the twins were always jealous of each other and constantly convinced that their parents loved one more than the other. So they had grown up in the firm and somewhat terrifying knowledge that they were rivals, not siblings.
In truth, Gertrude and Bernard didn’t care which child saved the family fortune. The only reason they had had children in the first place was in the hope that one of them might eventually make them lots of cash. Indeed, when Fox had asked her father what would happen to the child who didn’t inherit the Petty-Squabble empire, his response – They will be packaged up, posted somewhere very far away, like Antarctica, and politely wished all the very best – had not been altogether reassuring.
Fox reached inside
