Everyone in Chanceville knew The Blind Poodle sisters, Annette and Babette and didn’t pay much attention to their eccentricities, but Alpaca Finn was fascinated with them when they came into the Lovely Locks Beauty Salon. They came in all cheery and laughing; honking the bicycle horns attached to their white canes and announcing loudly that the Blind Poodle sisters had arrived, as if people didn’t recognize them.
Their big brown eyes, longish noses, and curly blonde hair did not make them look unlike the canine whose name they bore. Alpaca, who never missed a detail, noticed a little blond fuzz above each of their upper lips. Linda Lou had put Alpaca under the dryer and she and Misty Mae quickly went to work on Annette and Babette respectively. The sisters simultaneously crooked their index fingers and had Misty Mae and Linda Lou bend down as they whispered in their hairdressers’ ears. Alpaca was certain she was missing out on some juicy gossip, which her own canine-like hearing would certainly have been able to pick up if not for that noisy hair dryer.
The sisters’ hair just needed a quick trim and they had gone on their merry way, arm-in-arm, by the time Alpaca got out from under the dryer.
It was a real scorcher out and the twins wore, to Alpaca’s mind, extremely skimpy sundresses, much too risqué for ladies who appeared to be in their mid-forties.
“Um, Linda Lou, who were those two women and who on earth dresses them?” asked Alpaca.
Annette’s dress was made of a print of giant sunflowers and Babette’s was of giant roses. They wore multiple strands of bright plastic beads and big hoop earrings and to Alpaca’s utter horror; the twin’s legs were bare and quite hairy.
“Those were the Blind Poodle sisters,” said Linda Lou. “They’ve been blind since they were ten and they can still remember how they loved bright colors, so they have their maid, Poppy, buy the loudest, most garish clothes and accessories she can find. They like to make a statement.”
“They certainly do that”, said Alpaca. “They actually have a maid?”
“Oh, yes. Their daddy, Melvin Poodle, everyone called him Muddy, was the richest man in Chanceville. He owned Poodle’s Pie Factory and Poodle’s Five and Dime. Their mama believed twins were unlucky and she ran away with a handsome traveling preacher right after the twins were born. Muddy never remarried so Annette and Babette were his only children and Daddy left them a bundle. I guess he’s been gone about six years now. They live in that big brick mansion on the corner of Main Avenue and Main Street, across the street from where the church used to be,” said Linda Lou. “You know, the one with the twin poodle statues on the front porch.”
“I could hardly miss it. Those statues are pink!” said Alpaca, shaking her head.
Linda Lou poked Alpaca in the back of the head with her comb and told her to hold still.
“Every time I walk by there, it looks like there’s a party going on,” Alpaca added.
“Muddy Poodle, wasn’t in the family mausoleum a day, before the twins made Bunny paint those statues,” Linda Lou explained. “Muddy would have had a fit. He sent all the way to Paris, France for those statues. He kept a tight rein on his daughters, what with them being blind and all, always worrying hisself silly over them girls. They didn’t waste any time kickin’ up their heels after Muddy passed.”
“I noticed they were bare legged and um, not exactly well groomed in the leg and underarm department,” said Alpaca.
“Oh, they like to be au natural, if you know what I mean”, said Linda Lou winking.
“You mean, they don’t wear undergar..?”
“Not a stitch!” said Linda Lou.
