Bowled Over by "The Twins at St. Clares"

I was bowled over by Enid Blyton’s The Twins at St Clares. I was about 9 or 10. I desperately wanted to be a twin and desperately wanted to go to boarding school. Neither were possible. I also wanted to have midnight feasts and lots of friends. So, a couple of times a week, I climbed out of my bedroom window and, with money filched from my mother’s purse, bought my own midnight feast from the milk bar two doors down from us in Nicholson Street North Carlton. I sat in bed eating my chocolate coated ice-cream bar and my two chocolate frogs, talking to a group of imaginary friends who, mostly, agreed with what I was saying.

-From “Books that have had an impact on me”, The Age (Australia) 2008