Sworn Affidavit
Sworn statement of Tadwell, estranged cousin and third-hatched of the clutch, entered into file PP-08-21-9420. The witness has not spoken to the family in six seasons and asked that this be understood as a good thing.
Same clutch. Same pond. Same mom. I was there for all of it — hatched two eggs down from the twins, watched them grow up gill to gill. People act like telling identical twins apart is impossible. It isn't. You just have to watch what they do when they think the pond isn't looking. I watched. For years. And I always knew which one would turn.
PeePoo, from the day he could hop, gave things away. His share of the mayflies. His good sitting-rock. Once, his own name, briefly, when the other one wanted to be called PeePoo for a week because it got him better treatment. PeePoo let him. That's the tell, right there — one twin who lends his own name out and one twin who takes it. Spoiler, since the prosecution seems to have missed it: it WASN'T PeePoo who kept the name when the week was up.
I left the clutch six seasons ago because I couldn't watch the taking anymore. The small things first — mayflies, rocks, a name. Then bigger. I heard about a ladle. I heard about sugar borrowed and never returned. And now I hear about seventeen checks and a curled tongue, and I feel exactly zero surprise, because I have known which twin held the curl since we were tadpoles. I could have told you for free. Nobody asked until there was a cell involved.
I am estranged from this family and I intend to stay that way, but estrangement is not the same as silence. I will say the honest twin's name in any court in any swamp: PeePoo. And I will decline to say the other one's, per counsel, though every frog in this room knows I'm only being asked to decline it because saying it would settle the case in one word.