It was after school on a Tuesday afternoon out on Little Cranberry Island. Some of the 16 pupils at the Kindergarten through eighth grade school lingered to watch the anole lizards. Others played basketball outside. But 50 yards away in the kitchen of the island’s general store, two eighth-graders – the only eighth-graders in the school – were already at their after-school job. Gretchen Blank squeezed limes while her twin sister, Frances, chopped peanuts.

Gretchen was making multiple batches of a sweet-sour sauce from lime juice, tamarind, fish sauce, soy sauce and brown sugar. Across the small kitchen, Frances was prepping peanuts, cilantro and bean sprouts as garnish. Then Gretchen deveined shrimp, and Frances cut chicken into bite-size pieces.

It was Weekly Takeout Night on Little Cranberry Island, one of five islands making up the Hancock County town of Cranberry Isles. On the to-go dinner menu was Pad Thai with a choice of shrimp or chicken. Of the island’s year-round population numbering 90, 15 people had signed up, four for shrimp and 11 for chicken.

Erin and Aaron Gray, a twentysomething couple, took over the running of the Islesford Market late last summer. Islesford is the name of the village on Little Cranberry. The Grays, an energetic and creative pair, thought up the idea of a takeout night as an extension of the island store. Every other week, they offer pizza, but on alternate weeks, Erin dreams up something special. They’ve tried chicken and bean burritos, Malaysian beef stir-fry, and Senegalese peanut-chicken stew.

Aaron and Erin couldn’t pull off this culinary enterprise without the helping hands of Frances and Gretchen. The island is way too small to support a high school, so there’s no resident labor force of teenagers. The Blank twins are 14 now and like the idea of earning money, but they also enjoy the work. They may be on the young side, but they are hard workers and they come with experience.

When they were in grades five and six, Frances and Gretchen formed the “Veree Tastee Restaurant” with several schoolmates. They hired themselves out to island homes to prepare special dinners. The hosts provided the food and the youngsters cooked it, creating interesting menus that would make the local news column. The youngsters served the dinner and cleaned up afterward. For special occasions, they also made decorations. They laugh about the time they unwittingly put a plate with a gold border into a microwave and it started to spark.

Older now, and more capable, Frances and Gretchen have assumed a variety of responsibilities. They work at the store for a few hours nearly every day. They clean the counters and sweep the floor, wash pots and pans, and carry out the trash. They restock shelves and refill the cooler with drinks. Sometimes the girls pitch in during the busy lunch hour while on their own lunch break from school.

On this particular Tuesday, Frances had come in at 7:30 a.m., along with the postmaster. The post office is in the island’s only store, so there are always people stopping in. Frances had opened up and made the popular breakfast sandwiches before going to school.

While the girls prepared Pad Thai, Aaron Gray phoned in orders to the mainland for what was needed to stock the store that week. Freight arrives by boat from Northeast Harbor, and the girls know the routine. Because the ramp and float are taken up in the winter, everything that arrives at the island must be carried up the flight of stairs built into the side of the town dock. The boxes, bags and crates are packed onto Aaron’s pickup truck for the short trip to the store at the center of the island. Next, everything must be carried, again by hand, into the store itself. The girls say the cases of soda are the heaviest.

On Take-Out Night the previous week, the Islesford Market took 25 orders for pizza. Activity in the kitchen was hectic that day. This week, with fewer sign-ups for Pad Thai, the girls were enjoying the slower pace. As delivery time approached, however, the pace picked up.

Anticipating additional last-minute orders, they weren’t surprised when the mechanic – who had been working on Aaron’s boat all day – popped into the store on his way home. He hoped it wasn’t too late to order Chicken Pad Thai. No problem. The girls had prepared extra, knowing that whatever was left over would be used for their own supper or in a lunch dish the next day.

As one of the islanders training to become an EMT, Erin Gray breezed in from an afternoon of learning how to operate the island’s first ambulance. She put on her apron and headed for the stove. First, she made a large omelet for eggs julienne as part of the garnish. Then she cooked the chicken and shrimp with the paste she’d made earlier from shallots, hot peppers and garlic and the sweet-sour sauce that Gretchen had made. The twins prepared rice noodles. Then the girls assembled each takeout dinner, complete with the sauce and garnish, in the order in which the deliveries would be made.

Frances and Gretchen took turns going on the delivery runs with Aaron at the wheel of the pickup. While one girl delivered dinners, the other stayed in the kitchen to assemble the next batch of orders. Then the twins switched roles. Each Pad Thai dinner was delivered on schedule to grateful recipients in their island homes. I dashed to a friend’s house to be on the receiving end for one of the last deliveries of the evening.

As my friend Ashley Bryan and I enjoyed every bite of our Chicken Pad Thai, we knew that back at the store Gretchen and Frances were eating their share of this good food, too, along with Aaron and Erin. The hardworking girls would make their way home by foot or bike, knowing there would be spending money for their trip to Bangor on the weekend. Give them a decade or so, and perhaps the twins will start a chain of Veree Tastee Restaurants in Maine.

Sarah Corson can be reached at slc@acadia.net.