On Average, Their Efforts Will Lead to Double Talk

--Twins Jerlyn and Jeanine Jones are identical in more than looks. The 14-year-old Phoenix girls think so much alike that they earned the same grade-point average to share honors as valedictorians on graduating from eighth grade. They each scored 1.16 under a grading system in which an A is 1, a B is 2, etc., said Bush Elementary School Principal Eddie Lewis. The lower the average, the better the grades. The girls had identical class schedules, and expect to continue sharing classes in high school and attend the same college later on. “Our teachers can’t tell us apart,” Jerlyn said. “They just take a guess,” Jeanine said. The similarity doesn’t end with academics. Jeanine is student council president, Jerlyn vice president, and they also participated in the same sports. In discussing their lives, one twin often finishes a sentence begun by the other, without interruption or hesitation. At their graduation Wednesday, one intends to talk about their past education, the other about the future.

--President Reagan makes British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher laugh. Thatcher commented on her relationship with Reagan during an hourlong interview with four reporters, ages 9 to 14, from the children’s newspaper Early Times. The young reporters later told adult journalists about the meeting. Jessica Patterson, 9, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, said that when Thatcher was asked what made her laugh, “she said Ronald Reagan. She said he told her lots of ‘lovely, delightful’ stories. She said he had a really good sense of humor.” Journalists asked the children if they found Thatcher hard to interview. “She seemed to avoid the question sometimes, but she was honest and stuck to her guns,” said 12-year-old Luke Salkeld of Plymouth. “Though sometimes her answer was very long when it needn’t have been.”

--Luciano Pavarotti is 85 pounds lighter and he dieted carefully so as not to affect his voice. “He’s taken it slow and easy but the result is that he looks much different and people will notice at once how good he looks,” a Pavarotti spokesman said. The tenor, who will appear Wednesday at a sold-out benefit for the San Francisco Opera Company, said the weight loss “makes me feel renewed” but he will not reveal how much he weighs now. “I feel good, I feel strong,” Pavarotti, 52, said. Opera fans in Detroit, Chicago and New York also will be getting a look at the leaner Pavarotti soon.