2007 Fermat Problem 18

Alphonso and Karen started out with the *same number* of apples. Karen gave twelve of her apples to Alphonso. Next, Karen gave half of her remaining apples to Alphonso. If Alphonso now has four times as many apples as Karen, how many apples does Karen now have?

\textbf{(A)}\ 12\quad \textbf{(B)}\ 24\quad \textbf{(C)}\ 36\quad \textbf{(D)}\ 48\quad \textbf{(E)}\ 72

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