Guest story by Meli
Sam was only mildly surprised to look under one of the rosebushes and see Meli Took hiding there. She held one finger to her lips to ask for silence, and Sam grinned as he looked around to make sure there wasn't anyone else in sight. He knelt and smiled at her. "What's the game today, Meli-lass?"
Meli motioned him closer, looking like she was trying very hard not to giggle. Obligingly, Sam leant forward, careful not to catch himself on the thorns. Meli cupped both hands around her mouth and whispered, "It's a top-secret mission." She nodded very seriously when he looked at her, and Sam fought laughter.
"A mission?"
"Well, it's sort of a quest, I guess." Meli went to move her head and found that she had tangled her hair in the leaves and thorns of the roses. Looking cross, she went on in a whisper while trying to unsnarl herself. "Elly made cookies. We decided to undertake the task of getting the cookies for ourselves."
Sam brushed her hands away and carefully unknotted her curls. He pulled Meli out of the bush, making sure she wasn't easy to see from the window. "Meli, why don't you just ask Elanor if you can have the cookies?"
She blinked. "Where's the adventure in that?" Sam laughed and brushed some of the dirt from her dress. Meli smiled, then looked carefully around, seemingly on the look-out for anyone suspicious. Not seeing anyone else, she looks back at Sam and hugged him. "Thank you, Uncle Sam," she said, and slipped out of his arms. She ran swiftly from bit of cover to bit of cover until she reached the hedges beneath the kitchen window. Molly popped out of the foliage and dragged her in, and Sam chuckled to himself as he went back to his weeding and pruning.
He had nearly forgotten the whole thing when he heard Elanor give a shout. "Where are my cookies?!"
Meli, Molly, Sam-lad, and Daisy came skidding over the hole, and pelted full out for their tree house. Sam noticed that Sam-lad held a plate of cookies, while Daisy had a covered jug of milk, and Meli and Molly both held glasses. The four swarmed up the ladder to the tree house and vanished inside, just as Elanor poked her head out the window. "Dad?" she called, and Sam stood, looking puzzledly at her. She sighed heavily, then shook her head. "Do they have my cookies?"
Sam laughed. "I don't think they're your cookies anymore, Elly-lass." Elanor sighed again, and Sam moved over to the window and hugged her. "You know what they're like. If you say no to letting them have cookies-"
"They'll find a way to get them anyways." Elanor smiled fondly too, her eyes on the tree house. "Usually, I can hear them coming. This time, the cookies were gone before I heard anything. They're getting good."
There was laughter from the tree house, and four heads popped over the edge and smiled at the two on the ground. Elanor shook her fist in mock threat, and the four mischief-makers shouted back good natured insults, and compliments about the cookies. Elanor sighed longsufferingly, and Sam chuckled and went back to the gardening.
"Guess I'll just have to bake more," Elanor said as she re-entered the house, and four curly heads popped out of the tree house window, grinning to one another.
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