"El." Daisy's voice was mournful. "El, come bake with me. Let me hold your wool as you knit. Give my hands something to do before they flutter off my wrists with boredom."

"Oh, Daisy, stop bleating like a nanny goat. Rainy days are lovely for growing things; look how soft and grey the sky is. Go help the others pick worms off the front stairs for fishing later."

"Ham and Prim are going to throw mud dollops in a minute, and I don't want to ruin my dress," Daisy sniffed.

"That dress has survived worse than a little mud and come out well enough. And before you ask, the answer is no. You cannot help me stitch this runner for the drawers in the boy's room."

"Why not?" whined Daisy.

"Because your crossing stitches go every which was and you don't bat an eyelash. They're all supposed to be one direction, see?" Elanor held up the fine linen fabric, dotted with half-finished dragonfly shapes. Daisy made a face.

"Don't see why. The boys won't care." She paused, then sighed in a very dramatical sort of way.

Elanor shot her a pointed and stern glare, and then said "Go away, Daisy, and find something to do."

"You're still sore about those biscuits, you selfish pig!" Daisy sassed, scampering out of thwacking range. "They were awful anyway."

Elanor gave a huff of exasperation that turned into a loving grin as soon as Daisy was out the door.

Uncle Frodo was reading a story to Robin and Tom, the patter-hiss of the rain outside and the cheery candle-light inside making it all very snug. Daisy sat and listened, too, it was an old story but stories never got worn out from overuse.

When it was done, Uncle Frodo shut the book carefully and smiled at Daisy, nodding towards the smaller ones. They were both asleep.

Rather than move them and risk grumpy wakings-up, Uncle Frodo pulled a patchwork quilt over them and smiled at Daisy again. Daisy loved Uncle Frodo's smile, it was so silly and happy, as if he had done quite enough being sad and didn't hold any further truck with it. But the sadness was there anyway, somehow, and it was a tiny sting that whipped at Daisy's heart and left it tender.

"Come on, we'll go somewhere else," he said, taking her small hand in his own and moving out into the hall.

"Where did you get to?!" exclaimed a piping voice as they rounded a corner. Sammie, Molly and Meli were all perched on stools with their backs close to the fireplace, with Delphinium and Ruby at their feet. All five of them had mouthfuls of pumpkin bread preventing conversation.

"We were sensibly dry." Uncle Frodo shook his head in disbelief. "Something you obviously didn't think of."

"We're dry," argued Meli. "Well, almost."

"We were down at the Bracegirdles' paddock. Did you know that the children there have a room just for pretty clothes, and another room for toys?"

"Did you actually see these rooms?"

"No, but Brownie and Sil hardly ever lie," insisted Delphinium. "And their clothes are always fine."

"If they were wearing fine clothes out in the rain, their parents are stupid as well as extravagant," Uncle Frodo said placidly.

"I hate them." Daisy took the piece of bread Sammie offered her and spoke around the crumbs. "Brownie told on me when I borrowed those pillowcases to play treasure-sacks with, and then Sil wouldn't let me hide in their toolshed when I was being chased. Nasty rutting so-and-sos."

"Daisy." Uncle Frodo did not look amused. "Language like that is disappointingly uncreative. You keep your clothes clean; please do the same for your mouth or I'll wash it out with soap."

Daisy looked suitably abashed. "Sorry."

"We're going to the Digg-Tooter's party in a moment, once we're dry. Will you come along?" begged Ruby with a bright smile.

"Your mother and father would never forgive me if I was having fun while they're trapped in that society conference." Uncle Frodo laughed and shook his head. "It's a pity, too; I knew Mrs Digg-Tooter back when she was still flirty little Lila Proudfoot, and Proudfoots never forget perceived rejection."

Sammie thought for a moment in his stern, serious way, then grinned. "What if we promise to rescue Mum and Dad? Will you come then?"

"Don't go causing more trouble." Frodo put his hands on his hips. "Widow Belldown and her committee work very hard at their record-keeping and organising."

"They don't like us," said Molly and Meli. "They say we're too confusing to put in lists and tables." They giggled together.

Daisy grumbled another string of curt words, low enough that Uncle Frodo didn't notice.

"We'll behave," Delphinium promised. "Please come? Parties are so lovely after rain, all snug and fresh."

"All right, go rescue them then, little heroes," said Uncle Frodo. "But take an umbrella!"

They trooped down the hill towards the very official and fussy-looking Hall that was used for meetings. They met Aster and Flora Digg-Tooter on the way, carrying large baskets of small sponge cakes towards their smial.

"Hullo," Sammie said shyly, his cheeks pinking as Aster nodded in greeting. Delphinium and Daisy both rolled their eyes.

"Floria!" Ruby hugged her occasional babysitter. "Merry says you have to visit us much more oftener."

"I'm sorry I haven't been, Rubienne." Flora smiled. "Want a cake?"

"We're off to save Sam and Rosie," explained Meli. "Want to come along?"

The girls nodded excitedly and joined the procession.

Hobbiton Hall was still new enough to make visits to it interesting, especially on infiltration and rescue missions. The children climbed through a slightly ajar window at the back, leading into the small kitchen.

"The tea and biscuit room," Flora snorted derisively.

"Don't you like the ladies' meetings, Floria?" Ruby asked. Delphinium hissed for them to hush. Taking turns, they clambered up onto a table and then through an airing-hole leading into the broad low-ceilinged space just below the roof, filled with old stored things like ropes and party tents. Sammie had to go first so that he couldn't 'peek up skirts like a slimy old Sandyman' (in Aster's words. Sammie turned awfully pink), but eventually and with many a muffled thump all eight of them were crouched and creeping until they were perched in a line beside a gap between two boards, giving them a wide and narrow view of the meeting below.

Molly licked a bit of pink icing off her thumb and hummed in contentment.

"Where did you find that?" Meli asked in a hushed whisper.

"There's a whole tray of iced cake slices in that tea-room," Molly whispered back. "I borrowed one."

"I still can't believe you didn't get in trouble when you pinched all those sugar roses that my Mum had for decorating food." Meli covered her mouth with her hand so she wouldn't giggle.

"I can't help it if your Dad's a pushover for the Brandybuck charm." Molly fluttered her eyelashes. Meli snorted. Delphinium and Daisy hissed for them to quiet. Eight pairs of eyes peeked down.

Hope Grubb, Delphinium's sister, was scribbling down the minutes of the meeting, pausing often to stifle a yawn. Sam, sitting at the head of the table in the mayoral chair, had dozed off with his chin propped up on one hand, his elbow on the table. As the children watched his arm slipped and he jerked awake, blinking blearily. Rosie, sitting on his left, was startled into alertness by the movement too.

Widow Belldown, wearing a string of anemic-looking pearls and a foxfur stole that appeared to have been specially fluffed for the occasion, was reading out a motion for a 'set of public decorum rules' in a rather nasal voice. The other women at the table were nodding sagely at every punctuation.

"It's worse than I feared," muttered Delphinium. "We need a plan, and fast."

"Who needs plans? This is easy," Ruby declared. "Watch."

She crawled back over and down into the kitchen, and they heard her footsteps fade away as she ran back outside and around to the front door. Ruby knocked, curtsied hello to the assembled group, and walked meekly over to her parents. Standing on tiptoe, she put her hand up in a cupped half-shell and whispered in Rosie's ear. Rosie listened, nodded, then stood.

"I'm terribly sorry, ladies, but I'm afraid I must leave at once." Rosie's voice wavered as if she was biting back terrible concern, and she wrung her hands together. "Samwise, you'd better come too." A pause. "And Hope. It might be best if the three of us tackle the trouble together. My apologies again." Rosie was already halfway to the door, beckoning for Sam and Hope to follow.

"Not very original," Sammie said critically. "But it got the job done well."

"Good. It's done. We can go now." Flora breathed a sigh of relief. "I can feel all the colour being sucked out of me."

With a nod, they all began crawling back through the stored-away things. Meli knocked a broken-handled mop over with a clatter and everyone stilled, barely breathing, to wait and see if they'd been discovered. Fragments of the conversation drifted up from the women below in the quiet.

"...such a flighty girl, that Hope. Drawing all day, painting and sculpting..."

Delphinium growled, scowling at the unseen speaker. "Nobody with any sort of eye for pictures is complaining," she muttered.

"...they say that Frelera Plum's new hat was bought with ill-gotten money..."

"...Lavender Hornblower's with child again, and her last's not even six months yet."

"Nothing unrespectable about that," sniffed another well-preserved voice. "Thought that in itself is rare enough in these times. If there's one word I never thought I'd use about a mayor's wife, the word is 'cuckolded'."

Daisy's mouth opened wide to shout out at that, the other girls jumping on her in a heap to keep her quiet. Sammie hissed at them to shut it, and his face was white and bloodless and his blue eyes lit with cold fury.

The conversation below paused at the thumps from the roof.

"Rats, likely," someone said. "My father was mayor for a spell back in the thirteen-fifties, and he's turn over in his grave to know there were rats in the Hall roof."

"They didn't even have a Hall in the 'fifties, Laurel," another put in argumentatively. "Still, I know your meaning. That Samwise has no business holding the position, and I don't know why so many folk vote for him each time. Who ever heard of someone from a family like that moving up so high above his place? And all those children running about, I wouldn't be surprised if they never saw a bath from year to year."

"Let me go! I'll kill them!" Daisy struggled in Molly and Meli's grip. Aster and Flora were poised to hold Sammie back if he tried to make a run for the group of ladies but he was still and quiet. His fists were shaking at his sides.

"Del," he whispered, holding one hand up to tell Daisy to hush. "Are there any soap flakes still in the pot by the mop there?"

"Yes." Delphinium held the small wooden jar up for him to see. "A few handfuls, I should think."

"Well, bring it quickly. Into the kitchen, come on." Sammie led the way down and, seeing his expression, Aster made no comment about peeping Toms.

The Digg-Tooter girls had left their cake-baskets out under the window before climbing in, and now Sammie ordered them back out to recover them. Meli and Molly were placed as guards by the door into the Hall proper, and Delphinium was given the task of mixing the soap up into a paste.

Daisy and Sammie, meanwhile, opened their umbrella wide and tipped the trayfull of pink iced treats into it, closing it as much as they could when they were done.

Twenty minutes later they were running back up the hill as fast as their legs could carry them, pausing behind a cluster of trees to transfer the slightly-squashed pink-iced cakes to Aster and Flora's baskets. Then they kept on with the headlong dash.

The evening was bright and clean, the rain scarcely more than a memory, and the Digg-Tooter party was well under way. Lila looked unsurprised at either the lateness in arrival nor the unexpected decoration of the cakes her daughters had been sent for. Uncle Frodo, along with Elanor, Merry, and Goldilocks, had come after all, and almost everyone else from the local area besides.

Rosie sought out her children and found them giggling over some scheme with their friends. Sammie, fresh from a dance with Aster, was looking happy and breathless.

"Ruby tells me that you lot had a hand in liberating us, so I thought it fair to come say thank-you." She smiled at them. "Why do you all look so wickedly amused, dare I ask?"

"No reason, Mum," Sammie promised. "We just taught some people a lesson about using filthy words, that's all."

~

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