"We're here to steal cookies!" Del announced to the kitchen at large and Meli smacked her forehead in exasperation. Elanor looked up from her mixing bowl and raised an amused eyebrow.
"You can steal one apiece, filthy thievses. We're about to have dinner." Del thanked her and took two from the heaping plate. She passed one over to Meli with a smirk and left the kitchen to munch her own. Meli followed, scowling, and bit into her single, solitary, honest cookie.
Suddenly, high-pitched giggling floated indoors from the grape arbor and both girls halted in shock. Del choked on her cookie and raised up on tiptoe to look out the nearest window. "It's her!" she confirmed to Meli. "It's Hope!"
"Hope doesn't giggle!" Meli exclaimed.
"She does when Borry is tickling her. Look!" they looked. They downright gawked. They goggled. They gaped.
"Um." Meli finally said. "Um. That's not tickling."
"It looks like fun, though."
Meli sprang away from the window. "Well, I wouldn't know!"
"That's a shame." Their faces burning scarlet, both girls cracked up, loud enough to startle the birds, and the lovers, in the garden. "That's some present she's giving to Boromir." Del declared. "Good for her! Happy Birthday, at last, to Hope!" Del sang, skipping away down the hall. "Happy, Happy!"
"Happy Birthday to Borry and Hope!" Meli sang along and danced alongside.
~