And They Danced

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Memory Boxes

As the Minors gathered in the kitchen, back in the cottage, to discuss the move, we felt like we had something to celebrate. Daniel had collected a large and expensive-looking box of chocolates the last time he was in town and they were disappearing at an alarming rate

Peter was still upstairs with the Tiddlers so I rescued a small pile for him.

"Den and I have been talking about the move," Mary told us, "and we think it would probably be better for the toddlers if we don't do it all in one big bang but... well... more gently."

"The poor things have already been through so much and we should try to avoid anything that might unsettle them even more," Denise explained.

"How much time are we talking here?" I asked. "Two or three days?"

"Should be enough, I'd have thought..." Denise began but she was interrupted as Peter came crashing into the room. "The Tiddlers aren't all sleeping," he reported, "but they're all settled." He collapsed into the chair next to Denise and started to chomp his way through his chocolates.

"Today's Thursday, isn't it?" Brian asked. "We could hold school up there tomorrow."

"I'm not sure how much actual learning there'll be!" Mary said with a smile

"Then maybe we could hold a little service up in the chapel on Sunday morning," Peter said, excitedly.

"Why don't you come up later?" Denise suggested to Daniel who looked as if he was ready to explode.

He took a deep breath then gave a nod.

"While you're busy with the kids, we can start moving stuff up there," Harry suggested.

"I've been thinking about that," Brian said. "I don't think we should move all that much of this stuff."

The rest of us gave him a puzzled look.

"If we had any problems up there, it might be nice to think that we could run away back here," he explained.

"Makes sense," I said when I worked out what he was going on about. "And there's certainly no shortage of stuff just lying around."

I looked at Denise but she gave a sad smile. "It's OK," she said. "We all know that there's nobody coming now... so it's not stealing any more. We can just think of it as our inheritance."

"So we can stop keeping lists?" Kat asked.

"Erm..." Daniel said. "If you don't mind, it'd be handy if people kept making notes. They're really useful for keeping my spreadsheets up-to-date."

We all laughed at the way the two of them had swapped, even Daniel!

Whilst the rest of us chatted about what we ought to take and what we should collect from town, Harry and Mary started work on name plaques for the Tiddlers' cubicles. Harry had done such a good job with the pictures on the shoe shelves that Mary had asked him to make some name cards for them but, of course, Harry felt he ought to make proper wooden name plaques instead. He was happy to draw the pictures but wanted her to help him with the names.

The next day, we all travelled up to Pratch House. We took the Tiddlers into their new classroom... they were too excited to really concentrate but we persisted with fun activities and semi-educational games. Mary had to have strict words with James and the twins about messing about with the piano but she did promise to give them piano lessons. I mean... I wasn't entirely convinced that she would be able to make James sit still for that long but I'd been wrong about the magic she could do with the Tiddlers before!

After an hour and a half, Peter took them down onto the lower field for some running around and screaming time. Then Mary took them back into the classroom, and we could hear the sound of the piano as she sang with them.