“WE WANT TWO MORE TENTS, DAD. CAN I BUY THEM?”

“For goodness sake, Tinker, clear out and leave me alone!” shouted his father. “Buy six tents if you want them, but GET OUT!”

“Ooh, thanks, Dad!” said Tinker, and was just slipping out of the door when his father yelled again.

“But what on earth do you want TENTS for?”

Tinker slammed the door and grinned at the others. “I’d better buy Dad a new memory. He’s only just told us we can camp out, and he knows there’s only my very small tent — almost a toy one.”

“I’m glad we shan’t be in the house,” said Anne. “I know what a nuisance it is to George’s father to have us around, playing about. We’ll be better out of the way.”

“Camping out again!” said George, very pleased. “Let’s catch the bus back home and get our own tents. I’ve got them all stored away in the garden shed. We can ask Jim the Carrier to fetch them, when we’ve found them.”

“He’s calling here today — I’ll give him the message for you, if you like,” said Jenny. “The sooner you get the tents, the better. It was a kind thought of the master’s to ask you all here, but I just knew it wouldn’t work! You’ll be all right out in the fields at the back of the house — he won’t hear a thing, not even if you all yell together! So you get your tents and put them up, and I’ll see what I can find in the way of ground-sheets and rugs.”

“Don’t bother, Jenny,” said Julian. “We’ve got all those things — we’ve often camped out before.”

“I only hope there aren’t any cows in the fields,” said Anne. “Last time we camped, a cow put its head into my tent opening, and mooed. I woke up with such a jump, and I was too scared to move.”

“I don’t think there are any cows,” said Jenny, laughing. “Now I need to get on with the washing-up, so will you bring out the dinner things please — but don’t let that monkey carry anything breakable, for goodness sake! He tried to balance the teapot on his head last week — and that was the end of the teapot!”

Soon everyone was cleaning away with a will, and the two girls helped Jenny with the washing-up.

“I shall like camping out,” Anne told her. “I’d be scared of staying here in the house. Professor Hayling is a bit like my Uncle Quentin, you know — forgetful, and quick-tempered and a bit shouty.”

“Oh, you don’t want to be scared of him,” said Jenny, handing Anne a dish to dry. “He’s kind, for all his crossness when he’s upset. Why, when my mother was ill, he paid for her to go into a really good nursing-home — and believe it or not, he gave me money to buy her fruit and flowers!”

“Oh goodness — that reminds me — we MUST send our cook, Joan, some flowers,” said George. “She has scarlet fever, you know. That’s why we’re here.”