“I want my book,” Mandy said firmly. “Gimme, Daddy. Please?” she added, seeing her mother’s mouth open. Bree shut her mouth and smiled, and Roger peered into the sack, then withdrew a bright-orange book that made me blink.

“What?” said Jamie, leaning forward to peer at it. He looked at me, eyebrows raised. I shrugged; he’d find out soon enough.

“Read it, Mummy!” Mandy curled into her mother’s side, thrusting the book into Bree’s hands.

“Okay,” Bree said, and opened it. “Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.”

“What?” said Fanny incredulously, and moved to peer over Bree’s shoulder, closely accompanied by Germain.

“What is that?” Germain asked, fascinated.

“Sam-I-Am!” Mandy said crossly, and jabbed a finger at the page. “He gots a sign!”

“Ah, oui. And what’s the other thing, then? A Who-Are-You?”

That made Fanny, Jemmy, and Roger laugh, which turned Mandy incandescent with rage. She might not have the red hair, I thought, but she had the Fraser temper, in spades.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” she shrieked, and scrambling to her feet made for Germain with the obvious intent of disemboweling him with her bare hands.

“Whoa!” Roger snared her deftly and lifted her off her feet. “Calm down, sweetheart, he didn’t mean—”

I could have told him—but if he hadn’t learned it from sharing a household with assorted Frasers for years, it wouldn’t do any good to tell him now—that the very last thing you should say to one in full roar was “Calm down.” Like putting out an oil fire on your stove by throwing a glass of water on it.

“He did!” Mandy bellowed, struggling madly in her father’s grip. “I hate him, he wuined it, it’s all wuined! Leggo, I hate you, too!” She started kicking, dangerously in the vicinity of her father’s crotch, and he instinctively held her out, away from him.

Jamie reached out, wrapped an arm round her middle, gathered her in, and put a big hand on the nape of her neck.

“Hush, a nighean,” he said, and she did. She was panting like a little steam engine, red-faced and teary, but she stopped.

“We’ll step outside for a moment, shall we?” he said to her, and nodded to the rest of the assembled company. “No one’s to touch her book while we’re gone. D’ye hear?”

There was a faint murmur of assent, succeeded by total silence as Jamie and Mandy disappeared into the night.

“The cookies!” Smelling the strong scent of incipient scorching, I darted to the oven, snatched the girdle out, and hastily flipped the cookies off onto the Big Plate—the only pottery dish we owned at the moment, but capable of holding anything up to a small turkey.

“Are the cookies okay?” Jem, with a total disregard for his sister’s immediate prospects, hurried over to look.

“Yes,” I assured him. “A bit brown at the edges, but perfectly fine.”

Fanny had come, too, but was less intent on gluttony.