[Child of the 7th Age]

Gamba came bounding up the path and pounded noisily on the door, "Mother, hurry! We're late. Father says you'd better come. He's waiting by the main road."

"Just a minute," Cami shrieked back. "Holly fell into the pond. Thank goodness, she swims like a fish. But she needs to change her clothes."

Cami hastily pulled the door open and beckoned Gamba to come inside, shoving a towel into his hands. "Here. Could you dry your sister off while I get her another frock?"

"What did Maura tell you after I left? After we all agreed to try and stick together as a family?" Cami prodded Gamba, as she ran to the back of the burrow, rummaging through a small wooden chest and pulling out a stack of dry clothing.

"Oh, not much," laughed Gamba, scrubbing vigorously at his sister's mop of wet brown curls. "He said we had to walk together to Bag-end as if we were a real family. And we all had to behave during the ceremony and act polite."

"And after the ceremony is over?"

Gamba grinned, "He said we could run wild and hang by our toes from the rafters."

"He really said that?"

Gamba grinned victoriously ear-to-ear. "Sort of. He said we'd need to let off some steam, and we'd better do it in the side garden where we wouldn't bother other folks too much."

"That rascal of a husband," Cami muttered under her breath, as she slipped a clean dress over Holly's head. Then the three hobbits set out quickly down the roadway to join up with the others.

[ June 19, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]