Trounce

‘Snap!’

‘Again? That’s four in a row. I think you must be cheating.’ Alain smiled and leaned back in his chair.

‘I’m not, I’m not,’ said Maia, the youngest of Bella’s three girls. ‘It’s just how the cards come out.’ She grinned with delight and scooped up a large pile of playing cards, to pack them untidily behind all the rest in her small hands.

There had been covert agreement between them all to let her win the game of Snap, since she’d been roundly trounced when they played Snakes and Ladders  earlier and been very brave about it, her bottom lip only wobbling the tiniest amount.

‘Are you hungry yet?’ asked Brontë.

The girls admitted they were, a bit, so everyone trouped into the kitchen.

‘Mummy left macaroni cheese in the fridge for our tea, you could heat that up,’ said Clemmie. ‘I would do it, but I’m not allowed to touch the cooker on my own.’

‘Very sensible,’ said Hugo. ‘But do you know how it works?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the nine-year-old. ‘You push that knob there,’ she pointed, ‘and turn that one there to the right hotness and it takes about ten minutes to heat up.’

Hugo pushed and turned as instructed and two small red lights confirmed that the oven was, indeed, hotting up. He checked the clock. It was half past seven - Emma had been gone for quite some time - he wondered aloud whether they should call her to find out when she would be back.

‘I don’t think she’ll be late, it’s school tomorrow and she has to go to work too,’ confided Poppy. ‘Shall I get out some bread as well, in case the macaroni doesn’t fill us up? All that getting married makes you hungry, doesn’t it?’

‘Not to mention the hour and a half of hide and seek and the card games marathon,’ smiled Hugo. ‘Let’s see what else we can find.’