"Casey, sweetie, can you keep a secret?" Jeffrey asked his daughter as he tucked her into bed. He heard laughter coming from the other side of the house as Skye struggled with the rest of the family, seeing as Jane and Rosalind were at the opera with Mr. Penderwick. Skye, staying true to her beliefs, wanted no part of this and volunteered to keep all the cousins at home.

"Yes," the little blonde girl answered sleepily, blinking her sky blue eyes up at him.

"Mommy and Daddy saved your Aunt Batty's life!" Jeffrey told the little girl, reaching out and tickling her.

"Did not!" Casey shrieked with laughter, causing Lizzy, Claire and Jenny to rush in the room.

"TICKLE FIGHT!" they shouted in unison, immediately jumping on each other. Skye appeared in the doorway, holding Theo upside down like a sack of potatoes.

"Oh, no," she said, plopping Theo down on Zoey's bed and reaching in. She managed to pluck out Jenny, the smallest of the three girls, and stop the other two. "Your mother told me if there was so much as a scratch on any of you she was taking away my right to see you," she told the girls sternly. Jeffrey smiled, remembering the first time Skye held baby Lizzy. If there is so much as a scratch on that baby I worked so hard to make, you're dead! an exhausted Rosalind had proclaimed in the hospital.

"You did not!" Casey exclaimed, glaring at Jeffrey, her cheeks red.

"Didn't what?" Skye asked Jeffrey, giving him the evil eye.

"Save Batty from a bull," Jeffrey said innocently.

"Oh, no. You are NOT telling them that story. They'll go and try to bother the poor thing!" Jeffrey held his hands up in surrender.

"Bull?" Ben asked, sauntering in with Zoey on one hip and J.R. on the other. "You mean the bull that-"

"No! We are not telling them about the bull!" Skye protested. Claire walked slowly over to Skye.

"I've never heard about the bull before… and I'm sure we'll drop right off to sleep when it's over. Right, Lizzy?" Lizzy nodded and they both gazed up at Skye with puppy-dog eyes.

"Bull! Bull! I want the bull!" Theo shouted, rolling his Tonka truck across the bedspread.

"Fine." Skye sighed, reaching out for J.R. "But you have to promise- not a word of this to Aunt Rosalind. She still thinks Batty got stuck in a pricker bush."

"Cross my heart," Jenny said solemnly, tugging on one of her chestnut curls.

"You have to actually cross it!" Zoey stage-whispered over to it. Jenny's hand jumped to her chest.

"Okay. You've all heard about how Aunt Skye burned the cookies?" Jeffrey asked around. Skye blushed, as always. "And you know how we all went for a walk, to cool off."

"Yes!" Jenny shouted, crawling closer. "What we want to know is what happens next!"

"With the bull!" Theo chimed in.

"Okay, okay. There was a fence, and inside there lived a big, scary, 600 pound bull!" Jeffrey grinned evilly. "And it stomped on people, just for the fun of it!"

"But Skye didn't believe Jeffrey was telling the truth," Skye said, plopping down on the floor. "She thought it was just an old fat cow." Jenny, Lizzy, and Claire rushed over to sit next to Skye, who was notorious for her exciting bedtime stories.

"It wasn't, was it?" Claire asked breathlessly.

"No, it wasn't," Skye said, her voice darkening. "It was a dark, giant, violent monster!" Zoey gasped as Skye reached out to tickle her.

"It was a bull, let's leave it that," Ben said, smirking as he leaned against the doorway.

"Oh, shut up, you're ruining it!" Skye told him, fighting a smile.

"Jeffrey told Jane it would be all right if she climbed to the top of the fence to see the bull," Jeffrey went on, giving Ben a look. "So she did. And guess what she saw?"

"THE BULL!" Jenny shrieked, grabbing Lizzy's hand. "THE BIG, EVIL, MONSTER-BULL!"

"Yes, the bull was there. But Aunt Batty was too… dun dun dun!" Skye said, getting on all fours. "The bull crawled towards her, hiding in the grass, ready to ambush her and trample her to death!" J.R. sniffled.

"Then Jane, confused and just trying to help, screamed at the top of her lungs." Jeffrey stepped in as Skye acted like a bull, growling dramatically. "Skye and Jeffrey ran into the field and Skye picked up Batty and ran out as Jeffrey bravely conquered the bull, throwing rocks and-"

"Jeffrey threw a couple of pebbles and ran the other way. Skye, on the other hand, would've knocked that bull to the ground and made it so scared it would never-"

"All right, Skye, we get it," Jeffrey said, exasperated. "Batty was saved, and the four Bull-Vanquishers walked back to the cottage in peace."

"The bull came crashing after them, stomping and roaring, and shaking his horns!" Ben yelled, stomping his feet and advancing towards Claire. "He caught them before they could get in the door and took them away to his pen and stomped on them with his-"

"That's not what happened!" Casey shrieked from on the bed with Jeffrey.

"No-no-no!" Zack screeched. J.R. squealed and bounced around on the floor.

"Skye, Jane, Batty and Jeffrey couldn't tell Rosalind, because they weren't allowed in the bullpen," Skye said, giving Ben a sharp rap on the head. "So they told her Batty got stuck in a bush and that's why she looked so scared."

"All right, time for bed, all of you!" Jeffrey said, standing up.

"Head count!" Skye called, and all the kids lined up on the wall except for J.R., who was with Ben. "Jenny, Claire, and Lizzy are here," she said, patting each dark curly head. "And Zack the Mini-Tommy. And all of mine, Casey, Zoey, Theo." Casey and Zoey lifted their identical blond heads at the mention of their name, their blue eyes blinking and their freckled faces yawning.

"John Ronald, on cue, " Skye told the baby with Ben, smiling. "Where's Jo? I swear, that girl's as flighty as Jane. JOANNE!"

A little head popped out from underneath the bed, the dust stuck in the dark curls. "Right here!" Jo told Skye, pulling her blanket behind her.

"Why on earth were you underneath the bed?" Skye asked her, tossing kids blankets and sleeping bags.

"I was just under it for fun," Jo answered, bouncing on the Aerobed set up by the door. "Do we all have to go to bed now?"

"Yes," Skye replied firmly, tucking in all the kids one by one and saying goodnight. "All you monkeys better stay in bed, or no cookies tomorrow, all right?" The kids nodded and Skye, Jeffrey, and Ben made their way out into the massive living room of the Arundel "castle."

"I can't believe the four of you managed to keep that away from Rosalind for all those years," Ben told Jeffrey, his eyes crinkling up into the famous Penderwick smile that had been sending girls falling at his feet since he hit his growth spurt in the eighth grade.

"Yeah, well, I'm still afraid to tell her now," Jeffrey said, half to himself. "She'll probably ground me or something, even though I'm married to her sister and I'm, what, 34 and have 3 kids who are 5 and 3 and are getting in timeouts themselves now…"

"Tell me what?" Rosalind asked, walking through the door in a gorgeous dark purple dress and, for once, heels.

"God, Rosy, why can't I pull off something like that?" Skye asked, gesturing at the purple fabric.

"Tell me what?" Rosalind asked again, her eyes narrowing.

"That in college I got really drunk and started reciting Shakespeare and wouldn't stop until Jeffrey took me home and taught me to play the piano wearing clown shoes," Skye improvised. "It was Senior Year, I was 21," she added hastily.

"Oh, I can see why you wouldn't want to tell me that," Rosalind stated. "I wasn't feeling well, so I caught a cab home. The opera was in French, so I didn't miss anything. Daddy loved it."

"Well that's good," Jeffrey said, sighing with relief. "Our night was… enjoyable. We told the kids a great story and they're all in bed."

Ben, standing in the corner, gave Skye a wink as he slipped through the doorway to the kids' room. Suddenly, shrieks of laughter could be heard from within.

"Nothing's ever easy in this family," Rosalind grumbled as she moved to go quiet down the kids.

"You got that right," Skye replied, her face stretching out in a wide smile.

All right. 3 down, much more to go. This one was basically introducing a whole mess of kids, and they might seem weird because I haven't been around kids this age since I WAS a kid this age, if you count out my cousins, and I do because they're my cousins, so they're not normal, seeing as they're related to me.

But I hope you enjoy this, and here's a quick list of the kids mentioned:

Elizabeth (Lizzie), Claire, Jennifer (Jenny), Theodore (Theo), Joanne (Jo), Zoey, Casey, Zachary (Zack), and John Ronald (J.R.). Rosalind's are Jenny, Claire, Zack and Lizzy, Skye's are Casey and Zoey and Theo, and the rest are Jane's.

If you review with the authors Jane's kids are named after, I will give you a very lame prize. Trust me, it's gonna be lame. But it's free, so I'd take it. But that's just me. And we've already established that I'm weird.

And anyone reading this, it's the only Penderwicks FanFiction out there. Just make a oneshot, please. This book is too cute, and funny, and it's the first book that ever made me want to read it 57 times (and counting), to go unnoticed.

XOXO,

~Emullz