There are many ways to describe Jonathan Stroud: author of this world and these characters is clearly factual. Brilliant, talented, and pretty cool for an adult are also accurate. However, there is one way to describe him that has infinitely more meaning: my favorite.

...

Only the Lockwood family actually lived at 35 Portland Row nowadays. Holly had never moved in, and George moved out after Lucy and Lockwood got married. Word on the street was he too had gotten engaged, but no one seemed to know to whom.

James and the other children would be staying across the street in 32. It was a tall, thin brick house. Someone had clearly been keeping an eye on the landscaping, and though there were some nice looking flowers, most of the greenery were lavendar bushes. Appearance, it would seem, was secondary to security.

Lucy waddled ahead of them up the pavement and unlocked the front door. The hallway was just as tall and thin as the exterior, but it seemed to go on for ages. Rooms dotted the left and right all the way back to a mudroom and screen glass door.

"You'll get your own keys once Virgil, Maria, and Derek move out. I think the boys at least intend to get their own flat, but Maria might stay now that she can have her own room… or did she decide to stay with Lilly… Sorry, what was I saying?"

"House keys." Alice replied helpfully.

"Yes. You'll get those eventually, but since you're the youngest you'll have to wait."

"Seems reasonable." Since her anxiety about being accepted had been dispelled, Alice had turned into quite a chatterbox. James just felt relieved. Emotionally relieved, that is. He still needed to use the restroom.

"Your rooms are upstairs. Let's go put your things down." Mrs Lockwood indicated the staircase tucked into the wall on their right. "And then maybe you can get settled?"

"Sounds lovely." Alice quipped and led the way up the stairs.

"Alice, you'll have your own bedroom, but you'll be sharing a bathroom with Maria and Lilly on the left. I think. You might be sharing with Lilly. The first door, I think. The next one down is your bathroom, and the third one is theirs… or Maria's. Anyway, Virgil and Derek have the master bedroom at the end of the hall, so James you'll be moving in with Fez. It's the second door on your right."

"What's the first door?"

"The bathroom, I think. Or a closet…"

It was a closet. Leaving Alice to chat with Lucy, he went to take care of business. He had to try several doors since Lucy clearly had the rooms mixed up, but eventually found the one he was looking for.

He returned to find the girls giggling.

"He asked me to my own sister's wedding!" Mrs Lockwood laughed.

"No way!" Alice was giggling, too. "So then what happened?"

"I had the most awkward weekend of my entire life."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, he'd only said 'I suppose you'd need to find a date to that - want me to go with you?' so I figured he wasn't going as my boyfriend or anything, and he never really specified what he meant by being my date, so I didn't know what what going on between us." Lucy's imitation of Lockwood's voice had been oddly accurate and perfectly exaggerated. "And because I have more sisters than is strictly fair, I had to put up with their constant questions about who he was, and were we dating, and when were we getting married - I even had an aunt ask me if I was pregnant!"

"Oh my gosh! Did you have any fun at all?"

"It was kind of fun watching mum boss him about a bit. He's a rubbish dance partner though, which was entertaining."

"He's so good with a rapier though! How could he be a bad dancer?"

"I know right?" Lucy began to lead them back downstairs. "But I never said he was a bad dancer, just a bad dance partner. He's actually quite good when he's not doing the smiley giraffe or the blue whale…"

"I've never heard of those," James muttered.

"That's because he made them up."

…

Dinner was an extravagant affair. All the original members of Lockwood and Co had pitched in by making an extraordinary amount of spaghetti bolognese, garden salad, french bread, and cake. "Basic cooking lessons are one of many hidden perks to this job," George had remarked to James over the mixing bowl. "We just don't advertise it because if we did, every urchin would come knocking on our door!"

"Or run away while they had the chance," a skinny red head boy whispered in James' ear and winked when he caught James' eye.

Unsure of what else to do, or where else to go, Alice and James watched with glazed over eyes as the tiny kitchen of 35 whirled into a mess of tomato sauce and powdered sugar. And then it was whipped back into gleaming shape by the older kids - Maria, Lilly, Virgil, Derek, and Fez - who had the place tidied up and decorated in five minutes flat. Lockwood affectionately called them his favorite trained monkeys.

James' parents had had some fancy dinners in his lifetime, and he was pleased to see that there was not much difference between a celebration in Aldbury Castle and a celebration in London. Having said that, James knew his mum would never place a creepy Skull on the table as the center piece. He also had a distinct memory of being grounded for drawing on her freshly cleaned white table cloth. There was also no way the cake would be eaten before the spaghetti was served, but James wasn't about to complain. George proclaimed that this practice developed because whenever they saved dessert for last, it was always spoiled by bad news and unwelcome guests.

What he did want to complain about was the space. Or more accurately, the lack thereof. There really wasn't enough room for so many people. Agents Lockwood and Kips weren't even sitting, but leaning up against the counter. Maria and Lilly shared one of the larger chairs - James didn't know yet which one was which. The red headed boy was sitting cross-legged on the table itself, picking out strings of spaghetti from the communal bowl using his fingertips and splashing the red sauce everywhere. There was no taking a bite without elbowing someone in the face, and no turning your head without jamming your nose into someone else. James' chair was stuck in between Alice and Virgil's so he couldn't scoot it in close enough to reach the table. It was all he could do to keep the pasta from falling into his lap.

Lockwood used his fork to gently ting his glass. What came next was not polite silence and a speech but a cacophony of bangs, clanks, and chinks as the other members of the company took up all manner of cutlery and beverage holders to join in. The boy on the table, obviously doing his best to be intentionally obnoxious, rapped his knuckles on his thankfully empty plate.

Their leader gave an indulgent smile as the noise began to fade. "Alright, that's enough for now. As you may have noticed, we have two new agents this year - and we didn't even have to pay for advertising! And so," he raised his glass, "lets give them a toast, shall we?"

At this, everyone in the room raised their glasses and emptied it contents onto James' and Alice's faces. All at once. The pair sputtered and coughed while the others laughed, pounded them on the back, and said things like "welcome!" and "one of us!" The boy on the table was laughing particularly loudly, but shut up when a Alice splashed her wet hair into his face.

"Now," Lockwood continued, "I'm sure I don't need to tell you that, as much as Lucy and I love training you, we're expecting children of our own -"

"Child, Lockwood," Lucy interrupted. "We are having a child."

He went on, pretending not to hear. "And because we will soon have a bunch of little rugrats scampering about the house -"

"ONE rugrat! ONE!"

"We simply won't have room for you lot, what with the triplets Lucy is clearly carrying."

"I AM NOT HAVING TRIPLETS, LOCKWOOD!"

"I apologize for my wife, dear agents. Her pregnancy brain is obviously clouding her judgement."

"Lockwood." Lucy's voice had a dangerous tone to it. Her husband was the only one, however, without a nervous look on his face. If anything, his smile only got wider and brighter.

"Moving on," he said with a wink to his wife, "all this nesting and preparing for potentially several children means that Virgil, as the most senior member of our little band of trained monkeys, will be taking the lead on most of your cases from now on. Maria, since George is finally taking the trip to find more Spirit Capes, you will be our primary researcher." James watched as Virgil and Maria each straightened under his praise.

"You will begin tomorrow on your first assignments. Virgil, you and Fez will take James. His Sense of Touch is out of this world - I'm sure he will ben an excellent addition to your team. Go ahead and take the string of lurkers and shades on Willow street. Maria, you and the others will be taking Alice out to the shining boy at Marchline Square. It will be good rapier practice for her, and it will give you the chance to lead as well. Sound good? Right. Let's tackle the rest of this dinner before Lucy goes into labor."

"I'm only 5 months along!"

"Yes, but with quadruplets anything could happen."