Batty was in the music room, tapping a tune out she had made up to play to Emmy and Aurelia. "Aunt Batty" was their idol, and eagerly listened to everything she played. She was dedicating this small piano piece to Jeffrey, Emmy, Aurelia, and to her music teacher at th Conservatory, although this was one she had composed before she had been taught by the music teacher that she had.

She was very fond of Skye's daughters. She still did not understand how Skye's children could be so unlike her in temperament; but she was glad that there was one person in her family, aside from Jeffrey, who was musically gifted. The two girls had learned to play the piano beautifully already and were starting music lessons in two years, and were always begging their mother, or their father, Batty, Rosalind, Jane, and sometimes even her father and Iantha to enroll them into music lessons.

Batty had had a very hard time convincing them that most people did not take three-year-old girls. Then Emmy had demanded to know why she couldn't go, and Batty, not knowing what to say (offend Emmy or desperately hurt poor little Aurelia's feelings? Both of them absolutely worshipped her) told her that their hands were the same size, and so they would have to wait until they grew big enough to use a proper piano. This had satisfied them, but she had to tell them every week whether their hands were big enough to play yet.

Batty always answered this by laying their little hands side by side in her enormous ones (through piano-playing, they had become even larger than Rosalind's large hands. They were as big as her father's) and asked them if they really thought they were big enough yet. If they said they were, Batty let them play on the music room piano, and then they would grudgingly acknowledge that no, Batty was right, and that they were not nearly old enough to play on a real piano and go to piano lessons, at least just yet.

Skye had gotten so cross when Batty had gone home and the girls had started putting these questions to her that she had forbidden them to talk to her about them at all. It had disappointed them, but they slightly understood why. Their father said the same things as Batty did, so they sighed and decided that probably Jeffrey and Betty were right, and they really were not old enough yet to have lessons.

"So," said Jeffrey, coming into the room, "How is Hound?"

Hound was a very old dog now, but he still followed Batty wherever he could. He was healthy still, but moved slowly, and when Batty wasn't at home, he simply lay in a warm corner of the living room and wished that she were home. Batty had begged with all her heart to be allowed to bring Hound to school, when she first entered at eighteen, but her father had said the traveling would likely be a bit much for Hound, so she had better come home as much as she could on weekends, so that Hound would not get too lonely.

He had always been fiercely loyal to every single member of the Penderwick family, all seven of them. But he had been brought, a year-old pup, to the Penderwick house shortly after Batty was born—and Batty and Hound had grown up together, even though Hound had grown up considerably more quickly than Hound had done. Hound would always be Batty's dog. At special request, Hound had even been brought to Batty's first stage concert; lying extremely quietly in a hidden corner of the stage that only Batty could see. Perhaps he had also felt like Rosalind had during that concert.

"He's fine," said Batty. "I have to go, Jeffrey. I called a MOPS at nine and I have to be there to open the MOPS."

"Am I invited to the MOPS?" Batty shook her head. At the last MOPS where the sisters had all been together, Jeffrey had been there, but this was a matter she would discuss only with her sisters. And anyway, this was an emergency MOPS.

"No, no. It's a serious matter you don't know anything about and you can't know either." Batty closed the lid of the piano and got up, wincing as she stretched her cramped legs out to their full length.

"Skye will tell me," said Jeffrey, laughing loudly as he remembered a MOPS he had gate-crashed sixteen years previously, during the summer when the four girls had first stayed at Arundel.

"No she won't," said Batty, shaking her head gravely at Jeffrey. She hoped he wouldn't listen outside the door. "Because she'll have to keep it secret. Bye, Jeffrey. It's time for the MOPS."

"All right, Battykins. Go and open your MOPS." Jeffrey said.

Rosalind sat on the bed in her room. "MOPS come to order."

"Second the motion," said Skye.

"Third it," said Jane.

"Fourth it," said Batty. "And fifth it for Hound, even though he's not here yet." Skye snorted and Rosalind silenced her with a look. It seemed as if Batty's news, whatever it was, was serious.

"All swear to keep secret what is said here, unless you think someone might do something truly bad." Rosalind could nearly taste those words on her tongue, which she had said so many, many times before

The four stacked their fists on top of each other. "This we swear by the Penderwick Family Honor."

"Now, Batty, what is it?"

"Daddy isn't well," said Batty quietly. "Not like a cold, I mean. He's sick."

"What do you mean—not well?" cried Rosalind, a fear leaping through her heart. The minute she felt it she dropped back against the drawers.

"Are you all right?" her younger sisters cried. Rosalind shook her head. She remembered when she had last felt that awful fear bound through her; twenty years ago, when she had known that there was no saving her mother, a few days after Batty's birth.

"What happened?" asked Rosalind.

"Well, he hasn't been that well all year," said Batty. "He told me not to tell you, but the day before I came—yesterday—he fainted at the wheel when he was driving me here."

"What the—Batty, what happened?"

"I took over," said Batty. "And I had chewing gum, so I thought maybe that would keep him from fainting, like it keeps you from sleeping because of the sugar. Anyway I gave it to him and he was all right the way home; he called me to tell me so."

"Oh, Batty," said Skye.

"Poor Daddy," said Jane. "What can we do?"

"He swore me to secrecy, Penderwick-Family-Honor," cried Batty. "But I couldn't. I had to tell you."

"Don't worry. You can break a bad promise, Batty. Now we just have to work out what we're going to do."