Thank you for all your reviews and alerts and especially for your patience. I'll try to update some more this week if I get the chance. I hope you all enjoy this chapter :)

Chapter 26

After lunch the next day the kids all were back upstairs, this time they were in Josh's room.

"ANY ideas what I could do to make Harm lose it?" he asked. Something that will come close but not actually make Harm kill me, he thought.

"Hmmm. Not really." Chloe said. "It does though, have to be something that they would think that I would do... if we're going to tell them it was actually me..."

"Well that about leaves us wide open doesn't it?" Mattie giggled.

"Aha aha aha..." Chloe tittered sarcastically. "What would be the thing that would get to Harm the most?" The young girl tapped her chin while she was deep in thought.

"I got it." she said. "Smoking." The others looked at her with admiration, waiting for the rest of the details which she was happy to fill in. "We leave a pack of cigarettes somewhere he'll find it...like in your room." she said to Josh.

"That might just work." Josh said with a nod. Chloe agreed.

"See not just a pretty face."

"If you do say so yourself." Mattie said.

"Yeah..." Chloe said ignoring Mattie's sarcasm. "Mac has laundry in the dryer...she always folds and then Harm brings them up to our rooms...

"And tells us to put them away." Mattie filled in. Wow could she be any more negative? Chloe thought.

"Hmmm. Unless we were doing something else helpful at the time...like I dunno...yard work." Josh interjected.

"No way I'm risking a spanking...losing my get out of free card AND doing yard work." Chloe said.

"Oh for goodness sake." Josh said. "You can pretend."

"Good." she smiled. There had to be some perks in this arrangement.

"Where we gonna get a pack of cigarettes?" Josh asked. Mattie tried to look innocent.

"I may be able to get my hands on a pack." she said with a grin.

"Of course you can." Josh muttered with a roll of his eyes.

Mattie disappeared to her room and then came back in a flash. She tossed the somewhat squashed and battered packet onto the bed in front of Josh. He frowned.

"You smoke these?" he asked looking inside the pack to find some missing.

"Well I used to." Mattie said.

"Uhhuh." Chloe said with a grin. "Where'd you have them hiding? I'm surprised Mac hasn't found them by now."

"As if I would tell you my hiding place." Mattie giggled, giving Chloe a shove.

"You know that's really dumb right?" Josh said seriously. Mattie flushed with embarrassment.

"I TOLD you." Mattie said. "I USED to smoke...sort of."

"Ok...whatever." Josh said. "We better get on with this if we're gonna do it." He stuffed the pack of cigarettes into his drawer making sure to tuck it underneath stuff but not too far underneath that it wouldn't be found. He messed it up a bit so Harm would tidy it...he hoped.

JAGJAGJAGJAGJAGJAG

Harm and Mac were in the kitchen talking when the three kids wandered through.

"We're bored." Mattie said. It was a known fact that if kids said they were bored something would be found for them to do.

"Really." Harm said narrowing his eyes. "We'll have to do something about that, won't we?"

"I'm just about to fold the clothes from the drier." Mac said."You can do that if you like."

"Um... we were thinking something outside." Chloe said, trying not to sound too desperate.

"Ok with me." Harm said not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Yard work it is."

"I get the mower." Josh said. "You girls can rake."

"Hey!" Mattie said. "That's not fair."

"No it isn't." Harm said. "You can all take turns of the mower." Josh rolled his eyes.

"Guess that's fair."

"Yes it is." Mattie said poking out her tongue with a twinkle in her eye. They'd obviously managed to pull the wool over the folk's eyes.

JAGJAGJAGJAGJAGJAG

"They're up to something." Mac said as she folded one of the girl's t-shirts. Harm chuckled.

"Maybe."

"You don't think so?" He thought for a minute and then looked out the window where the kids were arguing over the yard tools.

"No they seem pretty normal to me."

"Guess we'll see then." Mac said with a smug grin.

"Yes I guess we will."

JAGJAGJAGJAGJAGJAG

"Why don't I rake and you shovel the leaves into that bin." Mattie asked starting to rake while Josh started the mower.

"Or..." Chloe teased... "You could rake and then shovel the leaves and put them into the bin."

"Or...I could whack you with the shovel..."

"Ok ok...you only had to ask nicely." Chloe said, leaning on the shovel impatiently. "Come on then, make a pile." Mattie took a deep breath and counted to ten, maybe she should have hung on to those cigarettes...Chloe drove her to needing something sometimes.

Josh started up the mower and pushed it towards the girls making them scream. Harm stuck his head out the back door with an arm full of clothes.

"Knock it off!" he yelled. "Josh that's ridiculous! You're gonna hurt somebody."

"Sorry!" he waved. "Just messin around."

"Well don't...that's not a toy."

"Ok..." Josh noticed what Harm was holding and suddenly felt a little clammy, they were his jeans and T-shirts. And so we have lift off, he thought. This could so easily backfire...why had he let these girls talk him into this?

Harm disappeared back inside and the kids all exchanged glances before getting really busy, really fast.

JAGJAGJAGJAGJAGJAG

Harm took the stairs two at a time with two armfuls of clothes, one with a pile of Josh's and one of Mattie's. He walked into the girl's room first and went to put her clothes on her bed, but shook his head at the mess. He knew he should make her do it but it would only take him a couple of minutes and truth be known they probably all had a hand in making it. He popped Josh's stuff on the desk while he quickly straightened the beds. He folded a few things in the drawers properly and hung up the jackets and put away the shoes. Finally he put away the fresh laundry before picking up Josh's stuff and taking it into his room.

JAGJAGJAGJAGJAGJAG

Josh left the mower going but walked over to where the girls were looking worriedly up at the window of Josh's bedroom.

"What d'ya think's keeping him?" he whispered.

"I have no idea." Mattie said.

"Did you leave it where he could find it?" Chloe asked in a loud whisper.

"SHHhh." the other kids both said.

"He's probably putting our stuff away first and making the beds perfect again." Mattie said. "Just relax." Josh looked at the lawn mower, it hadn't been nearly as much fun as he thought it might.

"One of you two wanna do the mowing now?"

"I will." Chloe said.

"Josh picked up the rake and started raking the leaves into big piles and Mattie scooped them up and dumped them into the bin.

JAGJAGJAGJAGJAGJAG

Harm opened Josh's closet and winced at the underwear and socks that were curled p in a heap and dripping over the edge of the half open drawer. They were going to have to give these kids a lesson in neatness and the correct way to keep your things tidy, he thought. He pulled out the entire contents of the drawer and dumped it on the bed with the intention of refolding...but something caught his eye...it couldn't be...

He picked up the packet out of the discarded contents of the drawer and shook his head. No wonder he was in such a hurry to do work outside. He probably had one of these in his pocket. Maybe they were all smoking...

Harm opened the window and bellowed as loud as he could

"You three inside!...RIGHT NOW!" Mac looked up the stairs as the three kids ran past her, there faces full of worry.

"I knew they were up to something." she said shaking her head. Now it was her turn to take the stairs two at a time to find out what on earth was going on.

TBC

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