Alice-Miranda was just beginning to stir when she felt something tugging at her bedclothes. She rolled over to see Marcus’s big brown eyes staring at her. ‘Up,’ he said, then gave a clap.

‘What are you doing in here, mister?’ Alice-Miranda leaned over to help the wriggling toddler climb onto the bed. He jumped under the covers and snuggled down beside her with his head on the pillow.

‘Where’s your sister?’ Alice-Miranda wondered if Aunt Charlotte knew that Marcus was missing. She was also worried about how he had come to be in her room. The house wasn’t exactly toddler-friendly with all those stairs.

Millie poked her head around the bathroom door. ‘I thought I heard something,’ she said, racing over and climbing into the other side of Alice-Miranda’s enormous bed.

There was a noise at the door followed by the sound of tiny feet thudding across the floorboards. Imogen appeared and looked at the trio, eager to join them. She clambered up and snuggled in between Millie and Alice-Miranda. The two toddlers babbled away, telling the girls all sorts of things they couldn’t quite decipher.

Millie decided to try to teach them her name. Marcus managed ‘me’ but couldn’t get his tongue around the rest of the sounds. Alice-Miranda had a little more success with Marcus calling her ‘Anda’, which the girls giggled at.

The four children lay under the covers for quite some time, chatting and playing games. The twins particularly liked ‘Where’s your?’ followed by the naming of some or other facial feature. They were both surprisingly good at it too, although Marcus thought it was hysterical to stick his finger up Alice-Miranda’s nose instead of pointing at his own.

‘Do you ever wish you had a brother or sister?’ Millie asked.

‘I used to want that more than anything, but then I got a big sister, anyway.’ Alice-Miranda turned to look at Millie, whose red curls were spread out all over the pillow.

Millie smiled. ‘And I got the best big little sister I could ever have hoped for.’

The bedroom door opened and Charlotte poked her head around. On seeing their mother, the twins dove under the covers and started giggling loudly.

‘Good morning. I hope those cheeky monkeys didn’t spoil your sleep,’ Charlotte said as she sat down on the edge of the bed. Imogen jumped up and headed to her mother for a cuddle.

‘Not exactly,’ Alice-Miranda said.

‘We’ve been teaching Imogen and Marcus how to say our names,’ Millie said.

‘Then you’re doing better than me. I can’t get them to say anything close to Mummy or Daddy,’ Charlotte said. ‘What shall we do today?’

‘Maybe we can look in on the lambs at the farm?’ Alice-Miranda suggested. ‘And the chickens. Would you like that?’ She turned to Marcus, who had crawled up into the crook of her arm and was leaning against her shoulder.

Imogen clucked like a hen and the boy let out a loud bleating sound.

‘We’ll have to ask Heinrich where Ramon is – he’s the daddy and he’s a bit tricky,’ Alice-Miranda said.

‘That sounds like a plan,’ said Charlotte. ‘We’d better get dressed and hop to it, then.’

Imogen and Marcus slipped down from the bed and pretended to be bunny rabbits as they ran out the door with their mother right behind.