The boys had yesterday off from school, although we sent Alice in so we would have a chance at doing some useful work. We had a business phone meeting in the morning, during which we locked the boys in the basement. This was so traumatic that afterwards, when I called them out to announce that they were released from durance vile, Corwin said “you got me out of the computer room for that?”.
In the afternoon the neighbor girl Olivia arrived, whether on invitation, randomly, or conspiratorially I have no idea. We invited her in to play with Charles, who she took off to get Zina. Two other kids from down the street arrived along with Matt and Claire so we once again had quite the crew. It turns out that Amalia was being paid to babysit a subset of them but had not noticed them all slipping away to Charles’ house. I discovered this when Amalia’s mom called to find out where her daughter Zina was. Amalia meanwhile was in transit to stand watch over her charges once again.
I would like to think this sudden convergence is due to Charles’ maturing social skills, but I suspect Olivia is probably the magic ingredient. Plus that Mom feed them fresh baked chocolate cookies the first time.