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Dinah, who was getting the room ready for Gammer down in the Dell.
    Marianne tried to edge up to Joe to find out how he was getting on among all the enemy enchanters, but before she could get near Joe, Uncle Arthur climbed onto Uncle Cedric’s cart and, with Dad up there too to prompt him, began telling everyone what to do. It made sense to have Uncle Arthur do the announcing. He had a big booming voice, rather like Great-Uncle Edgar’s. No one could say they had not heard him.
    Everyone was divided into work parties. Some were to clear everything out of Woods House, to make it ready to be sold; some were to take Gammer’s special things over to the Dell; and yet others were to help get Gammer’s room ready there. Marianne found herself in the fourth group that was supposed to get Gammer herself down to the Dell. To her disappointment, Joe was in the work party that was sent to Aunt Dinah’s.
    â€œAnd we should be through by lunchtime,” Uncle Arthur finished. “Special lunch for all, hereat the Pinhoe Arms at one o’clock sharp. Free wine and beer.”
    While the Pinhoes were raising a cheer at this, the Reverend Pinhoe climbed up beside Uncle Arthur and blessed the undertaking. “And may many hands make light work,” he said. It all sounded wonderfully efficient.
    The first sign that things were not, perhaps, going to go that smoothly was when Great-Uncle Edgar stopped his carriage outside Woods House slap in the path of the farm cart and strode into the house, narrowly missing a sofa that was just coming out in the hands of six second cousins. Edgar strode up to Dad, who was in the middle of the hall, trying to explain which things were to go with Gammer and which things were to be stored in the shed outside the village.
    â€œI say, Harry,” he said in his most booming and important way, “mind if I take that corner cupboard in the front room? It’ll only deteriorate in storage.”
    Behind him came Great-Uncle Lester, asking for the cabinet in the dining room. Marianne could hardly hear him for shouts of “Get out of the way !” and “Lester, move your car! The sofa’s stuck !” and Uncle Richard bawling, “I have toback the donkey there! Move that sofa!”
    â€œRight royal pile-up, by the sound,” Uncle Charles remarked, coming past with a bookshelf, two biscuit tins, and a stool. “I’ll sort it out. You get upstairs, Harry. Polly and Sue and them are having a bit of trouble with Gammer.”
    â€œGo up and see, girl,” Dad said to Marianne, and to Edgar and Lester, “Yes, have the blessed cupboard and the cabinet and then get out of the way. Though mind you,” he panted, hurrying to catch up with Marianne on the stairs, “that cupboard’s only made of plywood.”
    â€œI know. And the legs on the cabinet come off all the time,” Marianne said.
    â€œWhatever makes them happy,” Dad panted.
    The shouts outside rose to screams mixed with braying. They turned around and watched the sofa being levitated across the startled donkey. This was followed by a horrific crash as someone dropped the glass case with the badger in it. Then they had to turn the other way as Uncle Arthur came pelting down the stairs with a frilly bedside table hugged to his considerable belly, shouting, “Harry, you’ve got to come! Real trouble.”
    Marianne and Dad squeezed past him andrushed upstairs to Gammer’s bedroom, where Joss Callow and another distant cousin were struggling to get the carpet out from under the feet of a crowd of agitated aunts. “Oh, thank goodness you’ve come!” Great-Aunt Clarice said, looking hot and wild-haired and most unlike her usual elegant self.
    Great-Aunt Sue, who was still almost crisp and neat, added, “We don’t know what to do.”
    All the aunts were holding armfuls of clothes. Evidently they had been trying to get Gammer