Title: Ears
Fandom: Swallows and Amazons
Rating: G
Length: 500
Content notes: set the year before the series starts.
Author notes: 10th in my personal 50x500 Swallows and Amazons fic challenge (prompt: ears)... Which at this rate should be done in 30 years or so ;)
Summary: "“Shh! Little pitchers, remember,” Mother interrupted, laughing, and the voices grew too quiet to be heard."

“For tomorrow, I was thinking…” Daddy’s voice drifted through the open window, and Roger looked up, bright-eyed.

“Shh! Little pitchers, remember,” Mother interrupted, laughing, and the voices grew too quiet to be heard.

“Oh, bother, I wanted to know what we’re doing tomorrow,” Roger grumbled.

Titty looked at him reproachfully. “Rogie! That would be eavesdropping, it’s frightfully wrong.”

“Wouldn’t! I wasn’t listening on purpose, but it’s not wrong if people talk loud enough you can’t help hearing,” Roger retorted.

Titty was unsure on that point, thinking it might still be eavesdropping to keep listening without showing you were; and after arguing about it for a few minutes, they decided to ask John to settle the matter.

They wouldn’t normally be playing in the garden, but Roger had been sniffing badly all day, and Mother had decreed no going further abroad after the morning’s downpour had left their usual haunts soaking wet. Roger had grumbled at first, but soon saw sense when asked if he really wanted to spend the holidays indoors with a cold. As for the rest, perhaps at another time they would have complained, but today was the first day of Daddy’s leave, and no-one really wanted to go far from the house. It still didn’t seem quite real that he was there, and it was reassuring to look in and check.

So the garden it was, and they had decided to be a circus, after hearing talk of one coming to Falmouth the day before. Titty was being a lion-tamer, and had been trying to coax their landlady’s placid old tabby through a hoop until Roger raised a moral debate. Roger himself, meanwhile, had picked a clown, and had been trying out his best jokes on her. Susan and John, who had both chosen acrobats, were practising on the open lawn. Susan had been taught to turn cartwheels by a friend at school that term, and was working out where to start in order to get the longest run possible. John, trying to walk on his hands, was discovering it so much harder than he had expected that he wasn’t sorry to stop and consider Titty and Roger’s question.

“It’s not really eavesdropping if you overhear something by accident,” he decided, “but it is to keep on listening after you realise you’re not meant to hear it.”

Titty grinned at this agreement with her, while Roger sniffed crossly.

“I do wonder what Daddy’s planning, though,” John added honestly. “It’s sure to be something good, Daddy’s ideas always are.”

“Maybe we’re going to see the real circus!” Titty said.

Susan, who had abandoned her cartwheels to join them, looked dubious. “If it pours again, maybe… But if not I think it’ll be outdoors, that’s more the sort of thing Daddy plans. Swimming, maybe? Remember that time on his last leave?”

With that, the circus was forgotten for the time being, as they settled down to discuss the fruits of Titty and Roger’s accidental eavesdropping to their hearts' content.