The Hokey-Cokey Ceilidh

"You all understand, right?" Colonel Keaton asked, "I've got some pull with the guys - well really
I'll just pull rank - and they won't be able to turn you around because you have the only way to contact them. This should work, okay, so long as you do everything you're told and tell nobody that you're meant to be in Glasgow right now. I'm giving you the chance to help, not to be heroes. You can't do this on your own. Okay?"
 We nodded, even Ben resembled a seven-year-old schoolchild. Keaton led us round the rear of an army camp and approached a dark green canvas tent as if it housed the Trickster and he was off to right the wrongs of time, never to emerge again. Emerge he did, with a frown that told us all was not well.
 "What's going on?" Ben asked, "Are we allowed to stay."
 "Well, the Sergeant's a good guy and he wants you to stay, but if the Major pays a visit, we have to hide you all. Your parents have contacted me and told me they'll cover for me, Joanne, evidently they're a lot cooler than you give them credit for. So all's good in that respect. Now, let's see if we can't find you lot a thinking spot, eh?"

 The best spot turned out to be a large hollow in the land, though nowhere near as pulse-quickening as Dewer's Hollow. The Major wasn't due to arrive until the next day so, for the time being, we ... well we were occupied with a rather unusual of pastimes.
 Woah, the hokey-cokey!
 Woah, the hokey-cokey!
 Woah, the hokey-cokey!
 That's what it's all about
 SEEEEE
 You put your left foot in,
 You take your left foot out...

 After a round of that, we settled down in our assigned tents to sleep, the first night I'd spent without anyone else in the same room since March. It was now May.


 "You've got silly friends," Jake commented, on viewing the video Shannen had sent Eliza of their hokey-cokey.
 "Yeah, I'd give anything to be being silly with them right now."
 "You can be silly here."
 Eliza grinned, "What are you thinking?"
 Jake smiled back and crossed the cave's floor to its very centre and piped in his ridiculously feline register, "Alright, listen up everybody! Get into threes of two boys and a girl! We're gonna have ourselves a ceilidh!"
 Huh, ceilidh dancing. Not what Eliza would have associated with a seven-year-old, but she had acknowledged a Scots edge to his chipmunk-voice, so maybe this was how his parents partied when they were down. Whatever the reason for his familiarity with the dances, Jake arranged them fluently, as if he'd been born doing the Dashin' White Sergeant. And he put on quite a show.