Jo stretched her arms out above her head and smiled. How she loved this time of the year, when life renewed itself and the children would be free to spend as much of their spare time outside as possible. She herself longed for just a moment when she could revisit her youth and climb high in a tree where she could see all around and settle on a branch to read one of her favourite books.

Wrapping herself in her robe and sliding her feet into her slippers, Jo headed towards the door of her room to creep downstairs to the front porch before the children woke up. She was stopped short, though, as she reached for the doorknob. She had always taken for granted before that it was at a certain familiar height, even in the dark, but now it was conspicuous in its absence. She place her fingers inside the hole where the knob had been and tried to pull. The door wouldn't budge. Jo stood back, hands on hips and frowned. Who could possibly....?

With a sudden dawning, she realized who would have done this: the children. This day was the first of April, and there was no telling what kind of pranks the children had in store for her, or for each other. If she were going to dissuade them from trying anything more on what could possibly turn into a very long day, she would have to find a way out before they all woke up. Striding towards the window, Jo contemplated climbing down through the window, but her room was on the second floor of the house, and the chances of her injuring herself would be too great. At any rate, doing something like that would be decidedly unladylike, even if she would not have hesitated to do such a thing had she still been a young girl living with Marmee and her sisters, Meg, Beth and Amy.

She opened the window, hoping at least to get some fresh air to stimulate her mind into coming up with a solution. The birds sang merrily as they flitted about almost as though they were laughing at her plight, but there was another song in the air as well. Just at the edge of the trees, not too far from the house, Jo caught sight of Nick Riley, her groundskeeper, sitting on a tree stump as he read a book. Under other circumstances she might have reminded him that reading in the near darkness was hardly advisable, but she had often done so herself... and right now she needed help.

"Nick," Jo whispered hoarsely, trying not to call out to loudly. Nick cocked his head and looked outward, but not upward, as he tried to figure out if he had just heard his name or if it had just been the wind. He shrugged once and then resumed his reading, index finger firmly in place on the page so that he might not lose his place as he tried sounding out a particularly difficult word that Jo had not taught him yet.

"Nick," Jo tried again, this time louder. Nick didn't budge.

Jo looked around her room. She needed to find some way of getting Nick's attention. Finally, she picked up her hairbrush, leaned partly out the window and pitched it towards the groundskeeper. Much to Jo's relief, the brush missed the person she was aiming at and landed squarely in the middle of his book. He looked up sharply, wondering what might have prompted the strange attack. Jo waved her arms wildly for him to come closer.

Nick stood below her window in an oddly comical rendition of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet balcony scene. "Good mornin', Jo. I think you should know that you... lost something," he said, holding the brush up for her to see that he had received her "message" loud and clear.

"Nick, I need your help," Jo pleaded in a whisper just loud enough for the two of them to hear.

Nick looked up at Jo with those ice blue eyes of his that she had quickly and completely come to trust over the time he had been at Plumfield. Little had she known when she had hired Nick Riley that she would come to rely on him quite so much, or under such odd circumstances. "Sure. Anything," he said.

"This is going to sound really silly," Jo said, relaxing now that she knew someone was going to rescue her, "but I'm trapped in my room."

"What?" Nick lowered his head for a moment, and Jo knew that he was trying to hide the grin on his face.

"It's April Fool's day," Jo explained. "I think the children somehow bolted my door from the outside. The doorknob's gone, and I'd like to get myself out of here before they wake up."

Nick wiped a hand across his mouth, as though to wipe the smile off his face and replace it with a serious expression. "I'll go get a ladder," he said at last.

Jo nodded and then turned back to her room. She had just finished quickly throwing on something to wear when she heard the ladder thump against her windowsill. Nick called up quietly just before he reached the top of the ladder. Always the gentleman, he wanted to make sure he didn't embarrass Jo any further.

"You know," began Jo as she climbed out the window, her heavy skirts threatening to throw her off balance and topple them both to the ground, "it might have been easier if you had just removed whatever it is outside the door that's keeping it shut." She looked at Nick who was just a step below her, keeping his arms around her to ensure that she didn't fall. He looked back and his eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Where would the fun be in that? Besides, the kids will be more surprised to see you at breakfast if your door's still bolted up."

Jo had to concede to that point, and was relieved to reach solid ground, no matter how cosey the climb down with Nick had been.

Asia was already awake and working in the kitchen where the smell of eggs and bacon filled the air. She was surprised to see Jo enter from the back door rather than from through the dining room. "My you're up early this morning, Mrs. Jo." The sight of Nick just behind the lady of the house gave cause for Asia to raise a suspicious eyebrow.

Jo looked back at Nick who accepted some toast and eggs from Asia and then quietly slipped back out to the barn. "It's not what it looks like," Jo said defensively.

"Mm, hmm..."

"Let's just say that the children may decide to have a bit of fun with us today, so you'd better watch out. Your turn is bound to be coming up between now and sundown."

The sound of footsteps on the stairs signaled the awakening of the children and their path to the dining room for breakfast. Nan practically flew through the kitchen door, smiling from ear to ear. "Good morning, Asia," she chimed, not having quite entered the room yet. "I think Mrs. Jo slept in. She's not at... the..." As she saw Mrs. Jo standing next to Asia, she stopped short in her tracks. Then, catching herself, she smiled widely for the woman who had become something of a surrogate mother to her. "Good morning, Mrs. Jo!"

Jo smiled sweetly back. "Good morning, Nan."

"Um... The table's all set for breakfast," Nan said. She then smiled again and turned back quickly to the dining room.

The children were oddly silent as Mrs. Jo entered the room, but she could still see that sparkle of mischief in some of their eyes, particularly as Emil and her own little Robbie shared a conspiratorial glance before they looked back at Franz, her nephew and the school teacher at Plumfield. Franz looked at his aunt, his glance asking if she though there was something strange going on. Somehow, he could just feel it, but Jo merely shrugged and returned a smile before returning to her meal. Franz shrugged as well and then reached for his glass of milk. The glass refused to budge, and Robbie started to giggle.

"Oh, very funny," Franz said as he looked around the table at the early morning pranksters. But as they all started to giggle, including Jo, Franz joined in. This was one little joke that could easily be appreciated by all even at his own expense.

Once they had eaten, the children retreated to the schoolroom with Franz and the day passed uneventfully, for the most part. Franz had had to ask the children to remove all of his books and slates from where they had been hung up in a tree and Asia had had to clean up the mess that a buttered watermelon had caused as she prepared the children's lunch. That was their own loss, Asia figured, and there would be no dessert for the little rascals at dinner time. After Nick had removed the hay from his hair and clothing as a result of having a pile of it fall on his head as he entered the barn, he then had to pry a stack of logs apart that had been nailed together before helping Jo repair her bedroom door. Meanwhile, Jo had been busy cleaning butter off the doorknobs to several rooms, drying out bed sheets that had been soaked through with water bombs, and prying dishes off the dining room table.

"You know, we shouldn't be cleaning up the mess the kids made," Nick said as he and Jo sat on the porch for a little rest before dinner. The children were inside, getting ready for the evening meal, and he was just glad the day would soon be over.

"I know," said Jo. "But I don't want to discourage them from a bit of fun. Besides, this is one day of the year when pranks should go unpunished." Nick looked doubtfully at Jo. "As long as no one gets hurt," she amended.

Asia stepped out onto the porch to let Nick and Jo know that dinner would be ready shortly. The stew was simmering, so she thought she'd catch a breath of fresh air in the company of adults before heading back in to serve the meal.

"I'm just going to grab another pile of firewood from out back," said Nick as Asia settle next to Jo for some company.

As he made his way to the woodpile, Nick heard the children giggling in the kitchen and wondered what they were up to. Emil and Dan were standing over the stew with a bottle of something in their hands. Nick watched quietly as they replaced one of Asia's usual bottle of ingredients with the ingredient they had with them. When they had made sure to clean up any trace of their prank, they retreated back to the dining room like good little children.

Nick crept quietly into the kitchen through the back door and picked up the bottle that had just been tampered with. Even the smell of the ingredient was overpowering and he knew he certainly wouldn't want to be eating anything with too much of this stuff in it. When Asia walked back into the kitchen and saw Nick by the food, she was ready to scold him as she would one of the children, but he stopped her before she could get even a word out.

The children seemed to have perpetual grins on their faces on this day, and sitting around the table for dinner seemed no different. When Asia brought out the stew, the children all waited patiently before picking up their forks, but none of them brought any food to their lips. Instead, they watched out of the corner of their eyes at Jo, Nick and Franz.

"This is delicious!" Nick exclaimed as he took a bite of stew.

Jo brought her fork to her lips and smiled as she tasted her dinner. "Have you done something different to the stew tonight, Asia?"

Asia shrugged, her poker face giving away nothing. "I just thought I'd try a new ingredient. See how you all like it," she said.

Meanwhile, Franz was busily putting away the stew as if he were a man starving for weeks. The children looked at each other and shrugged. Tentatively, and all at once, they each took a bite and chewed. Then, as quickly as Jo had ever seen them move, all the children reached simultaneously for their glasses of water. Their own trick had been played on them.

When the children had been sufficiently relieved of the spicy tastes on their tongues, Jo, Nick, Franz and Asia all smiled, and in one voice cried: "April Fools!"