Peace and quiet were two things for which Spencer had immense appreciation, and he was more than willing to take them right now. With Father at work, and Mother, Hortensia, and Bianca all at Madam Malkin's, getting new robes fitted for the younger girls, Spencer and Imogene were left as the only people in Thornapple Grove, something which, for his part, Spencer took no argument. As much as he loved his younger sisters (and he loved them a great deal, even when Bianca was taking advantage of him and Hortensia was running her mouth about how cruel and unfair certain standards for women were), he also loved being able to get some reading done, something that having the girls around made rather difficult.
Seeing as he had a new book to get through -- a novel, at that, and a riveting one, even if it wasn't notably dense; Mother was always telling him to take a break from reading such heavy literature -- he was hardly going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Stretching out on one of the drawing room chaise lounges, Spencer took a sip from his cup of tea and sat it on the little table to his right. The sun filtered through the window just perfectly for reading and, smiling to himself, Spencer opened his book to where he'd left off the previous night.
It wasn't that Imogene had anything against reading. She didn't have anything against reading at all, she loved reading, but she was rather expecting something different to come out of this day. She and Spencer were left alone for once and she wanted to do something fun, just the two of the, before they had to return to the monotony of Hogwarts. So when she found Spencer curled up in his chair with his tea and his book, she had to let out a sigh of disappointment, leaning against the doorframe.
"Spencer. Honestly. We have the entire day to ourselves and you're reading?"
Spencer startled a bit and almost jumped before he saw that he wasn't being confronted with pirate ghosts, or ghost pirates, or anything of that nature (really, he supposed that they would have to be two different entities, which only occurred to him because Lady Merriwhether and Lord Applegate were having a discussion of aforementioned semantics in the novel). Immediately, he felt rather silly for such a thought as well. Pirate ghosts -- what would he think of next?
No, no, of course it wasn't something so ridiculous as that; it was only Genie, pulling some sort of face at him for his choice of extracurricular activities. "Well, would you expect any less of me?" he asked brightly, smiling at her. "I can hardly read properly when Hortensia and Bianca are running around the manor; they are mistresses of noise and distraction."
"Well I certainly can't argue with that, but I'm bored, and I demand you entertain me," Imogene said in her best haughty voice, coming into the room to sit at Spencer's feet. "After all, we'll be back at Hogwarts soon, and there's no telling when we'll be able to spend time together with all of our various assignments and extra curriculars. So really, we ought to make the best of it, don't you agree?" Because really, as much as she liked to insist otherwise, she really did love spending time with her brother. He was, after all, her favorite person.