HT, Molly and Scruffy were in cahoots together.

Molly's job was to get Cricket out of the house for the day.

Scruffy went out with Wiggle to do some secret shopping.

HT's job was to call everyone on the invitation list to tell them about the surprise. By noon time she was almost finished.

For her part, Molly Malone was keeping Cricket too tired to ever imagine that anyone was planning a surprise. Molly knew that HT had a lot of calls to make so she kept Cricket busy as long as she pawssibly could.

"C'mon Crickey, one more time around the track," she said with encouragement.

"It's time to go home," said Cricket, out of breath.  She licked her sore paws and wondered how many times they had been around the track.

"Colonel Kramer, is that you?" asked HT.

"At your service!" replied the Colonel.

HT quickly told Kramer the surprise party details. 

Colonel Kramer laughed out loud. "Opawration Jack and Jill!" he grinned.

"Mum's the word," said HT. "Don't tell Patrick either."

"One more thing," whispered HT, "can you call Furlock Bones?  Cricket and Molly just got home."

"You bet," said the colonel, "go hide any evidence."

"Shhhhh" they both said at once.

This 'getting into shape' business is hard work," said Cricket, catching her breath. "And there is so much to do before the wedding."
"We did great today, Cricks," said Molly Malone.  

Not only did Molly think it was great that they jogged so many miles, she also was pretty happy that her sister did not have a clue about "opawration Jack and Jill".

Since the sisters were so close, and did just about everything together, it was pretty hard to pull off this surprise without the help of all the others.  Still, deep down inside Molly knew things would be different when her sister got married.  

On the one paw, she was so happy for Cricket.  On the other paw, she knew she was going to miss the days they did everything together.