therefore that she and her brother had arrived early and must have been attacked in some way.

And lastly, it followed that the noises she now heard issuing from the farmhouse, loud enough to be heard above the howling wind and squawking jackdaw, were the noises of battle.

‘Oh no!’ gulped Mrs Green. ‘Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.’

She went to the door. Huge thuds and screams came from behind it. She opened it, her heart in her mouth.

The sight that met her eyes was little less than catastrophic.

Norman had Cyril in a headlock and was dragging him around in circles, letting out the most dreadful war cries. Cyril was kicking at Norman, while above them, on the landing, Megsie was pulling pieces off Celia’s dress and trying to tie her to the banisters with them as Celia made violent attempts to escape, shrieking, ‘Let go, let go, let GO.’

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‘All right then,’ said Megsie, letting go and causing Celia to catapult down the stairs as Vincent appeared with his father’s cricket bat, thumping everything he could see and yelling, ‘Death, death, death and hurting!’ over and over again.

Taking a deep breath, Mrs Green walked in and was immediately spun around by the battling boys.

‘Celia! Cyril! You’re early!’ she screamed. ‘How’s your mother?’

The children took not the blindest bit of notice and continued to wrestle and screech until Mrs Green had to stop her ears and thunder, ‘STOP! STOP FIGHTING!!!’

But no one could hear her. Just at that moment there was a thundering rap at the door. Lightning illuminated the room and Mrs Green whirled to see a very odd, lumpy silhouette through the glass bit of the door.

‘What on earth . . .’ she breathed, when there it was again. RAT-A-TAT-TAT. A heavy, no nonsense, answer-this-door-immediately kind of knocking.

Mrs Green went to the door feeling a trepidation quite unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She took hold of the door knob and threw open the door. As she did so, lightning blazed across the sky, allowing her to see in intense detail the person who was standing in the porch.

It was female, of that there could be no doubt. A vast and hideous female, dressed from head to foot in rusty black stuff trimmed with jet. But the face! Her face was so UGLY, so ugly you could hardly believe it. Her nose was like a giant pocky old potato. Her eyebrows met bushily in the middle and she had two enormous black hairy warts like spiders! Out over her lip stuck a gigantic and discoloured tombstone-shaped tooth and she stared at Mrs Green out of ancient glittering eyes.

Mrs Green was entirely unable to speak. Even though she had been taught from a very early age that it was rude to stare, she simply couldn’t help it. She stared and stared and then she stared some more.

The fierce-looking female stared back for a short moment. Then she opened her mouth to speak. It seemed strange that anyone with quite so many enormous teeth should be able to speak at all, but when she did, it was in a calm, almost mellifluous way.

‘Good evening, Mrs Green. I am Nanny McPhee.’

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Mrs Green realised she had stopped breathing, took in a big lungful of air and tried to address her visitor as politely as she knew she ought.

‘Oh, you’re it! I mean him – her – the Nanny they – I do beg your pardon – who?’

Unperturbed, and casting a glance at the violence that continued without interruption behind Mrs Green, the strange person spoke again.

‘Nanny McPhee. Small c. Big p.’

Mrs Green felt that the last thing she needed was someone this scary-looking trying to interfere.

‘Yes, I see, righto, but the thing is – the thing is that I haven’t hired a nanny – you see? I don’t – I’ve never – I don’t actually like nannies and I’m managing perfectly well here –’

This was the moment Norman chose to pick Vincent up and throw him bodily at Cyril. Nanny McPhee raised her single bushy eyebrow at poor Mrs Green.

‘It’s the war!’ said Mrs Green, somewhat hysterically. ‘It’s not a very good influence.’

All the children were now in the best parlour, bashing each other and screaming louder than ever. Mrs Green backed away from the front door and closed the door to the parlour. When she turned around, Nanny McPhee was in the house with the front door closed and even though Mrs Green knew she hadn’t exactly invited her in, something