are quite vulnerable to infection, apparently. David Brown actually met Riddle and is in a state of grief. So now we have no live elephant and will have to have a pretend one that the special effects team will produce. It will be brilliant, of course it will, but it’s very upsetting altogether. In fact, I’m so depressed I’m going back to the story.

g

g

The Story 16

Cyril woke the next morning to find no goat in the bed but two feet on the pillow next to him.

‘Argh!!! My feet!’ he cried, grabbing them. A very cross Norman yanked them away.

‘Oh. They’re yours,’ said Cyril, with relief, and suddenly a very loud tooting on a trumpet woke all the others up too.

Everyone sat up and looked around. All the animals were gone, and everyone was exceptionally glad about that except Vincent, who was already missing his elephant.

‘Rise and shine,’ said Nanny McPhee briskly. She was in an enormous smart black uniform, also trimmed with jet, with black pointy boots which were rather little when you considered what they had to carry about.

‘Beds made – hospital corners, if you please – and downstairs for breakfast at the double!’ And with that she turned smartly on her heel and left the room. There was a short, subdued silence.

Then Megsie spoke: ‘Who is she? And how did she do all those things?’

Cyril puffed out his chest. ‘I have a theory,’ he said.

‘Oh, here we go,’ muttered Norman, getting under his pillow. But he listened all the same.

‘I think she’s a secret weapon. My father’s very high up in the War Office and I know about these things. I think that stick of hers releases some sort of gas that makes people and animals do strange things. I’m going to write to Father and report her. He’ll have her called off.’

Cyril sounded so sure of himself that for a moment all the Greens thought, Yes, that must be it. She’s a secret weapon. Lord Gray will have her called off.

But then Celia piped up. ‘Don’t be silly, Cyril. Father never even replies to your letters, you know that.’

Cyril coloured. Norman, interested, came out from under his pillow to look at him. Cyril stared angrily back as Vincent said, ‘That’s like our dad. He hasn’t replied to our letters for years and years.’

Now it was Cyril and Celia’s turn to look interested.

‘That’s not true, Vinnie,’ said Megsie crossly.

‘Three months, that’s all, since the last one,’ said Norman, not wanting the vile cousins to think that the wonderful Mr Green was anything like their father.

‘He’s in the army. They move them around a lot. Letters get lost.’

‘Does your dad move around a lot then too?’ asked Vincent, intrigued.

‘No,’ said Cyril shortly. ‘He’s always in the same office.’

There was a silence which no one quite knew how to break. Finally, Celia said, ‘Well, I’m jolly well staying in bed till Mummy comes.’

Now Norman hopped out. ‘No one stays in bed around here. There’s chores to do. Come on, you lot – time to feed the animals!’

‘Yes, I expect you’re all hungry by now,’ said Cyril, who was wearing purple silk pyjamas.

‘Oh, ha ha,’ said Norman, grabbing his clothes and leaving, followed by a very sulky Megsie and Vincent.

‘I suppose we’ll have to get up to get fed,’ said Cyril, who was used to a valet bringing him breakfast in bed every morning except Sundays, when everyone met for devilled kidneys in a very long and chilly dining room. He put on his monogrammed slippers, grabbed a little case from the bed-knob and headed out. ‘You coming?’ he asked Celia, none too gently.

‘Don’t be silly. I haven’t a thing to wear,’ said Celia crossly. Cyril had heard this many times before and never believed it, but this time it was manifestly true. All Celia’s precious new clothes were lying in the mud around the house.

Celia lay in bed in her slip. She was hungry. She had to find something to wear. Those horrible peasanty children had destroyed her clothes. They owed her new things. She decided to get up and explore. There must be something somewhere she could wear until her mother came for her.

Downstairs, Mrs Green was ready for work and had even managed to have a quiet breakfast on her own. Nanny McPhee was there, doling out porridge to a group of sullen faces. Cyril was sitting in the window seat wearing his gas mask. Mrs Green looked at him worriedly.

‘Cyril, dear, why are you wearing