your gas mask?’ she enquired somewhat timidly, because she was feeling guilty about Celia’s clothes.

‘In case of a GAS ATTACK, Aunt Isabel,’ said Cyril, staring very pointedly at Nanny McPhee.

‘A gas attack? Cyril, I don’t think there’s going to be a gas attack here, we’re in the middle of nowhere – that’s why your mother sent you here, remember?’

Cyril rudely ignored her and took his porridge as far away from the others as he could.

Mrs Green stared at them all and wrung her hands. ‘Oh dear, Nanny McPhee. Sharing nicely doesn’t seem to have cheered them up much.’

‘One step at a time,’ said Nanny McPhee.

‘Yes. Yes, of course. I must run. There’s a delivery of mousetraps at the shop today and I simply must get to them before Mrs Docherty,’ and casting one more worried look at the moping children, she pulled on her coat and ran out of the door.

‘Right,’ said Norman. ‘Chores. Megs, you feed Geraldine, Vinnie, you collect the eggs, I’ll check the barley, and Cyril, you can sweep up the dung.’

‘I’d love to sweep up the dung,’ said Cyril silkily, ‘but alas, I appear to have left my dung-sweepers at home. Perhaps Celia could be of assistance?’

Norman just scowled. He was about to shoo everyone out to start work when Celia came downstairs wearing something white and pearly-looking. Megsie choked on her porridge.

‘What are you wearing?’ she said in a shocked whisper as soon as she’d caught her breath.

Celia looked down and fingered the pretty material.

g

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‘Um – I think it’s mostly tulle,’ she said, pleased that Megsie, who wouldn’t know an item of haute couture if it bit her on the ankle, was taking an interest.

Megsie got up and pointed an accusing finger at Celia. ‘That’s our mother’s wedding dress!’ she said. ‘Take it off at once!’

Oh dear. This is what had happened. Unable, of course, to find anything suitable in the children’s bedroom, Celia had tiptoed into Mr and Mrs Green’s room and rifled through their wardrobe. She’d felt a little guilty but had justified her actions by remembering all her spoilt new things lying in the mud. There hadn’t been much in the wardrobe – a few frocks, darned and mended many times over, and a depressing pinafore or two, nothing she could possibly have countenanced wearing. But then she’d found a pretty box in one of the drawers. She’d opened it and found a lovely little floaty dress in pearly white with, of all things, a veil. She’d tried it on and it had fitted quite well and there she was, looking presentable, ready for when her mother arrived to take her home.

‘Wedding dress? What – this old thing?’ said Celia disbelievingly. ‘No, it can’t be. Look – it hasn’t even got a train.’ And she twirled round so that Megsie could see how wrong she’d been.

Now I know that what Celia had done was rather awful and rude, but you must remember she really didn’t have anything to wear and she came from a world where wedding dresses were kept either in their own special trunks in rooms set apart from the rest of the house or in the vaults of banks if they were encrusted with particularly precious gems. Her mother’s dress had had a train that was twenty feet long and covered in doves’ feathers and diamonds, so try to understand – the poor girl had no idea that other people were different. No one had ever thought to tell her. The puffball dress was the sort of thing her mother might have worn to a coffee morning, and not a very posh one at that. But Megsie wasn’t to know this and she lunged at Celia violently, yelling, ‘Take it OFF!! TAKE IT OFF!!!’

Celia shrieked and ran behind a chair as Nanny McPhee stood, watching the proceedings with her usual calm.

‘Help me get it off her!’ shouted Megsie but everyone except Cyril had already gone off to do their chores. Casting a defiant glance at Nanny McPhee, Megsie was just about to pull the dress off Celia by force when Norman rushed back into the kitchen, white to the teeth.

‘The piglets have escaped! They’ve all gone!!’

Vincent, behind him, was practically in tears. Norman was frantic.

‘Everyone – now – you’ve got to help us, quickly, we have to catch them, I need all of you – Cyril, Celia, come quickly –’

But Cyril and Celia had no intention of going anywhere. Norman went up to Cyril and faced him square on.

‘Listen,