was in the garden sniffing the air when she heard a very familiar noise. It was a sort of squawky burp. She sighed to herself and turned to find the jackdaw, Mr Edelweiss, standing on the garden fence looking sheepish.

‘You have the collywobbles again, haven’t you?’ said Nanny McPhee sternly. Mr Edelweiss tried to deny it but another burp popped out and he flew around in a small, distressed circle before landing on the fence again, this time a little farther away.

‘You’ve been eating window putty again, haven’t you?’ she said, even more sternly.

Mr Edelweiss jumped up and down, flew off to do a burp behind the barn, flew back and squawked again, this time with some urgency.

‘I’m not interested in anything you might have to tell me, Mr Edelweiss. You are a destructive person with revolting habits. Our relationship is over,’ said Nanny McPhee, turning her back on him. Very upset, Mr Edelweiss flew around her head squawking loudly and persistently. All of a sudden Nanny McPhee went very still.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘That is interesting. Show me.’

Delighted, Mr Edelweiss led Nanny McPhee around the barn to where a small stream ran and the peelings were composted. There was a strong smell of rotting vegetation. There, at the foot of the barn wall, was a hole, a very large hole that led to a tunnel that had clearly been dug by something or someone very big.

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‘Hmph,’ said Nanny McPhee. ‘How very odd. That’s far too big for the piglets to have dug, and it must be how they escaped. Hmph.’

She and Mr Edelweiss went into the barn and found the entrance to the tunnel behind the feeding trough. This made Nanny McPhee very thoughtful and cured Mr Edelweiss’s collywobbles. They both made their way out into the sunshine and Mr Edelweiss flew to the top of the dovecote to see if there was any sign of the children or the piglets. In the distance, he could see Vincent and Megsie and Celia. They were all carrying piglets. He reported his sightings to Nanny McPhee, who, instead of looking pleased, frowned and lifted her stick. Mr Edelweiss squawked in fright.

‘Well, we don’t want to make it too easy for them,’ she said, and down came the stick, scattering golden sparkles all through the yard, which the chickens tried, unsuccessfully, to eat.

Out in the fields, this is what had been happening. Cursing his pricking conscience, Cyril had run after Norman doggedly for some time and was just catching up with him as Norman spotted a piglet under a tree, rootling. Norman, amazed to see Cyril at all, shushed him and indicated the piglet. Silently, they both started to move in on it.

Over in the next-door field, Celia, now in wellies, had run up to Vincent and Megsie saying, ‘I’m only helping till Mummy comes,’ and now was cooing with delight over the piglet in Vincent’s arms, which was so pretty and pink and sweet. I’m not sure the children felt it, but that was the moment when a strange tremor ran through the land, as though there might just have been a very minor earthquake. Megsie was about to give Celia her piglet so she could look out for another one when both hers and Vincent’s made a sudden wriggle and leapt out of their arms, racing like mad things towards the pond.

Megsie screeched.

‘This is all your fault!’ she shouted at Celia, which wasn’t very fair, but then she had to race down the hill to catch up with the piglets. Celia and Vincent followed.

Meanwhile, Norman and Cyril had closed right in on their piglet. Norman made a sign and they both grabbed for it at once. But the piglet slipped through their hands, jumped on to the trunk of the tree, RAN UP IT, and then wandered along a branch looking down at the boys and sniggering. Norman and Cyril stood there with their mouths hanging open.

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‘Is that normal?’ said Cyril, after a long moment.

‘No. No, it’s not,’ said Norman.

‘I see. Well, how are we going to get it down?’

As though it had heard, the piglet ran down to the end of the branch and somersaulted off it into the undergrowth, turning for a second to make sure the children had seen it and then running away.

‘Do they all have circus skills?’ asked Cyril, who, having never been to the country, had no idea just how peculiar a pig doing a somersault was. But Norman was already chasing after the piglet.

Cyril