because you’ve just heard and –’

Cyril was about to suggest that Norman couldn’t face the truth, but Norman cut him off again, forcefully but kindly.

‘No, no. I know that’s what it looks like, but no. I just know.’

‘But the telegram –’ said Cyril.

‘They’ve got it wrong,’ said Norman.

Cyril was appalled. He swallowed before he spoke.

‘Norman, the War Office doesn’t get that kind of thing wrong.’

‘They’ve got it wrong,’ repeated Norman.

It was very hard for Cyril to accept that the War Office, the place where his father worked, would ever get anything wrong, but Norman was so clear and so certain that Cyril found even his faith wavering. He sat down on a bale of straw.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘What do you want to do about it?’

Norman looked at Cyril and smiled.

‘I need some tactics, Cyril.’

Now Cyril grinned.

‘I need to get to the War Office and find out what’s happened to my father.’

‘Why don’t you just tell your mother about all this?’ asked Cyril.

‘Because she won’t believe me. She’ll believe the telegram. It’s not her fault; she just doesn’t feel things in the same way. And this is too big – I’ve got to bring her proof. And I’ve got to do it fast, otherwise she’ll sell the farm to Uncle Phil, I know she will. She’ll think we can’t manage it on our own.’

Cyril saw the wisdom of this immediately. In his experience, grown-ups never believed anything a child said ever, and so he started to work out how on earth Norman was going to achieve what he needed to achieve.

‘Trouble is,’ continued Norman, ‘I can’t very well go off looking for him, can I? We don’t even know what country he’s in!’

‘There might be a way,’ said Cyril doubtfully.

Norman looked at him sharply. ‘What?’

‘Well . . . my father – he’s very high up in the War Office . . .’

‘So you’ve said,’ said Norman wryly.

‘Thing is, I think he’d be able to find out.’

‘Of course!’ said Norman excitedly. ‘Where’s the War Office exactly?’

‘London,’ said Cyril.

‘How are we going to get in touch with him? Could we send him a letter?’

‘He doesn’t respond to letters. At least, not to mine,’ said Cyril.

‘Think!’

‘Norman, I don’t know. We wouldn’t be allowed to travel on a train without tickets, and I don’t have any money and nor do you.’

‘We’re going to need help.’

‘Who can help us?’

‘Who?’

Then the boys heard a very strange thing – it was as though they were in a tunnel and their voices were echoing back at them. All they could hear was ‘Help us, help us, help us . . .’ whispered back at them over and over. There was a sharp bang and the noises stopped. The boys whirled in the direction of the bang, and there was Nanny McPhee, looking in at them from the barn door.

‘You called?’ she said.

The boys looked at one another in amazement. Then they ran over to Nanny McPhee.

‘Nanny McPhee, Dad’s alive – I can feel it in my bones, but I’ve got to bring Mum proof before she’ll believe it. Can you help us?’

It didn’t occur to Norman or to Cyril that this statement would not be believed. But Nanny McPhee was not like other grown-ups. Not at all.

‘Help you in what way?’ said Nanny McPhee.

‘We need to reach Cyril’s father!’ said Norman.

‘Yes!’ said Cyril. ‘My father’s Lord Gray – he’s very high up in –’

‘I know who he is,’ said Nanny McPhee politely.

‘Yes, well, anyway, he can help us find out about Uncle Rory – could you help us to contact him?’

‘I fear that would be difficult. Lord Gray is a very important man, and I am of little consequence to him.’

Norman and Cyril looked at each other in consternation.

‘Then can you help us to get to him in London?’ said Norman.

‘Help two unaccompanied children to travel to London?’ said Nanny McPhee, looking grave. ‘I fear that would be very much against army regulations.’ And she turned and started to walk away.

Norman looked defeated. ‘Then how will we get there? What can we do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Cyril, helplessly.

Nanny McPhee reached the door and turned back to them. ‘I said “unaccompanied”,’ she remarked lightly. ‘You two, however, will be with me. I shall need you to be dressed warmly and ready at the duck pond just before dawn. We shall be in London by ten o’clock. Try to get the dirt out from under your nails.’

‘Oh, thank you, Nanny McPhee,’ breathed Norman.

‘Yes, thank you!’ said Cyril, feeling almost as