‘Come on, hop in, there’s a warmy patch there.’

‘Breakfast in bed,’ said Vincent wonderingly. He had only ever had his breakfast in the kitchen.

Celia buttered him the biggest piece of toast and handed it to him.

‘Thank you, Celia, you’re very kind,’ said Vincent, in such a grown-up way and such a small voice that Mrs Green had to work very hard not to burst into tears again.

‘Will you stay and help us with the harvesting, Celia?’ said Megsie.

‘Of course I will!’ said Celia. ‘I’d love to!’

Mrs Green gave a little sigh. ‘No harvesting for us, my darlings,’ she said.

‘What?’ said Megsie, as she and Vincent turned to look at their mother, puzzled.

Mrs Green looked at their faces and took a deep breath.

‘We can’t manage this place without Dad, not really. I should have admitted it long ago. We’d never have got all that barley in, even with the tractor. Uncle Phil’s got a buyer, but only if we sell right now, before harvest time –’

Vincent started to interrupt. ‘Sell? What? Sell our farm?’ he said, horror growing in his eyes.

‘I know, I know, darling, it’s horrible, but Dad would want – I mean would have wanted us to if we couldn’t look after it properly and we can’t –’

‘No!’ shouted Vincent.

‘Listen, Vinnie, maybe in our new house you could have your own room!’

Mrs Green spoke as soothingly as she could, but Vincent was not to be soothed. He hurled his toast across the room and screamed out, ‘I don’t want my own room! I want to share with Megsie and Norman and Celia and Cyril! And I want my dad!!’

And with that he started to sob loudly and bury himself under the bedclothes. Everyone put down their cups and toast and tried to help. But Vincent was inconsolable. Finally, he flung himself out from the bed and ran out of the room.

Mrs Green looked at the girls. Megsie didn’t want to add to the trouble by showing how upset she was, so she got up too and said she was going to feed the animals.

‘Why don’t you go with her?’ Mrs Green suggested to Celia kindly. Celia ran off and Mrs Green started to clear up the breakfast things, worried that she had gone about telling the children the bad news in quite the wrong way and that it was too late to do anything about it.

Back on the motorcycle, the boys were both still shouting about Nelson when Nanny McPhee suddenly pulled into a forecourt filled with soldiers and sandbags and came to a stop in front of the tallest building Norman had ever seen. She turned off the engine and said, ‘Here we are.’

A gigantic brass sign saying ‘THE WAR OFFICE’ rose up before the boys, who immediately got out of the sidecar, took off their goggles and tried to straighten themselves out. Mr Edelweiss flapped up, panting, and tried to land on the handlebars but was cuffed away by Nanny McPhee, by no means pleased to see that he’d followed them. Nanny McPhee gave the boys an approving nod and they marched off towards the entrance. They could see the great main door – lots of men and women in uniform were coming in and out of it at great speed and with a tremendous sense of urgency. Norman could feel the suspense constricting his heart, and Cyril was so nervous that his mouth had gone completely dry. Just as they were about to mount the steps and go in, they found their way blocked by a gigantic soldier in red, who seemed to have come out of nowhere. Thinking he had just made a mistake, Norman tried to get past him, but he moved to block them again and both the boys realised that he was preventing them from going in on purpose. They looked up at him. His face was impassive and his eyes stared straight ahead. It was very odd. If it hadn’t been for the fact that every time they tried to get around him he blocked their path, they could have sworn he hadn’t even seen them. Norman nudged Cyril, who said, ‘Excuse me, sir, we’re here to see Lord Gray.’

The soldier did not reply and did not move. Norman decided to have a go.

‘Sir – we’re here to see Lord Gray!’ he shouted, in case the soldier couldn’t hear very well.

Then the boys heard something.

‘GetlorstbeforeIthumpyer,’ it sounded like. Had it come from the soldier? He hadn’t budged and neither of the