might just as easily have been indigestion.

Cyril decided that the conversation was probably over and joined Norman at the door. Taking a last look at his father, standing looking rather alone in the huge chamber, Cyril gave a small salute and the boys left.

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The Diary 24

We’re back at Wormsley and the barley has been harvested! Oh, joy! Lots of wonderful little stacks and a couple of giant ricks that you can climb up on. It looks very beautiful. Monet would have wanted to paint it, I reckon. Lindsay is in the hotel with flu and isn’t allowed back to the set until they have decided it isn’t swine flu. Oo-er. She’s going mad, of course, with frustration, but we will all be OK and just get on with it.

Spent two hours in the make-up caravan having hair prettified for nicer-looking Nanny, only to get out of the car into so much wind and rain that the entire hairdo was destroyed in seconds. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Paula.

It is raining heavily. We are up the creek. Everyone deeply depressed. Little tents everywhere, with crew and cast sheltering in the vain hope that the skies may clear and we can shoot something. Each other, possibly.

I have had a day off and it seems to have made matters worse. I am like a dysfunctional clockwork mouse. I keep winding myself up and going off at a fair lick, but then my workings run down so quickly that there must be something wrong somewhere. A spring missing or some such. I no longer have the oomph to write in between takes. I just stare into space or lie down if I can find something to lie on. We’ve just a month to go and have done about two and a half months so far. Quite a long time to keep all this up, I s’pose. Groan.

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The Story 24

Celia was still screeching as Mrs Green gave up trying to flush out the offending mouse. She shouted, ‘Celia! Stop screaming! There is NO MOUSE!’

Celia stopped. ‘I saw it,’ she said meekly.

‘It must have escaped.’

‘Come along, Isabel, come along!’ said Phil, getting down off the settle rather sheepishly. ‘Let’s get this thing signed off!’

Sighing, Mrs Green went back to the table and looked at the dotted line Phil was pointing at.

‘Give me the pen then,’ she said.

Phil looked and looked again.

‘What . . . Where the . . . Where’s it gone?’ he said, patting his pockets anxiously. ‘It was just here a second ago –’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Phil!’ said Mrs Green, thoroughly irritated. ‘I thought you wanted me to sign the thing!’

‘I do! I do! But it’s just gone –’

‘There’re pens on the dresser,’ said Mrs Green, and Celia looked with alarm at Megsie. Phil found three pens and put them on the table next to the contract.

Megsie was distraught. She couldn’t think of any way of preventing her mother from signing. Then she had a thought. She didn’t know quite where it had come from, but it definitely sprang into her head like a cuckoo coming out of its clock. She ran to a quiet corner and stared fiercely up at the ceiling. Then, feeling slightly bonkers, she hissed, ‘Nanny McPhee, we need you!’

Nothing happened. Once more, she hissed, ‘Nanny McPhee, help! Help! We need you!’

Turning round, she half expected to find Phil had disappeared in a puff of smoke with contract, pens and all, but no, he was still there, leaning over her mother with three perfectly good pens lying there ready to be used.

The kitchen door opened quietly. No one noticed something coming in and getting under the kitchen table.

Norman and Cyril, in the meantime, were rushing down the steps of the War Office at top speed.

Suddenly, Norman stopped and turned to Cyril with a shocked expression. ‘Hang on!’ he said. ‘If the War Office didn’t send a telegram, then the one we got must have been forged!’

Cyril stared at him. ‘But – that’s awful,’ he said. ‘Who would forge a telegram that said someone was dead? Who would do such a terrible thing?’

‘I think I know,’ said Norman grimly. ‘Come on! We’ve got to hurry!’

Outside, Mr Edelweiss was in the grip of terrible collywobbles and having a strip torn off him by Nanny McPhee.

‘Where did you find it this time?’ she said, frowning at him.

Mr Edelweiss squawked and burped at length until Nanny McPhee shushed him.

‘Now you just listen to me for once,’ she