hot.

‘Oh?’ he said weakly. ‘That’s – that’s good. Why’s that, then?’

‘Because Mrs Big decided squashing wasn’t good enough for you,’ said Miss Topsey.

‘It lacked finesse,’ said Miss Turvey.

‘Too messy,’ explained Miss Topsey, in case Phil didn’t know what finesse meant, which he didn’t.

‘So – what she wants is . . .’ said Miss Turvey, looking terribly excited.

‘She wants us to . . .’ said Miss Topsey, looking equally thrilled.

‘She wants us to STUFF YOU!!!’ they chorused joyfully.

Phil blinked. He couldn’t quite take it in. ‘What?’ he said.

‘She wants us to stuff you and put you in the entrance to the London casino! As a warning to others!’ cried Miss Topsey.

‘What an honour, Phil!’ breathed Miss Turvey, looking at Phil as though she quite envied him.

Phil thought he was going to be sick. ‘You can’t do that!’ he said, knowing full well that they could and would.

‘Oh, don’t you worry, Phil,’ said Miss Topsey.

‘Miss Turvey’s a professional!’

Here, Miss Turvey looked down bashfully and opened her handbag. ‘Here’s an early example of my work,’ she said shyly, pulling out a large owl, expertly stuffed and mounted on a shiny brass pedestal.

Miss Topsey opened her bag and pulled something else out. ‘And here’s how you’ll look!’ she said, putting a model figure, also mounted on a brass pedestal, next to the owl. The figure looked exactly like Phil, down to the stripes on his tie and the look of terror on his face.

Both ladies then flung aside the cloth on the trolley to reveal an array of extremely upsetting surgical instruments, which glinted up at Phil evilly. Miss Topsey picked up the oddest of them. It was a large ladle, such as you might use for serving soup.

g

g

‘The only trouble is, Phil . . .’ said Miss Topsey, ‘we’re going to have to scoop you out while you’re still . . . well . . .’

‘Alive,’ finished Miss Turvey.

They both looked at Phil apologetically.

‘Otherwise you’ll go all blotchy,’ said Miss Topsey.

‘Which would result in amateurish work,’ shivered Miss Turvey. ‘And we don’t want that.’

Phil started to scream.

*

Everyone in the field felt like screaming too, but for entirely different reasons. They were all leafing madly through the pamphlet trying to find out why the bomb was moving. No one saw the second red light come on and start to flash next to the first. Megsie was holding on to the ladder for dear life and shouting, ‘What does it say? What does it say?!’

Norman yelled up, ‘It just says: “Cut the Green Wire.”’

‘I can’t see any green wire!’ shrieked Megsie, who’d looked and looked and couldn’t see anything green at all. ‘It must be covered with all this grey stuff!!’

The bomb started to make a whining noise.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Vincent.

‘Wake up, Algernon, wake up!’ shouted Mrs Docherty, slapping Mr Spolding repeatedly around his chops: ‘I don’t want you to miss it going off!’

Cyril suddenly found something.

‘Here it is!’ he shouted. ‘“Warning – if the Green Wire is protected with grey explosive putty, RED LIGHTS will flash and the bomb will now reactivate”! But there aren’t any red – oh.’

Cyril had caught sight of the red lights flashing on the side of the bomb. Everyone else looked at them too. ‘Why is that at the back?’ said Cyril, smacking the pamphlet irritably.

As she spoke, the fifth red light came on and started to flash. ‘Ooooh,’ said Mrs Docherty again. ‘Aren’t they pretty?’

Mr Spolding was coming round.

‘I want everyone to come with me RIGHT NOW,’ said Mrs Green commandingly.

‘But Mum – the barley –’

‘I said NOW,’ said Mrs Green.

Celia, Cyril, Norman, Vincent and Mrs Green helped Mr Spolding up and started to limp off with him. At the same time, Mr Edelweiss flapped down on to the lip of the bomb and squawked at Megsie. She looked up at him, a light in her eyes.

‘Megsie, get down from there NOW!!!’ shouted Mrs Green, leaving the others to find a safe place and running to the foot of the ladder.

‘Wait! Wait!!’ shrieked Megsie. ‘Mr Edelweiss is eating the putty!!’

And so he was.

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP.

All those years of practice had really paid off. You never saw a bird eat such a quantity of putty in no time at all.

‘Get DOWN!!’ screamed Mrs Green, grabbing at Megsie’s legs as the ninth light came on and the whine got so loud she thought her ears would burst. But Megsie could see the shimmer of green appearing as the last of the putty went down Mr Edelweiss’s throat.

‘MEGSIE!!!’ howled Mrs Green,