as Megsie kicked her legs free, hurled herself bodily into the bomb and snipped the green wire just before the last light came on. The terrible whine suddenly stopped. There was a little whimper as the bomb ceased to shudder and shake. All the lights went out. An extraordinary peace descended, into which a robin sang a single perfect note.

Below them, Nanny McPhee watched quietly.

‘Lesson Four – to be brave – is complete,’ she whispered.

Hardly daring to believe what they’d accomplished, Megsie and Mr Edelweiss looked at each other.

Megsie’s eyes widened. ‘Look,’ she breathed.

Mr Edelweiss was enormous. He was huge. He was the size of a space hopper, except they didn’t have them in those days. He was the size of a beanbag chair, except they didn’t have them either. Put it this way, he was . . .

g

g

g

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BIG

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Nanny McPhee stepped up to the ladder. She looked up at Mr Edelweiss and said, very quietly, ‘Silly bird. You’re full of explosive putty. You’ll go off pop if we’re not careful. Get down, Megsie. Go and tell everyone to take cover.’

Staring with wonder at poor Mr Edelweiss, who was looking none too comfortable and not a little concerned, Megsie shimmied down the ladder and went to join the others behind the little abandoned shepherd’s hut at the side of the field. After everyone had hugged Megsie and kissed her and thanked her for saving everyone and everything, they all peered out to watch. Nanny McPhee was standing next to the bomb with her arms outstretched. Mr Edelweiss, who couldn’t really fly, sort of floated through the air towards her, pathetically trying to flap his wings. She caught him in her hands, very, very gently. Everyone put their fingers in their ears.

g

Nanny McPhee turned towards the barley and seemed to look up at Mr Edelweiss, with a smile. Then she just let him go. He hovered in the air for a few moments and then . . . he burped. And burped. And burped. On and on and on it went until they saw the heads of the barley begin to bend beneath the wind of the burp, bend and swirl and dance. The wind grew. It grew wilder and wilder, until the children and Mr Spolding and Mrs Docherty and Mrs Green could no longer keep their eyes open and had to hold on to each other in order not to get blown away.

In the kitchen, Miss Topsey and Miss Turvey had just finished drawing pretty scarlet incision lines across Phil’s abdomen when the kitchen windows suddenly blew right open. Phil, who had his eyes closed tight, snapped them open to see Miss Topsey and Miss Turvey being buffeted about by the wind, which was now in the kitchen and blowing a gale. The two women held tight to the table, trying to keep upright. The wind got stronger still and suddenly Phil felt his feet lift slightly off the floor. He gave a shout of alarm until he realised that the women were also being lifted off their feet – but WITHOUT BEING CUFFED TO ANYTHING!!! As the wind lifted him higher, until he was at a right angle to the stove, the cuffs held him safe while the two women, with terrible wails of rage and fright, were bowled off their feet. Miss Topsey cartwheeled neatly out of the door, and Miss Turvey was blown up into the open window, sticking there for a moment before, with a great sucking sound, she was pulled through and away, over the horizon.

Phil was hurled about in the air, screaming for joy, until a very large saucepan fell off the shelves and hit him on the head.

In the field, Norman tried to open one eye to see what was happening but all he caught a glimpse of was a great whirling in the sky, like looking at the sun through a kaleidoscope. On and on it blew, until suddenly the burp-wind stopped and another silence descended. One by one, the children opened their eyes. Vincent saw it first.

‘Look!’ he cried.

Then Mrs Green saw.

‘Oh!’ she gasped.

Then Norman saw. He couldn’t speak. He just made a noise that was a mixture of astonishment and delight.

Then Megsie and Celia saw.

‘Look!’ they said.

And Mrs Docherty saw.

‘The harvest’s in!’ she said wonderingly.

And so it was.

That great wind had lifted all the stalks of barley from the field and winnowed them, releasing them back down to the earth in perfectly formed stacks with two huge ricks in the