Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (18 page)

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‘I thought you might like breakfast in bed,’ she said kindly. The tray had a full teapot and a little jug of milk, toast and butter, boiled eggs and a mug full of wild flowers that Celia had gone out very early to pick. It looked so pretty that when Megsie and Vincent sat up it made them want to eat something from it, which was really very clever of Celia, because when you are in shock you really need to eat and you never feel like it.

‘That is so beautiful,’ said Mrs Green, truly touched. ‘Put it here.’ And she made a space in the centre of the bed. ‘How lovely you’ve made it and how pretty everything looks! Come on, pour us a mug of tea then, Megs.’

Celia, pleased with how her offering had been received, started to leave the room, but Megsie and Mrs Green called out after her, ‘Where are you going?’

‘Well,’ said Celia, feeling a bit embarrassed, ‘I thought you might want to be just the family.’

‘But you
are
family,’ said Megsie. ‘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 boys had seen his mouth move. They looked around, confused, and then it came again, louder this time.

‘GET LORST BEFORE I THUMP YER,’ it said, and this time Norman saw the side of the soldier’s lips move slightly. He looked at Cyril worriedly.

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Cyril caught the look and nodded as if he knew what to do. ‘He’s my father,’ he said, in that important tone that Norman had once hated so much but was now very grateful for.

But the soldier gave no sign of having heard. Norman grew impatient.

‘He’s his FATHER,’ he shouted, with all his might.

‘Prove it or hop it,’ said the giant.

‘What?’ said Cyril, suddenly feeling sick.

‘PROVE IT OR HOP IT.’

Norman turned to Cyril expectantly.

‘Go on, then,’ he said.

Cyril had gone very pale. He drew Norman aside and said, ‘How can I
prove
it? Do you carry your blinking birth certificate around with you everywhere you go? Because
I
don’t!’

Norman thought. ‘There must be someone inside who could say it was you,’ he said.

‘No, no,’ said Cyril wretchedly. ‘I’ve never even been here before – I’m not allowed.’

Norman lost his temper. ‘Then why are we here? How on earth did you think we were going to get in? Why didn’t we go to your house first? We’re running out of time!’

Cyril started to hiss back, furious with himself, with the soldier and with Norman, when they heard a little cough behind them.

‘Ahem,’ it went.

They turned and there was Nanny McPhee – but so different! Gone was the rusty black cloth trimmed with jet, the black straw hat and button-boots! In their place was a full army uniform, complete with tin helmet, khaki boots and cartridge belt. The only things they recognised were the medals and, of course, the stick.

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‘Sergeant Jefferies,’ said Nanny McPhee, looking at the enormous soldier sternly, ‘you’ve grown.’

At the sound of her voice, an extraordinary change came over the guardsman. He gasped, stared at her, tried to bow, which caused his busby to wobble, and so instead executed a complicated series of manoeuvres with his rifle before saluting ever so smartly and saying, ‘Nanny McPhee, ma’am!’

‘At ease, Ralph,’ said Nanny McPhee, walking up past the gaping boys and examining the sergeant more closely.

‘Lesson Three paid off, I see,’ she said.

‘It certainly did, Nanny McPhee,’ said the sergeant, looking pleased.

‘How’s the army treating you?’

‘Proudly, ma’am, proudly!’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Have you learnt to eat your greens?’

The soldier stopped looking pleased and blushed. He started to stammer and then fiddled at length with something on his rifle.

‘Well?’ said Nanny McPhee, mildly.

‘I can’t lie to you, Nanny McPhee,’ he said. ‘Broccoli still presents a challenge.’

The boys couldn’t believe their ears.

‘Try it with cheese,’ said Nanny McPhee. ‘And don’t forget that in May and June, asparagus provides a pleasant alternative. Now. To business. I shall answer for these two boys. Please let them in at once.’

‘On the double, Nanny McPhee, ma’am!’ said the sergeant, coming to attention and beckoning to the boys, who sprinted up, grinning at Nanny McPhee and mouthing their thank-yous as they were marched briskly into the great building.

Meanwhile, sniffing back tears, Megsie was about to feed the chickens when she found a note in the egg basket with her name on it. She opened it, read it and gave a little shriek, which Celia, who had just walked in, heard.

‘What is it?’ said Celia.

‘It’s the boys! They’ve gone to London!’ said Megsie.

‘No! I thought they were still in bed!’ said Celia, who had also been completely taken in by the pillows under the bedclothes trick.

‘Look!’ said Megsie, showing Celia the note.

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Celia thought she was going to faint. ‘He’s not dead?’ she said.

‘No! If Norman can feel it in his bones, then it must be true!!’ said Megsie. ‘He’s never wrong!’

‘But your mum’s just said she’s going to sell the farm!’ said Celia, clapping her hands to her mouth.

‘We can’t let her do that,’ said Megsie.

‘But how on earth are we going to stop her?’ said Celia.

‘I don’t know,’ said Megsie. ‘But we might not have to. Norman says he’ll be back soon – we’ll just have to hope he gets back before she does anything! Quick! Let’s get back to the house!’

Sergeant Jefferies had walked the boys through an enormous room full of maps and strange tall chairs and phones and people pushing things around on a gigantic table with wooden paddles. Everyone was concentrating terribly hard and there were a lot of quiet but urgent calls on telephones, which made Cyril feel that he really was in the centre of things and Norman feel vaguely sick because somewhere his poor father was caught up in all of it. Then they’d gone up some marble stairs and along a carpeted corridor, where all the people they passed seemed to have more stripes on their uniforms than the people they’d seen in the big map room. Then they’d turned a corner and found themselves in front of a huge door. Sergeant Jefferies had stopped, saluted the boys in formal fashion and marched away, leaving them alone.