Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (8 page)

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The Story 12

Let’s leave the children to it for a moment and get back to Phil. We left him outside the shop, still desperate to get Mrs Green to sign and very, very worried about what might happen to him if she wouldn’t.

As he walked through the lovely little village he felt slightly comforted by the distance he had put between himself and the threat. After all, nothing truly nasty could ever happen in such a pretty place, could it? Just as he was having this thought, he passed an ivy-clad alley and heard a curious noise, a bit like a cuckoo calling, only more flirtatious.

‘Oo-oo!’ it went. ‘Oo-oo!’

Phil realised that it was a woman’s voice – a young woman at that, and sounding so friendly and charming and cheeky and fun. He gave his hair a quick smooth down and looked up the alley. Almost at once he was lifted off his feet by something very strong and deposited against the wall of the alley in a breathless heap. The very strong something turned out to be a gigantic lady in a crimplene suit and high heels. She was very blonde. Next to her was a much smaller but equally blonde person in a sharp little suit and hat. They both smiled sweetly at Phil.

‘Hello, Mr Green,’ said the little one. Her voice was so attractive. It had a constant bubbling laugh in it as though she found everyone and everything delightful and amazing.

‘We haven’t met, but I’m Miss Topsey and this is my colleague, Miss Turvey.’

Now of course we know a little about Miss Topsey and Miss Turvey (none of it good), but don’t forget that Phil didn’t. He’d never seen them before in his life. So when Miss Topsey said, in that lovely way of hers, ‘Can you guess who sent us?’ for a split second Phil actually thought that word of his utter gorgeousness had spread to the neighbouring villages and this lady had come to check him out.

‘Sent two lovelies like yourselves?’ he said, winking meaningfully at Miss Topsey so that she knew he meant just her and not the frighteningly strong one. ‘Father Christmas?’

Miss Topsey laughed in a trilling soprano for a very long time – longer, Phil thought, than was absolutely necessary, given that he already knew she thought he was irresistible.

‘Oh no, Phil! Guess again!’

Before Phil had time to ask himself how she knew his first name, the big scary one spoke.

‘Mrs Biggles.’

Phil panicked. He tried to scrabble up the wall but Miss Turvey pulled him back down, he tried to get past her but she was immovable, and when he tried to get past Miss Topsey she tripped him up and both of them leaned over him, so close that he could see the cracks in their lipstick.

‘We need the farm, Phil,’ said Miss Topsey, her little teeth glinting like pearls in her mouth.

‘And we need it now,’ breathed Miss Turvey.

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Phil started to pant. ‘Thing is,’ he said. ‘Thing is, is it’s not exactly all mine, see. It belongs half to me and half to my brother –’

‘Half a farm’s no good to us, Phil,’ said Miss Topsey, more sweetly than ever. ‘And the fact is, Mrs Big’s told us to come back with one of two things, Phil: the deeds to your farm –’

‘Or your kidneys,’ said Miss Turvey succinctly.

‘Think about it!’ they both chimed, making way for Phil to back off down the alley in a state of sheer terror.

The Diary 13

Beautiful weather. It’s 1st June, so that bodes well. We’re doing a bunch of pick-ups, just to mop up all the stuff we didn’t get earlier this week. We’re doing Celia being spattered by the mud. This involves a wonderful contraption composed of a big tyre inside a metal sheath, which is switched on so that the tyre whirls around in the air and is then lowered on to a big pile of mud so it spatters whoever’s in front of it. There’s a large man in a white cover-all and sunglasses standing in for Rosie Taylor-Ritson, the girl who plays Celia.

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Rosie is a miraculous girl who seems to have come from another world where girls are made of bone china, strawberries and cream. Within, she is very strong and capable of doing whatever you might ask her to do. In this case, stand still with her eyes open in front of a gigantic tyre which is about to splatter her with pretend mud. We are all full of admiration.

Nice and relaxed feel today. Miracle, really.

The Story 13

Back at the shop, Mrs Green was just getting her coat on to leave when she heard noises behind the counter.

‘What’re you doing back there, Mrs Docherty?’ she enquired nervously.

‘Oh, nothing at all, dear. Just putting away the treacle.’

Mrs Green gasped and flew round the counter to find all the drawers oozing stickily.

‘Goodnight, dear! See you tomorrow!
What
a good day it’s been!’ sang Mrs Docherty as she floated into the back of the shop and out of sight.

Mrs Green, feeling utterly defeated, slumped against a barrel of oats.

‘What am I to do? What am I to do about the farm? What am I to do about the children fighting all the time? What am I to do about the harvest? What if Rory –’ but she couldn’t finish that thought and quickly moved to an easier one. ‘And what am I to do with SEVENTEEN DRAWERS FULL OF TREACLE!!!??’

Then something very strange happened. One of the treacly drawers opened all by itself. From within it issued a deep, syrupy voice which said:

‘The person you need is Nanny McPhee.’

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Mrs Green got such a shock that she dropped her coat in the puddle of treacle. ‘What?’ she whispered.

Another drawer, a littler one this time, now opened and a smaller voice came out of it. ‘The person you need,’ it said, sounding slightly irritated that she hadn’t heard it the first time, ‘is Nanny McPhee.’

‘Who?’ said Mrs Green, in a very high voice owing to fright and general surprise about the fact that she was having a conversation with the furniture. Then all the smallest drawers started to open and shut, all squeaking, ‘The person you need – the person you need – the person you need –’

Mrs Green picked up her sticky coat and ran.

As she flew out of the door, Mrs Docherty appeared. She looked at the drawers approvingly. They’d all fallen silent.

‘– is Nanny McPhee,’ said Mrs Docherty, quietly closing the drawers.

Mrs Green legged it home as fast as she could. There was a high wind blowing and as she came into the yard she heard a loud squawk. Looking up, she came face-to-face with a raggedy jackdaw. It was staring at her as though they had, at some point, been formally introduced and she ought to recognise it. Spooked and puzzled and buffeted, she turned away and saw something unfamiliar trodden into the mud. It looked furry. She bent down and saw two beady little eyes peeping up at her. Giving a slight shriek, she was about to run into the house when she realised that the eyes were, in fact, beads and that they belonged to a fox-fur tippet which she now gingerly pulled out of its squelchy ditch.

What in heaven’s name was a fox-fur tippet doing in the farmyard?

Mrs Green gave a sudden gasp of realisation and horror. There was only one person she knew who could afford such an expensive item and that was Prunella. But it was such a teeny-weeny tippet that it must be a child’s. It followed, therefore, that Prunella’s child Celia must be nearby. And it also followed therefore that she and her brother had arrived early and must have been attacked in some way.

And lastly, it followed that the noises she now heard issuing from the farmhouse, loud enough to be heard above the howling wind and squawking jackdaw, were the noises of battle.

‘Oh no!’ gulped Mrs Green. ‘Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.’

She went to the door. Huge thuds and screams came from behind it. She opened it, her heart in her mouth.

The sight that met her eyes was little less than catastrophic.

Norman had Cyril in a headlock and was dragging him around in circles, letting out the most dreadful war cries. Cyril was kicking at Norman, while above them, on the landing, Megsie was pulling pieces off Celia’s dress and trying to tie her to the banisters with them as Celia made violent attempts to escape, shrieking, ‘Let go, let
go
, let GO.’

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‘All right then,’ said Megsie, letting go and causing Celia to catapult down the stairs as Vincent appeared with his father’s cricket bat, thumping everything he could see and yelling, ‘Death, death, death and hurting!’ over and over again.

Taking a deep breath, Mrs Green walked in and was immediately spun around by the battling boys.