‘Well, I didn’t like it. After it was cut I felt great. Then that article appeared in the newspaper and the fan club started holding candlelit vigils outside Enrico’s mansion. They were chanting poems all about “letting Katie go” and how I should be free like a bird or something. Anyway, it was driving Enrico nuts. So after I cut my hair he paraded me in front of them, saying, “Look! She’s not even a hairity!” He thought that would be the end of my fan club. The funny thing was . . .’

Katie stopped, looking shy.

‘What?’ prompted Nicola.

‘Well,’ said Katie, ‘they still liked me. Actually, they seemed to like me even more. Enrico couldn’t believe it. The problem was that it sent Enrico into a jealous rage. He kept saying to them, “But why? Why do you like her? Look at her hair! Do you like her more than me? Why don’t you start a fan club for me?” And when he said that, someone laughed. Well, that was it. Enrico decided to starve me.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Nicola. ‘I knew you looked thinner!’

‘No, no,’ said Katie. ‘Joy and Silent Fred were sneaking plenty of food in to me. Lots of hizza. Also, I’d made friends with some of the Security Thugs because of our Scrabble games, so they were bringing me food to eat too. But then Enrico started visiting me to see how much I was suffering and it infuriated him the way I was still smiling. He kept saying to the Thugs, “I want to see her miserable! Why doesn’t she look sadder? She looks happier than my own children!” (Well, it wasn’t my fault. Those twins are such whiners.) Anyway, Enrico decided the only solution was to reduce my oxygen intake –’

‘WHAT?’ said Sean. ‘He tried to suffocate you?’

‘Well, that’s when Joy and Silent Fred and the Katie Hobbs Fan Club and the nice Security Thugs all got together and came up with this plan to smuggle me out. They distracted the nasty Security Thugs with a fake fire and then I had to climb down this rope ladder from my window in the middle of the night . . .’

‘You must have been terrified,’ said Nicola.

‘I was – but it was better than suffocating. They had the most beautiful ShobGobble waiting for me. I had to learn how to ride pretty fast! You have to be really light with your feather-whip, don’t you?’

‘So you rode all the way here on a ShobGobble?’ said Greta. ‘All on your own?’