‘I can’t wait,’ said Horatio. He looked around at all the activity approvingly. ‘And I see we’re all going to be wearing yellow. Naughty Enrico is going to be in a terrible state! He’ll be sobbing and calling for his mother!’

‘Well, let’s hope so,’ said Nicola doubtfully. Horatio couldn’t seem to get it into his head that Enrico had grown up.

‘Excuse me, Mr Banks, sir!’ called out Serena. She was sitting at the table with the rose-coloured scroll of parchment. ‘Would you like to be the first to sign the petition?’

‘It would be my honour,’ said Horatio. He read the petition silently. Nicola knew what it said, because she and Serena had been up late the night before trying to work out the exact wording. They had finally decided upon:

We the undersigned, representing the people of Shobble, respectfully call for the immediate resignation of the Commander-in-Chief, Enrico Aloisio, as is our right under clause 367-AAB-38479 579034554 of Shobble’s Constitution. We do this because of his cruelty, his selfishness, his vanity and his general lack of good leadership qualities.

‘Perfect,’ said Horatio. He wrote his name with a flourish at the top of the petition and his wife did the same.

‘We’re going to need a few more people to show up today if we’re going to get a petition as long as a rainbow,’ observed Serena.

‘Oh, they’ll come,’ said Horatio. ‘The people of Shobble know when enough is enough. In fact, here comes my granddaughter now.’

Barbie arrived with the siren around her forehead blaring. ‘Sorry I’m late!’ she shouted over the siren. She turned it off. ‘Let me have a quick look at that Biter wound, Nicola. Oh, good, it’s healing nicely. Um, is this all of us? Not that I’m complaining or anything.’

‘We’re hoping for a few more people,’ admitted Nicola.

There was another jangle of sleigh bells and Nicola looked up to see two familiar, smiling faces. It was Joy and Silent Fred.

They ran over.

‘Oh, I’m so proud of both you girls,’ said Joy, with one arm around Katie and another around Nicola. Silent Fred wrote This is the best day of my life on his blackboard, and kept jabbing at it with his finger to reinforce the point.

Next came a sleigh with a banner reading THE KATIE HOBBS FAN CLUB. A group of people got out and came running over to Katie. Nicola recognised at least two of the Security Thugs from Enrico’s house, except that they were now wearing jolly sweaters with pictures of reindeers instead of black T-shirts, and one of them was calling out, ‘Guess what, Katie? I’m starting Shobble’s first Scrabble tournament!’