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happened. For the first time in his life, Phil decided to be sensible. He decided to gather up all his chips and cash them in. They were worth enough – enough to buy him that sky-blue Bentley and drive it about the place until he was sick of it. As he turned from the table, his pockets bulging, he came face to face with a very large woman in a print frock. This, of course, was Mrs Biggles.
    ‘Hello, Mr Green,’ she said, smiling at him with enormous and maternal warmth. ‘What good luck you’ve been having!’
    Oh, she was smiling and smiling. Phil preened and winked and kissed Mrs Biggles’s hand. Then he made to get by her and head for the cashier’s desk.
    ‘Where are you going, Mr Green?’ said Mrs Biggles, sounding sad.
    ‘Just to cash in my chips,’ said Phil.
    ‘Why don’t you have one last throw?’ said Mrs Biggles encouragingly. And she smiled and smiled. Phil, ignoring the tiny note of alarm that had started to go off in his head, thought that he might as well oblige, since she was being so charming and smiling at him so sweetly. Accordingly, and with many winks and grimaces intended to convey his mystery and appeal, he returned to the table and set down a couple of the smaller chips on number nine.
    Mrs Biggles’s voice cut in from behind.
    ‘Put all Mr Green’s chips on number twenty-one, Gervaise.’
    Very suddenly, his pockets were roughly emptied and Phil saw the whole evening’s winnings being placed on number twenty-one.
    ‘But –’ He whirled back to face her. She was still smiling, but somehow Phil knew that she wasn’t smiling on the inside. He realised that outright refusal was not an option. So he attempted a compromise:
    ‘It’s just that twenty-one isn’t my lucky number, that’s all,’ he said.
    ‘Never mind, Phil,’ said Mrs Biggles. ‘It’s mine.’
    Gervaise spun the wheel, the ball landed on number nine and all Phil’s winnings were swept away.
    ‘There, there, Phil,’ said Mrs Biggles. ‘You’re a rich man – have another go.’
    Phil was about to explain that he had a bit of a headache and didn’t want another go, when more chips were brought over and Mrs Biggles handed them to him.
    ‘I know your word is good, Phil. You don’t have to show me your money,’ she said sweetly. ‘Just put all this on number twenty-one.’
    And thus it was that Phil was forced to gamble away money he didn’t have. And thus it was that he pledged the family farm to Mrs Biggles and returned to the village with horror in his heart and death at his heels.

The Diary 11
    Goodness only knows what day it is, but I must just tell you about the shenanigans on set. We are dealing with the truncated hours that the children are allowed to work as well as a prosthetic pig diving into the pond and a diver in full scuba gear under the water moving the pig along so that visual effects can fiddle with the image later, a camera on a Luna crane, water that you can’t see in so the diver keeps going in the wrong direction and three children on the bank trying to react to something that isn’t there. The whole thing is a nightmare for Martin. I’ve offered him a cyanide pill. We may have to share it. I adore the results that visual effects give us, and they are a wondrous team, but I hate the methods we have to use to get there. Ugh.

    Later: I am wet through. This is how it happened.
    It was very difficult for the children to act delight and astonishment with nothing to react to . So I made a little plot with Martin – the camera started to roll and Martin pulled me bodily off the set and pushed me into the water, where I did quite a lot of very silly things. The children were delighted and astonished, and now that it’s in ‘The Can’ (see Glossary) I am delighted and astonished too.

The Story 11
    Is it Chapter Three yet? I don’t know. You decide.
    So, if you remember, Phil was desperate to get Mrs Green to sign full ownership of the farm over to him so that he could sign it over to