Frid made a helpless gesture. “Well, there you are,” she said. “No bums and no witches and the word is ‘nail.’ Evidently Mummy wants us to get it right at the first stab. What shall we do?”
“Bite our nails?” suggested Patch.
“Put a nail in Uncle G.’s coffin,” said Henry viciously.
“Nailing our colours to the mast?”
“I know,” said Frid. “We’ll do Jael and Sisera.”
“What did they d-do?” asked Stephen.
“Something with a nail. What was it, Robin?”
“Didn’t Jael hammer a nail through Sisera’s head?”
“That’s right,” said Colin. “Well, we can be clever and do wail and hail and Jael and nail all at once. A compound charade.”
The Lampreys threw open the door of their enormous hall cupboard and began to dress themselves up.