After carrying it carefully outside, the plan was to lob it over the next-door fence.

It was eight at night. At eight every night, just as the news ended on the telly, their next door neighbours, Helmut and Valda Cole, let their pet poodle out for her evening run.

Pansy Poodle never went more than two feet into the garden so there was no fear of hitting her. But she might just about turn inside out with the bang, and Mr and Mrs Cole would go berserk. Which would be very interesting indeed!

Henry and William disliked the Coles, and they knew exactly what the Coles thought about them-and orphans in general. The Coles were raising a petition to have all the orphanage houses put together. ‘To put all the troublemakers in the one spot!’ They were even nasty to Erin, which was unthinkable.

Henry and William mightn’t always do as Erin wanted, but she gave the best cuddles of anyone they knew, and even when they were in serious trouble she just sighed, ruffled their hair and said, ‘What am I going to do with you, you twerps?’

And Pansy Poodle yapped so much she woke the baby, and when Henry poked his finger through the fence-just to say hello-she’d bitten him! It had taken fifteen minutes of Erin’s cuddles before Henry had stopped shaking.

The Coles, therefore, had to be got rid of before they upset Erin further, or before Pansy bit someone else, and the only thing that might make them move was if they thought their poodle was in danger. Hence the bomb, the construction of which had been learned from spying on the bigger kids at school.

Only then…

Well, Henry was pushing the bomb into the slipper and William was holding the slipper up so it’d slide in, and it wouldn’t quite fit-and then Henry got nervous and the slipper sort of fell sideways.