Chapter 2
A very loud bang sounded from downstairs, shrieking Nanny McPhee awake abruptly. She looked around herself wearily, noticing only faint rays of sunshine peeking their way into the bedroom. What was going on down there? She wondered. She assumed that there was only one way to discover, no? She sighed. Even magic and its owners needed rest.
Nevertheless, within instants Nanny McPhee found herself dressed in her usual black attires beside her well made bed; about to go downstairs and find who was causing all that noise there, that most likely came from the kitchen – if she could trust her more human instincts, at least. Maybe it could be little Sebastian trying to find something to eat again? She smiled.
"Mr. Brown?" Nanny McPhee questioned, incredulously watching as he seemingly unsuccessfully tried to cut a large bread into slices with a huge knife. Slowly, she walked over to him, looking at his poor attempts to make breakfast for them all. Basically whole of the counter was stuffed with all different kinds of food. She consequently assumed Mr. Brown had been up early to go get it. "I suggest you better let me handle that, before any accidents are going to happen," she said, fingers gently brushing against his as she carefully took the knife from him, and continued slicing the bread into even pieces, very meticulously, almost… mother-like. Cedric didn't think she could have children, but at mere points she seemed to go in 'mummy mode'; the organizing, issue solving, motherly kind of type.
"Maybe you could go wake up the children and ask them to get dressed and come down for breakfast?" She suggested, continuing with the bread without looking up. She then heard the sound of male footsteps on the flight of stairs.
Sooner than she would have anticipated, however, the same sonant footsteps were audible again. "I'm afraid to say apparently none of them feels like getting up."
Nanny McPhee finished cutting the bread, and laid the knife down on the counter, turning around to face him with her ocean blue eyes. "Alright then, I shall try go and talk to them," she said. "Maybe you could set the table in the mean time?" With that, she suddenly disappeared again, like many other times before that.
The dark blond haired nanny found all children gathered in the girls' room; Aggie and Renee safely asleep in their painted wooden cribs and the rest of them huddled up together on the last two beds. "I hear from your father that you didn't want to have breakfast?"
"We don't really like the food Papa makes," Sebastian admitted, looking up as she came to stand in front of the two beds.
"Yeah," Tora agreed. "Mrs. Blatherwick's cooking wasn't always enjoyable, either, but at least edible…"
"Evangeline's cooking was much better," Chrissie announced. "She used to cook when Mrs. Blatherwick had time off, and after…" After she had died from the same disease as their great aunt, and later their former scullery maid, who had been their father's second wife nothing more than one ridiculously short year.
Nanny McPhee did have her specific kind of methods to teach children all necessary lessons, like gluing them to their beds when there was arguing about getting up. This time, however, she understood that their behavior merely sprouted from unhappiness and grief, than simple childish naughtiness. "Would it make you feel better to hear that I prepared breakfast?" She wondered, not being entirely true about that, but not really lying about it either.
Sebastian's face started radiating again almost immediately. "I am hungry," he said, looking at Simon briefly.
Nanny McPhee allowed them a little smile, saying, "Come on, then. Go find yourself some clothes to wear. I shall see you downstairs at breakfast soon."