There were the first warm breaths of spring. Blue cornflowers were appearing and spreading along fence lines, even in some of the southern paddocks.

But the wind still whistled through empty rooms in the White Barn.

There was little natural light, because of the shutters that Pig Trump had asked Weasel Sessions to put over the windows to stop Nightmare Mueller from looking into the building. Weasel Sessions had subcontracted the shutter job to Rabbit Rosenstein, and Pig Trump had been pretty unhappy with what he had done. He had taken to Oinker, claiming that there were gaps between the boards that were letting sunlight in on his Administration.

There was tarnish on the name plates on the empty stalls once used by Flaky Flynn, Owl Priebus, Wombat Spicer, Snake Bannon and Golden Pony Hicks.

Although Leatherneck Kelly’s stall was still occupied, the lack of any capable stable hands meant that his once burnished shell was now grubby from the floors of the White Barn.

Leatherneck Kelly tried to ignore the thump, thump sound coming from the cellar. But he knew what it was. They had been stacking Lies under the floor since Inauguration Day. Some Lies, in fact quite a few, had escaped over the months. And Golden Pony Hicks had told everyone about the White Lies stored in the White Barn.

But now the cellar was full to bursting, and the thump, thump was the sound of the Lies, as they heard Nightmare Mueller rattling the trapdoor….