Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘Oooh,’ said the cleaning woman, ‘so you’re today’s convict. Sorry, I thought you were from the health department. And I’ve been given strict instructions not to tell them where we buy our cleaning products.’

  ‘Where do you buy your cleaning products?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘Once you know you have to pretend you can only speak Chinese.’

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Some up-and-coming 29-year-old investment analyst from a big merchant bank in town,’ said the cleaning woman.

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Not here,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘He doesn’t like the smell of old people. Besides, it’s a different up-and-coming investment analyst every week. They keep getting promoted to a better job, or leaving to serve jail-time for insider trading.’

  ‘But there must be some kind of manager here?’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘No,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘The manager had the highest salary, so she was first to go. The 29-year-old said it was a new decentralised management strategy.’

  ‘What? So there’s no-one in charge and no-one knows what they’re doing?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Exactly,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘Admittedly, it is very similar to the old centralised management strategy. The old manager used to drink a lot.’

  The cleaning woman started mopping the floor again and Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children watched her edge away.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘Well, I’m supposed to be keeping the old people company, and helping them come to terms with the loss of their television,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So I suppose I’d better find out where the old people are kept.’

  Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children made their way down a long green hallway that opened out into a large common room.

  ‘Finally!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, upon sighting a dozen elderly people sitting around in plastic-covered armchairs. ‘Some old people to do my community service on. Hello, I’m Nanny Piggins!’

  The old people did not move or say a word. They just kept staring catatonically into the middle distance.

  ‘Do you suppose they’ve eaten too much cake?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I sometimes feel like that after 60 or 70 chocolate mud cakes.’

  ‘Why don’t I try to fix the TV?’ suggested Boris.

  ‘Good idea,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Boris as he peered at the ancient TV set. ‘Someone’s broken off most of the knobs!’

  Nanny Piggins had a closer look. ‘They’ve broken the knobs off for all the good channels!’

  ‘And look at this sign,’ said Samantha.

  On top of the TV set was a sign printed in bold block letters saying:

  DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOW THE OLD PEOPLE ANYTHING OTHER THAN BALLROOM DANCING OR LAWN BOWLS. IT ONLY GETS THEM OVEREXCITED.

  Nanny Piggins looked at her watch. ‘The Young and the Irritable is on in twenty minutes. Boris, run home and fetch our television.’

  ‘But what if they get overexcited?’ whispered Michael, looking worriedly at the catatonic old people.

  ‘It would do them a world of good,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now, while we’re waiting for Boris, let’s look about.’

  Upstairs Nanny Piggins and the children found a long corridor with bedrooms on either side. ‘I’m going to start introducing myself to more residents,’ said Nanny Piggins, raising her trotter to knock on the first door. ‘Hello, I’m Nanny Pigg–’

  But as the door swung open Nanny Piggins was horrified to be confronted by a masked figure, wearing all black and holding a ticking bomb.

  ‘Aaaaggghhh!’ screamed Nanny Piggins and the children.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the figure, pulling off the ski-mask to reveal that she was really a sweet old lady. ‘I’m Mrs Hastings and this isn’t really a bomb. It’s just a couple of empty shampoo bottles painted black, my alarm clock and some pretty coloured wires from out of the back of the television.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing dressed like that and carrying a fake bomb?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘I was going to catch the 10.15 bus into town to rob the bank,’ explained Mrs Hastings.

  ‘Why were you going to rob a bank?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Probably to buy a new television,’ guessed Michael.

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Hastings. ‘I’m not really going to rob a bank,’ she chuckled. ‘I’m going to let them catch me. Then they’ll put me in jail. I’m hoping if I hit one of the policemen over the head with my handbag I’ll get life imprisonment.’

  ‘Why do you want to get life imprisonment?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Because the food is much better in prison than it is here,’ said Mrs Hastings. ‘Plus you get an hour in the exercise yard every day. We’re never allowed out in the yard here; the neighbours complain we’re bad for local property prices.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ said Derrick. ‘That food is better in prison than in a nursing home?’

  ‘Oh it is,’ said Mrs Hastings. ‘Doris from room 4B was the first to think of it. She got herself put away for attempting to murder the visiting library lady. I went and visited her in prison and she says they get pesto every Tuesday, chicken cacciatore every Wednesday and once a month they have Mexican night with as many tacos as they can eat!’

  ‘What are their desserts like?’ asked Nanny Piggins, wondering for a millisecond if perhaps she had made a mistake in agreeing to community service if there was secretly a brilliant catering regimen at the local women’s prison.

  ‘It’s mainly tinned fruit and custard,’ admitted Mrs Hastings.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. She liked custard.

  ‘But every Saturday, as a treat, they get carrot cake,’ added Mrs Hastings.

  ‘Carrot cake!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘How dreadful! I didn’t know they were allowed to torture people in jail. Offering them cake, then purposefully tainting it with vegetables. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it. Still, I suppose if you break the law you deserve to be punished.’

  ‘You broke the law,’ Michael reminded her.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘And I suppose I should be thankful the judge didn’t think to give me any carrot-cake-related punishment.’

  Suddenly they were interrupted by a loud BOOM! The building shook and plaster fell from the ceiling.

  ‘Now that was a bomb!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Yes, that’s just the man in 12C,’ explained Mrs Hastings. ‘He’s new. He isn’t reconciled to being here yet.’

  Nanny Piggins and the children went to investigate. Nanny Piggins nudged open the door of 12C, more cautiously this time, calling softly, ‘Hello?’ She didn’t want to startle a geriatric armed with explosives.

  But when the door swung open she was again shocked, this time on coming face-to-face with her old friend, the Retired Army Colonel from around the corner (who was deeply in love with her). He was sitting in a wheelchair with his two legs in plaster casts sticking straight out in front of him.

  ‘Colonel!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘What are you doing here? And why are you trying to blow everything up?’

  ‘I’m not trying to blow everything up,’ protested the Colonel. ‘I’m just trying to fine-tune my propulsion system.’

  ‘Propulsion system for what?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘My flying machine,’ said the Retired Army Colonel, whipping back a sheet to reveal a home-made helicopter crafted out of canvas and sticks.

  ‘That looks like something from the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci,’ said Derrick in awe.

  ‘It is based on the drawings o
f da Vinci,’ admitted the Colonel. ‘When I rang up the Air Force and asked for the specs on a Black Hawk helicopter they refused to give them to me. So I had to make do with this da Vinci postcard my niece sent me from the British Museum.’ He showed them a dog-eared slip of card.

  ‘But why do you need a helicopter?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘To escape, of course,’ said the Colonel. ‘When an officer is taken prisoner, his first duty is to attempt to escape.’

  ‘But couldn’t you just walk out the front door and catch a bus?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘I tried that,’ said the Colonel, ‘but I couldn’t get down the stairs with my legs like this.’

  Nanny Piggins looked at the large plaster casts encasing each of his legs. ‘And how did you do that to yourself?’

  The Retired Army Colonel blushed (which is something he usually only did after several glasses of the finest single malt whisky). ‘Um, I’d rather not say. Trifle embarrassing, I’m afraid.’

  Fortunately dear reader, I can tell you, as long as you promise not to tell Nanny Piggins. You see the Retired Army Colonel was so desperately in love with Nanny Piggins that he really wanted to impress her. In the past he had tried to catch her attention by arranging aeronautical acrobatic displays over her house and military brass bands to parade up and down her street. But these attempts had gone largely unnoticed. So the Colonel, being a brilliant strategic thinker, had decided to change tactics.

  He decided to play Nanny Piggins at her own game. Having never cooked anything in his life, he now embarked on teaching himself how to bake a cake. Unfortunately, it had all gone horribly wrong when he turned his cake mixer up too high, and egg whites had flown out all over his kitchen, causing him to slip on the linoleum and fall down his back stairs, breaking both legs. (The whole incident had only given him an even greater admiration for Nanny Piggins because he knew she baked cakes every day, sometimes several times a day, and rarely broke any of her own limbs in the process.)

  ‘But how did you get all the materials?’ asked Nanny Piggins, looking around at the huge sheets of canvas, welding gear and C4 explosives.

  ‘A dear lady and a true friend,’ said the Colonel. ‘Mrs Simpson.’

  ‘Our Mrs Simpson?!’ exclaimed Samantha.

  ‘The one who lives next door?!’ exclaimed Michael.

  ‘And always gives us marshmallows, even if Nanny Piggins has been sending us over to raid her larder when she’s lying down taking a nap?!’ exclaimed Derrick.

  ‘That’s the one,’ agreed the Colonel. ‘Quite a lady.’

  ‘But where did she get it all from?’ marvelled Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Well, she borrowed the canvas by cutting down one of the sails from a yacht at the harbour and she got the sticks from Mrs Lau’s tomato patch,’ explained the Colonel.

  ‘What about the C4?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘I believe she plays bridge with a lady whose husband is very big in the mining industry, and they did a swap for Mrs Simpson’s dolmades recipe,’ explained the Colonel.

  ‘Samantha, make a note to speak to Mrs Simpson next time we need high explosives,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘But how did you end up in here?’ asked Michael.

  ‘The hospital arranged it,’ explained the Colonel. ‘I was hopped up on painkillers and couldn’t fight them. Well, I tried fighting them, but the head nurse got cross when I put her in a headlock. Anyway, they said I couldn’t go home on my own because there was no-one to look after me.’

  ‘We would have looked after you!’ protested Nanny Piggins.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ agreed the Colonel, ‘but they thought my stories of a glamorous accomplished flying pig swooping in to look after me were the product of my concussed mind, so they just upped my medication and dumped me here.’

  ‘That’s dreadful,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Not as dreadful as the food they serve here,’ said the Colonel. ‘You know I was a prisoner of war, and let me tell you the cockroaches I ate then were better and more nutritious than the meals we’re served here.’

  ‘Not for much longer,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m not having elderly people re-inventing da Vinci’s flying machines, robbing banks and catatonically staring into space on my watch. I’m going to do something about it.’

  ‘But Nanny Piggins, remember you’re here to do community service,’ said Samantha. ‘You’re not going to do something that gets you in even more trouble, are you?’

  ‘Some things are worth risking your personal liberty for,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Freedom of speech, freedom to vote, and freedom to not eat really horrible food. In fact, if you’ve got good food you don’t really need freedom of speech and voting rights. Which is why all sensible dictators hand out chocolate brownies if they want to maintain their evil regimes.’

  As Nanny Piggins and the children made their way back downstairs they began to hear the rumble of noise.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Samantha worriedly.

  ‘It sounds like people yelling,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  And as they entered the common room they discovered all the previously catatonic old people were now extremely animated. Some were waving Zimmer frames and some were trying to stand up so they could shake their fists. And they were all yelling at Boris who, characteristically enough, was fighting to hold back tears. (He did not like yelling, except when audiences yelled ‘Bravo!’, ‘Encore!’ and ‘You are the best ballet dancing bear I’ve ever seen.’ And even that made him cry.)

  ‘What’s got them so upset?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Listen!’ urged Nanny Piggins.

  The children listened to what the old people were yelling.

  ‘But who’s Bethany’s real mother?’ cried an old lady wearing a crocheted hat.

  ‘And how did Vincent kidnap Bridge and force him to become an international modelling superstar?’ called an old man with two hearing aids.

  ‘How can Brianna be Astra’s baby when she clearly isn’t African–American?’ asked an old lady, who was starting to sob because she was so confused.

  ‘Oh Sarah, I’m so glad you’re here,’ said Boris. ‘They loved watching The Young and the Irritable but they’ve got so many questions and this man keeps hitting me with his oxygen stand. What am I going to do?’

  ‘Turn the TV back on,’ advised Nanny Piggins, ‘and show them The Bold and the Spiteful. I’ll go to the kitchen and get them some lunch.’

  ‘Noooo!’ screamed the old people suddenly and in unison.

  ‘Please don’t feed us any more of that horrible muck,’ pleaded the old lady with the crocheted hat.

  ‘We promise to be good,’ said the man with two hearing aids.

  ‘I won’t hit the bear anymore,’ promised the man who had used his oxygen stand as a weapon.

  ‘Never fear,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m going to the kitchen to make sure you get a proper lunch.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked the crocheted-hat lady. ‘Are you going to give us proper vegetables?’

  ‘I can if you want,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but I was planning to start with a really nice cake.’

  The old people cheered joyously as Nanny Piggins marched off in the direction of the kitchen.

  When she got there Nanny Piggins found three apathetic middle-aged women, emptying processed frozen nuggets onto baking trays and stirring giant pots of grey–green goo that the packet said was reconstituted powdered peas.

  The women took one look at Nanny Piggins’ steely glare and realised the jig was up. They did not wait for her to start chasing them about with a cooking ladle before they tried to make a run for it. Luckily Nanny Piggins got in a good whack on each of their bottoms before they escaped out the back door, as she yelled angry warnings at them never to attempt to mass-poison old pe
ople with horrible, overcooked vegetables again.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Derrick. ‘We’ve got half an hour to make lunch for 50 old people or they are going to start a riot.’

  ‘And there’s no real food here,’ said Michael, peering into the cupboard. ‘Unless you count generic tinned broccoli.’

  ‘Which I certainly do not,’ said Nanny Piggins, opening up her purse. ‘Fortunately I had the foresight to borrow your father’s credit card before I left the house this morning. Derrick, you’re best at forging his signature – take it down to the supermarket and buy 20 bags of flour, 20 bags of sugar, 10 dozen eggs, 20 litres of cream and 200 chocolate bars.’

  ‘That’ll make a lot of cakes,’ agreed Derrick, ‘but what about a main course?’

  ‘Cake will be the main course today,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘These retirees are clearly undernourished and need building up.’

  By the time Derrick got back with the ingredients there was only five minutes left in The Bold and the Spiteful.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Samantha. ‘We can’t make enough cake for 50 old people in five minutes.’

  ‘You’re right,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘We’re not going to.’

  ‘You’re going to let the old people starve?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m going to get them in here and make them do the cooking.’

  ‘Can you do that?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Forcing people to cook is the greatest gift you can give them,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘I thought you said cake was the greatest gift you can give,’ said Derrick.

  ‘Yes, which is why forcing someone to make cake is such a kindness,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

  Just then they heard the closing theme music to The Bold and the Spiteful from the next room, then the sound of the old people starting to yell at Boris again.

  ‘All right,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Get them in here and get their ingredients ready.’

  It soon became apparent that Nanny Piggins’ idea of setting the old people to work in the kitchen was even more brilliant than she could have imagined. Because the old people were so old they had all learnt to cook back in the days before anti-butter propaganda, when a woman could tip an entire litre of cream into a sauce without having to do nine hours of Pilates afterwards.