by R. A. Spratt
The children came with Nanny Piggins. They were beginning to worry that their nanny had been caught up in the classic criminal trap of recidivism. Even though she had been doing community service for several months, the number of hours she had to complete had actually increased, not decreased, because she kept getting in trouble with whoever she was sent to help. (People who run community service programs are not always the broadest-minded individuals. They like rules and punishment too much for that.)
‘Now remember, Nanny Piggins, no biting,’ coached Samantha as they approached the library.
‘Yes, don’t bite any librarians or any cake,’ warned Michael. He knew that librarians were almost as incensed by finding cake crumbs in a first edition as they were about needing stitches in their shins.
‘Yes, yes,’ muttered Nanny Piggins. ‘You know I do try to be good. It’s not my fault if these people provoke me.’
‘Yes, we understand,’ said Derrick. ‘It’s just that ordinary people, like on a jury, might not understand how “asking you not to sing light opera in the encyclopaedia section” could be seen as provocation for physical violence.’
‘It’s the way librarians ask you to not do things,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘with their reasonable voices and measured smiles. They could be complimenting me on my dress and I’d still want to pinch them.’
‘Yes, well at the very least, try not to mention that when you see the head librarian,’ said Samantha.
‘All right,’ grumbled Nanny Piggins. ‘I promise not to speak the truth or give unsolicited fashion tips, no matter how desperately she needs them.’
The automatic doors of the library hissed open (the noisiest thing in the library on most days). Nanny Piggins and the children entered. The head librarian was standing behind the lending desk, waiting for them. She glared at Nanny Piggins and Nanny Piggins glared back. They were like gun-fighters facing off at high noon.
‘Good morning, Nanny Piggins,’ said the head librarian in her quiet and reasonable voice.
Nanny Piggins fought the urge to lunge forward and bite her old nemesis (yet another one). ‘Good morning, head librarian,’ she said.
‘I understand you are here to help us today,’ said the librarian.
‘That is my court-appointed task, yes,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Well I’m sure we can find plenty to keep you busy,’ said the head librarian.
Nanny Piggins moved to enter into the library proper.
‘If,’ said the head librarian, stopping Nanny Piggins in her tracks, ‘you promise not to eat, bake or throw cake; bite, wrestle or berate any library visitors; and you do not, under any circumstances, fold over the corner of a page to mark your place.’
Nanny Piggins trembled as she struggled to control her emotions. She knew she should not argue but she could not help herself. ‘What if I discover a bomb in the library?’ asked Nanny Piggins, ‘and I find a book on bomb disarmament, read it and need to mark the page with the relevant information so I can diffuse the bomb?’
‘Then you should write down the page number on a notepad,’ said the librarian.
‘I don’t have a notepad,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Then memorise it,’ said the librarian.
‘I can’t,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Have you ever heard of someone having a photographic memory? Well I have the opposite of a photographic memory when it comes to numbers. Anything that is even vaguely associated with mathematics makes my mind go blank.’
‘If there was a bomb in the library, and the only way for you to disarm it was by folding over the corner of a page in the Swahili to Tibetan dictionary, and it was the only book in the entire library that has never been borrowed or referred to, I would still want you to walk away, leaving the page unfolded and allowing the entire library to explode,’ said the librarian.
‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘It makes complete sense,’ said the librarian. ‘I know you, Nanny Piggins. I know the chances of the library being blown up by a bomb are very low to nil. Whereas the chances of you thinking the library is about to be blown up are probably quite high, which is why we have these rules. Rules that must be obeyed.’
The head librarian and Nanny Piggins glared at each other some more. Nanny Piggins would dearly have loved to give the librarian a good piece of her mind and a good bite on her shin, but she was beginning to feel the pressure of having 5372 hours of community service to work down.
‘All right, I agree to your terms,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘What do you want me to do to help? Bake a tart, or juggle some books, or get blasted out of something? I’m good at those things.’
‘No, thank you,’ said the librarian. ‘I think we’ll take baby steps at first. I’d like you to begin by dusting.’
‘Dusting what?’ asked Nanny Piggins suspiciously. ‘Dusting off my tap shoes and putting on a show?’
‘No, I’d like you to begin by dusting the books. All of them,’ said the head librarian as she reached under the desk and took out a feather duster.
Nanny Piggins was appalled. ‘Is that a dead bird tied to a stick?’ She had never seen a duster before because she did not believe in doing housework. Nanny Piggins found if you left dirt and dust long enough it would get swept away eventually when you let the bath overflow, or when your brother the ballet-dancing bear fell through the ceiling in the middle of a torrential rainstorm.
‘It’s a feather duster,’ whispered Samantha. ‘People use it to brush the dust off things.’
Nanny Piggins peered at the device. ‘So the bird is dead, isn’t it?’
‘It’s just the feathers. There’s no bird,’ explained Derrick.
‘There had to be a bird at some stage,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If I agree to this cleaning, am I going to find some poor naked bird down the back of the reference section?’
‘Just get on with it,’ said the head librarian, actually beginning to show some mild signs of anger. ‘I haven’t got time for this, I’ve got fines to post.’
And so Nanny Piggins kissed the children goodbye, assured them she would get into no trouble (which she honestly believed was true) and set to work serving the community. And to give her credit she dusted admirably for an entire forty-three minutes before she snapped.
She was just brushing off the cobwebs on the eighteenth-century poetry section when children’s story time began. Nanny Piggins did not mean to eavesdrop but children’s story time is the only occasion when anyone is allowed to speak in a normal voice in the library, so the sound of the junior librarian reading to the children carried over to where she was working.
Nanny Piggins did not realise what the noise was at first because the drone was so deadpan and uninteresting. Even though the librarian was reading about wicked pirates, Nanny Piggins found the sound of her voice was so boring it lulled her to sleep. It was only when she slumped forward and her snout banged on a bookend that Nanny Piggins realised what was going on.
‘Oh my goodness!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘The junior librarian is trying to bore the preschool children to death! It’s up to me to rescue them!’
Nanny Piggins leapt into action. She vaulted over the picture book rack, snatched the book from the junior librarian and woke up the sleeping children. Then she gave the youngsters a valuable life lesson, by demonstrating exactly how a real pirate would tie up a librarian and throw her overboard. (Nanny Piggins did not really throw the junior librarian into the sea, just over a low set of shelves into the political history section.)
She then proceeded to read the story the way it should be read, acting out all the good bits, paying special attention to the sword fights, the plundering and the swinging from the sails. (There were no sails in the library but Nanny Piggins found that the curtains would do.) After she’d finished reading out the good bits she s
tarted to make up even better bits involving crocodiles, an evil helicopter and chipmunks with super-strength.
The head librarian was hard at work in her office issuing fines when she first realised something was dreadfully wrong. She could hear screams of delight coming from the children’s corner. Captain Pugwash had never made children scream before (except for that one child who was afraid of beards).
When the head librarian marched out into the library it was to find Nanny Piggins hiding behind a bookcase yelling, ‘You’ll never catch me, ye scurvy dogs!’ as the children pelted her with paperbacks.
‘What is going on here?’ demanded the head librarian.
‘I’m helping them appreciate literature,’ explained Nanny Piggins.
‘The children are throwing books,’ accused the head librarian.
‘Don’t worry, they’re only paperbacks,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They won’t hurt me.’
‘I’m more worried about the books,’ said the head librarian.
‘But you wanted them dusted,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and throwing them about like this is much better than brushing them with a dead bird.’
‘I am calling your probation officer!’ announced the head librarian.
And so that is how Nanny Piggins came to find herself sitting once more outside Judge Birchmore’s courtroom, waiting to face the magistrate.
‘This is so unfair,’ moaned Nanny Piggins. ‘If I end up going to jail because I dented a few paperbacks, I’ll be really cross.’
‘Maybe Judge Birchmore will be in a good mood today,’ said Samantha optimistically.
The others turned and looked at her.
‘Do you really think that’s possible?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
Samantha burst into tears. ‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘I think she’s going to be nasty and cross and send you to jail for a very long time.’
‘There, there,’ said Nanny Piggins, giving Samantha a hug. ‘It will be all right. I’m good friends with so many of the inmates down at the maximum security prison, they’ll help me dig my escape tunnel and I’ll be home before you know it.’
‘But that’s the men’s maximum security prison,’ said Derrick. ‘You won’t be going there. You’ll be going to the women’s prison.’
‘They have gender-segregated prisons?’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘That must make it very difficult doing seating arrangements for their dinner parties.’
‘I don’t think they allow dinner parties in prison,’ said Derrick.
Nanny Piggins shuddered. ‘I know they are meant to be horrible places because that is the punishment, but no dinner parties? That’s just cruel. And what do they do at the women’s prison when the women need someone to reach something off a very high shelf, or open a difficult jam jar?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Derrick.
‘Perhaps they have a bear there,’ guessed Michael. ‘Boris always does those things for you.’
‘True,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t know how we ever managed without him. It is so handy having a ten-foot-tall bear around the house. Speaking of which, where is Boris?’
But the children never got to answer.
‘The people versus Piggins,’ called the bailiff.
‘Hello Henry,’ replied Nanny Piggins. ‘We’re over here.’
‘Hello Nanny Piggins,’ called Henry the bailiff. He and Nanny Piggins had become firm friends during her last visit. Being bitten hard on the shins and then receiving an apology sticky date pudding tends to bond people together. ‘Are you going to be a good girl today?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I never leave the house intending to get in a wrestling match with a man in uniform, and yet it so frequently seems to happen.’
‘Well, if it comes to that, just try not to hurt me too much,’ said the bailiff. ‘It’s my anniversary tonight and my wife wants me to take her dancing.’
‘All right,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I won’t aim for your legs. I’ll aim for your head. Your wife will never notice a mild concussion.’
‘You’re probably right,’ agreed the bailiff as he led Nanny Piggins into the courtroom.
‘Isn’t the law firm sending someone to defend you?’ asked Michael, scanning the crowd for Montgomery St John.
‘Isabella Dunkhurst is still in Botswana,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Every time she tries to leave, they give her more diamonds to stay. And Montgomery St John got fired.’
‘What for?’ asked Samantha.
‘Well, apparently he never did have any chapstick in his car,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘and he’s been using that excuse for years. But the receptionist at the firm assured me they’d send a lawyer.’
‘They have,’ said a surly voice behind them.
Nanny Piggins and the children spun around to see none other than Mr Green.
‘Father!’ exclaimed the children.
‘I’m doomed!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.
‘They’ve sent me to defend you because I am most familiar with your case,’ said Mr Green gloomily.
‘But are you even qualified to be a trial lawyer?’ asked Derrick.
‘It’s just a magistrate’s hearing,’ said Mr Green. ‘Anyone can do that. I did go to law school, you know. They did give me some training.’
‘In the law?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Or did they just focus on training you to be the world’s most boring misery guts?’
‘They trained me to be a tax lawyer,’ said Mr Green proudly.
‘Same thing,’ muttered Nanny Piggins.
‘All rise for the honourable Justice Birchmore,’ called Henry.
‘If she does put me away,’ Nanny Piggins whispered furtively to the children, ‘and your father tries to feed you healthy food, remember, I have hidden chocolate behind the wallpaper in my room.’
‘Which part of the walls?’ asked Michael.
‘All the walls,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘There is an inch-thick layer of chocolate underneath all four of them.’
‘How on earth did you do that?’ asked Samantha.
‘You can import chocolate wall-panelling from Switzerland,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s how they get through all those long cold winters in the Alps and why Swiss people are always yodelling so happily.’
Judge Birchmore made her entrance, striding to her chair.
‘Be seated,’ called Henry.
‘Ah, Piggins, we meet again,’ said Judge Birchmore gleefully. ‘It seems you have been very busy in the interim. Busy flouting authority and breaking the terms of your probation, by the look of it.’
‘She’s also helped a lot of people!’ yelled out Michael.
Judge Birchmore peered over her reading glasses at him. ‘Don’t think the fact that you are an unusually short child will stop me from sending you to a juvenile detention centre for contempt of court,’ she warned, before turning on Nanny Piggins. ‘Now, I have read the report from your probation officer.’
‘I’m sorry,’ mouthed the probation officer from the far side of the courtroom. (He was terribly upset. Much like the Retired Army Colonel he had fallen deeply in love with Nanny Piggins and her chocolate chip biscuits. He did not want to lose either one from his life.)
‘He says he has sent you out to 17 different organisations, and you haven’t lasted more than three days at any of them,’ said Judge Birchmore.
‘It’s not my fault if it only takes three days to either solve all their problems or point out all their deficiencies,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘And that you have bitten three community service providers, slapped another two and poked one repeatedly in the bottom with a nail on a stick,’ accused Judge Birchmore.
‘Ah yes, the litter collection supervisor. In my defence, it was a very large bottom,’ sai
d Nanny Piggins, ‘and really, if your bottom is that big and you spend your whole day dealing with petty criminals with pointy sticks, you shouldn’t be surprised if they are unable to resist the urge to poke it to see if it will burst.’
‘Does your lawyer have anything to say in your defence?’ asked Judge Birchmore.
‘Send her to prison and throw away the key!’ yelled Mr Green.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Judge Birchmore. Even she, who had done so much to break the will and crack the spirits of the most seasoned defence attorneys, had never before seen defence counsel capitulate so quickly.
‘Your Honour can’t be seen to go soft on crime,’ urged Mr Green. ‘You can’t let pigs like this run wild.’
Nanny Piggins turned on Mr Green. ‘You’re fired! You’re even worse than Montgomery St John. At least he had the decency to pretend he had chapped lips and leave.’
‘You can fire me,’ said Mr Green picking up his briefcase, ‘but I’m not leaving. I want to be here to see you get sent away for a very long time.’
‘I like the cut of your jib, Mr Green,’ said Judge Birchmore. ‘I wish there were more lawyers like you. It would certainly make the trials much shorter.’
‘See you in twenty years, Piggins,’ said Mr Green, and he climbed one row back so he could watch the proceedings from the gallery.
‘It now gives me great pleasure to announce my sentence,’ said Judge Birchmore. ‘You, Nanny Piggins, are a blight on society –’
‘All she did was tightrope walk across to a slice of cake!’ protested Derrick.
‘And dent a few paperbacks!’ added Samantha.
‘Surely that’s not a crime!’ pleaded Michael.
‘It’s a crime if I say it’s a crime!’ screamed Judge Birchmore. ‘And I say that you three are in contempt of court. Bailiff, once I give my judgement I want you to throw them all in the holding cells.’
‘But your Honour, they’re children! You can’t –’ protested Henry.
‘Right, that’s it!’ screamed Judge Birchmore. ‘When this trial is over I want you to throw yourself in a cell too.’
