by R. A. Spratt
When Boris returned home late that night, the now reinforced shed was back in its regular spot. Boris was feeling very cheerful, having eaten half his body weight in honey (and that was a lot of body weight), so naturally he settled down for a lovely nap.
‘What if he starts snoring again?’ asked Michael.
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Nanny Piggins as she watched her brother snooze. ‘I’ve come up with a new, simplified plan. Obviously we’ll still bake 3240 cakes. But next time, instead of soundproofing the whole shed, we’ll just break off a little bit of one cake and soundproof our ears.’
Nanny Piggins and the children were sitting around the dining table eating breakfast. Mr Green was also there, but they knew from experience that if they focused purely on the delight of chocolate-covered Belgian waffles served with chocolate sauce and chocolate ice-cream on the side, they could forget about him entirely.
Normally Mr Green was happy with this arrangement. He liked forgetting about the existence of his children too. In fact, he was able to do it for several days, or even weeks at a time, and without even the aid of chocolate-covered waffles. But on this particular morning Mr Green did not want to be forgotten. He was smirking and chortling in the way that some people do when they have something they want to rub another person’s nose in. He was on his fifth ‘haw, haw-haw’ when Nanny Piggins put down her spoon and turned on him.
‘Spit it out then!’ she demanded.
Mr Green flinched.
‘And when I say spit it out,’ continued Nanny Piggins, ‘I don’t mean spit out that horrible high-fibre muesli you insist on eating. I mean spit out whatever it is that you so obviously desperately want to say. I have spent many, many years perfecting my chocolate-covered waffle recipe. King Albert the second of Belgium himself awarded me that country’s highest honour, the Knighthood of the Order of Leopold, for my creation. So I will not have the waffle-eating experience of these children soiled by your pathetic attempts to strike up a conversation.’
It shows how much Mr Green desperately wanted to say what he had to say because he resisted the opportunity to denounce Nanny Piggins for being rude. (He could confidently assume that she would give him opportunity to do that again later.) So he did spit it out. ‘Have you seen the news this morning?’ he smirked.
Nanny Piggins and the children groaned. Mr Green was so awful at making conversation it was terribly painful when he tried to protract the experience by being cryptic. ‘Obviously I have neither seen, nor heard, nor read the news,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I made Belgian waffles for breakfast.’ Nanny Piggins indicated the huge platter of waffles in front of her and the children. ‘As if I would go to all the trouble of making something so supremely delightful, then ruin the whole experience by finding out what was going on in the rest of the world today. Unless the entire rest of the world made themselves Belgian waffles too, I don’t want to know about it.’
‘The morning news bulletin will be on in five minutes,’ continued Mr Green. He was undeterred because he had stopped listening to Nanny Piggins and was just waiting for her to stop speaking so that he could start again (something many men do). ‘You should watch. I think you will find it very interesting.’ At this point Mr Green actually giggled. I would say he giggled like a schoolgirl but that would not be true. If you hear a school-girl giggle it is a perfectly pleasant sound (in moderation). But hearing Mr Green giggle was so revolting it actually made Nanny Piggins feel slightly sick, and therefore put her off finishing her chocolate-covered waffles. Naturally she fought this instinct and ate the waffles anyway, but the joy of the whole experience had definitely been ruined.
Nanny Piggins sighed. ‘I suppose we might as well watch the news now,’ she said. ‘Waffles do not taste as good when your father is talking, and he is obviously intent on gloating about something so we had better find out what it is so we can take appropriate retribution.’
At this point Mr Green stopped smirking. He had been in such a rush to irritate Nanny Piggins he had entirely forgotten to put on his shin pads, and he had learnt from bitter experience that it could be very painful to irritate Nanny Piggins without wearing this essential protective equipment. ‘I’ve got to go to the office,’ said Mr Green, with which he leapt up and sprinted from the room.
‘Your father is a very strange man,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘So are we going to watch the news?’ asked Michael.
‘We’d better,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t want him to ruin another meal. I’m planning chocolate mousse for dinner.’
They trooped into the living room, still licking chocolate off their hands, fully expecting to see that their father had done something silly like hold a press conference announcing his intention to close the local children’s hospital, or rip up all the trees along the main street, or push old ladies onto the road, or something equally morally bankrupt. But sadly it was nothing that pleasant. For a start they had to sit through five utterly miserable and bleak stories about a famine in North Korea, a war in the Middle East, a famine and a war in Africa, and a celebrity who almost died after drinking too much bottled water.
‘I don’t think there’s anything on the news relevant to us at all,’ denounced Nanny Piggins. ‘I think your father has just tricked us into watching the news as a cruel joke to make us depressed and afraid of water.’
At that moment a more familiar face flicked onto the screen. It was Mr Green. He had evidently held a press conference earlier that morning.
‘I am bringing these important documents to light, about the true character of my mayoral opponent Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins,’ announced Mr Green.
‘Is it the secret to how she makes her hair so bouncy and gorgeous?’ called a female reporter from the front row.
‘Is it her chocolate cake recipe?’ called a heavy-set older journalist from the back.
‘Is it photographs of her sunbathing in a bikini?’ called a young journalist who had been hopelessly in love with Nanny Piggins ever since she had slammed into him one time while running home with arm loads of butter to make croissants.
‘No, no, no. I have documents proving that Sarah Piggins is a convicted criminal,’ began Mr Green.
In the Green house, Nanny Piggins leapt up and started yelling at the television. ‘But I was given a full pardon because the judge was insane!’
Sadly at the press conference, recorded earlier, Mr Green could not hear Nanny Piggins so he continued. ‘She regularly associates with known jailbird Mr T. Ringmaster . . .’
‘Only when he kidnaps me,’ argued Nanny Piggins.
‘. . . and she broke into a maximum security prison!’ concluded Mr Green.
‘But only because I was hungry for Chinese food,’ wailed Nanny Piggins.
Mr Green looked very smug and proud of himself on the television screen.
‘Is that all?’ asked a senior journalist.
‘What do you mean “Is that all?”,’ cried Mr Green. ‘She’s a serial criminal! A menace to society!’
‘Her cakes are tasty though,’ called out a younger journalist.
The other journalists murmured their agreement.
Nanny Piggins switched off the television. ‘I’ve had enough of that,’ she declared.
‘Would you like us to fetch your hot-pink wrestling leotard so you can go and punish Father?’ asked Michael.
‘No, I’m not upset with your father,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘You’re not?’ asked Samantha. ‘He was very rude.’
‘He defamed you publicly,’ said Derrick.
‘But is it defamation when it’s all true?’ asked Michael.
‘Yes,’ said Derrick.
‘Then he definitely defamed you,’ Michael agreed.
‘Of course he did,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I would expect nothing less from such a small man. And when I say “small” I obviously do not refer to his waistline, because that is quite large. No, Mr Green is small of spirit, brain and common s
ense. He is not worthy of me spending half my day chasing him about town in my hot-pink wrestling leotard just because he is too silly to stand still and let me bite his shins.’
‘Really?’ asked Samantha, surprised at her nanny’s uncharacteristic magnanimity.
‘No, I’m angry with the news for broadcasting such a pile of bleak misery,’ declared Nanny Piggins.
‘You mean the truth,’ asked Derrick.
‘Precisely,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m going to go down there and put a stop to it.’
‘But you were going to drive us to school today,’ Samantha reminded her.
‘Obviously you can’t go to school now,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We have an outrage to rectify.’
Michael did not say anything, he just beamed with pleasure. They were going to dissect broccoli in his class today, so he was very happy to miss that.
‘You will have to come with me,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If I am going to tell these news people off I shall need your support. You can bring a thesaurus to help me think up extra rude things to yell at them.’
A few minutes later Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children pulled up outside the local television station. It was a very unimpressive establishment. A windowless, concrete single-story building with the words Dulsford Community Television Station hand-painted on the outside.
‘Are you sure this is the television station?’ asked Nanny Piggins, consulting the map.
‘The sign says it’s a television station,’ said Derrick.
‘But it’s so unimpressive,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Perhaps it’s a ruse, and really it’s the headquarters for an international branch of wicked super-spies.’
‘I think even naughty international super-spies, who would do anything to avoid being arrested by Interpol, would still have too much pride to work in such a rundown building,’ said Boris. Being a Russian ballet dancer, he knew lots of international super-spies because they were always going undercover as ballet dancers.
Nanny Piggins kicked in the front door of the TV station. She actually had to, because the steel door had rusted and swollen shut.
‘Right, I’m taking over this institution,’ she announced as she strode into the studio. Nanny Piggins was impressive at the best of times but none more so than when she was wearing her hot-pink wrestling leotard.
‘Ssshhhh, we’re in the middle of a bulletin,’ hissed the floor manager.
‘All the more reason for me to intervene,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I saw your last bulletin and it was an abomination to the good name of television. How dare you sully the same airwaves that bring us joyful programs like The Young and the Irritable and The Bold and the Spiteful.’
‘Those shows always make you cry,’ pointed out Derrick.
‘Yes, but I enjoy doing it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘These news bulletins just make everybody unhappy. And think of the poor people who watch the news while they eat dinner – it would totally ruin their food. And I cannot abide anybody who ruins food.’
‘Excuse me,’ said the newsreader, giving up any attempt to keep reading the news. ‘I’ve been reading the news here for eight years, and I just want to say – this pig is entirely right!’
‘Hear, hear,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.
‘The news is always miserable,’ continued the newsreader. ‘Some nights I have to pinch myself in the leg to stop myself from bursting into tears in the middle of the broadcast.’
Boris burst into tears. He could tell he had met a kindred spirit.
‘If she’s got some way to cheer up the bulletin, please let her do it,’ said the newsreader. ‘It’s so hard to get out of bed in the morning when I know I’ve got to come into work and read all this sadness.’
Boris immediately rushed over and gave the newsreader a big hug. ‘You poor man,’ said Boris. ‘The thought of going to work in the morning makes me want to cry too. That’s why I live in a garden shed and only teach a few afternoon ballet classes to earn my pocket money.’
‘We can’t let a pig burst in here and take over,’ protested the news director, emerging from the control booth. ‘We have a civic responsibility to report the news.’
‘To who?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘The few poor souls who have broken the channel-changing knob on their televisions? No-one is watching this drivel and the people who are watching aren’t paying attention.’
‘You can’t change the editorial policy of the station without consulting the board of directors,’ argued the news director.
‘I’ll make a bet with you,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I bet if I change the editorial policy the board won’t notice because they don’t watch this station either.’
‘But you’re running for mayor,’ continued the news director. ‘People will be cross if we let you take over.’
‘Why?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘They should be impressed by initiative and leadership.’
‘But what about the rest of the bulletin?’ asked the floor manager. ‘This is going to air and we haven’t finished yet.’
‘Let me finish it,’ said Nanny Piggins.
The newsreader happily got out of her way so he could go and weep with Boris in the corner.
‘Just read what is on the autocue,’ the floor manager told her.
Nanny Piggins settled herself in the chair, picked up the sheets of copy on the desk, then tossed them away over her shoulder and ignored the autocue entirely. ‘Good evening, I am mayoral candidate Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins,’ began Nanny Piggins, ‘and I am taking over this news bulletin because I think the journalists here are a bunch of old misery guts who should be ashamed of themselves. So this is the news according to me. Earlier today, the Queen of England went to the Battersea dog shelter and adopted a thousand puppies. Then she threw Prince Andrew out of his palace and let the dogs live there.’
‘I like puppies,’ murmured the newsreader between sobs.
‘In South America,’ continued Nanny Piggins, ‘the President of Brazil sent a bag of Brazil nuts to every citizen in his country as a thank-you present for electing him in the first place’.
‘What a nice man,’ said Boris, dabbing his eyes.
‘And in Papua New Guinea a remote group of tribeswomen discovered the cure for the common cold,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but decided not to tell anyone because they think it is fun to stay in bed eating chocolate and watching daytime television when you have a runny nose. And now for the weather.’
Nanny Piggins turned and looked at the weather man.
‘Tomorrow in Dulsford the weather will be cold and wet,’ said the weather man.
‘No, it won’t!’ interrupted Nanny Piggins. ‘It will be warm and sunny all day, until four o’clock in the afternoon when there will be a very brief shower, so we can all put on our rainboots and jump in puddles.’
‘But according to the synoptic charts . . .’ protested the weather man.
‘The viewers do not want to know about your sinuses, thank you,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘so from everyone here at the Dulsford News Team, especially me, mayoral candidate Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins, goodnight.’
‘Clear,’ called the floor manager.
‘Not a word you said is true,’ protested the news director. ‘Not the news bulletin, not the weather, you even said goodnight when it is 10 o’clock in the morning!’
‘Pish,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Other types of television are all made up, like soap operas and medical dramas, so why not make up the news?’
‘What is she talking about?’ asked Boris. ‘What does she mean, saying soap operas are made up?’
‘Don’t worry yourself about it,’ said Samantha. ‘Just put your paws over your ears for a few minutes.’
‘You can’t fictionalise the news,’ argued the news director.
‘Why not?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Because . . . because . . . it’s the news!’ wailed the news director.
‘Come now,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve heard more reasoned arguments from
three-year-olds.’
‘It’s jolly good of the Queen to adopt all those puppies,’ said the newsreader.
‘But she didn’t,’ yelled the news director. ‘This pig just made it up.’
The newsreader looked like he was about to cry. Nanny Piggins wrapped him in a big hug.
‘There you go,’ said Nanny Piggins to the news director. ‘This is exactly what you do to your viewers every day. You wear them down and make them upset. Life is hard enough. When people get home and turn on the television, they do so to find relief. The last thing they want is truth and reality. We get more than enough reality from reality, thank you very much.’
‘This is crazy,’ said the news director.
‘Of course it is,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Crazy people have all the best ideas. Look at Leonardo da Vinci, total genius, designed a helicopter in the sixteenth century. But it was four hundred years before the invention of the aviation fuel to power it. Talk about nutty as a fruitcake! Hold on a minute – why are we standing around arguing? Derrick, be a dear and run out to the car and fetch a cake. No, better make that a dozen large cakes, of the chocolate variety.’
Nanny Piggins rightly judged that once they had eaten a slice of her cake, the news director and his television crew would capitulate and give her anything she wanted. After the first mouthful they were begging her to give up her mayoral aspirations and become a television executive instead.
When eleven o’clock rolled around the crew were still eating, so they let Nanny Piggins read the news again. This time she did not make up any news stories at all. She just dictated her recipe for chocolate cake and recounted the time the crown prince of Spain tried to elope with her because he had fallen desperately in love with her apple strudel.
‘This can’t go on,’ said the news director, licking chocolate icing from his fingers before helping himself to another slice. ‘You can’t just read out recipes. You have to do some news.’
‘But that cake recipe was news,’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘Using chocolate-flavoured butter, chocolate milk and six bars of molten chocolate was a breakthrough in the development of bakery.’
