Nanny Piggins and the Race to Power 8

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘I don’t understand why you want a passport anyway,’ grumbled Nanny Piggins. ‘You don’t need one. Whenever you travel internationally it’s almost always because you’ve been kidnapped. And if you are stuffed inside a crate with a pillowcase over your head, the customs officials aren’t going to check your paperwork.’

  ‘I want a passport,’ said Boris, ‘because I want one. I like to think that one of these days I shall rise to a sufficient level of dignity and respect in the community that someone will pay for me to sit in an airline seat like a regular law-abiding person.’

  ‘You could always pay for a ticket yourself,’ Michael pointed out.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ exclaimed Boris. ‘If I had that kind of money, of course I’d spend it all on honey. I am a bear, after all.’

  ‘I didn’t know bears could get passports,’ said Samantha.

  ‘We can in Russia,’ said Boris. ‘Bears are held in very high regard. We have a long historic association with Russian folklore. Plus, we tend to bite people who are rude to us.’

  called the grey grumpy woman behind the counter (which is Russian for ‘next’).

  ‘It’s me, it’s me, it’s my turn,’ said Boris excitedly as he skipped up to the counter. ‘I’m applying for a passport.’

  ‘Urgh,’ said the grumpy woman (which means ‘urgh’ in Russian) as she started paging through the voluminous application form and tutting ominously at any misspellings or places where Boris had accidentally smeared honey on the document.

  ‘Would you just get on with it,’ snapped Nanny Piggins. ‘We have been waiting here for ages and if my blood sugar drops any lower I may have to resort to eating one of the stale sandwiches you have in your vending machine.’

  The children gasped. In the entire time they had known Nanny Piggins, they had never known her to eat anything as low in sugar as a sandwich. So they knew she was desperately serious.

  ‘You. Bear. Stand on line,’ ordered the grumpy woman. There was a line of masking tape stuck on the carpet, where applicants had to stand to get their passport photo taken.

  ‘I think you forgot to say please,’ Boris reminded her kindly.

  ‘You want passport. You stand on line,’ snapped the grumpy woman.

  Boris raised his eyebrows. ‘I think Mr Manners needs to pay a visit to this embassy.’ But he went and stood on the line.

  ‘You too tall,’ accused the woman as she looked through the camera at Boris’ chest.

  ‘How can you be too tall to get a passport? That’s heightism!’ accused Nanny Piggins. She knew she should be behaving herself but there was something about this official. She was so rude that Nanny Piggins had an overwhelming urge to bite her shins.

  ‘Get down on your knees,’ the grumpy woman ordered Boris.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have a little cushion I could kneel on?’ asked Boris politely.

  ‘No cushion for you!’ declared the grumpy woman.

  At this point Boris, predictably, started to cry.

  ‘How dare you upset my brother!’ accused Nanny Piggins.

  ‘I adjust lights,’ said the grumpy woman, whipping out three spotlights and quickly adjusting them so they glared into Boris’ face, making him wince.

  ‘Perfect!’ she declared and took the photo.

  ‘That’s a hideous photograph!’ accused Nanny Piggins as she peered across the counter to see the grumpy woman’s computer screen.

  ‘Now you go away!’ ordered the grumpy woman.

  ‘Come on, Sarah,’ sniffed Boris. ‘I want to go home. My feelings have been hurt.’

  But as they turned to leave, the Russian embassy’s Head of Security was blocking their exit.

  ‘It is you!’ accused the Russian Head of Security as he pointed at Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Yes, yes, it is me,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The World’s Greatest Flying Pig. I can sign an autograph for you later. But right now would you kindly step aside. Listening to all this Russian is making me hungry for Briskvit.’ She turned and explained helpfully to the children, ‘That’s a moist Russian sponge cake.’

  ‘That’s not what he means. Look!’ said Derrick as he pointed to a noticeboard on the wall. There were signs warning travellers about the dangers of smuggling caviar (the tins can explode in your suitcase and make your underwear very smelly), the health risks of travelling to Siberia (mosquito bites in summer and hypothermia in winter), and ten sheets of paper, each showing a picture of one of Russia’s ten most-wanted criminals. The seventh picture was unmistakeably of Nanny Piggins.

  ‘They’ve found me!’ yelled Nanny Piggins. ‘Quick, run!’

  Unfortunately embassies are not designed for making speedy exits. There are security guards and checkpoints everywhere. And while they are mainly focused on keeping lunatics with bombs out, it is a simple matter for them to turn around and keep lunatic pigs in.

  ‘We’re surrounded,’ panicked Samantha.

  ‘Quick, Boris!’ cried Nanny Piggins. ‘Distract them.’

  ‘How?!’ asked Boris.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Do some ballet!’

  ‘They’re Russians,’ protested Boris. ‘They see world-class ballet all the time.’

  ‘Yes, but not performed by a ten-foot-tall Kodiak bear,’ argued Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Are you saying people only watch my ballet because I’m a bear?’ said Boris, starting to get teary.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins, back- pedalling frantically. ‘I just meant that it is even more impressive that you are a world-class artist given that you are so tall.’

  But it was too late. Boris was weeping so hard and so loudly, he could not hear anything else. Fortunately, however, a ten-foot-tall bear collapsing in a heap on the floor and bawling his eyes out is even more distracting than a sublime ballet performance, so Nanny Piggins and the children were able to dodge around the befuddled guards and make good their escape.

  A short time later, Nanny Piggins and the children were at home, under the kitchen table and eating cake while Nanny Piggins tried to come up with a plan.

  ‘Why are we under the table?’ asked Samantha, taking a bite of delicious Victoria sponge.

  ‘In case any Russian agents look in the window to try to see us, of course,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘But why did we come home?’ asked Derrick. ‘Surely this is the first place they will look.’

  ‘But they don’t know our address,’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘And I made very sure that we weren’t followed. That is why we took such a circuitous route home, through every bakery in the district.’

  ‘I thought you were just hungry for cake,’ said Michael.

  ‘Of course I was,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Running away always builds up my appetite.’

  ‘There is one slight problem,’ said Boris through a mouthful of honey cake. (He had escaped and walked straight home while the guards were busy being told off by the Russian Head of Security for letting a wanted criminal get away.)

  ‘What?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Have you eaten all the honey cake again?’

  ‘No,’ said Boris. ‘The cubic metre of cake you made me is the perfect-sized snack for a growing bear. No, the snag is, they will probably be able to figure out our address.’

  ‘How?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘From the passport application I left lying on the counter,’ said Boris.

  ‘You left that behind?!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘I really want a passport,’ protested Boris.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ said Nanny Piggins, her mind racing. ‘I’m just going to have to initiate emergency evacuation plan D.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘I’ll have to run away and join the French Foreign Legion,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Do they still have that?’ asked Michael.

  ‘And do they take women?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘And do they take pigs?’ asked Derrick.

 
‘What right-minded military institution would turn me away?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘A pig with my artillery experience is invaluable. And I quite fancy moving to Algeria. They make very good sweet biscuits there called Halwat Eeba, which are filled with dates.’

  ‘But what about us?’ asked Michael.

  ‘I’m sure the Foreign Legion will take you,’ said Nanny Piggins, giving him a hug. ‘Legionnaires lie about their real names and ages even more than actresses.’

  ‘I won’t do it!’ declared Samantha.

  ‘What?!’ said everyone else. It was unlike Samantha to be so bold.

  ‘I won’t do it!’ declared Samantha again. ‘I don’t want to join the military, I don’t want to learn to speak French, I don’t want to lie about my age and I don’t want to move to Algeria.’

  ‘You say that now,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but only because you’ve never tried Halwat Eeba. It’s very good.’

  ‘There must be some other way you can avoid deportation to Russia,’ said Samantha.

  ‘Perhaps if you explained to us exactly what you did to get in trouble in the first place,’ suggested Derrick.

  ‘You know how much I hate going to museums,’ began Nanny Piggins. ‘Well, it was a rainy day in St Petersburg and I was wearing the most darling suede slingback shoes. Obviously I couldn’t keep walking about outside and risk stepping in a puddle.’

  ‘It would be a crime against footwear,’ agreed Boris.

  ‘I had no choice,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I had to take shelter indoors, but the nearest building was the Hermitage Museum.’

  ‘You poor thing!’ exclaimed Boris.

  ‘What’s the Hermitage Museum?’ asked Michael.

  ‘It is the largest and most impressive art gallery in the world,’ explained Boris. ‘It is full of all the great Russian masterpieces as well as important works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio and all the other super famous artists.’

  ‘In short,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘it is a dreadfully tedious place. And I was stuck inside being forced to wander past one miserable painting after another until it stopped raining outside.’

  ‘So what did you do to get in trouble?’ asked Derrick. ‘Did you bump into something?’

  ‘Or accidentally smash something?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘Or purposefully smash something?’ asked Michael.

  ‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins, with a note of shame in her voice. ‘I ate something.’

  ‘What?’ asked Derrick suspiciously.

  ‘One of the exhibits,’ confessed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘You ate a priceless artwork?!’ exclaimed Derrick.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘It was not my proudest moment.’

  ‘What did you eat?’ asked Samantha. ‘Not a Leonardo da Vinci painting? There’s no way we could come up with a money-making scheme to replace that.’

  ‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I ate a Greta Pleveski.’

  ‘A who what?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Greta Pleveski was the greatest Russian artist of the early twentieth century,’ continued Nanny Piggins. ‘I was wandering through a particularly gaudy gallery of baroque portraiture when I smelled her masterpiece.’

  ‘You smelled it?’ queried Samantha.

  ‘My trotters were drawn to the enticing aroma,’ continued Nanny Piggins. ‘I walked down the corridor into a small and dimly lit gallery featuring one artwork, displayed on a central plinth, beneath a lone spotlight.’

  ‘What was it?’ asked Michael. ‘A sculpture?’

  ‘A painting?’

  ‘An antique?’

  ‘It was the last cake of the Romanovs!’ declared Nanny Piggins.

  The children sat silently for a moment as their brains processed this . . . until they realised that none of them had any idea what their nanny was talking about.

  ‘You’re going to have to explain,’ said Derrick.

  ‘The Romanovs were the last emperors of Russia,’ said Boris. ‘They enjoyed untold wealth and the most lavish luxury ever seen, and all while the Russian people suffered poverty, hunger and even slavery.’

  ‘So what happened?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Well, the people got sick of the poverty, hunger and slavery,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘They rose up and overthrew the Romanovs.’

  ‘Where does the cake come in?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘On the day they were overthrown, the Romanov family were just sitting down to have morning tea – and the Romanovs did not do things by half measures. They had the finest cake maker in the world, Greta Pleveski, make them a chocolate cake. And not just an ordinary chocolate cake either. A fifteen-tier chocolate cake with exquisite handmade sugar decorations depicting an exact replica of the Winter Palace in winter. It was the most beautiful cake ever made.’

  ‘Then why didn’t the Romanovs eat it?’ asked Michael.

  ‘The Bolsheviks started bombing the palace and they had to flee by train before they could even take the first bite,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

  Boris burst into tears.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘I know the Romanovs were dreadfully mean to all the poor people,’ said Boris, ‘but it just seems so cruel not to let them eat their cake.’

  ‘When the Bolsheviks raided the palace the cake was still sitting on the coffee table,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It was put in the Hermitage Museum as a monument to the selfish extravagance of the aristocracy.’

  ‘So why on earth did you eat it?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Because it smelled so good!’ wailed Nanny Piggins. ‘You know how good my sense of smell is! How could I be in the same room and resist such a wonderful chocolate cake?’

  ‘But the Russian Revolution took place in 1917,’ said Derrick. ‘The cake must have been 90 years old!’

  ‘It was still delicious!’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘The icing was so thick it created a vacuum inside, so it was very well preserved.’

  ‘But Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha, ‘what you did was terrible. You destroyed a great work of art and a historically significant artefact.’

  ‘Pish!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The greater crime was letting the cake go uneaten! Cake is not like a painting you hang on a wall to get dusty and faded. A cake is to be tasted, chewed, swallowed and enjoyed. That is its purpose. The greatest purpose of all. To deny such a fine cake to yield to its higher destiny is a crime. It’s a desecration of a great artist’s masterpiece. If Greta Pleveski were alive today she would have begged me to eat it. She would have picked up a cake fork and eaten it herself.’

  ‘So you just reached over and took a bite?’ asked Michael, in even greater awe of his nanny’s audacity than he had ever been.

  ‘Not quite,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘I had to jump over a red velvet rope, smash through two-inch thick bulletproof glass and disable a state-of-the-art alarm system by bashing it with my shoe.’

  ‘So the slingbacks got ruined anyway?’ asked Boris.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘What happened next?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘I’ve been running from the KGBCD ever since,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘What’s the KGBCD?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Well you know what the KGB is?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘The Russian secret police?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and the KGBCD is their cake division.’

  ‘I thought the KGB was disbanded after the collapse of the Soviet government,’ said Derrick.

  ‘They kept up their cake division,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They take their desserts seriously in Russia. They reserve the most ruthless tactics for dealing with cake-related crime.’

  Suddenly there was a loud pounding at the door.

  ‘Piggins, we know you’re in there!’ the Russian Head of Security boomed from outside. ‘We have the house surrounded. Come out now, before we are forced to do structural damage to y
our home.’

  ‘Agh, please don’t let them take you, Sarah. What will I do without you?!’ wailed Boris. ‘Who will explain the bits I miss in The Young and the Irritable when I cry too loudly to hear what’s going on?’

  ‘No-one is taking me anywhere,’ declared Nanny Piggins, ‘because I had the foresight to install an ejection system!’

  ‘You did?’ asked the children.

  ‘Yes, one night when I snuck down to the kitchen for a little midnight cake, I had the brilliant idea of using the fireman’s pole in reverse, as the trajectory controller for a massive rocket launcher.’

  ‘Really?’ said the children.

  ‘It was a simple matter really,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘All I had to do was install a remote-controlled trap door in the roof, get a custom-made harness, and a massive rocket powerful enough to blast me up into the sky.’

  As she spoke, Nanny Piggins opened the secret compartment in the laundry floor (the one where she stored honey). She brought out the rocket backpack and harness, which she went over and clipped to the fireman’s pole.

  ‘We’re coming in!’ yelled the Russian Head of Security as he kicked in the door.

  ‘Goodbye!’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll write to you when I get to Algeria.’

  With that, she fired up the rockets on her backpack and, in an explosive burst, shot up through the house.

  The Russian agents, the children and Boris peered up through the ceiling and out through the trapdoor in the roof where they could see Nanny Piggins hurtling ever upwards into the far blue sky.

  ‘She escaped!’ said Samantha.

  ‘We are going to be in so much trouble when the Kremlin finds out about this,’ said the Russian Head of Security.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Boris. ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Derrick. ‘Look at her. She’s miles away.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Boris, ‘but she has gone miles directly upwards. My sister has very few failings but one of them is not thinking two moves ahead. True, she has brilliantly escaped the house and these cunning Russian agents.’

  ‘You think we’re cunning?’ said the Russian Head of Security. ‘That’s very kind. I don’t suppose you could write an endorsement for our website?’