by R. A. Spratt
‘What is that dreadful noise?’ asked Boris. He wasn’t very experienced with babies either.
‘This poor baby is upset because it can only drink milk,’ explained Nanny Piggins.
‘Yuck!’ said Boris.
‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Apparently it needs a hug.’
‘Don’t we all,’ said Boris as he carefully scooped up the little baby. He personally believed there should be much more hugging in the world.
‘You’re not going to crush the baby, are you, Boris?’ asked Samantha. She loved Boris dearly but he did sometimes forget how huge and strong he was.
‘Don’t be rude,’ scolded Nanny Piggins. ‘You wouldn’t ask Einstein if he knew how to add. You wouldn’t ask Mozart if he could hum a tune. So you should never question a bear’s ability to hug.’
Boris held the helpless little baby close to his chest, surprisingly tenderly for a seven-hundred-kilogram, ten-foot-tall bear, and rubbed it soothingly on the back. Miraculously, the baby stopped crying.
‘You see!’ said Nanny Piggins, as she scoffed the baby’s slice of mudcake. ‘Now we’d better get started with the babysitting. I suggest we take turns. I’ll go first. Put the baby on the chair, Boris, and I’ll start sitting on it right away.’
Fortunately the Green children were, again, able to grab Nanny Piggins before she actually sat on the infant.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘You don’t actually sit on a baby when you babysit,’ said Derrick.
‘You might squash them if you did,’ added Michael.
‘Babysitting just means baby-minding,’ explained Samantha.
‘Then why do they call it “babysitting”? They really should name it better or there could be some terrible accidents,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Eggs like being sat on,’ said Boris, ‘and they’re baby birds. Are you sure this baby wouldn’t like to be sat on, just for a minute or two?’
The Green children lunged to stop Boris as his bottom moved dangerously close to the baby.
‘No, we’re definitely just meant to mind the baby,’ insisted Derrick.
‘A whole day with a baby. We’ll have to think up something to do with it,’ said Nanny Piggins thoughtfully.
‘I think most babysitters just sit and watch television while they’re minding the baby,’ said Samantha, starting to worry what her nanny might have in mind.
‘I’m sure we can come up with something better than watching television,’ said Nanny Piggins as she looked at the baby closely. ‘It is a remarkably pretty baby.’
Indeed, as they all looked closely at the baby, they had to admit, it was very pretty indeed. It did not look at all squashed and blobby like so many babies do. And now that her skin was fading back to a nice pink, after the bright red it had turned from crying, she was looking positively lovable.
‘What could possibly be better than watching television?’ asked Michael, genuinely baffled.
‘I know!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘Starring on television!’
And so, three hours later, Nanny Piggins, the Green children and Boris were sitting in the waiting room of a talent agency.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ worried Samantha. She was pretty certain Nanny Piggins should ask Mrs Pettigrain’s permission before signing up her baby to be in a television commercial.
‘Of course it’s a good idea’, said Nanny Piggins. ‘If this baby could talk, she would thank me. Every woman should get a job as soon as possible. Because jobs mean money, and money means not having to rely on anybody else to buy you chocolate cake. Remember that, children.’
‘But she doesn’t look like any of the other babies here,’ pointed out Derrick.
And he was right. All the other babies waiting with their mothers in the waiting room looked immaculate. They were wearing cute little outfits, and cute little bows in their cute little hair. Even the mothers looked cute. As if they had all been ironed, then driven to the audition lying down so as not to get creased.
The Pettigrain baby, on the other hand, looked completely different. Nanny Piggins had not intended to make the baby dirty when they left the house. But on the way to the audition, they had passed a large puddle of mud that Nanny Piggins, being a pig, found impossible to resist. She ordered all the children and the baby to play in the mud immediately. Nanny Piggins thought very highly of the medicinal benefits of mud. To her mind, rolling in mud was a great way to cool off, moisturise the skin and clean o? any excess soap that may have built up on the body. So they spent a full hour doing that.
Then, because rolling in mud is hungry work, they had all stopped for ice-cream. And Nanny Piggins managed to get ice-cream all over the baby’s face before the Green children could grab her and convince her that babies do not eat ice-cream either.
Then there was the honey. Boris just happened to be eating from a ten-litre tub of honey when the baby started crying. And being a very kind-hearted bear, he immediately gave her a big bear hug without washing his hands first.
So as the Pettigrain baby sat in the waiting room, she looked very happy, but also extremely dirty, sticky and brown.
The other mothers were giving Nanny Piggins and the baby sidelong looks of disgust. This did not bother Nanny Piggins. She was used to prejudice. She had suffered a life of pig-ism, so dirt-ism was no surprise. She knew humans, particularly clean humans, could be very narrow-minded.
‘Pettigrove,’ called out a young man, carrying a clipboard.
‘That’s us,’ said Nanny Piggins.
Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children trooped into the audition room with the baby. It was a large room with a desk in the middle. Behind the desk sat a director, a casting agent and a young woman operating a video camera.
‘Pettigrove,’ said the director, without even looking up, ‘What’s the baby’s first name?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘Nobody told us. We call her Baby.’
The director looked up from his paperwork and was immediately dumbstruck. Amazingly, he was not staring at the elegantly dressed pig, the ten-foot-tall bear or the three mud-covered children, but the Pettigrain baby herself.
‘That’s it! She’s perfect!’ he exclaimed.
‘She is?’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Finally someone has come to this audition properly prepared,’ said the director with delight.
‘We have?’ queried Derrick.
‘All the other mothers have been bringing in their pristine, clean babies. Whereas your baby is filthy and disgusting,’ said the director with a huge smile on his face.
‘And that’s a good thing?’ asked Samantha.
‘Of course it’s a good thing,’ said the director. ‘We’re advertising baby cleaning wipes, so we need a baby that knows how to be utterly filthy and love it.’
They all turned to look at the Pettigrain baby cooing happily in Boris’ arms. There was no denying that underneath the caked-on layers of filth, she certainly looked very happy indeed.
Later that afternoon, Nanny Piggins, the children and Boris were all in the living room playing lava floor (where you jump from one piece of furniture to another pretending that the floor is made of deadly boiling lava) when Mr Green and Mrs Pettigrain returned. Mr Green looked very smug. He had been out on a six-hour date and only spent $2.50 on an ice-cream for himself (but not one for Mrs Pettigrain, saying ‘he knew how ladies liked to watch their weight’). Mrs Pettigrain, on the other hand, looked even more sad and miserable than when she had arrived that morning. The only thing that cheered her up was seeing her baby and giving it a bear hug.
‘Good technique,’ whispered Boris from his hiding place behind the curtains. ‘Not bad for a human.’
‘So how did you get on?’ asked Mr Green. Not that he really cared but he thought it made him look good to have a conversation with his staff.
‘We got the baby a job,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s going to be paid twenty thousand dollars to be in a television commerc
ial for baby wipes.’
‘Twenty thousand dollars!’ exclaimed Mr Green, wishing he had a ring so he could get down on his knee and propose to Mrs Pettigrain right away. He dearly wanted a wife to scrub his floors. But a wife with a baby that could be charged out at an even greater hourly rate than a tax lawyer was too good to be true. Unfortunately for Mr Green, however, he never got a chance to propose.
Mrs Pettigrain was too busy squealing with delight, dancing for joy and kissing her baby. ‘We’re rich, we’re rich, we’re rich!’ she cried. ‘Now I don’t have to go on any more dates with horrible, unattractive, middle-aged men who are too cheap to even buy me an ice-cream.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr Green. Which was really rather stupid. Because there was no way he was going to enjoy hearing Mrs Pettigrain repeat herself.
‘I only went out with you because I felt I owed it to Michelle to find her a father,’ said Mrs Pettigrain.
‘Ahhh, Michelle, that’s her name,’ nodded Nanny Piggins.
‘I know a widow living on a cleaner’s wage can’t afford to be picky,’ continued Mrs Pettigrain. ‘But the mother of a television-commercial star can be very picky indeed.’
And so Nanny Piggins’ first attempt at babysitting an actual baby ended very happily. Mrs Pettigrain was happy she did not have to marry a horrible man like Mr Green. Baby Michelle was happy to spend a whole day rolling in mud for the commercial. And Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were happy because Mrs Pettigrain gave them a ten per cent commission for getting the baby the job. And they spent all the money on having five tonnes of mud deposited in Mr Green’s garden, where they had a wonderful time rolling about, getting every last smear of soap off their bodies.
It all started with Nanny Piggins reading the most brilliant pirate story ever. She became so absorbed in the book she could not put it down, not even for meals. Derrick, Samantha and Michael had to feed Nanny Piggins snacks while she kept her eyes glued to the pages. The only time she took a break was at the end of each chapter so she could act it all out for the children and Boris.
Nanny Piggins was very good at acting out novels. She did all the voices, all the silly walks and all her own stunts. Her demonstration of Captain Bad Beard’s attack of the Good Ship Lollipop was spectacular. It involved swinging from the living room chandelier with a spatula between her teeth, before savaging her imaginary enemy. (Suffice to say, Mr Green’s ottoman would never be the same again.) So when Nanny Piggins finished the pirate book, they were all very sad.
‘I wish we were pirates,’ said Nanny Piggins wistfully. ‘Pirate life has so much going for it: violence, seafood and, best of all, treasure.’
‘It’s almost as glamorous a job as being a nanny,’ said Boris.
‘I know,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘You children should really consider piracy. Do they ever ask pirates to come and speak to you at your school’s career day?’
‘No,’ admitted Derrick. ‘They usually just have accountants come and tell us how accountancy is really exciting.’
‘They let people come and lie to you?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Your headmaster is a very immoral man. Still, I suppose you don’t need career advice to become a pirate, you just run away to sea.’
‘But the truancy officer gets cross when we don’t go to school,’ said Michael, ‘so I’m sure she’d get really cross if we ran away to live a life of crime on the high seas.’
‘She’s such a spoilsport,’ sighed Nanny Piggins. (Nanny Piggins did not think much of the truancy officer. She was diabetic, so Nanny Piggins could not bribe her with cake.) ‘I’m sure you’d learn more as a pirate. After all, pirates need to know how to sew sails, tie knots and blast cannons at passing ships. Now that’s much more practical than that “maths” [Nanny Piggins always said “maths” as though it was a swear word] they insist on teaching you at school.’
‘Maybe we should become pirates,’ said Derrick wistfully.
‘What?!’ worried Samantha. After all, she was a shy girl. She did not like talking to strangers, let alone attacking them on the open ocean.
But Derrick had just remembered that he actually did have a maths test later that morning, and he knew a day being a pirate would be a lot more fun.
‘We all have to get jobs eventually, so why not become pirates now?’ he continued.
‘And being able to add up sums is totally overrated,’ piped up Michael. He wanted to be a pirate too. Not because he wanted to miss school but because he thought he would look dashing with an eye-patch.
‘And I really like those puffy shirts pirates wear,’ added Boris.
‘Then that’s decided. We’re all becoming pirates. What do we do first?’ asked Derrick.
‘We need treasure,’ declared Nanny Piggins.
‘But where are we going to find treasure?’ asked Michael. ‘Father doesn’t even give us pocket money so he’s never going to give us treasure.’
‘Treasure isn’t something you get given,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s something you dig up. It’s always buried.’
‘Why?’ asked Samantha.
‘Because pirates never open bank accounts. They don’t like filling in forms,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘But where are we going to find buried treasure?’ asked Michael.
‘In the ground, of course,’ said Nanny Piggins patiently. ‘There’s probably lots buried in the back garden right now.’
‘Really?’ said Derrick.
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Nanny Piggins.
And so Nanny Piggins rang the school and told them that all three Green children had been struck down with a case of twenty-four-hour smallpox. Then they set to work being pirates. The first thing they needed was the right clothes, so Nanny Piggins took them up to Mr Green’s bedroom and plundered his wardrobe. He had very boring clothes but with some dye, permanent markers, a pair of scissors and a sewing machine, Nanny Piggins was soon able to turn one of Mr Green’s best suits into five excellent pirate costumes.
Then they went out into the garden with their spades.
‘Where do we start?’ asked Derrick, as he looked about his father’s garden for a likely spot.
‘In pirate stories X always marks the spot,’ reasoned Nanny Piggins, ‘so the first thing we shall have to do is make an X, then dig beneath it!’
And that is exactly what they did. Nanny Piggins marked an X right in the middle of Mr Green’s perfectly tended lawn (that had only just been professionally restored after having had five tonnes of mud dumped on it – see Chapter 1), then immediately started hacking up the turf with her spade.
It soon became clear that Nanny Piggins was really good at digging for treasure. Thanks to all the cake she ate, she had boundless energy. Once the spade was in her trotters she just dug and dug and dug. The children tried to help, but they could not keep up. And Boris kept shrieking and jumping out of the hole every time he saw a worm. So Nanny Piggins put them all in charge of supplies (fetching cake) and keeping watch for enemy pirates (the truancy officer), and that arrangement worked well.
By mid-morning Nanny Piggins had dug a very, very deep hole – so deep she could not climb out of it. The children had to make a rope ladder out of Mr Green’s neckties to get her out in time for elevensies.
As they sat in the sun and ate their choc-chip biscuits, Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were very happy. Being pirates had been very satisfying so far. Really, there was just one problem. ‘You haven’t had much luck finding treasure,’ Michael politely pointed out. They all looked at the small pile of things Nanny Piggins had found in her hole. It consisted of three buttons, a spoon, an apple core, a frisbee and the handle off a teacup.
‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve found three buttons! They’ll be invaluable next time your trousers start falling down.’
‘But you haven’t found a chest full of gold and jewels,’ pointed out Derrick, ‘That’s what pirates always look for in books.’<
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‘I suppose,’ conceded Nanny Piggins, who, nevertheless, still felt proud of her buttons.
‘Why don’t you try digging somewhere else?’ suggested Derrick, hopeful that they might get the next day off school as well.
‘Well, it seems a shame when this is such a good hole,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I might as well keep going with this one.’
‘Why?’ asked Samantha. She liked a hole as much as the next girl. But it seemed to her that it was plenty big enough.
‘I’m starting to get peckish,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘so I thought I’d keep digging all the way through the centre of the world until I end up in China. Do you fancy some Chinese food?’
The Green children loved Chinese food, so they agreed this sounded like an excellent plan. (They had set out for Chinese food some months ago, but high seas and colliding with a Korean fishing boat had delayed them.) The children were not entirely sure whether burrowing through the centre of the earth was the quickest way to get to China. But China was certainly a long way away and the earth was round. So through the ground was undeniably the shortest route.
Nanny Piggins finished her morning tea and kept on digging. She dug and dug and dug, for day after day. Although not all in a straight line. After day two she found it too hard to keep digging straight down because there was too much rock in the way. So Nanny Piggins started digging sideways instead.
On day three, the truancy officer came and dragged the children back to school. Apparently you are not allowed to quit school and become a pirate until you are sixteen, even if you do have a signed permission slip from your nanny.
And on day four, Boris had to go because he had promised to teach ballet to vagrants down at the YMCA.
So Nanny Piggins had to continue with her hole alone. Until, suddenly, on the eighth day of digging, her spade hit a piece of stone that gave way, and on the other side she could see a light. Nanny Piggins was very excited. A light could mean only one thing – she had tunnelled all the way through to China!
Nanny Piggins hacked more rock out of the way to make the hole bigger, then wriggled out through the opening into the foreign and exotic land. But when she looked about, Nanny Piggins was startled to discover that China was not at all how she expected it to be. She was expecting a great big country with Chinese restaurants in every direction as far as the eye could see. In reality, China was just a very large room with forty men all hanging about, playing cards and lifting weights.
