by R. A. Spratt
‘But what about his allergy to cats?’ reminded Samantha.
‘How could he possibly have stolen a cat if he has an allergy to cats?’ asked Bert.
Nanny Piggins thought about this for a moment, then her eyes began to shine. ‘I know!’ She opened her large handbag and rummaged around for several minutes, setting aside breath mints, chocolate bars, maps to all the major cities of the world, a jar of cockroaches, a crowbar … until she finally found what she was looking for – a clean and neatly folded handkerchief. ‘By using one of these!’
‘A handkerchief! Of course!’ exclaimed Michelle.
‘Using a handkerchief, he could have simply blown his nose every time he wanted to sneeze. And still had a hand free to carry the cat cage,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The handkerchief is one of the most useful tools of the hardened criminal.’
And so the jury returned to the courtroom and gave their verdict. They found the defendant guilty. (So, as it turned out, they would have saved a lot of time and money if they had just taken Nanny Piggins’ word for it when she declared him guilty back at the beginning.)
And the jury could rest assured that they had made the right decision. Because as soon as they returned their verdict, the defendant leapt athletically onto the table and screamed, ‘I’ll get you! When I get out of jail, I’ll steal all your cats too!’ Luckily the bailiff was able to drag the defendant off to the cells, unnecessarily banging his head on the doorframe along the way. (Settling another important point – that the bailiff was definitely dreamier than the sandwich man.)
The judge was very sorry the trial was over because he had been enjoying Nanny Piggins’ cakes too. But she promised to bake him a special one all for himself, and to come down to the courthouse and yell ‘guilty’ at the defendants whenever she had the time. The judge tried to persuade Nanny Piggins to pursue a career in the law, saying she had all the makings of an excellent High Court Judge. But Nanny Piggins politely refused. ‘I prefer the hours and workload of being a nanny. It allows more opportunity for lying on the couch eating baked goods.’
‘Very wise,’ said the judge.
And so Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children returned home, satisfied that they had played their part in seeing that justice was served.
Nanny Piggins was the first to admit that, while she had many, many, many great strengths, she also had one or two teensy, weensy weaknesses. For example, while she was a world leader at getting small children dirty, she was not quite so equally talented at getting them clean again.
I am sure Nanny Piggins could have been good at cleaning children if she wanted to, but she did not. In her opinion there was little point getting children clean when they would only get dirty again. Plus, instinctively, she knew that the number of layers of dirt on the outside of the child was a good measure of the happiness of the child beneath.
That said, even Nanny Piggins realised that sometimes the Green children were so disgustingly filthy she should be slightly ashamed. And on these rare occasions Nanny Piggins always did the same thing – she sent the children on a play date to visit their friends Samson and Margaret Wallace.
You see, the Wallace children had their own nanny, Nanny Anne. And she was the most fastidiously clean person, possibly on the planet (certainly in the top three). Nanny Piggins knew if she sent Derrick, Samantha and Michael over to the Wallace house, Nanny Anne would clean them. Not because she wanted them to be clean, but because Nanny Anne wanted to humiliate Nanny Piggins. Little did she realise that doing Nanny Piggins’ job for her was not the way to embarrass Nanny Piggins.
‘Please don’t make us go and play there,’ begged Michael. ‘We’ll clean ourselves.’
‘But you’ve got all that permanent marker on your arms where I was writing my shopping list on you. And there’s all that oil-based paint in your hair where I dared you to paint Mr FitzPatrick’s tree pink,’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘Pen and paint are really difficult to get out.’
‘I don’t mind if you shave my head,’ pleaded Michael.
‘Look, I know it’s horrible being forced to visit such an unnaturally clean house and eat health food and watch educational documentaries on television,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But I promise I will only leave you there for an hour. If you do desperately need rescuing before that, you can always ring and use the code word.’
‘What’s the code word?’ asked Derrick.
‘Aaaaggghhh!’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘I think we can remember that,’ said Samantha.
‘Now stand still while I wrap these sheets around you,’ said Nanny Piggins as she wrapped bedding around each of the children.
‘Why are you wrapping sheets around us?’ asked Derrick.
‘I might as well get them cleaned too,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Do you really think Nanny Anne will fall for that?’ asked Samantha.
‘If she doesn’t clean them, she’ll burn them. Either way it saves me having to get the marmalade stains out,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If only there was some way we could send Boris on the play date too. He’s got a lot of honey matted into his fur.’
‘I definitely don’t think Nanny Anne will fall for that,’ said Derrick. ‘Even she would rather not clean a ten-foot-tall dancing bear.’
‘You’re right,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll just have to take him down to the fire station and get them to blast him with their hoses again.’
So the Green children, wrapped in their bed sheets, trudged off to play with Samson and Margaret Wallace.
And Nanny Piggins was left alone in the house to enjoy a few rare quiet moments. So she got out a big block of chocolate and a big thick romance novel and made herself comfortable on the couch. She had eaten half the block of chocolate and got up to a really good bit in the novel (where the heroine was just about to slap the hero really hard across the face) when the phone rang. Nanny Piggins’ pig senses immediately told her something was wrong – it is a little known fact that pigs have eight senses. As well as the regular five senses, pigs can also sense the threat of danger, the presence of chocolate, and the way to the nearest cinema – Nanny Piggins leapt for the phone but all she heard was Derrick’s scream of, ‘Aaaa …’ before the line went dead.
Fortunately Nanny Piggins was an elite athlete. So with all the speed and agility of a former flying pig she leapt out the window (it was quicker than using the door), raced down the road to the Wallace house, and kicked the front door in with her trotter.
Nanny Anne was standing there with elbow-length rubber gloves, a scrubbing brush and a ten-litre bottle of disinfectant, having backed Derrick, Samantha and Michael into a corner.
‘Nanny Piggins, how nice to see you,’ lied Nanny Anne.
‘I’ve come to collect the children,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘But they’ve only been here twenty-five minutes,’ said Nanny Anne, ‘and we were hoping they would stay and play all afternoon.’
‘I’ve just remembered they’ve got a very important funeral to go to,’ lied Nanny Piggins.
‘Children at a funeral?’ said Nanny Anne. ‘That doesn’t sound very likely.’
‘Their favourite great uncle, Captain Balderdash, died and they’re giving the eulogy,’ embellished Nanny Piggins.
‘All three of them?’ asked Nanny Anne.
‘Yes, they are going to take it in turns to say the words. It was a last request of Captain Balderdash. It will be a moving piece of performance art, encouraging the audience to think about man’s inhumanity to man,’ said Nanny Piggins.
This was such an audacious lie that Nanny Anne was momentarily flummoxed, which gave Nanny Piggins the opportunity to run in, grab Derrick, Samantha and Michael and pull them out the door.
‘Goodbye, Nanny Piggins,’ called Nanny Anne. ‘I expect I’ll see you at the show on Monday.’
Nanny Piggins was just slamming the front door when she heard this last sentence, so she stuck her trotter in the doorway (which hurt).
‘What?’ said Nanny Piggins. (She did not believe in saying ‘I beg your pardon’ if you actually meant ‘What?’)
‘The Westminster Nanny Show starts on Monday,’ said Nanny Anne with a smile. ‘You are entered, aren’t you? Such an accomplished nanny as yourself?’
Nanny Piggins was torn. She desperately wanted to slam the door in Nanny Anne’s face and stomp off. But she also wanted to know what on earth Nanny Anne was talking about. So she took a deep breath, resisted the urge to hit Nanny Anne and asked, ‘What is the Westminster Nanny Show?’
‘You don’t know?’ asked Nanny Anne.
Nanny Piggins went red in the face. She looked like her head was going to explode from anger. The children knew these warning signs.
‘Of course she doesn’t know. That’s why she asked,’ said Michael rudely.
‘The Westminster Nanny Show is the Premier International Nannying Competition,’ explained Nanny Anne. ‘Nannies from around the world travel here to compete. I was so sure with your “unique” approach to child raising, you would want to enter.’
‘Oh, I’m competing. In fact –’ lied Nanny Piggins – ‘I don’t even have to enter. I was begged to compete by the organisers because the standard of nannying has been so poor in recent years. They wanted to bring in someone seriously good to show all the rest of you how it’s done!’
‘Really?’ said Nanny Anne, which shows how cross she was, because she had run out of things to say that sounded polite but really were not.
‘Yes, really,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So I guess I’ll be beating you on Monday.’ And with that Nanny Piggins turned and led the children away.
‘I’ve cleaned your children for you,’ called Nanny Anne. ‘If Derrick gets that fungal rash behind his knees again, I used steel wool to scrub if off.’
Nanny Piggins turned to run back and bite Nanny Anne. But the children grabbed their nanny in time before she could bite anything she would regret. (She had bitten Nanny Anne once when they first met, and Nanny Piggins found the experience disgusting. Nanny Anne was so disinfected and clean that biting her was like having your mouth washed out with soap.)
‘I really, really hope Taekwondo is one of the things I can compete in at the Westminster Nanny Show,’ said Nanny Piggins, as she visualised herself delivering a swift kick to Nanny Anne’s solar plexis.
‘I don’t think it is,’ said Samantha sadly.
‘Let’s get a copy of the rules so we can go home and read them,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I want to thrash Nanny Anne. And I want to do better than her in the Westminster Nanny Show as well.’
Unfortunately, reading the rules did not make Nanny Piggins very happy.
‘These rules are ridiculous!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘The competitions are for things like obedience and grooming. Who wants to be good at that? Why can’t they have an event for blasting children from a cannon? I’d be sure to win then.’
‘Maybe they are worried that the other nannies wouldn’t be as good at blasting children from a cannon as you and there might be horrible injuries,’ suggested Derrick.
‘I suppose,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘Gun powder and artillery does bring out the worst in humans. But they could at least have Ninja Star Throwing or Leg Biting. I could easily teach you children how to bite a leg in forty-eight hours.’
‘It might be too late to get the rules to the Westminster Nanny Show changed,’ suggested Samantha. ‘The rules have been the same for one hundred and fifty years. It would probably take more than two days to get all the judges together and persuade them to include Ninja Star Throwing.’
‘I guess you’re right,’ sighed Nanny Piggins, ‘so that means we have two days to learn obedience, grooming and the obstacle course.’
‘Where should we start?’ asked Michael.
‘Well, that’s obvious,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If we have all this work to do and we only have forty-eight hours to do it, then the very first thing we should do is go down to the bakery and eat some cake.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Samantha. ‘Eating cake doesn’t sound very athletic.’
‘Oh yes, it is,’ Nanny Piggins assured her. ‘All marathon runners do it. Only they don’t call it “eating lots of cake”, they call it “carbo-loading”.’
‘If it’s got a special name then it must be all right,’ approved Michael.
So Nanny Piggins and the children headed out to the bakery for some carbo-loading. Unfortunately, things did not go quite to plan.
Sixteen long hours later Nanny Piggins and the children returned to the house. They had not meant to be away that long. But at the bakery, Nanny Piggins got in an argument with Hans the baker about his chocolate tart, which ended up with her going back into his kitchen and showing him how a tart should be made. This led to a customer accidentally buying a slice of Nanny Piggins’ tart. Which led to that customer insisting that Nanny Piggins and the children fly on his private jet with him to his country-home so she could make the same tart for his wife. Which led to them staying for a seven-hour dinner party, with dancing and plate smashing (which was unusual because they were not even Greek).
Naturally, by the time Nanny Piggins and the children got home, they were tired and went to bed. When they woke up, there were only twenty hours left to prepare for the Westminster Nanny Show.
‘So when do we start the training?’ asked Samantha.
‘Oh, it’s too late to start training now,’ said Nanny Piggins, as she sat down to eat her breakfast.
‘What?!’ exclaimed Derrick.
‘We’re all going to have to compete tomorrow,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘so it’s very important that today we rest. It’s called “tapering down”. All marathon runners taper down.’
‘But we haven’t done any training,’ protested Samantha. ‘We don’t have anything to taper down from.’
‘Experience has taught me that it is always better to be well rested than to know what you’re doing,’ said Nanny Piggins wisely.
‘Are you sure?’ said Michael. He enjoyed being lazy as much as the next boy, but he was not entirely convinced by Nanny Piggins’ reasoning.
‘Absolutely!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The training regimen I have devised for today involves lying on the sofa with cucumbers over our eyes and watching TV,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘How can we have cucumbers over our eyes and watch TV?’ asked Derrick.
‘You’re allowed to pick up the edge of the cucumber and peek when it gets to a good bit,’ explained Nanny Piggins.
And so that is exactly what they did.
As such, on Monday morning Derrick, Samantha and Michael awoke very well rested, but completely unprepared for their day ahead. This did not seem to bother their nanny at all.
‘Good morning, future champions,’ she said, before whistling jauntily as she buttered her toast and ate just as many breakfast muffins as ever.
‘Aren’t you even the slightest bit nervous?’ asked Samantha.
‘When you’ve wrestled with Zulu warriors, given Chinese burns to saltwater crocodiles and played pin the tail on the donkey with a real donkey, then it takes more than just a few simple games to make you nervous,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘I’d rather wrestle a crocodile than go head-to-head with Nanny Anne,’ said Derrick.
‘Of course you would. That’s only natural. Saltwater crocodiles are much nicer. But it is important to challenge yourself and confront your enemies,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘I thought you said it was best to run away from your enemies and eat cake,’ said Derrick, remembering something Nanny Piggins had made him commit to memory earlier.
‘True,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I did say that. But it is a pig’s prerogative to change her mind.’
After breakfast Nanny Piggins and the children left for the Westminster Nanny Show. They took Boris with them, partly because he begged to come along, and partly because Nanny Piggins thought it would be handy to have him there in case any of the judges caus
ed trouble and needed to be sat on.
Nanny Piggins was surprised when they arrived at the venue. She was expecting the Westminster Nanny Show to be held in a church hall or the back room of a Rotary Club. She was not expecting the enormous forty-thousand seat arena they walked into. The stage area was lit up like a boxing ring. And the empty seats (soon to be filled by avid nannying fans) spread out into the darkness in every direction.
Nanny Piggins had assumed she would be competing against a dozen silly nannies like Nanny Anne. She had not expected to meet the group of fifty-nine competitors gathered from all around the world.
Nor had she imagined that they would all want to have their photograph taken with her.
‘Piggins san o ai dekite koe desu!’ exclaimed the Japanese nannies as they bowed repeatedly. (This is Japanese for ‘Miss Piggins, it is a great honour to meet you.’)
‘Why do all these nannies know you?’ asked Derrick.
‘I suppose it’s because I write the occasional article for Nannying Monthly,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘I never realised that people actually read that magazine.’
But they did. And once word spread that the Nanny Piggins had entered the building, even more international nannies were rushing forward and asking Nanny Piggins for her autograph.
‘What do you say in these articles?’ asked Samantha suspiciously.
‘Well, mainly I tell them how stupid their magazine is and how all the articles in it are wrong,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Are they?’ said Derrick.
‘Oh yes, they have these boring articles that go on for page after page about routines,’ explained Nanny Piggins.
‘Routines?’ asked Boris. ‘You mean like dance routines?’
‘No, that would make some sense. But these articles are about daily routines,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They seem to think it is vitally important that children do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time every single day.’
‘What do they think happens if they don’t?’ asked Boris.
‘The child grows up to be a serial killer,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Or worse, an actor.’
