by R. A. Spratt
“So aren’t you coming back to the circus, then?” the Lion Tamer asked Ethel. “What am I going to do without you? You’re my best lion. Cassy and Amy can’t do a triple somersault backward through a burning hoop, no matter how much I waggle a chair in their faces.”
“Ethel has agreed to return under certain conditions,” said Nanny Piggins, taking a piece of paper out of her pocket, unfolding it, and reading aloud. “Number one, she gets to hold the whip and the chair every second night.”
“What?” exclaimed the Lion Tamer.
“It’s only fair you take turns,” said Nanny Piggins sternly.
“I suppose,” said the Lion Tamer. “All right, I agree.”
“Number two,” continued Nanny Piggins. “You have to give her a big hug and say ‘Well done’ at the end of every performance.”
“But what will the other lion tamers say?!” complained the Lion Tamer.
“If your friends expect you to be rude, then perhaps you need to make new friends,” said Nanny Piggins.
The Lion Tamer hung his head. He knew she was right. Lion tamers could be a very bad influence. “All right,” he conceded.
“And finally, she wants a bright red convertible sports car,” said Nanny Piggins.
“What?!” exploded the Lion Tamer. “I can’t afford that!”
“That’s all right,” said Nanny Piggins. “Ethel is very good with money. She will work out a payment plan for you so you can manage it on your income.”
“Det er latterligt!” exclaimed the Lion Tamer (which is Danish for “this is ridiculous”).
“Do you want Ethel back or not?” asked Nanny Piggins.
“All right, I agree to it all,” said the Lion Tamer, knowing when he was beaten. He turned to Ethel. “It is so good to have you back.” Then the Lion Tamer gave Ethel a big hug, even though she had not done a show yet.
To celebrate, they all ate the seven-tier wedding cake (which just goes to show, if you bake a cake you will always find a reason for eating it) before Ethel and the Lion Tamer went home to the circus.
Their new arrangement was immediately a huge success. The crowds thought a lioness brandishing a whip and chair at a Lion Tamer and making him jump through hoops was a wonderfully ironic, postmodern statement. So all the shows in which Ethel tamed the Lion Tamer quickly sold out. Pretty soon the Lion Tamer had to give up his turn holding the whip and chair completely. Ethel wrote and told Nanny Piggins all about it in a letter.
“Do you think Ethel is happy?” asked Samantha.
“Oh yes, I should think she’s having a marvelous time,” said Nanny Piggins. “Although we should keep the guest room ready.”
“Why?” asked Michael.
“From the sound of it, the Lion Tamer might be running away soon,” explained Nanny Piggins.
So they kept a pack of chocolate cookies and a full box of tissues in the guest room, just in case.
CHAPTER SIX
Nanny Piggins Joins the Ski Team
ou children are very lucky,” began Mr. Green pompously. Derrick, Samantha, Michael, and Nanny Piggins immediately froze mid-breakfast.
“What have you done this time?” glowered Nanny Piggins.
“You can’t send us to work in a sweatshop,” said Derrick. “You know what the social worker said last time you tried.”
“Yes, well…” muttered Mr. Green. He did not like to think about that incident. The social worker had yelled at him for several hours using the words “ashamed” and “disgraceful” repeatedly. “No, this is all aboveboard. I have arranged for a sports scout to come and inspect you.”
“You’ve done what?” asked Nanny Piggins. She was perplexed. Mr. Green had never shown any interest in sports before.
“I met a talent scout from the National Sports School. He says that if you get any child young enough, you can train them up to international standards. And you three are young, so I told him you would be most suitable,” explained Mr. Green as he shoved another whole-wheat muffin into his mouth.
“Which sport are we trying out for?” asked Derrick.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Green dismissively. “He’ll measure you and make you run about a bit, I expect. Then he’ll come to some decision.”
“I suppose that wouldn’t be too bad,” said Nanny Piggins to the children reassuringly, “so long as he picks you for a nice sport like rowing, where you get to sit down and keep snacks in the boat.”
But Samantha suspected Mr. Green’s true motivation. “Father, where is the National Sports School exactly?” she asked.
Mr. Green smiled, totally failing to hide his glee. “Four hundred and twenty-three miles away. I measured it on a map,” he said triumphantly.
“But it will take forever for them to get there and back every day on the bus,” protested Nanny Piggins.
“It’s a boarding school,” said Mr. Green. “If they get in, they have to live there. They even get to stay during school vacations to do extra jogging.”
“What?” exploded Nanny Piggins.
The doorbell rang, saving Mr. Green from the full brunt of Nanny Piggins’s temper.
“That will be him now,” said Mr. Green, getting to his feet.
“How long have you been planning this?” Nanny Piggins called after him.
“Oh, just a few months,” admitted Mr. Green as he slipped out of the room to let the scout in.
“What are we going to do?” asked Derrick.
“What if they make us do sit-ups?!” exclaimed Samantha.
“Should we make a run for it?” suggested Michael.
“No, the scout might see you and put you on the marathon team,” said Nanny Piggins. “You’d better just play along with it for now. I’ll think of something. Don’t worry, I won’t let them take you to a sports school. I barely think it’s suitable for you to go to a regular school.”
And so the children went out into the back garden with their father and the sports scout. It was not too awful at first. The scout just measured them, saying things like, “Hmm, good pole-vaulting legs there,” and “Yes, nice stumpy netball fingers,” and “Excellent discus thrower’s ankles.” But then he started making them do horrible things like run in circles and do as many push-ups as they could until their arms collapsed.
Nanny Piggins and Boris watched from the rooftop. Mr. Green had banned Nanny Piggins from going into the back garden. He correctly anticipated that she would try to sabotage the process. Indeed, she was just wondering whether she would get in trouble if she threw her binoculars at Mr. Green’s head, when the most spectacular thing happened.
Now, Mr. Green was not a man who believed in paying for home maintenance, so the roof had not been retiled for many years. That said, even a brand-new roof is not designed to hold a thousand-pound-plus dancing bear who was, at that very moment, choreographing a dramatic ballet to express the unhappy emotions he felt as he watched the poor Green children being forced to do exercise. And so just as Boris did a grand jeté (which is ballet talk for “flying leap”), the roof collapsed under him, sending Boris hurtling down through the attic, smashing through the ceiling, and landing safely on the soft mattress in Nanny Piggins’s bedroom.
But Nanny Piggins was not so lucky. The tiles her brother had dislodged were sent flying in every direction so that the roof quite literally slipped out from under her, shooting her down the steep gable and out into the air, two stories above the ground.
The children gasped in horror as they saw their nanny come hurtling toward the earth. Mr. Green gasped in horror as his brain calculated how much it would cost to replace the roof tiles. And the sports scout stared in openmouthed awe, having never seen such an impeccably dressed pig come shooting off a roof before.
But then an even more amazing thing happened. Nanny Piggins tucked in her trotters, curled up into a ball, spun around three times, stretched out into a perfect swan dive, and landed effortlessly on the lawn as though this was the type of thing she did every day.
&
nbsp; “Wow!” said Derrick.
Samantha was too shocked and Michael too impressed to speak.
“You could have crushed my gladioli,” grumbled Mr. Green.
But then the scout stumbled forward, knocking Mr. Green out of the way, and clutched Nanny Piggins by the shoulders. “That was the single most impressive feat of athleticism I have seen in all my forty years as a sports scout,” he said.
“I’m not surprised,” said Nanny Piggins. For she was an honest pig, and she knew her flying abilities were second to none.
“I’m begging you, you have to join the national ski jumping team today,” said the scout. (He actually got down on his knees and clutched her trotters as he said this.)
“But what about the children?” spluttered Mr. Green angrily. “It’s them you’re meant to be taking away.”
“They’re nice kids,” said the scout, “but they’ve got about as much sporting talent as an avocado. I couldn’t do anything with them.”
“What a relief,” said Samantha. She had been terrified they were going to force her to play hockey. She had a dread fear of being hit in the shins with a stick.
“But if you take the nanny, who will look after the children?” protested Mr. Green, looking like he was about to cry.
“It’s all right; I’ll take them with me,” said Nanny Piggins. “I wouldn’t leave them here with you.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” said Mr. Green, suddenly happy again. “Well, I’ll leave you all to it. I knew this was a good idea of mine.” And with that, he ran to his car, which actually caused the scout to raise an eyebrow, because Mr. Green could put on some serious speed when he was trying to get away from his children.
“You must fly out to the Italian Alps immediately to meet the rest of the team and commence training,” said the scout.
“What exactly will Nanny Piggins be training for?” asked Derrick.
“The World Championships are in two weeks. And our best ski jumper broke his leg yesterday when he tried to kick a cat and fell down a flight of stairs,” explained the scout.
“It just goes to show, cruelty to animals never pays,” said Nanny Piggins wisely. “Except for my sister Wendy, who is a nasty piece of work and deserves a good pinch should you ever meet her.”
“We never thought we’d find a replacement in time, but as soon as I saw you fall off that roof…” said the scout, struggling to find the words to express his awe. “It’s almost as if you could fly.”
“Oh, I can,” said Nanny Piggins truthfully.
So the next day Nanny Piggins, Boris, and the children arrived in the Italian Alps. Boris had had to travel in the hold, which made Nanny Piggins angry. Just because her brother was ten feet tall and weighed over a thousand pounds did not mean he was not entitled to bad airline food like the rest of the passengers. But Boris did not mind. He enjoyed flying in the hold. He liked going through all the other passengers’ suitcases and trying on their clothes. Sadly, nothing ever fit. But Boris was an optimistic bear and would not rest until he had stretched or torn every item of clothing trying.
When Nanny Piggins and her entourage arrived at the hotel, the rest of the ski jumping team was not immediately impressed.
“But you’re a girl!” protested the coach.
“And a pig!” complained the team captain.
“I know,” said Nanny Piggins. “It hardly seems fair. I have twice as many legs as you so that doubles the number of ways I can make a landing. But we read the rules carefully and they didn’t say anything specifically excluding pigs.”
“Only sheep,” supplied Derrick.
“Which is understandable,” said Boris. “Sheep are very nice, but silly creatures. And they cheat.”
“And so, here I am,” said Nanny Piggins.
“What’s the farthest you’ve ever jumped?” asked the captain, glaring at his new teammate.
“She made forty-five feet when she fell off the roof,” said Michael proudly.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been off a proper ski jump?!” exclaimed the coach.
“I’ve never even skied,” admitted Nanny Piggins.
“This is ridiculous!” said the captain.
The other ski jumpers from the team muttered grumpily.
“Why don’t you give Nanny Piggins a chance?” urged Samantha. “She’ll surprise you.”
“Good idea,” decided the coach. “If she breaks her neck we definitely won’t have to have her on the team.”
So Nanny Piggins, Boris, the children, and the entire national ski jumping team trudged up the snowy staircase to the top of the ski jump. There were a lot of stairs. This irritated Nanny Piggins. If she had known they would have to walk so far in an upward direction, she would have packed more snacks. As it was she made everyone stop for a cake break twice along the way (fortunately she had two large mud cakes in her handbag).
When they got to the top and looked down, the children were terrified. The ski jump was so long and steep, they did not see how jumping off it could possibly be a sport. It looked about as safe as leaping off a fifteen-story building. But Nanny Piggins was unperturbed.
“Is that all?” she asked dismissively. “Haven’t you got a higher one?”
The captain ignored her bravado. “Do you want me to run you through the basics?” he asked. Because he was not really a bad person, and he did not want to get in trouble for accidental pig-icide.
“Young man,” said Nanny Piggins scornfully as she drew herself up to her full four feet of height. “There is nothing you could teach me about flying.” Then she thought better of it. “Actually, yes, there is. Could you show me how to put the skis on?”
So after the coach and the captain strapped the skis to Nanny Piggins’s feet, which took a lot of duct tape because ski boots are not designed to fit trotters (an oversight the manufacturers really should remedy), Nanny Piggins stood atop the ski jump. She looked spectacular. She was wearing her flying pig costume from the circus. It was made of skintight yellow leather with black and red stripes down both sides and held a helmet that had NANNY PIGGINS—FLYING PIG written on it in rhinestones.
Even the callous coach started to feel bad as he watched the petite and glamorous pig standing on the precipice, the wind rippling through her perfectly coiffured hair.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” said the captain. “You can just ask the Ski Jumping Association to send you home. I’m sure they won’t fine you or anything.”
Nanny Piggins turned and looked the captain in the eye. “If I don’t jump, will I have to walk all the way back down those stairs?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied the captain.
“Piffle to that!” said Nanny Piggins. With which she turned to face the valley, put on her helmet, and pushed off the edge.
The children held their breath. Not out of fear, but from sheer admiration. Because as soon as Nanny Piggins set off, it was clear she knew exactly what she was doing. Their nanny gave herself over to gravity and hurtled down the slope, her body extended forward, leaning into the wind. By the time she shot off the end of the jump, she had transformed herself into the shape of a bullet. Her snout stretched forward so she cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. The ski jumpers and coaching staff stared in astounded awe.
“She’s never going to land,” exclaimed the captain.
“That is the most beautiful ski jump I have ever seen!” exclaimed the coach.
But their admiration was soon interrupted by a more serious realization.
“She’s going to hit the ski lodge!” screamed Samantha.
And Samantha was right. Nanny Piggins’s ski jump was so good that she was not going to land in the landing area. She was going to overshoot it entirely and hit the ski lodge behind.
“What are we going to do?” asked Derrick, totally at a loss because his nanny was not there to tell him.
“I can’t look,” said Samantha, although she was so paralyzed with fear she could no
t move the muscles to close her eyes.
“It’s all right,” yelled Michael. “I think she’s aiming for it!”
And indeed Nanny Piggins was. If the ski jumpers had not seen it for themselves, they would never have believed it. For Nanny Piggins gracefully touched down just in front of the ski lodge, where she slid across the veranda and into the downstairs bar. Everyone was silent for a moment as they waited to hear the inevitable crash. But there was none.
“Quick, we’ve got to see if she’s all right,” said Derrick.
The children and the ski jumping team hastily ran down the stairs and through the snow to the lodge to check on Nanny Piggins. But they need not have worried. By the time they got inside, they found Nanny Piggins dancing along the bar, drinking hot chocolate and singing alpine folk songs, much to the delight of the other patrons.
“You’re alive!” said Samantha.
“Of course I’m alive,” said Nanny Piggins, “although I was worried there for a moment. I thought I was going to miss the ski lodge, which would have been terrible because I was starving.”
And so, having witnessed her superior ability, the other ski jumpers immediately embraced Nanny Piggins as a fellow team member. They wanted to make her team captain but she refused, because captains had to give interviews to journalists, and she always found it hard not to bite journalists on the legs (they are such terrible liars). She did, however, find time to totally overhaul the sport of ski jumping.
For starters, she convinced the ski jumpers to follow her own training regimen, which was to sleep as late as possible, to eat everything you can, and to do absolutely no weight training, fitness training, or ski training at all.
“It is very, very important to be well rested,” advised Nanny Piggins. “If you are going to win, you will need all your energy. And if you are going to lose, you might as well look fabulous, which means no bags under your eyes.”
She also completely changed the team’s diet. The first thing she did was fire the team’s macrobiotic chef. It took some time to explain to Nanny Piggins what a macrobiotic chef was, but as soon as she understood that he believed in eating organic vegetables and avoiding refined sugar, she chased him around the kitchen seven times, taking swipes at him with his own soup ladle. Nanny Piggins did not usually believe in violence, but cruelty to food brought out her disciplinarian side. She instituted a strict high-calorie diet for all the athletes and coaching staff (which made her instantly beloved). She insisted on them eating double the amount of chocolate and cake she would normally recommend because they had been on macrobiotics for so long she needed to undo the damage.
