by R. A. Spratt
And so the rest of the morning went on. Nanny Piggins lost the bread baking, gutter cleaning and long division-explaining tests as well. She got caught telling Michael, 'Don't bother to learn that. Long division is a waste of brain space when you can just buy a calculator.' Which is only the truth.
The Games were suspended while they all took a break for lunch. They ate a compote Nanny Alison had whipped up by cooking the flavour out of twenty-six different types of fruit.
'There's something not right about her,' Nanny Piggins muttered darkly as she handed biscuits to the children under the table. 'It's not natural to be that good at being a nanny,' said Nanny Piggins. 'She needs to be investigated.'
'But how?' asked Samantha.
'You distract her while I sneak upstairs and search her room,' suggested Nanny Piggins.
So, as Michael pretended to have smallpox by drawing pink dots on himself with a felt-tip pen, Nanny Piggins slid to the floor, crawled across the room, out the window and up the drainpipe and into Nanny Alison's room.
Nanny Alison's room looked nothing like Nanny Piggins' room. There were no circus posters, no dusty knick-knacks and no clothes strewn about every surface. Her neat little suitcase sat neatly on the floor. And her neat guitar case lay neatly on the bed.
Nanny Piggins tried the suitcase first. It proved to be very disappointing. All it contained was one clean dress, six sets of clean underwear and a big thick instructional manual entitled 'How to Raise Children Properly'. Nanny Piggins briefly flicked through the book. It had chapter headings such as 'The Pros and Cons of Beating', 'When to Lock a Child in the Cellar' and 'The Medicinal Benefits of Cod Liver Oil'. Nanny Piggins tossed the book aside and turned to the guitar case. It was fastened with a large combination lock. This struck Nanny Piggins as unusual. In her experience, guitarists usually wanted to be able to open their guitar cases as quickly as possible so they could bore people with folk songs at the slightest provocation.
To a normal person this large combination lock would be very hard to break open. But Nanny Piggins happened to have a pair of industrial strength bolt cutters in her pocket so she easily demolished the lock in half a second. But when she flipped open the lid she could not believe what she saw.
The guitar case was absolutely chock full of doorknobs. Doorknobs of all different shapes and sizes and colours and textures. Some were old, some were new, some were shiny and some were dull. They had obviously come from dozens of different buildings. And in the middle lay the plain brass doorknob from Nanny Piggins' own bedroom. 'Nanny Alison is a doorknob thief!' exclaimed Nanny Piggins. She raced downstairs to tell the children.
Nanny Alison was in the middle of providing after-lunch entertainment in the form of a marionette puppet show. Mr Green thought it was fabulous, mainly because it was free. It did not even need electricity.
The children were bored witless until they heard Nanny Piggins' news. 'Why on earth would anyone want to steal doorknobs?' asked Derrick.
'It is probably a form of mental illness,' suggested Nanny Piggins.
'How are we going to catch her out?' asked Michael, because he had read a lot of detective novels so he knew catching people red-handed was the best way to solve a crime.
'I've thought of that,' said Nanny Piggins. 'And the answer is superglue!' Nanny Piggins held out a tiny tube to show them.
'What will that do?' asked Samantha.
'We'll put it on all the doorknobs. Then when Nanny Alison tries to steal one she will stick to it and we will have caught her red-handed,' explained Nanny Piggins. The children liked the sound of this plan. They helped Nanny Piggins, each taking it in turns to sneak about the house, smearing glue on doorknobs, while Mr Green laughed a little bit too loudly at the marionette puppet show.
'Right,' said Mr Green. 'We'd better get on with the Nanny Games. Although Nanny Alison is already winning five points to zero. You only have to lose one more point, Miss Piggins, and that is it. I'm afraid you'll be looking for a new job.' Again, Mr Green was not really afraid of this. He was feeling the exact opposite.
Mr Green cleared his throat and read off his notebook, 'For the sixth round the Nannies will be required to . . .' But Mr Green never got to reveal what the sixth round was because at that moment Samantha triumphantly screamed, 'Ah-ha!'
'What?!' asked Mr Green, bewildered.
'Nanny Alison was trying to steal the doorknob. Look, she's stuck to it!' declared Samantha. And, indeed, Nanny Alison was unable to remove her hand from the living-room doorknob.
'That proves she was trying to steal it,' declared Derrick.
'What are you talking about, you stupid boy?' said Mr Green. 'It only suggests that she was trying to open the door.'
And so Mr Green's mediocre legal mind had found a flaw in Nanny Piggins' brilliant plan. Opening doors was a perfectly legitimate reason for touching doorknobs.
'Why on earth would anyone want to steal a doorknob?' asked Mr Green incredulously.
'Mental illness,' suggested Michael helpfully.
'Who gave you such a stupid idea?' asked Mr Green.
The children gave Nanny Piggins away by looking everywhere but at her.
'I might have guessed,' said Mr Green, puffing out his chest ready for a good long rant. 'Not only are you a second-rate nanny and a pig, you also have the audacity to slander the name of Nanny Alison.'
Fortunately Nanny Piggins was saved the trouble of having to bite Mr Green hard on the leg because, at that exact moment, a police detective kicked the door in and burst into the room.
'What on earth is going on? How dare you!' blustered Mr Green.
'Sorry, sir,' said the police detective. 'We would have used the doorknobs except they aren't any.' Turning to Nanny Alison, he continued. 'I am arresting you for Grand Theft Doorknobs.' Then, much to Nanny Piggins and the children's delight, he snapped a pair of handcuffs on Nanny Alison. (Which was not easy given that her hand was still superglued to the living room doorknob. But an oxyacetylene blowtorch soon fixed that.)
But even better than that was the sight of Nanny Alison screaming wildly as four policemen dragged her away. 'Nooooo! I haven't found it yet. Don't put me away without letting me see it. Please, please!' But she was no match for the burly young constables and they soon bundled her into the waiting van.
The police detective explained. Nanny Alison had been travelling about and posing as a nanny so she could steal doorknobs from all the finest houses in the country. As Nanny Piggins had correctly suspected, Nanny Alison had the mental illness 'doorknobitis'.
'But how did you know to find her here?' asked Samantha.
'She was bound to come here. Because all doorknobbers (this is what people who collect doorknobs are called) know this is the home of the most famous doorknob in the world.
'It is?' said Derrick, Samantha and Michael in perfect unison. Their three-part harmony lesson had still not entirely worn off.
'This is the home of the late Edith Green, the famous Professor of Antiquities, isn't it?' asked the detective.
'That was our mother,' said Derrick.
'I didn't know she was famous,' added Michael.
'Oh yes, because she discovered the legendary Fabergé doorknob. And attached it to a door in this very house,' said the police detective.
'No!' said the children, again in perfect unison.
'It's true,' sobbed Mr Green.
The children and Nanny Piggins had forgotten he was there. They preferred to think about him as little as possible.
'If you would be so kind as to show it to me, sir, just to confirm that it is unharmed?' asked the police detective.
Mr Green slowly lead the way into his study and over to the bookcase full of law books. He was weeping softly. 'I never wanted her to bring it into the house. Nineteenth-century Russian décor is so gaudy.'
'Just show us the knob please, sir,' said the policeman.
Then, to the surprise of all, Mr Green put his hand on a small marble bust of Ronald Trout (
the inventor of the goods and service tax) and the entire bookcase slid to one side, revealing a small, ornately carved wooden door. But they barely noticed it because there, in the middle of the door, was the most spectacularly beautiful doorknob ever made. It was decorated with gold filigree, exquisite enamel work and studded with diamonds, emeralds and rubies.
'This was your mother's secret room,' explained Mr Green.
'That is the most amazing doorknob ever!' exclaimed Derrick.
'Which is why Nanny Alison wanted to steal it,' explained the police detective.
But Nanny Piggins' mind was working on a different track, 'Tell me,' she said. 'If this beautifully carved door, with the most beautiful doorknob ever, is so cleverly hidden, what I want to know is – what is behind the door?'
Mr Green started to sob louder. 'Your mother's great weakness.'
The children looked at each other.
'She was your mother. One of you had better open it,' said Nanny Piggins gently.
Derrick stepped forward because he was the eldest. And if his mother kept a live tiger behind the door, it was only right he should try to fight it first. He reached for the Fabergé doorknob and turned it carefully. The latch clicked back and the door swung out towards him. There, inside the room, was the most amazing sight. A huge pile of chocolate. There was white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, fruit-flavoured chocolate and chocolate-flavoured chocolate from all the different countries in the world.
'Your mother was a chocolate collector. She gained her PhD in chocolate. Her life's dream was to put together the most comprehensive chocolate collection in all the world,' explained Mr Green, deep in shame.
'What a wonderful woman!' marvelled Nanny Piggins as she looked up at the towering stacks of chocolate. 'Well, there's only one thing for it. As a tribute to your mother's memory, we owe it to her to eat as much chocolate as physically possible.'
'But won't that ruin her collection?' asked Samantha.
'Not at all,' declared Nanny Piggins. 'It will still be the world's most comprehensive collection of chocolate bar wrappers. And it would be morally wrong to let all this chocolate go to waste.'
The children were not going to argue with that. So Nanny Piggins, the children and the police detective all sat down to enjoy the chocolate and fondly remember Mrs Green, the great professor of antiquities and collector of chocolate. And as they sat in her hidden chocolate storage room, the children felt a little less sad about how much they missed hugging her.
CHAPTER 7
Nanny Piggins
and the Great Voyage
Brilliant ideas often came to Nanny Piggins when she was asleep. To be strictly accurate, they came to her when she was awake, lying in bed with her eyes closed not wanting to get up yet. Either way, bed was a place of creative genius for her. And so it happened on this particular day, as she snuggled beneath her doona, that Nanny Piggins was struck with wonderful inspiration.
She shook Derrick, Samantha and Michael awake. All three of them were also asleep on Nanny Piggins' bed because they enjoyed a lie-in too. And they knew Nanny Piggins' room was the only place their father would not harass them about it. He was too embarrassed to go into a woman's bedroom. I know this barely makes sense to a sane person. But it is not uncommon for older men to be afraid of beautiful young women. Even if they are pigs.
'Wake up!' cried Nanny Piggins. 'We've got no time to waste.'
'What's going on?' asked Derrick.
'Is the house on fire again?' asked Samantha.
'I don't think so. That's not why we have to get up,' urged Nanny Piggins. 'We have to get up because I've had a brilliant idea.'
The children immediately perked up. Nanny Piggins' brilliant ideas were always much more brilliant than anybody else's.
'What is it?' asked Michael. 'Have you figured out how we can try space travel after all?'
'No, not that,' admitted Nanny Piggins. 'Although I have been thinking about it. No, I've had an idea about what we can do in the meantime.'
'What?' asked all three children.
With Nanny Piggins, anything was possible. She might suggest building a catapult, or entering a tango competition, or selling one of their father's law degrees so they could have some money to go to the arcade.
'Let's go to the beach!' declared Nanny Piggins.
This was a surprising suggestion. It was five years since the Green children had been to the beach. They assumed their father did not want to take them because it reminded him of their mother's tragic boating accident. In truth, he did not take them because he was too cheap to pay for three children's bus tickets, and he did not like the effect the sea breeze had upon his hair.
Even though, strictly speaking, the children would not classify going to the beach as a 'brilliant' idea, it was definitely a wonderful idea to them. And they also knew from experience that Nanny Piggins had a talent for turning even ordinary ideas into brilliant realities. So when she urged them to get dressed as quickly as possible or she would take them on the bus still wearing their pyjamas, they hastily did as they were told.
Nanny Piggins and the children looked quite a sight on the bus because they had so much luggage. Nanny Piggins did not believe in leaving things to chance. She insisted on bringing anything that could possibly be necessary to ensure a wonderful day at the beach, which, to her mind, involved a lot of equipment. They had two large suitcases full of gardening implements for building sandcastles, binoculars for invading the privacy of other beach goers, pea shooters for tormenting annoying people and plenty of cakes and lemonade to sustain them (just in case all the shops at the seaside were shut because everyone in the area had simultaneously caught a cold).
The Greens lived a long way from the coast. Mr Green did not like being close to nature. Seeing things bigger and more powerful than himself, like the ocean, made him feel that he was not quite in control. This was, of course, true, but he did not like to be reminded of it.
The bus journey was long and windy. The children were wedged between the suitcases, which jolted into them every time the bus turned a corner. But they did not notice the discomfort because they were enjoying looking out the window so much. Of course, looking out a window can be dull. But not when you have someone like Nanny Piggins giving you a running commentary.
'Look at that woman's head!' Nanny Piggins exclaimed. 'It's a wonder she has the courage to go out in public. I'd strap a cat to my head before I'd leave the house with hair that colour. And look at that man's trousers! There's nothing to hold them up. Do you think he had his bottom removed for medical reasons? Or that it got torn off in a terrible accident?'
Observations such as these made the time pass pleasantly until they came over the hill and saw, in front of them, the blue expanse of the ocean stretching out to the horizon.
'Great Balls of Fire!' exclaimed Nanny Piggins. She often said this when she felt very strongly about something but did not want to say a bad word in front of the children. 'We're all going to die!'
'We are?' said Samantha with genuine concern. She did not want to die in the middle of such a pleasant bus trip.
'Look! The edge of the land has broken off!' cried Nanny Piggins.
Derrick, with a flash of insight, realised Nanny Piggins was talking about the ocean. 'It's meant to be that way,' he reassured her. Being the oldest, it was his job to pretend to be responsible when adults fell apart.
'But the countryside has fallen away and there's nothing but all that blue stuff,' protested Nanny Piggins.
'It's all right. The blue stuff is the ocean,' Derrick explained. 'That's what you get at the edge of the land. Haven't you ever been to the beach before?'
