by R. A. Spratt
‘There’s a meeting being held in the boardroom,’ said the receptionist, ‘but I’m not supposed to allow anybody to interrupt.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not just anybody,’ said Nanny Piggins as she strode towards the boardroom. ‘I’m the lollipop lady.’
Nanny Piggins flung open the doors, stamped her sign down on the floor and yelled, ‘Stop!’
‘Who are you? How dare you interrupt our board meeting,’ said the angry woman at the head of the table.
‘I have come here to tell you to stop the changes you are making to this cake factory,’ announced Nanny Piggins.
‘It’s a “baked goods” factory now,’ said the woman.
‘Hah!’ scoffed Nanny Piggins. ‘Madam, there is nothing “good” about your baked products. The traditional cakes made at this factory have brought untold joy to every single person whose lips they pass. You cannot be allowed to stop making them.’
‘It’s my business!’ yelled the owner. ‘I paid for it. I’ll make what I like!’
‘But I’m holding a stop sign!’ retorted Nanny Piggins. ‘And I’m telling you to stop, or rather stop stop making cakes, which means you have to start making them again, because I say so!’
Fortunately at this point, just as Nanny Piggins was about to abandon reasoned argument and start biting people, the most wonderful thing happened. The receptionist burst in.
‘I told you – no interruptions!’ screamed the owner. (She really did need a good piece of cake to cheer her up.)
‘But there is someone here from the United Nations,’ spluttered the receptionist.
‘What?’ demanded the owner.
‘There is an emissary from the United Nations,’ explained the receptionist. ‘They have brought a certificate for you.’
There was a knock at the door.
‘Can we come in, please?’ said a voice from the other side. ‘Hello, we are from the United Nations. I am delighted to inform you that your factory and the cakes it produces have been given World Heritage status.’
‘But we plan to stop baking cakes,’ protested the owner.
‘Oh no, you can’t do that,’ smiled the emissary. ‘Now that you have World Heritage status, this factory must be protected for future generations. You aren’t allowed to change anything, ever.’
‘But it’s my factory!’ whined the owner.
‘Yes, but it’s our world. And it is important to protect the most beautiful and culturally significant things in it,’ he explained. ‘The Secretary-General himself made sure that the paperwork on this factory was pushed through quickly.’
‘Why?’ asked the owner, totally amazed.
‘Apparently,’ explained the emissary, ‘he got a very sternly worded letter from a former flying pig demanding that he did so.’
Nanny Piggins smiled. ‘You have to have a firm hand with these authority figures. But if you tell them what to do, they usually respond.’
‘Normally the Secretary-General would have crumpled up the letter and thrown it in the bin,’ continued the emissary. ‘But there was a piece of cake included in the envelope, and when he tasted it he realised the pig was right. So he rushed to fill out the paperwork.’
‘I put in a slice of your triple chocolate fudge cake,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘I knew any man who spent all day every day trying to achieve world peace could do with a slice of cake.’
The owner took the certificate declaring the World Heritage listing of her factory and slumped in defeat. ‘But I had such plans for the factory. The previous owners spent so much money buying quality ingredients, the profit margins were terrible.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the emissary. ‘You’re going to make plenty of profit. For a start the Secretary-General wants to order one million of your chocolate fudge cakes to drop over international trouble spots. He thinks people will be less likely to fight all the time if they’ve got more sugar in their diets.’
‘What a brilliant man,’ admired Nanny Piggins. ‘I wish I’d voted for him.’
‘You don’t vote for a Secretary-General,’ explained Derrick. ‘He’s appointed.’
‘Ah, that makes sense,’ nodded Nanny Piggins. ‘Nobody democratically elected would ever be that sensible.’
And so the truck driver took Nanny Piggins and the children home. As they drove out the gates, the staff from the factory cheered and threw their cake in the air (then carefully caught it again so they could eat more).
When they got home, there was a message on the phone saying that Nanny Piggins was fired from her job as the lollipop lady because she had entirely missed her afternoon shift. Headmaster Pimplestock had had to go out and direct the traffic himself, and since there were no men’s uniforms, he had had to wear a white dress and lady’s hat, which only made the students laugh at him even more than usual.
‘I’m sorry you lost your job, Nanny Piggins,’ sympathised Michael.
‘It’s all right. It’s a relief really. These stop signs carry too much power. It’s fine for one day. But if I had one all the time, I’d hate to become a despot,’ said Nanny Piggins.
And so Nanny Piggins and the children settled down to celebrate her return to single employment with some of the many thank-you cakes given to them by the employees of the Slimbridge Cake Factory. It is amazing how much cake will accidentally fall off the back of a truck into your waiting arms when the truck driver purposefully does very tight figure-of-eight turns in the street outside your house trying to make it do just that.
‘Don’t do it, Nanny Piggins!’ cried Samantha.
‘Please don’t jump!’ begged Derrick.
‘Ung-uhuh-boohoo-hoo,’ sobbed Boris.
The children and Boris were standing in the middle of the backyard looking up at the roof, where Nanny Piggins stood on the ridgepole with her arms raised, sniffing the breeze, ready to leap. You see, Nanny Piggins had been watching a fascinating documentary. She normally disliked documentaries (she resented anything that tried to educate in slow, measured tones) and would have switched it off before it started but she was eating a particularly good cream bun at the time so her hands were too sticky to change the channel. Anyway, the documentary had been about the Pentecost Islanders in Vanuatu, who just happened to be the people who invented bungy jumping.
Now on Pentecost Island, the local people jump off a purpose-built scaffold with nothing but vines tied to their ankles to stop them hitting the ground. Nanny Piggins did not have any vines to hand, so she had to make do. She cut the elastic out of all of Mr Green’s underpants and wove them into one long bungy cord (rest assured, she had thoroughly laundered them first).
This cord was now tied to her ankles at one end and the TV aerial on the roof at the other. This is probably sounding incredibly dangerous to you, but Nanny Piggins was not a silly pig. As an additional safety measure she had borrowed Mrs Lau’s aboveground pool (Mrs Lau was down at the church hall playing bingo, so Nanny Piggins was sure she would not mind). The pool was there for Nanny Piggins to fall into if she had made a mistake in her calculations and overestimated the elasticity of Mr Green’s underpants.
Nevertheless, the children and Boris were anxious. Samantha was concerned that Nanny Piggins might miss the pool entirely. Derrick was concerned that she would fall down and then spring back up and bang her head on the roof gable. And Michael was concerned that she would do both. (Nobody knew what Boris’ concerns were, because he was weeping too hard to be able to articulate them.)
‘You can’t jump, Nanny Piggins,’ urged Michael. ‘Think of the consequences.’
‘Pish!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The worst that could happen is I break my leg. And since I’ve got four of those, it would only be half as bad as a human breaking their leg.’
‘No, something much more terrible could happen,’ said Samantha, trying to appeal to her nanny’s way of thinking. ‘If your head landed in the pool – your hair would be ruined!’
This did make Nanny Piggins pause and think, as she w
as having a particularly lovely hair day.
‘Hmm, you make a good point,’ admitted Nanny Piggins, ‘but sometimes sacrifices need to be made. If I am going to be open to new and exciting cultural experiences I’ll just have to risk having damp hair.’
‘Yes, but something even worse than that could happen,’ argued Derrick.
‘Piffle!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘What could possibly be worse than having unattractive hair?’
‘You might damage the television aerial,’ said Derrick.
Nanny Piggins turned and looked at the television aerial – the wondrous technological device that captured electromagnetic waves from the air to bring The Young and the Irritable and The Bold and the Spiteful into their home every day. A tear came to Nanny Piggins’ eye as she realised what she had so nearly done. ‘Oh my goodness, you’re right,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘What was I thinking? How could I endanger the source of so much of our happiness? I’ll climb down immediately.’
Unfortunately that was not to be. Because just as Nanny Piggins bent down to untie her improvised bungy cords, she heard a loud whistle blast. When she looked up she saw Mr Green in the backyard with a whistle in his mouth, wearing a brand new tracksuit. Nanny Piggins was so shocked she immediately toppled off the roof and plummeted towards Mrs Lau’s pool.
‘Oh no!’ wailed Samantha, hoping her father’s underwear was as reliable as the vines of Vanuatu.
‘She’s going to get wet,’ predicted Michael.
And he was right. Nanny Piggins splashed headfirst into the water. Fortunately the water was 130 centimetres deep and Nanny Piggins was only 120 centimetres tall, so while she was completely submerged for a second, her head did not touch the bottom.
When the bungy cord contracted and yanked Nanny Piggins skywards again, she looked up, blinking water out of her eyes. And Nanny Piggins was shocked to see that she had not been imagining it – Mr Green really was wearing a tracksuit. Fortunately the surprised expletive she uttered was silenced as the bungee cord stretched out again and she plunged headfirst back into the water.
Minutes later, after Nanny Piggins had bounced up and down several times, the children rescued her from the bungy cord. Samantha and Michael had to wade into the pool and hold Nanny Piggins’ head above the water while Derrick climbed up on the roof and cut the cord off the television aerial. (Only minor damage was done to the aerial, so they would still be able to enjoy The Young and the Irritable. It’s just that now all the actors’ faces were blue where they should be pink and their clothes were pink where they should be blue. But when a program is as exciting as The Young and the Irritable you are never going to notice a little thing like that.)
During the melee Boris used the opportunity to leap into the pool and hide. Fortunately he had a drinking straw stuck to his fur from a milkshake he had enjoyed earlier, so by breathing through the straw, he was able to stay underwater and thus avoid detection.
As soon as Nanny Piggins was standing upright on her own trotters, she confronted Mr Green. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ she demanded.
‘I have every right to stand in my own backyard,’ said Mr Green petulantly.
‘I know that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I mean what are you doing wearing a tracksuit?’
‘You never exercise,’ added Derrick.
‘You never wear comfortable clothes,’ agreed Samantha.
‘I’ve never seen you wear anything but a three-piece suit before,’ observed Michael.
‘Even when the weather is unseasonably hot and you come home from work smelling like old gym socks, you still wear the same suit,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘It’s none of your business,’ snapped Mr Green. Then he realised that the opposite was in fact true. ‘Well, actually, it does involve you. I have volunteered to coach your soccer team.’
The children and Nanny Piggins stared at Mr Green for a moment, not knowing what to say. Fortunately for Mr Green it was his politest child who gathered her thoughts and spoke first. ‘But, Father, we aren’t in a soccer team,’ said Samantha.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr Green.
Derrick tried to explain the situation to his father, slowly and clearly, as if he were a half-witted foreign tourist (as indeed he was whenever he went overseas). ‘We – do – not – belong – to – a – soccer – team.’
‘Ridiculous!’ spluttered Mr Green. ‘All children play soccer. I’ve seen them running around on playing fields wearing uniforms.’
‘We don’t,’ said Michael, ‘because Nanny Piggins doesn’t believe in organised sport.’
Nanny Piggins nodded at the truth of this. ‘I don’t believe in organised anything, but sport in particular. The rules ruin the fun. Did you know that even in boxing, there are rules against biting? Now how can you enjoy any game where you’re not allowed to bite your opponent’s shins?’
Mr Green looked like he was about to throw some sort of tantrum. He went red in the face and his neck started to wobble. ‘But I’ve just volunteered to coach the local team!’
‘Why on earth did you do that?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘The Father of the Year Competition!’ exclaimed Mr Green, unable to say any more because he was so upset. But this was all the information they needed.
‘Aaaaah,’ said Nanny Piggins and the children knowingly.
‘I had to do something!’ blustered Mr Green. ‘Smythe in Accounts took his daughter on a three-day canoeing holiday; Thorp in Corporate Law didn’t have any children so he adopted three from Africa and took them to the zoo; and Peterson from Criminal Law took his sons hiking in Papua New Guinea! And if the tribesman ever free him he’s sure to get the prize unless I do something to make myself stand out.’
‘So you let everyone at work know you were volunteering to coach your children’s soccer team?’ guessed Nanny Piggins.
Mr Green nodded. ‘I thought it would be the easiest thing to do. I didn’t want to commit to anything that involves taking malaria tablets.’
‘But, Father,’ said Derrick kindly, ‘do you even know anything about soccer?’
‘Of course I do!’ said Mr Green. ‘You kick a ball about. It isn’t complicated.’
‘Yes, but in soccer you kick a soccer ball about, not a basketball,’ said Michael, looking meaningfully at the kit bag full of basketballs at Mr Green’s feet.
‘What’s the difference?!’ protested Mr Green. ‘They’re all round, aren’t they?’
‘Never mind, I’m sure your boss will be impressed when he finds out you coach a soccer team that doesn’t even have your own children in it,’ said Nanny Piggins, turning back to the house. ‘Come along, children, let’s have another go at bungy jumping.’
‘No, no, no!’ said Mr Green petulantly. ‘That will not do. It is bad enough I have to coach a team. I don’t want to coach other people’s children!’
‘Because you won’t be able to bully them the way you bully your own children?’ guessed Nanny Piggins correctly.
‘I am not coaching it unless you three are in the team!’ said Mr Green adamantly. ‘You will all have to sign up immediately. And that’s that!’
‘You can’t make them,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Yes I can, I’ll dock their –’ began Mr Green, but then he remembered he did not give his children any pocket money that he could dock. ‘I won’t take them to –’ started Mr Green, but again, he had to stop mid-threat because he remembered he never took his children anywhere. ‘I won’t allow them to have –’ He soon realised that threat would not work either because he never let them have anything.
‘Perhaps if you bribed them,’ suggested Nanny Piggins.
‘I will not bribe my own children,’ spluttered Mr Green.
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘No child’s bedroom would ever be cleaned if it weren’t for the compelling effects of a confectionary bribe.’
‘You’ll join the team if I supply you with some chocolate?’ asked Mr Green, beginning to catch o
n (goodness knows why he was so slow on the uptake because all his negotiations with Nanny Piggins always came back to this).
‘It would have to be a lot of chocolate,’ said Derrick. (His nanny had trained him well in the art of negotiating.)
‘Three large family-sized bars each!’ declared Nanny Piggins.
‘Why do you need three?’ protested Mr Green.
‘One for each meal of the day,’ explained Nanny Piggins.
‘But Nanny Piggins,’ said Michael, ‘you’re forgetting morning tea and afternoon tea.’
‘Goodness, you’re right, you’d better make it five blocks each,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘And five blocks for Nanny Piggins as well,’ added Samantha, ‘because she’ll be our personal trainer.’
‘No, it would have to be ten blocks for Nanny Piggins,’ said Derrick. ‘Her metabolism is much faster.’
Nanny Piggins nodded at the truth of this.
‘But that’s twenty-five blocks of chocolate!’ wailed Mr Green.
‘Either that or you call a casting agency and you hire actors to play your children again,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘What do you mean “again”?’ asked Mr Green shiftily.
‘I know the things you do to drive to work in the transit lane,’ said Nanny Piggins, giving Mr Green a piercing glare.
‘All right, all right, I agree to it all,’ said Mr Green, taking out his cheque book. ‘The first practice session is tonight. You had better all be there.’
‘Hmm, we should be able to make it,’ said Nanny Piggins, watching closely as Mr Green filled in the cheque (just in case he tried using a false name). ‘Although we will be twenty minutes late because we will have to go down to the sweet shop and get the chocolate first.’
When Nanny Piggins and the children arrived at the soccer field, it was immediately apparent that Mr Green was desperately out of his depth. He was standing on his own, away from the small gaggle of children, looking petrified.
‘What have we missed?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Nothing,’ whispered Mr Green. ‘They haven’t done anything yet.’