by R. A. Spratt
‘Sorry,’ said Derrick. ‘I’ll fetch myself a chocolate bar. I’m obviously not thinking straight.’
Nanny Piggins returned her concentration to her half-teaspoon of fudge. She held the precious confectionary over the saucer and dropped the brown liquid in. Everyone leaned forward for a closer look. The fudge had not flattened or gone runny. It had formed a nice round mound.’
‘Excellent,’ muttered Nanny Piggins. ‘Pass me the wooden spoon, please.’
Michael handed her a wooden spoon.
Using the handle, Nanny Piggins slowly and carefully prodded the lump of fudge. The brown mixture crumpled slightly but still stayed in one piece.
‘Perfect!’ whispered Nanny Piggins. ‘We have made the perfect vanilla fudge.’
DING-DONG!
‘I thought I told you to disconnect the doorbell,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘I did,’ protested Derrick. ‘It’s Father. You disconnect the doorbell so often that he has taken to secretly installing back-up doorbells.’
‘Why?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Because he doesn’t like to miss it when salesmen or market researchers come to the door,’ explained Derrick. ‘He likes rudely telling them to go away.’
‘It’s the only social contact he has with real people,’ added Samantha.
DING-DONG DING-DONG DING-DONG!
‘Do you want me to tell them to go away?’ asked Michael.
‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins, putting down her wooden spoon. ‘Your father and I do have one thing in common. Rudely telling people to leave is something I enjoy too.’
She marched to the front door, the children following close behind in case they needed to grab her and prevent her from adding to her newly established criminal record.
Nanny Piggins flung open the front door, drawing breath as she did, so she could immediately launch into her tirade. But when she saw who it was on the doorstep, she paused. It was the editor from the newspaper and the girl cadet journalist (who looked much too small for her oversized notepad).
‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Nanny Piggins. ‘Have you come to apologise for not helping defend me in court, when it was the lack of a rope bridge between your office and the adjacent building that forced me to engage in apparently illegal tightrope walking in the first place?’
‘Um . . .’ said the editor. ‘No.’
‘Then give me one good reason why I should not slam this door in your face right now,’ demanded Nanny Piggins.
The editor eyed the door warily. ‘We’re here strictly for professional reasons, nothing to do with your legal problems.’
‘Which your negligent building design caused,’ said Nanny Piggins petulantly.
‘Hmmm,’ said the editor, not wanting to agree (for legal reasons) but too frightened to disagree. ‘Anyway, the real reason we’re here is because we want a quote for a story about something else entirely.’
‘Ahhh,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You want my opinion about the mayor’s dress sense. Well I think it is dreadful. You can quote me on that. And Piggins is spelled P-I-G-G-I-N-S.’
‘No,’ said the editor. ‘Although we will make a note of it.’
The young journalist nodded and scrawled in shorthand furiously.
‘We’re here because there is a new pig in town, on a speaking tour to promote his book,’ explained the editor. ‘It is a very exciting book in which he tells the story of all his amazing feats and accomplishments.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ asked Nanny Piggins suspiciously.
‘Well,’ continued the editor. ‘Among the many achievements listed in his book, he describes, in great detail, how he became “The World’s Greatest Flying Pig”.’
‘What?! WHAT!! WHATTT!!!!’ yelled Nanny Piggins.
The editor and the cadet journalist took several steps back.
‘He says he is “The World’s Greatest Flying Pig”,’ repeated the editor, as he turned, ready to run in case Nanny Piggins took after him.
‘Who would dare utter such a lie?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Eduardo the flying armadillo?’ suggested Derrick.
‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘True, he was deluded enough to think he was the world’s greatest flying animal. But he never claimed to be a pig. He seemed very proud of his armadillo heritage.’
‘Perhaps it’s one of your identical fourteenuplet sisters,’ suggested Samantha. ‘Several of them are evil.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘but they are all brilliantly evil in their own right. They’d have no need to steal credit for my accomplishments.’
‘He’s also claiming –,’ said the cadet journalist, reading from her notes – ‘to be the first pig to climb Mount Everest, the first pig to win the Nobel Prize, the first pig in space, the greatest pig international super-spy, the greatest pig international jewel thief . . .’
‘But that is a list of all my sisters’ and my achievements,’ interrupted Nanny Piggins. ‘Who would be stupid enough to claim such an unbelievable litany of things?’
‘An egomaniac?’ suggested Derrick.
‘An attention seeker?’ suggested Samantha.
‘A delusional egomaniacal attention seeker?’ suggested Michael.
‘Or,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘no, it can’t be. Not my idiot older brother, Bramwell?’
‘Yes, that’s him,’ agreed the editor. ‘Bramwell Piggins. In his book, he claims he has allowed his sisters to get credit for his achievements to help boost their self-esteem.’
‘I’ll boost his self-esteem when I see him,’ muttered Nanny Piggins, ‘by giving him a good hard whack on the –’
‘Nanny Piggins! The fudge!’ yelped Samantha, suddenly reminding them all of the much more important matter in the kitchen.
When they returned to the stove (the editor and the young journalist came with them in case something newsworthy had happened. And indeed it had), the fudge was a sorry mess. It had now boiled down entirely and the wooden spoon was set hard in the blackened mass at the bottom of the pot.
Nanny Piggins burst into tears.
‘Don’t cry,’ pleaded Samantha. ‘I’m sure your brother didn’t mean to betray you.’
‘I’m not crying about that,’ sniffed Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m crying about the fudge. Now I’ll have to go to the shop and buy some.’
‘Among his other claims,’ said the editor, ‘Bramwell Piggins also says he is the world’s greatest fudge maker.’
‘Right, that’s it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘My older brother needs to be taught a lesson.’
‘He’s signing his book at the local bookshop tomorrow,’ smiled the editor. ‘We’ll send a photographer if you’re turning up.’
‘Send two,’ said Nanny Piggins ominously.
At five minutes to nine the next morning, Nanny Piggins and the children were sitting in the front row of their local bookshop waiting for Bramwell to arrive for his book signing. Nanny Piggins glowered at a large promotional poster for Bramwell’s book, which read:
The Adventures of Bramwell Piggins
(World’s Greatest All-Round Pig)
Volume One
A full night of thinking about her brother’s wicked treachery had only made Nanny Piggins madder. And while she looked even more beautiful and glamorous than usual in her knee-length designer dress and bejewelled headband, the children knew she had her hot pink wrestling leotard on underneath.
‘Nanny Piggins?’ asked Samantha carefully (she did not want her nanny to launch into a premature rage). ‘Why did you never mention that you had a brother? We’ve always known about your identical fourteenuplet sisters, but in the whole time we’ve known you you’ve never mentioned Bramwell before.’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Na
nny Piggins, ‘because you have two perfectly lovely brothers. But trust me, if you had a brother like Bramwell, you’d do your best to forget he existed as well.’
‘Is he evil?’ asked Derrick.
‘Hah!’ snorted Nanny Piggins. ‘He isn’t interesting enough to be evil. He’s just so . . . so . . . I don’t think there is a word for him – pathetic, annoying, inadequate, whining, ungrateful, blubbering, waste-of-space – none of them quite covers it.’
‘What does he do that’s so awful?’ asked Michael.
‘That’s just it,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘He does nothing! All my sisters, even the evil ones, have a considerable work ethic and dedication to principles. Wendy may be a villainous international super-spy but she has worked hard and she is a very talented villainous super-spy. Anthea may be an incurable jewel thief but her dedication to apricot danishes rivals Mother Theresa’s dedication to the poor. And even Katerina, with her insatiable love of vegetables, even she has an admirable work ethic, getting up at 4 am every day to water her zucchinis. But Bramwell – he does nothing. He gloms from one job to the next, being fired for incompetence, gluttony and oversleeping. And to make matters worse, when he is between jobs he goes around claiming to be a . . . a . . . I can’t say it, it’s too mortifying.’
‘A terrorist?’ asked Derrick.
‘Worse,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘A used car salesman?’ guessed Michael.
‘Much worse,’ said Nanny Piggins, hiding her face in shame.
‘A truancy officer?’ guessed Samantha.
‘No,’ whispered Nanny Piggins, dabbing away tears of shame. ‘He tells people he is a . . . poet.’
‘No!’ exclaimed all three horrified children.
Nanny Piggins nodded her head and closed her eyes tight, trying to block out the disgrace. ‘He even tries to read his poetry to you if you can’t run away from him because you’ve broken your ankle or got your foot caught in a giant clam.’
‘No wonder you try so hard to disown him,’ said Samantha, giving her nanny a supportive hug.
Just then a long limousine pulled up outside the shop.
‘He’s here!’ exclaimed Derrick.
An anxious publicist rushed over to open the passenger door. The children were shocked to see Bramwell for the first time. They had assumed he would look like his sisters, but he did not. True, his facial features were similar, but there was one shocking dissimilarity. Bramwell was enormously fat. All Nanny Piggins’ sisters were extremely lean and athletic. But Bramwell was as round as he was tall. Admittedly, like his sisters he was only four foot tall, but still it was unusual to see someone who was also four foot wide.
‘Oh yes, I forgot to mention,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That is the other shameful thing about Bramwell – he has a slight weight problem. Now, as you know, I am not normally one to judge a person for that. Eating is such a priority. But in Bramwell’s case, he is a pig, and it is such a cliché for a pig to be as fat as a pig.’
Bramwell waddled across the store, smiling smugly and posing for photographs as he was waylaid by fans. Eventually he made his way to the front, and with the help of a good hard shove from his publicist, he managed to climb up onto the podium.
‘Good morning,’ said Bramwell, smiling down at his audience. ‘It is wonderful to see your adoring faces.’
The audience clapped.
‘And ladies, no marriage proposals please,’ smirked Bramwell. ‘At least not until after my speech.’
The women in the audience giggled.
Bramwell took out his notes, winked at the audience, cleared his throat and began his speech. ‘People are always asking me, Bramwell Piggins, how did you come to be so wonderful at everything? Adventurer, inventor, medical breakthrougher, heroic rescuer, pastry chef extraordinaire . . . Does your talent know no bounds? And I’m afraid the simple answer is “no”. Even as a young piglet, my little sisters would sit and watch in awe as I explained particle physics, demonstrated jujitsu or whipped up a delicious batch of authentic Lebanese baklava. Obviously it was too much for them to ever emulate. But in their own simple way they enjoyed watching me be brilliant.’
Nanny Piggins could bear it no longer. ‘Stop it!’ she shrieked. ‘Stop it at once before I am sick all over this cheap synthetic carpet.’
Bramwell peered over the edge of his podium. He was too fat to see the front row, so he could not see who was yelling at him.
‘You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself!’ denounced Nanny Piggins. ‘If Mother were alive today she would sit on you to teach you a lesson about stealing better people’s identities.’
‘Mother?’ yelped Bramwell. ‘She’s not here, is she?’ He looked about in a panic.
‘Of course not, you twit,’ condemned Nanny Piggins. ‘She’s been dead for years.’
Bramwell heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Oh yes, of course, thank goodness.’
Nanny Piggins was now shaking with rage. ‘Leaving aside your pleasure in our mother’s death – I shall bite you for that later – first things first, how dare you steal my identity and the accomplishments of all our sisters just to flatter your own ego and sell books!’
‘Sarah? Is that you?’ asked Bramwell. While his fourteen sisters were physically identical, from much experience Bramwell was able to identify them by their own unique way of yelling at him.
‘It certainly is,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And how dare you come to my home town claiming to be “The World’s Greatest Flying Pig”.’
‘I didn’t know you lived here,’ protested Bramwell.
‘Balderdash!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘When you drive into town there is a great big sign saying “Welcome to Dullsford. Population 66,782. Home of Nanny Piggins, World’s Greatest Flying Pig.”’
‘In his defence,’ whispered Derrick, ‘the last bit is hard to read because it is in Boris’ handwriting.’
‘There is no excuse!’ yelled Nanny Piggins. ‘How dare you, who have achieved so little, take the credit for we who have done so much.’
Bramwell winked at his audience. ‘You’ll have to excuse my little sister. Her imagination runs away with her from time to time.’
‘What?!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.
‘Don’t judge her,’ continued Bramwell (while surreptitiously trying to shove copies of his own books into his socks for protection). ‘It is hard for a tiny sapling to grow in the shadow of a great oak.’
‘Did he just patronise me?’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘Right, that’s it. I’m taking my frock off. It’s shin-biting time.’
‘Sarah, my dear,’ said Bramwell, clutching the podium tightly and keeping it between him and his sister. ‘There is no need for that.’
‘Then immediately admit that your whole book is just a pack of lies,’ demanded Nanny Piggins.
Bramwell paused. He thought about how much he liked getting great big royalty cheques from his publisher, and then he thought about how a few shin bites would soon heal and go away. ‘No I won’t,’ said Bramwell. ‘Every single word is true and you can’t prove otherwise.’
The audience cheered. Bramwell looked proud of his cleverness.
But Nanny Piggins was baffled by his stupidity. ‘Of course I can prove you’re a fraud, you great big idiot. Nothing would be easier. For a start I can show that I am the world’s greatest flying pig by challenging you to a dual. Right here tomorrow morning, let’s both get blasted out of cannons and see who flies further. That’ll soon settle that.’
‘What a brilliant idea!’ exclaimed the publicist, who got out her mobile phone so she could tell all her journalist friends.
‘Now hang on,’ protested Bramwell. ‘I am an author now. Um . . . it would be unseemly and . . . er . . . besides, I don’t have a cannon.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said the publicist. ‘I�
��ll arrange it all. Publicity like this is unbeatable. Your books will fly off the shelves.’
‘Good, it’s settled then,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Prepare to be belittled right here tomorrow morning at 9 am.’
Nanny Piggins then grabbed hold of her brother, gave him a noogie, a wedgie, a wet willy and several other physically unpleasant things siblings do to each other, before storming out of the bookshop with the children. The audience again clapped. They had expected a rather dull book reading, but instead they had apparently been treated to a dramatic morning of improvised theatre.
During the night Nanny Piggins and Boris went down to the local war museum and borrowed the largest Howitzer. (The war museum had become used to this and in fact had given Nanny Piggins her own key so she would not disturb the security guard’s nap schedule.)
Nanny Piggins then had a brief but thorough training workout, eating 50 pounds of chocolate-covered caramels to increase her density and therefore velocity through the air.
At nine o’clock the next morning she arrived at the bookshop in her favourite suede lemon-coloured body suit (with black and red stripes), as Boris pulled her 25-tonne cannon into position. There was a huge crowd already gathered to watch the display.
‘We’re here!’ announced Nanny Piggins. ‘Now where is that good-for-nothing Bramwell so we can get started?’
‘He’s right here,’ said the publicist, turning round to point at . . . an empty space.
‘Where?’ asked Samantha.
‘But he was right here a second ago,’ protested the publicist.
Nanny Piggins looked at Derrick’s watch. It ticked over from 9.00 to 9.01. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘he’s not coming back.’
‘But surely not,’ panicked the publicist. ‘Look at the crowd. He can’t let them down. Some of them have pre-bought books, expecting him to sign them.’
‘Well, I must confess I have underestimated my brother,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘In my haste to condemn him for stealing credit for the talents of his sisters, I had forgotten his one great talent.’
‘He has a great talent?’ asked Derrick.