Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice

by R. A. Spratt

‘What have you done to her?’ accused Samantha.

  ‘Nanny Anne has been kind enough to help me with my appearance,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘There’s so much I don’t remember. And she has been telling me all the things I need to know about manners, politeness and being nice.’

  ‘But you hate being nice,’ argued Derrick. ‘You prefer being fabulous or very cross or staggeringly beautiful.’

  ‘You’re never something as dull as nice,’ said Michael.

  ‘But Nanny Anne has been teaching me that as a nanny, it is my place to be dull,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  Nanny Anne nodded and smiled (a smile that looked nice but which the children knew to be pure wickedness).

  ‘And Nanny Anne says that if I give her all my cake recipes she will let me join her etiquette club so I can socialise with the other nannies,’ continued Nanny Piggins.

  ‘But you hate etiquette,’ protested Samantha.

  ‘And you hate clubs,’ added Michael.

  ‘And you hate Nanny Anne,’ added Derrick. ‘Every time you turn your back she tries to wash behind your ears with a scouring pad.’

  ‘Older boy, you must not say that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Telling a guest that you hate them is bad etiquette.’ Nanny Piggins looked to Nanny Anne for confirmation.

  Nanny Anne nodded. ‘And how are you going to punish him?’ prompted Nanny Anne.

  ‘I have to punish him?’ asked Nanny Piggins, rubbing her head.

  ‘Oh yes, punishment is character building,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘An outburst like that warrants, at the very least, being sent to bed without any supper.’

  ‘But Nanny Piggins, you don’t approve of withholding meals. You always say that the only people who should be sent to bed without any supper are murderers, to teach them a lesson, and people who don’t eat chocolate, so they will come to their senses,’ argued Samantha.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘Arguing in front of a guest is also bad etiquette.’

  ‘It is?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘I think that requires some time in the naughty corner.’

  ‘But Nanny Piggins usually encourages us to be naughty in all corners of the house,’ countered Samantha.

  ‘Tsk tsk tsk,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘Answering back, you can’t accept that, Nanny Piggins.’

  ‘I can’t?’ asked Nanny Piggins, her head starting to throb. ‘All right, girl-child, you don’t get any supper either.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Michael. ‘I’m getting Boris and telling him to bring the watermelon.’ Michael ran out of the room.

  ‘Threatening to hit your nanny over the head with a watermelon is punishable too,’ called out Nanny Anne.

  ‘So the little boy doesn’t eat either?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Anne.

  ‘I never realised that nannying was so like policing,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Oh it is a lot harder,’ said Nanny Anne, ‘because we aren’t supposed to use batons and handcuffs.’

  ‘What do I do now?’ asked Nanny Piggins, as she looked at Samantha fuming in the newly established naughty corner and Derrick glaring at her from the couch.

  ‘After a hard day nannying, I think we deserve a treat,’ smiled Nanny Anne. ‘I brought over a cake especially for you.’

  ‘Really? What type of cake is it?’ asked Nanny Piggins as Nanny Anne retrieved a plate of cake from her basket.

  ‘Chocolate cake,’ said Nanny Anne.

  ‘That sounds nice,’ said Nanny Piggins, perking up. She scooped up a polite little morsel of cake and put it in her mouth.

  ‘With zucchini grated into it for extra fibre,’ added Nanny Anne.

  Nanny Piggins did not swallow. She held the cake in her mouth for a moment before her face began to turn a very disturbing shade of purple. Then Nanny Piggins’ whole body began to shudder.

  ‘Are you all right, Nanny Piggins?’ asked Samantha.

  Nanny Piggins did not speak. She was too busy pulling the most pained face the children had ever seen. Eventually when she could not stand it anymore, Nanny Piggins leapt to her feet and spat the glob of cake onto Mr Green’s expensive Persian carpet.

  ‘Phah, phah, phah!’ said Nanny Piggins as she spat many more times, trying to get the taste out of her mouth, ‘Are you trying to poison me?’ She turned on Nanny Anne. ‘Are you trying to murder me with vegetable-tainted cake?’

  ‘Nanny Piggins, get a grip of yourself,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘You are being rude.’

  ‘You are the one who is being rude!’ denounced Nanny Piggins. ‘Rude to the institution of cake by daring to bring a zucchini within a five-mile radius of one. How dare you! Samantha, fetch me the telephone. I am reporting Nanny Anne to the police for crimes against cake.’

  ‘I think Nanny Piggins is feeling better,’ said Derrick happily.

  ‘There’s no such thing as crimes against cake,’ protested Nanny Anne.

  ‘Then I shall run for parliament and have the laws introduced immediately,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘And I am keeping this cake –’ She snatched up the zucchini-tainted chocolate cake – ‘and using it against you as evidence. Get out of my house!’

  ‘What’s going on here?’ said Mr Green, walking into that room. ‘This is my house. No-one orders people out except me.’

  ‘You can get out too!’ yelled Nanny Piggins. ‘Taking advantage of a woman with a head injury! You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘He took advantage of you?’ asked Derrick, totally shocked.

  ‘Yes, after you left for school this morning,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘he got me to do his laundry!’

  ‘I thought that was within the job description of what a nanny –’ began Mr Green.

  ‘I’m going to start counting,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And when I get to three, anybody who is still in this house whom I regard to be very naughty, will get a good hard stamp on the foot. One . . .’

  Nanny Anne and Mr Green both ran for it as fast as they could.

  The next moment Boris burst in through the back door with a huge watermelon held above his head. ‘Where is she?’ asked Boris.

  ‘There’s no need to hit me over the head with a watermelon, Boris,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Aaagghh!’ shrieked Boris. ‘Nanny Anne has turned into a pig!’

  ‘It’s not Nanny Anne,’ explained Samantha.

  ‘Then it’s one of Nanny Piggins’ evil identical fourteenuplet sisters!’ squealed Boris.

  ‘No, it is I,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘Your sister, Nanny Piggins.’

  ‘Sarah?’ asked Boris, peering past the hideous hair and clothing. ‘Oh no, what happened to you?’

  ‘Nanny Anne gave me a makeover,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

  ‘You poor, poor pig,’ said Boris, crushing his sister to his chest in a big bear-hug. ‘What an evil woman to take advantage of you when you had come down with a little brain damage.’

  ‘Come along, there will be plenty of time for hugging later,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

  ‘We do?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘Getting hit in the head gave me a tremendous idea,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

  ‘It did?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Let’s have a bonfire!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And burn things on it.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘For a start we’ll have to burn your father’s Persian rug,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We’ll never get the smell of zucchini out.’

  ‘Then can we burn those clothes Nanny Anne gave you?’ asked Boris.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And the cake, although we’ll all have to be careful to wear water-soaked rags over our n
oses so we don’t breathe in any zucchini fumes.’

  ‘That sounds like fun,’ enthused Derrick.

  ‘That’s just the start of it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘After we’ve burnt your father’s laundry, we’ll have to stay up half the night toasting marshmallows and making up rude songs about Nanny Anne’s dress sense.’

  ‘It’s good to have you back, Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha.

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ said Nanny Piggins, embracing all three children. ‘You’ve no idea how unspeakably dreadful it is not remembering the important things in life: the taste of a chocolate cake, the smell of a freshly blasted cannon and the sweet satisfaction of throwing Nanny Anne out of the house.’

  Sixty small noses were pressed up against the windowpanes of the school canteen, as a crowd of children breathlessly – they dared not breathe in case their breath fogged the windows – watched Nanny Piggins perform an act of sheer magic.

  And this is no exaggeration. Throughout history, the world’s greatest minds, people such as Leonardo da Vinci and Nicholas Flamel, have attempted alchemy – the transformation of lead into gold. But Nanny Piggins could do something much more impressive than that. She could transform eggs, flour and butter into cake, which is much more delicious than gold, and equally pretty in Nanny Piggins’ opinion.

  On this particular occasion the children were waiting to see Nanny Piggins take her marble cake out of the oven. It was a mixture of white chocolate cake, milk chocolate cake and dark chocolate cake carefully swirled together. The smell coming from the oven was divine. The children could not wait to see if it looked as good as it smelt, because if it looked good and it smelt good, the chances of it tasting good were very, very high indeed.

  The oven pinged. Nanny Piggins put down her romance novel (which she had been pretending to read so that the children would think she was relaxed, but really she was just as anxious to have a piece of cake as they were) and cautiously approached the oven. She sniffed the oven door.

  ‘Definitely smells cakey,’ reported Nanny Piggins.

  Boris and the other canteen volunteers huddled quietly in the far corner. They knew, from experience, not to interrupt Nanny Piggins with idle chatter at such a delicate stage. Talking to Nanny Piggins as she took a cake out of the oven was like talking to a bomb disposal expert as they defused a landmine.

  Nanny Piggins put on her oven gloves and carefully opened the oven door. A great waft of delicious cake smell flooded out into the kitchen and seeped through the cracks in the windowpanes. The children gasped with pleasure. (They were supposed to be in PE doing cross-country training. But when the PE teacher sent them off on a 5-kilometre run, then went back into his office to read a Dick Francis novel, he did not notice that all 60 children hid behind the girls’ toilet block and then snuck around the back of the school to the canteen.)

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Nanny Piggins as she leaned forward to gently pat the top of the cake. It sprang back. ‘Perfection!’ she announced.

  The other canteen volunteers breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Congratulations Nanny Piggins, another masterpiece!’ said Mrs Branston, the canteen manager.

  ‘We mustn’t speak too soon,’ chided Nanny Piggins. ‘It hasn’t been tasted yet.’

  ‘But you have never ever made anything less than a mouth-wateringly delicious cake,’ protested Mrs Branston.

  ‘Only because I maintain my standards,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I cannot possibly allow you to sell this cake unless it has been tasted.’

  Mrs Branston sighed. They had this conversation every Tuesday when, as part of her community service, Nanny Piggins was forced to ‘volunteer’ in the canteen. Nanny Piggins was not always an easy pig to work with. The other mothers never threw out all the food from the freezer declaring it to be processed, chemically saturated rubbish (even though it was). The other mothers did not insist on flying in the finest ingredients from Paris. And the other mothers never chased the meat supplier off the premises just for turning up with a 10-kilogram bag of bacon.

  But Mrs Branston could hardly turn Nanny Piggins away, when it was thanks to her that their school canteen had become the only school canteen in the entire world to be awarded a Michelin star. This was a recognition of culinary brilliance normally only given to the finest (and most expensive) restaurants. And the canteen only held the Michelin star on Tuesdays when it was Nanny Piggins’ morning to volunteer.

  It was true that having a Michelin star had caused some problems for the canteen. Food lovers and restaurant critics kept trying to get a taste of one of Nanny Piggins’ creations. They would dress up as school children and sneak into line. But Nanny Piggins was very good at spotting them (usually the goatee beards and pretentious overuse of adjectives gave them away) and they all got a smack on the back of the hand with a ruler before they were sent packing.

  ‘All right,’ conceded Mrs Branston. ‘Test the cake.’

  Nanny Piggins turned to the children excitedly staring in through the windows. ‘Are any of you children willing to be a test subject?’

  ‘Me me me me me!!!!!!!’ screamed all the children, as they did every week when Nanny Piggins would turn, with her latest creation in her trotters, and ask the same question.

  Nanny Piggins began deftly slicing up the cakes (for there were 18 more in the oven) and passing them out to the children so they could give her ‘constructive feedback’. The feedback was always the same. There were lots of ‘Mmmm-mm-mmm’ noises, and ‘aaaahh-mmm-yummmm’ sounds, as well as some weeping from delight.

  ‘We’re never going to make any money if you keep giving all the cake away,’ said Mrs Branston.

  ‘Who needs money when you’ve got cake?’ argued Nanny Piggins as she shoved a large wedge into her own mouth.

  Mrs Branston, who now had cake in her mouth too, had to agree that this argument did have a lot of merit. Unfortunately their cakey bliss was soon interrupted.

  ‘What is going on here?’ bellowed a very angry voice.

  ‘It’s Headmaster Pimplestock!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Quick children, run!’ urged Boris.

  ‘And take this slice of cake for your teacher,’ added Nanny Piggins, ‘to bribe him to concoct a cover story for you.’

  The children took to their heels at lightning pace, running through an oleander hedge, along a muddy ditch, up and over the wall behind the science block and back to the oval. (So they got in their cross-country run after all.)

  Headmaster Pimplestock did not chase after them because he was a rotund man who had not done anything athletic for three decades. (It is funny how adults unthinkingly inflict things on school children that they would never dream of doing themselves – like cross-country running and algebra.) Headmaster Pimplestock glared at Nanny Piggins, which was a mistake because she was much better at it, and it always frightened him when she glared back.

  ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘It’s my school, I’m the headmaster!’ exclaimed Headmaster Pimplestock.

  Nanny Piggins snorted (which, as a pig, she was very good at). ‘Technically I suppose,’ she muttered.

  Headmaster Pimplestock remembered why he was on the canteen verandah, because that was where the school noticeboard hung. (They had found that putting the notices next to that day’s cake list dramatically increased the chance of the students actually reading them.) Headmaster Pimplestock walked over and pinned up a new notice.

  ‘What does that say?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.

  ‘I don’t have to answer to you,’ snapped Headmaster Pimplestock.

  ‘Really?’ said Nanny Piggins, glowering so hard she actually made Headmaster Pimplestock flinch and stumble into the flowerbed.

  The ladies who volunteered in the canteen (and Boris) sniggered.

  Headmaster Pimples
tock recovered his balance and tried to march away with dignity, but his feet would not take him. Because, after all, he was just a man, with normal human weaknesses and a sense of smell. Headmaster Pimplestock turned back. ‘Umm . . . er . . . before I go . . . I was wondering, Nanny Piggins . . .’

  ‘Tsk tsk, tsk, Headmaster,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You gave Michael lines for umming and ahhing last week, and here you are doing it yourself. Would you like me to punish you?’

  ‘No, I would like to buy a slice of cake,’ said Headmaster Pimplestock. No matter how much he desperately wanted to thwart Nanny Piggins in every way, and never see her set trotter on his school grounds again, he could not deny that her marble cake smelt like heaven in a baking tin.

  ‘Very well,’ said Nanny Piggins, cutting him a large slice and holding it out. ‘That will be five hundred dollars.’

  ‘What?’ protested Headmaster Pimplestock.

  ‘And I want to be paid in cash,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I know what you teachers are like with your rubber cheque books.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ spluttered Headmaster Pimplestock.

  ‘From the very rude letter you sent Mrs Branston last week, we all know how vitally important it is that the school canteen runs at a profit,’ said Nanny Piggins, pointing to a letter that was pinned to the wall (and skewered with several butter knives that Nanny Piggins had thrown at it).

  ‘But five hundred dollars for one slice?’ questioned Headmaster Pimplestock.

  ‘You don’t have to buy the cake,’ said Nanny Piggins, withdrawing the outstretched plate and putting it back on the countertop.

  A dollop of drool actually fell from Headmaster Pimplestock’s mouth as he watched his cake get taken away. ‘All right all right, no need to be hasty.’ He took his wallet out of his pocket, counted out ten fifty-dollar notes and handed them to Nanny Piggins.

  She handed over the cake. ‘And I’d better not find out that this is the cash for the children’s new axolotl tank,’ warned Nanny Piggins as she put the money in the canteen till.

  Headmaster Pimplestock made a mental note to put back the money for the school’s axolotl tank before Nanny Piggins found out he had been using it to buy cappuccinos.