by R. A. Spratt
Nanny Piggins led the children inside, then got them all to empty their pockets so they could pool their money. ‘Okay, now for addition. We need to add up how much we’ve got.’
Between the 40 children they managed to scrape together $57.
‘Right,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now the painful bit. Does anybody know how to do long division?’
‘But you’ve always said that long division is a load of old poppycock and a waste of brain space,’ said Michael.
‘This is the one time that I permit it,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘We have an important problem to work out. If éclairs are $2.80 and we have $57, how many éclairs can we buy?’
What followed was a long and protracted debate. Some of the children tried taking out paper and working it out that way. Others fogged up the glass on the cake display and did their calculations there. Then they all argued because they kept getting different results. Eventually Nanny Piggins stepped in and showed them how long division was really done. She ordered Hans to lend her his calculator and had the correct result in seconds: 20.3571.
‘But how do we measure 0.3571 of a cake?’ asked Michael.
‘And does that mean 19.6429 of us will go without,’ asked Derrick, desperately hoping he wasn’t in the 19.6429.
‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now I shall give you a lesson in rhetoric.’
‘What’s rhetoric?’ asked Michael.
‘It’s Ancient Greek for arguing,’ explained Boris.
Nanny Piggins proceeded to beg, demand and cajole Hans until he could not take the onslaught anymore and just gave her forty éclairs for free (Nanny Piggins spent so much in his shop he knew he would eventually recoup the loss). Nanny Piggins then invested the $57 in doughnuts, which thankfully were $1 each and therefore the maths was much simpler.
And so the day continued. Nanny Piggins gave the children an engineering lesson by taking them to a creek and showing them how to build a dam with stones. Then she taught a biology lesson by catching tadpoles; a physics lesson by jumping high in the air and doing a bomb into the creek, splashing them all; and an English lesson by introducing them to some very colourful language when she realised she had just ruined her suede slingback shoes.
They even did a cross-country run when they heard an ice-cream van and set out after it, across a large and sticky bog. (When they caught up with the ice-cream van they remembered that they did not have any money. But now all the children knew how to do rhetoric, the ice-cream man soon caved in after being yelled at by 40 children, a pig and a bear.)
By 3.30 pm the children were exhausted from a full day of learning, and actually asked to be driven home, just so they could get some sleep. Every one of them smiled happily, and thanked Nanny Piggins for the best day at school ever (largely because they had never made it to school).
When Nanny Piggins drove the school bus home to drop off Derrick, Samantha and Michael, they found Headmaster Pimplestock outside their house, waiting for them.
‘You’ve done it this time, Piggins,’ he accused. ‘You’re fired, you’re worse than fired. I’m going to have you arrested for kidnapping 40 children!’
‘But I’m the school bus driver,’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s my job to kidnap children. It’s just that instead of taking them where they didn’t want to go, I took them somewhere they did want to go – on a fun adventure with me.’
‘And you can’t have Nanny Piggins arrested,’ added Derrick.
‘Why not?’ yelled Headmaster Pimplestock. ‘I’d love to see her in jail. Finally we’d have some peace and quiet at the school again.’
‘You’d lose your job,’ explained Derrick. ‘You’re the one who gave the bus driving job to a pig whose trotters don’t even touch the pedals . . .’
‘. . . who has no respect for authority . . .’ added Samantha.
‘. . . and who doesn’t even have a driver’s licence,’ finished up Michael.
‘You don’t have a driver’s licence?’ asked Headmaster Pimplestock, going pale. He was going to look very silly for not checking that.
‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I absolutely refuse to let those people at the motor registry take my photograph. Their lighting set-up is terrible. They seem to take cruel delight in making everyone look like they’ve been dead for six months.’
‘Well, the P&C is meeting tomorrow after school,’ said Headmaster Pimplestock. ‘I will be reporting to them and they can decide what to do with you.’
The P&C had a very difficult decision to make. It was true that Nanny Piggins had taken 40 students off on an impromptu excursion without obtaining the sacred passport of all off-campus activities – permission notes. However, it was also undeniable that the day after they returned, the same 40 students did extraordinarily well on their standardised testing. The huge improvement of these students relative to their classmates could only be attributed to their having been on the most educational school excursion ever. It was quite the conundrum. In the end they reached a compromise. The committee did fire Nanny Piggins, but not for kidnapping children or her improvised school excursion. She was fired for using a fortnight’s worth of petrol in one day. After all, petrol prices were expensive and the P&C could not be seen to condone their bus driver adding an extra 340 kilometres onto the journey to school every day.
But the P&C also institutionalised the annual ‘Nanny Piggins Day School Excursion’, where Nanny Piggins’ wonderful day of adventure would be meticulously re-enacted by the entire student body for educational purposes.
Nanny Piggins and the children were sitting around the dining table, trying to ignore the fact that Mr Green was sitting with them, so they could properly enjoy the simply delicious chocolate croissants Nanny Piggins had whipped up for their breakfast. Nanny Piggins had already eaten seventeen herself, so she was beginning to slow down. Only another seven or eight and she would be full. Which meant she could now turn her attention to going through the mail.
There were the usual round of bills for Mr Green, and the usual letters for her: the Chief of NATO begging her to give him strategic advice on missile defence (Nanny Piggins always refused to help him because she knew much more about offence than defence); letters from Armani asking for fashion tips; and letters from the Slimbridge Cake Factory begging her to stop breaking into their premises and eating all the cake. Right at the bottom of the pile Nanny Piggins found a large thick envelope.
‘There’s a letter for Boris,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Michael, be a dear and pass it to him.’
Michael was on Boris duty that morning, which meant it was his turn to sit next to the window, passing out honey-covered croissants. Mr Green still had not realised he had a ten-foot-tall 700-kilogram dancing bear living in his garden shed, which is why this little subterfuge was necessary.
As the envelope passed out the window, the sound of Boris gobbling food abruptly stopped.
Mr Green looked up from his newspaper. ‘Ah thank goodness, Mrs Simpson has stopped using her wood chipper.’
‘Why yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. (She had told Mr Green that the loud noises they heard every breakfast time were because Mrs Simpson spent every morning making wood chips.)
But a moment later there was a loud noise that was much harder to explain.
‘Whooppeee!’ yelled Boris.
‘What was that?’ asked Mr Green, looking up from the financial pages again.
‘It was just me,’ fibbed Nanny Piggins, as she leapt up and hastily drew the curtains. ‘I yelled “whooppeee” because I’m so happy to be alive.’
‘Well, stop it,’ said Mr Green grumpily before returning his attention to the newspaper. Reading the stock listings always took his full concentration. His brain was not good at multi-tasking (it was not good at single-tasking either).
‘Hooray! Hooray!’ sang Boris
delightedly from the garden.
Nanny Piggins and the children exchanged glances. If Boris was going to remain a secret they would have to get Mr Green out of the house immediately. Unfortunately Nanny Piggins could not think of a subtle way to do this, so she would have to resort to less sophisticated methods.
‘Get out!’ screamed Nanny Piggins as she grabbed Mr Green and started dragging him towards the front door.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ demanded Mr Green.
‘Nanny Piggins just wants you to get to the office nice and early,’ fabricated Samantha, ‘in case the government issued amendments to the tax codes during the night and you inadvertently started breaking the law while you slept.’
‘They didn’t, did they?’ asked Mr Green, turning white and beginning to hurry towards the door voluntarily.
‘Who knows?’ said Michael. ‘A lady from the tax office did ring and ask me to read out all the papers I could find in your briefcase.’
‘What?’ yelped Mr Green as he took off running without his jacket, shoes or briefcase.
As he yanked open the front door Mr Green had a brief moment of clarity and turned back. ‘My briefcase?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We’ll run it through Mrs Simpson’s wood chipper. The tax office won’t be able to prove a thing.’
‘Thank you,’ gushed Mr Green, before running barefoot down the street.
‘That was fun,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now let’s see what Boris is doing in the garden.’
As Nanny Piggins and the children stepped out into the backyard they were greeted by a spectacular sight. It was a beautiful spring morning, dew was still on the grass, and beams of light cut through the leaves of the trees like rays of magic reaching down from heaven. But most spectacular of all was Boris as he leapt, pranced and pirouetted across the lawn, only occasionally banging into the compost bin or landing on a geranium because he was so caught up in the emotion of the moment.
‘Boris seems very happy,’ said Samantha. ‘What do you suppose his letter was about?’
‘Who knows?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Perhaps someone died and left him a lifetime supply of honey.’
‘Does he know any sick elderly people with that much honey?’ asked Derrick.
‘No,’ admitted Nanny Piggins, ‘but he does try to meet people like that all the time.’
Knowing it was rude to interrupt a maestro in full flow of creative genius, Nanny Piggins and the children stood and watched for twenty minutes. Eventually, after a flurry of grand jetés, a couple of pirouettes and some spinning high kicks, Boris collapsed dramatically on the ground, landing in the splits.
Nanny Piggins and the children burst into applause.
‘Bravo!’ called Derrick.
‘Encore!’ yelled Samantha.
‘Would you like another honey-covered croissant?’ called Michael, who knew his favourite bear well and had six honey-covered croissants at the ready.
‘Yes, please!’ exclaimed Boris, leaping up again and bounding over to the children.
‘So what was your letter about? It’s obviously made you very happy,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Mmmayotinawwool,’ said Boris. (It is hard to enunciate with croissants in your mouth.)
‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Admittedly I’m not as fluent in bear-with-his-mouth-full as I probably should be, but it sounded like you said “I got into law school”.’
‘I did!’ exclaimed Boris, after swallowing. ‘I got a letter saying I had been accepted. I start on Monday.’
Nanny Piggins and the children were astonished.
‘Really? What sort of law school?’ asked Derrick, suspecting Boris of applying to some institution he had seen advertised at a bus stop.
‘See for yourself,’ said Boris, proudly handing Derrick the letter.
‘Leaping Lamingtons!’ exclaimed Derrick. (He had picked up this expression from Nanny Piggins.) ‘He’s been accepted into the most prestigious university in the country!’
‘Let me smell that,’ said Nanny Piggins, taking the letter from Derrick and giving it a good sniff. ‘It doesn’t smell like one of the Ringmaster’s tricks.’
‘That’s because it isn’t,’ said Boris proudly. ‘I filled in all the forms, wrote all the essays and even snuck out for an interview last week without telling anyone. I don’t like to be secretive, but I thought it important not to get all your hopes up.’
The children did not know what to say. The idea of Boris being accepted into any sort of law school, let alone the most prestigious one in the country, was just so extraordinary. Samantha gathered her thoughts first.
‘No offence, Boris, because you know we all love you, and we all think you are a wonderful genius,’ said Samantha, ‘but why did the university accept you? You aren’t exactly . . . um . . . the academic type.’
‘I know,’ admitted Boris. ‘I believe they were under some pressure to accept more minorities. And since I’m Russian, I’m a bear and I didn’t go to private school, I was a minority in three different ways.’
‘And again, no offence Boris, but isn’t law a post-graduate degree?’ asked Derrick. ‘Don’t you have to have a regular degree already in order to apply?’
‘But I do have a university degree,’ said Boris.
‘You do?’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘You never told me that.’
‘Well, I don’t like to brag,’ said Boris, ‘and I know you are still upset with Cambridge University for refusing to give you an honorary doctorate in cake baking.’
‘It is snubs like that that turn pigs like me into evil geniuses living under volcanoes and thinking up ways to take over the world,’ grumbled Nanny Piggins.
‘I know,’ said Boris sympathetically. ‘But I did a Masters degree in Applied Ballet years ago, while I was still living in Russia.’
‘What’s Applied Ballet?’ asked Derrick.
‘It’s the use of ballet to facilitate change in everyday situations,’ explained Boris. ‘Like using ballet to disband an angry mob. Or using ballet to inspire scientists to come up with a cure for the common cold.’
‘What sort of university would give a degree in that?’ asked Michael.
‘Only the best,’ said Boris. ‘Moscow University. They take ballet very seriously. Everyone who studies there has to know dance. Even doctors and lawyers have to be able to skip about on their tippy-toes or they aren’t allowed to graduate.’
‘It sounds like a very sensible institution,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So many universities clog young people’s heads with rubbish about post-modernism, cultural studies and mathematics; it’s nice to know there is still somewhere you can go to get a proper education. But what I want to know is – why did you apply to law school? I thought you were happy here. I had no idea you wanted to further your education.’
‘Oh goodness me, no,’ said Boris. ‘I’m as averse to education as the next bear. You know how learning new things hurts my head sometimes.’
‘It took you three weeks to understand that Bethany had secretly had a surrogate child with Bridge’s twin brother’s father on The Young and the Irritable,’ said Samantha.
‘Exactly,’ agreed Boris. ‘But I wanted to do something to help you, Sarah. And it seems to me it will be quicker for me to go to law school, qualify as a barrister and get you off in a dramatic courtroom showdown than for you to actually finish your community service hours.’
‘You would do all that for me?’ said Nanny Piggins, a tear of gratitude beginning to well in her eye. ‘You are the kindest, sweetest brother a pig could ever have.’
And with that she gave her brother the biggest pig hug ever (a pig hug is not quite as big as a bear hug because pigs have much shorter arms, but when it comes to hugging, it is the squeezing that count
s and Nanny Piggins put in lots of extra squeeze). Then they all went inside to have honey-covered pikelets to celebrate.
When Monday morning came around Boris was all ready for his first day at university. His fur was brushed, his pencils were sharpened and Nanny Piggins had even borrowed Mr Green’s ugliest bow tie for him to wear.
‘Brainy people always think bow ties look good,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘I think it’s because the brainy part of their brain is so swollen it crushes the part of the brain that would usually give them fashion sense.’
‘I’m a little nervous,’ admitted Boris. ‘What if none of the other law students will play with me at lunchtime?’
‘I don’t think law students do play at lunchtime,’ said Derrick. ‘I think they read law books or sit around having intellectual debates about hypothetical law cases.’
‘That sounds awful,’ panicked Boris. ‘Couldn’t I read a nice comic book instead? I’ve got three lectures this morning, so by the time lunch comes around my brain will need to put its feet up and have a rest.’
‘Why don’t you just do some ballet at lunchtime,’ suggested Nanny Piggins. ‘No-one will be able to question your cultural superiority once they see you do your interpretation of a dying swan.’
The children were not as confident as Nanny Piggins in Boris’ ability to win over a bunch of pretentious intellectual law students through ballet alone. But they decided to stay silent so as not to make him any more nervous on his first day.
That afternoon, when the children came home from school, they found Nanny Piggins already in the kitchen baking.
‘You’re back early,’ observed Derrick. ‘Weren’t you meant to be cleaning graffiti off walls for your community service?’
‘The supervisor asked me to leave,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Why?’ asked Samantha.
‘All I did was suggest that instead of painting over the graffiti, it might be nicer to add to it,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘which I demonstrated by turning a spray painting of a very rude word into a replica of Van Gogh’s sunflowers.’