Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice

by R. A. Spratt

  Boris whispered to Samantha, ‘What does “define” mean?’

  ‘Explain the meaning,’ said Samantha.

  ‘Oh,’ said Boris. He stood up, cleared his throat and began, ‘Um . . . er . . . ahem.’

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ said the professor gleefully.

  ‘Yes I do. It’s all about honey,’ said Boris.

  ‘No it’s not,’ said the professor.

  ‘It is the way I remember it,’ said Boris. ‘You see, if a bear was accused of stealing a big bucket of honey, no-one could mention how all bears have an insatiable lust for big buckets of honey – at least, not until after the case was over, otherwise it could influence the judge’s decision. And judges don’t like that. It makes them yell at you. Because of sub judice.’

  ‘Was that the right answer?’ the Chancellor asked the very old law professor sitting to her left.

  ‘Yes,’ said the elderly professor. ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  ‘He just got lucky,’ scoffed the professor of Constitutional Law. ‘I’ll try another one. Explain habeas corpus.’

  ‘Oh, I know that one too,’ said Boris. ‘It is just like that episode of The Young and the Irritable where Bethany became the Chief of Police and she had Bridge arrested on trumped-up bootlegging charges, to punish him for refusing to take her to the annual policepersons’ ball. As soon as Bridge was arrested he was brought before a magistrate, who realised that the charges were silly when Bethany burst into tears and revealed just how much she loved him. That’s why you have habeas corpus – to protect people from being unfairly arrested.’

  ‘I remember that episode,’ said the Chancellor. ‘It was a good one.’

  ‘You should consider fast-tracking this fellow for a professorship,’ said the elderly law professor. ‘He clearly has a brilliant legal mind.’

  The law students in the audience were nodding their agreement. Boris had explained the complicated legal ideas much better than their professor. It was the first time they had understood these concepts properly themselves.

  ‘When is mens rea of primary importance in the determination of a conviction?’ spat the Constitutional Law professor.

  ‘Hang on,’ cried a law student in the audience, ‘that hasn’t been covered in any of our lectures.’

  ‘It’s all right, I know because it’s about honey too,’ said Boris. ‘You know how when someone leaves a slice of honey-covered toast on the kitchen bench, sometimes it can end up in your mouth accidentally? You didn’t mean to eat the toast, it just happened. Well that’s not so bad because there was no mens rea. You didn’t mean to do it.’

  ‘How do you know that if it wasn’t in your lectures?’ asked the Chancellor.

  ‘I read it in a book,’ explained Boris.

  ‘Which book?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Well, I’ve been getting so much sleep in the daytime during lectures,’ explained Boris, ‘that I’ve been finding it very difficult to get to sleep at night. So I’ve been reading my law textbooks to try to put myself to sleep.’

  ‘And you remember everything you read?’ marvelled the Chancellor.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Boris. ‘Bears have excellent memory retention. I think it’s because we don’t have to go to school. Our heads are much emptier than the average human’s, which means there is a lot of room to put things.’

  ‘How do you explain knowing everything that was covered in your lectures?’ asked the Chancellor.

  ‘Well, just because I’m asleep doesn’t mean I’m not listening,’ said Boris. ‘That would be rude. Since we bears sleep so much in winter we have learnt to listen while we sleep. Otherwise we would miss three months of episodes of The Young and the Irritable and it would be impossible to catch up.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Chancellor. ‘It seems to me that my decision is clear. The bear can stay.’

  ‘Hooray!’ cheered everyone in the audience. Boris burst into tears again.

  ‘But what about the snoring?!’ protested the professor of Constitutional Law.

  ‘I think it will do you good,’ said the Chancellor. ‘You should see it as a challenge. You need to try to make your lectures more interesting to listen to than a bear’s snores.’

  Nanny Piggins piped up. ‘Aren’t you going to censure the professor for anti-sleepism and bearist behaviour?’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ agreed the Chancellor. ‘I do want to send a message to the rest of the teaching staff not to waste my time with this sort of charade. All right, I’m giving you an official warning for discriminatory behaviour towards the sleeping.’

  ‘Hooray!’ cheered the audience again.

  Boris’ fellow law students then tried to carry him triumphantly out into the quadrangle on their shoulders, but they had to give up when they realised they could not lift him. So instead Boris danced out into the quadrangle and treated everyone to an impromptu performance of the ballet Don Quixote, which was so good that even the Chancellor delayed her return to her video-taped episode of The Young and the Irritable so she could watch him.

  Nanny Piggins had suffered a terrible personal tragedy. She was in the middle of making zabaglione ice-cream (zabaglione is Italian for ‘even more delicious custard’) when an electricity substation three blocks away had caught fire, causing everyone in a five kilometre radius to lose all power to their houses.

  Now normally Nanny Piggins enjoyed a good blackout. It was an excellent excuse to light lots of candles and tell ghost stories. But Nanny Piggins did not enjoy a blackout when she was making ice-cream, because she had an electric powered ice-cream maker.

  She tried running next door to Mrs Simpson’s house, but of course her power was out too. So she ran the ice-cream maker around to the Retired Army Colonel’s house (his legs had finally healed and he had been able to escape the nursing home), in the hopes that he had a generator. But he did not.

  So Nanny Piggins had been forced to sit on the curb, weeping and eating the unfrozen zabaglione to console herself. Eventually the delicious custard gave her the strength to compose herself and, summoning the spirit of Scarlet O’Hara (a woman so bold she could have been a pig), she rose to her trotters and declared, ‘As God is my witness I shall never eat unfrozen ice-cream again.’

  This is how she and the children came to be making their house energy self-sufficient by sticky-taping solar panels to their roof.

  ‘Why are we using sticky tape?’ asked Derrick. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to use an electric screwdriver?’

  ‘I don’t think the structure of the roof could take it,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘It was pretty rotten and unsound to start with, due to your father’s lack of repairs. But Boris has fallen through the roof seven times now.’

  ‘Eight,’ Boris reminded her.

  ‘Oh, yes. I forgot the time you fell through the roof while trying to adjust the television aerial to pick up Russian soap operas,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘So actually sticky-taping solar panels to the house will improve the structural soundness, like an exoskeleton on an insect.’

  Just then they heard the screech of tyres as a speeding car skidded around the corner and raced down their street.

  ‘Isn’t that Mr Green’s vomit-yellow Rolls-Royce?’ asked Boris.

  Nanny Piggins and the children turned and looked down at the street.

  ‘What on earth is he doing, driving like a lunatic?’ wondered Derrick.

  ‘He must have had a brain aneurism,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve heard about these things – some people have brain aneurisms and then suddenly find they can speak French. Your father must have had an aneurism and suddenly found he can drive properly.’

  They watched Mr Green leap out of his car and run to the front door (always a funny sight because he was a rotund man and he did tend to wobble when he mo
ved quickly). Then they heard him rushing from room to room.

  ‘I wonder what he’s doing?’ said Michael.

  ‘Perhaps he’s been given a tip-off that the police are going to arrest him for tax evasion so he is desperately looking for a clean pair of underwear,’ guessed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Why would he need a clean pair of underwear if he is being raided?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘I’ve heard police searches can be very thorough,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

  Just then Mr Green burst out into the backyard. ‘Piggins! Where are you?’ he cried.

  ‘Piggins?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Do you think it is me he is referring to in that rude way?’

  ‘I can’t imagine why he would be calling out to one of your thirteen identical twin sisters or Bramwell,’ said Derrick.

  ‘Up here,’ called Nanny Piggins.

  Mr Green turned and looked up at the roof. ‘Get down immediately,’ he barked.

  ‘What did he eat for breakfast this morning?’ Nanny Piggins asked the children. ‘Whatever it was, remind me to throw the box out. It has made him unpleasantly forceful.’

  Nanny Piggins and the children climbed down the wisteria vine to the garden, while Boris hid behind the chimney stack, pretending to be a nesting pigeon by saying ‘coo coo’.

  From his rushing about and yelling, the children had expected their father to be angry about something, but when they reached the ground and could see his face they realised that he was excited. Very excited.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Silence!’ ordered Mr Green. ‘I don’t have to put up with any more impertinence, insubordination or threats from you.’

  ‘I think it’s the muesli,’ decided Nanny Piggins. ‘All that fibre has finally made his brain snap.’

  ‘Shut up!’ yelled Mr Green.

  The children gasped. Even Nanny Piggins was stunned into silence. She had never heard Mr Green say anything so brave before. After all, no-one knew better than he how hard Nanny Piggins could bite a shin.

  ‘When I got to work this morning I found everyone laughing at me,’ said Mr Green.

  ‘Well, it is Monday,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Be quiet!’ said Mr Green. ‘They were laughing at me because one of the secretaries had been reading a court circular and noticed your name. You have been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to 5000 hours community service, haven’t you?’

  ‘Technically, yes,’ conceded Nanny Piggins.

  ‘But that was months ago,’ said Derrick. ‘You only found out now?’

  ‘You can shut up too!’ yelled Mr Green.

  ‘Do not speak to your children that way,’ said Nanny Piggins, beginning to glower.

  ‘I will speak to my children any way I want,’ said Mr Green, smirking, ‘and I don’t have to listen to you a moment longer, because you’ve gone too far this time. It’s bad enough that you are a pig, but I cannot be expected to employ a pig with a criminal record.’

  ‘But all Nanny Piggins did was tightrope walk between two buildings so she could have a slice of chocolate cake,’ protested Michael.

  ‘I don’t care!’ yelled Mr Green. ‘She has a criminal record. That is grounds for termination of her employment. No employment tribunal in the world would expect me to let a criminal look after my children.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Nanny Piggins. She was finding it hard to follow because she did tend to tune out when Mr Green started using multisyllabic words.

  ‘I’m saying you are fired! You’re sacked! Your services are no longer required!’ yelled Mr Green gleefully. ‘I want you to get out of my house right now and never darken my doorstep again!’

  ‘But Father, you can’t fire Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha, tears streaming down her face. ‘If she goes you’ll have to look after us yourself.’

  ‘Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Mr Green. ‘Times have changed. I won’t have to spend time with you at all.’

  ‘Be careful, children,’ warned Nanny Piggins. ‘I think he’s been reading Lord of the Flies and he’s planning to abandon you on a desert island. And I mean desert as in “an empty wasteland”, and not dessert as in “pudding”, so don’t get excited.’

  ‘No, I’ve got something even better in mind,’ cackled Mr Green. ‘Thanks to modern technology I can get video cameras installed in every room in the house and watch you on my computer monitor at work without ever leaving my desk.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ said Derrick.

  ‘Crazy or brilliant?’ said Mr Green triumphantly.

  ‘Definitely crazy,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Well that’s the way it’s going to be,’ said Mr Green, before turning on Nanny Piggins, ‘so you can get out of this house right now!’

  Nanny Piggins did not move. She just glowered.

  ‘Fine,’ said Mr Green. ‘I’m happy to call the police and add trespassing to your criminal record.’

  Nanny Piggins growled.

  ‘Yes, I’ll be sure to report that too,’ said Mr Green. ‘Making threats.’

  ‘You’d better go,’ said Derrick to Nanny Piggins. ‘We don’t want you to get in trouble.’

  ‘I can’t leave you with this dreadful man,’ said Nanny Piggins, as she sized up Mr Green’s shins.

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ sobbed Samantha. ‘You’ll always be with us in our hearts.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I know I’m not terribly tall, but I can’t see how I could possibly fit inside your heart cavity. And even if I did I don’t think it would be a good place for me to stay. You’ve got lots of important valves and ventricles in there, and it’s best if they are left well alone.’

  ‘Samantha means that even if you’re gone, we’ll always love you,’ explained Michael.

  Now Nanny Piggins started to cry. ‘I love you too,’ she declared, giving them all an enormous group hug.

  Mr Green rolled his eyes. ‘This is more sickening than watching one of those dreadful daytime soap operas.’

  ‘Right, that’s it! I’m biting him!’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘It is one thing for you to fire me and ruin the lives of your own children, but how dare you insult the finest television programming our screens have to offer!’

  Fortunately the children were able to grab Nanny Piggins and, with considerable coaxing (and lots of cake), get her off the premises before she had a chance to bite their father.

  Mr Green did not help matters by going directly to Nanny Piggins’ room and throwing all her designer dresses and circus memorabilia out of the upstairs window and onto the nature strip.

  Nanny Piggins and the children soon gathered it all up and packed it away in her travelling trunk.

  ‘Where are you going to go?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I haven’t decided yet. But not far. Your father has seriously irritated me today and as a point of pride, I will not allow him to go unpunished.’

  ‘What about us?’ sniffed Michael. ‘Will we ever see you again?’

  Nanny Piggins looked shocked at this horrible thought.

  ‘Of course you will!’ she exclaimed. ‘I could never leave you three. Not after all the things we have been through together.’

  ‘I’ve called the police,’ yelled Mr Green. ‘They’ll be here in two minutes. You’d better leave if you don’t want to be arrested.’

  ‘Okay, so technically I am going to leave for a little bit,’ conceded Nanny Piggins, ‘but as Samantha rather graphically put it, I shall be like the blood sloshing about inside the atrium of your heart. I’ll always be with you in spirit.’

  With that Nanny Piggins picked up the handle of her trunk and started dragging it down the street.

  De
rrick, Samantha and Michael were all crying now. The atriums and ventricles of their hearts were feeling very heavy indeed as they trudged back into their house. It seemed a very sad and drab building without Nanny Piggins’ enormous personality to brighten it.

  Understandably the children did not sleep well that night. They had enormous faith in their nanny. But in the middle of the night, when you are tired and it’s dark, it’s hard to think rationally, so they were all thinking dreadful thoughts about never seeing their nanny again.

  The next morning when they went down to breakfast, their spirits sank even lower. There were no pancakes, cakes, éclairs or danishes to greet them. Their father had made himself a bowl of his horrible high-fibre muesli and not prepared anything for them. They were just about to go into the kitchen to see if they could find any cake Nanny Piggins may have left behind (she often hid cake under the floorboards in case of emergencies), but just as they started to rip up the linoleum, their father scraped back his chair.

  ‘Come along,’ he ordered. ‘I’m driving you to school.’

  ‘You are?’ asked Derrick.

  Their father had never driven them to school before. Not even the time Samantha had a broken leg and it rained, and the water had dissolved her plaster cast.

  ‘I’m not letting that pig try to make contact with you on the way to school,’ said Mr Green. ‘I’m one step ahead of her. She can’t beat me with her tricky games. I’m a lawyer, I’m smarter than her.’

  ‘I don’t think you are,’ said Samantha truthfully. The children knew it was terribly hard to pass law exams, but their father could be so dimwitted in so many ways, they always assumed that he had bribed his professors to pass him, or something equally devious.

  Fortunately for Samantha, her father was not listening to her (after all she was only the girl-child), he was too busy ushering them out onto the street.

  ‘But Father, I’m hungry,’ protested Michael.

  ‘And we don’t have our schoolbags,’ protested Derrick.

  ‘Stop whining,’ ordered Mr Green as he busily triple-locked the front door. (He’d had a locksmith around the previous evening, trying to pig-proof the house, so he did not notice that his children had stopped complaining.)