by R. A. Spratt
‘Here’s another one,’ said Samantha. ‘Dear Aunt Alice, I’ve got a white chocolate stain on my white blouse. I can’t see it, but I know it is there. How do I get it out? Yours Hygienically, Nanny Anastasia.’
‘You don’t suppose that’s from Nanny Anne, do you?’ wondered Michael.
‘Who else would want to get a chocolate stain out of their clothes?’ reasoned Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m forever trying to put chocolate stains in, just so I have a lovely snack later. Take this down, Derrick: ‘Dear Nanny Anne, for I know that is your real name. If you want to get out a white chocolate stain but can’t see it, simply put a milk chocolate stain right next to it, then suck on the whole area. When the milk chocolate is gone, so is the white chocolate.’
‘There’s one here from the Retired Army Colonel who lives around the corner,’ said Michael. ‘He writes, Dear Aunt Alice, I’m desperately in love with the world’s most glamorous flying pig. How can I convince her to marry me?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘This is an awkward situation. Derrick, type this up: Dear Retired Army Colonel, Some things, like the aurora borealis or volcanic eruptions, are best admired from afar. Why not try dating someone your own age and species?’
And so Nanny Piggins ploughed her way through the mail bag solving problems. When they finished the last letter they were quite sad.
‘Well that was fun,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I always knew humans had terrible problems – you can tell from the ridiculous way they dress – but I never realised they were so clueless as to how to solve them.’
‘You’ve written pages and pages of material,’ said Derrick. ‘Now you just have to decide which ones you want published in the newspaper.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Obviously I want all of them published.’
‘But that’s not the way it works,’ said Samantha. ‘The advice column only ever prints five or six letters. You’ve answered nearly a hundred letters here today. If you printed them all it would take up the whole newspaper.’
‘And so it should,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘This stuff is much more interesting than that “world news” or “stock market analysis”.’
‘I don’t think the editor will see it that way,’ said Michael.
Nanny Piggins rolled her eyes. ‘Am I going to have to go down to his office and berate him again? This is really getting wearisome. Come on, if we get the two o’clock bus we’ll have an hour or two to spend in the lolly shop first.’
After much yelling and some foot stomping, Nanny Piggins and the editor reached a compromise. While he would not give over his whole newspaper to Nanny Piggins’ advice column, he did agree to increase the space he devoted to it tenfold, giving her a double-page spread. (Because after Michael showed him some of her advice, he could not deny that it was much more exciting than anything else in the paper, including the world news, celebrity marriages and stories about baked bean factories exploding from gas leaks.)
The new advice column was an immediate success. Most advice columnists use moderation and carefully toned advice so as not to distress or upset the recipient. Nanny Piggins had no such qualms. She had no money so she did not care if she was sued. And she was a former flying pig, so death threats did not frighten her (when you’ve been blasted by a cannon, not much scares you). As a result, her column was a gripping read.
The following week a mailman drove up with a truck and unloaded three tonnes of mail all over their front yard.
‘How wonderful,’ said Nanny Piggins delightedly. ‘I told you the humans in this town were deeply troubled. I’m glad they’ve found time to write to me about it.’
So once again Nanny Piggins set to work solving problems. By the end of the third week on the job, you could see the effect of her work about town. People were smiling more. Single men had found single women and were holding hands in the street. The headmaster had not left his office in a fortnight and the school was running much more smoothly. And Hans’ bakery was doing a roaring trade, since Nanny Piggins was telling so many people they could solve their problems if they just ate more cake. The Lord Mayor himself had called to thank Nanny Piggins. He had been trying to lose weight for twenty years, and now he’d lost ten kilos, all because his toenail clippings had triggered such a dramatic change in his wife’s cooking.
Everything was going very well until one day when Nanny Piggins and the children stepped out the front door and suddenly they were attacked, scooped up in a giant sack, and dumped in the back of a truck.
‘What’s going on?’ shrieked Samantha.
‘Don’t panic,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We’re just being kidnapped.’
‘Kidnapped?!’ exclaimed Derrick.
‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s probably the Ringmaster, wanting me to come down to the circus and solve all his problems. Stuffing people in sacks is just his way of saying hello.’
‘But what if we’re not being kidnapped by one of your ex-work colleagues,’ panicked Samantha, ‘and we’re being kidnapped by a sociopathic lunatic.’
‘I shouldn’t think it will make much difference,’ said Nanny Piggins.
Twenty minutes later Nanny Piggins and the children found themselves tied to chairs in a dark basement and confronted by their kidnapper. When she stepped into a shaft of light, they were shocked to see who it was.
‘It’s Miss Britches!’ exclaimed Derrick.
‘The Truancy Officer!’ exclaimed Samantha.
‘Ah yes, another one of my arch-nemeses,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve got quite a few these days.’
‘Silence!’ yelled Miss Britches.
‘Oooh, here we go, it’s starting,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If you’re going to start berating us, could we please have a slice of cake first. It’s just that I’m feeling a bit peckish.’
‘There will be no cake!’ declared Miss Britches.
‘She’s going to torture us!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s not very nice. What did I do? Turn up at a function wearing the same dress as you and make you pale in comparison? Or did I make you a cake so delicious you have never been able to enjoy another slice of cake since? I’ve ruined so many lives that way.’
‘You ruined my life with your terrible advice!’ declared Miss Britches.
‘Hang about,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That can’t be right. I only give brilliant advice, perfectly crafted to improve the life of the troubled recipient every time.’
‘Oh yes, you help them,’ said Miss Britches, ‘but have you ever thought how that advice affects the people around them?’
Nanny Piggins paused and considered this for a moment. ‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t,’ she admitted. ‘I just assumed that making people’s lives better would benefit the rest of society.’
‘Well, it hasn’t benefitted me!’ cried Miss Britches.
‘Okay,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘First of all, how about we start using our inside voices? Remember, I’m not a human, I’m a pig, so my hearing is twenty times better than yours, which means there is absolutely no reason to yell – unless I’m eating cake and you need to make yourself heard above my moans of delight.’
‘All right,’ agreed Miss Britches petulantly.
‘And second,’ continued Nanny Piggins, ‘why don’t you explain exactly what I’ve done. All this intrigue is very thrilling. But it is also very time consuming – time that could be much better spent eating cake.’
Miss Britches took a deep breath and started speaking at a normal volume. ‘My boyfriend wrote to you,’ she began to explain.
‘He’s not the one I told to take up trainspotting, is he?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Because I can understand why you would find that upsetting.’
‘No. You told my boyfriend to dump me!’ said Miss Britches.
‘Oh,’ said Nanny Piggins. �
��Why did I do that?’
‘You said that I was clearly a narcissistic maniac with anger management problems,’ accused Miss Britches.
‘You got that bit right,’ muttered Michael.
‘Hey!’ yelled Miss Britches.
‘All right, calm down,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But surely you’re better off without some weak-willed boyfriend who takes advice from a newspaper column. He’s clearly a twit. If you like I can write him another letter and get him to take you back.’
‘But that’s not all,’ said Miss Britches. ‘My boss at social services wrote to you too.’
‘I don’t like the way this is going,’ said Derrick.
‘What did I tell him?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘To fire me,’ yelled Miss Britches. ‘You said my terrible temper was scaring my co-workers.’
‘Is that all?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Well I’m sure we can find you another job.’
‘It is not all!’ cried Miss Britches. ‘You also told the man at my local bakery to cut me off, saying that such an angry customer did not deserve cake; you told my dry-cleaner to join the army; you told my landlord to evict me and my next door neighbour to climb over the fence and steal my clothes pegs.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Everyone I know has written to you for advice,’ accused Miss Britches, ‘and you have advised every single one of them to either leave me or punish me.’
‘Yes, there does seem to be a bit of a recurring theme,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘What an unfortunate coincidence.’
‘It’s not a coincidence,’ shrieked Miss Britches. ‘You’re systematically ruining my life.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ said Michael. ‘The other way of looking at it is that you’ve systematically ruined your own life by being such a meanie.’
‘How dare you!’ yelled Miss Britches.
‘Ah Michael, we are not here to judge,’ chided Nanny Piggins. ‘We must be impartial. This poor woman may have been reduced to being a shrieking banshee because everyone else in the world has been mean. Don’t worry, I’m sure we can solve your problems.’
‘You can?’ asked Miss Britches.
‘Isn’t that what you kidnapped me hoping I could do?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘No, I was going to force you to make a video admitting that you were a fraud – one that I could distribute to all the news networks,’ explained Miss Britches.
‘That’s quite a good idea,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You’ve got a talent for this. Perhaps we can do that later. But first, let’s deal with all these problems of yours.’
‘All right,’ conceded Miss Britches. ‘Where do we start? Are you going to help me kidnap back my boyfriend?’
‘No,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘I suspect the poor man has suffered enough already. No, I think we should start by eating a slice of cake. I think your blood sugar is a little low and it’s making you cranky.’
Upstairs in Miss Britches’ kitchen Nanny Piggins quickly whipped up a delicious fluffy chocolate cake, which served its purpose. It made Miss Britches stop yelling and threatening Nanny Piggins long enough for her to go out into the hall and make a phone call.
‘Who are you calling?’ asked Miss Britches between mouthfuls.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Have another slice of cake. I’m just going to arrange a lovely surprise for you.’
Thirty minutes later, as they were just eating their way through their fourth cake (Miss Britches was very hungry for cake having been cut off by Hans for over a week now), suddenly the kitchen window was smashed in by a flying canister. The canister hit the floor and smoke began to spew out of it.
‘Quick, children!’ urged Nanny Piggins. ‘Hold a slice of cake over your mouths and noses.’
The children had been well trained and immediately did as they were told, because they knew that chocolate cake was an excellent improvised gas mask. Unfortunately Miss Britches was not as trusting of Nanny Piggins’ advice and she almost immediately collapsed in a deep sleep onto the floor.
The next moment a short fat-bottomed figure, dressed in a bright red tail coat and wearing a gas mask, came swinging in through the window.
‘The Ringmaster!’ exclaimed the children from behind their cakey gas masks.
‘Sarah Piggins, darling!’ exclaimed the Ringmaster. ‘It’s so good to see you!’
He then kissed her on each cheek (which is not easy when you are wearing a gas mask) and she responded in the traditional way by stomping on each of his feet (which is quite easy when you are holding a slice of cake to your face).
‘Is this my latest recruit?’ asked the Ringmaster, pointing to Miss Britches slumped on the floor.
‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She’s a remarkable woman. She has quite a talent for the sheer volume with which she can yell, and she’s utterly unpleasant. So I’m sure there’s no end of ways you’ll be able to put her to work at the circus. Either in the freak show or as a barker, shouting out to the crowds.’
‘Or both!’ suggested the Ringmaster.
‘And given her aptitude for kidnapping,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘you might even consider putting her on an apprenticeship training program, because really, she’s so unpleasant she’s got all the skills to make an excellent Ringmaster some day.’
‘What a good idea!’ exclaimed the Ringmaster. ‘It would be good to have a protégé, just in case I accidentally end up having to spend a little time in jail again.’
And so the Ringmaster took Miss Britches away, and Nanny Piggins declared that was the last person she would ever give advice to. She quit her job as advice columnist immediately. The editor was devastated. ‘You can’t leave!’ he exclaimed. ‘Circulation has tripled since you started solving everyone’s problems.’
‘But that’s just it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I shouldn’t do that. It’s upsetting the balance of nature. Humans are meant to have problems. It’s how the world works. You can’t all be as remarkable as pigs.’
‘But who am I going to get to give advice now?’ asked the editor.
‘I’ve got just the woman for you,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Her name is Nanny Anne. You may have heard of her? She loves giving people advice. It is almost always wrong. And some of her ideas about hygiene are dangerously puritanical. But I think getting advice from a hygiene-obsessed lunatic will be enormously entertaining for your readers.’
And so everything returned to normal. The people of Dulsford went back to being just as troubled as they ever were. And Nanny Anne’s advice (usually to soak whatever person, thing or body part was causing the problem in disinfectant) helped not at all.
Then one morning Nanny Piggins got a letter from the Ringmaster . . .
Dear Sarah Piggins,
Thank you for sending me Mirabella [for that was Miss Britches’ name]. She has turned out to be such a treasure. She yells so loudly people in the next city know when the freak show is about to start, she frightens away anyone who thinks about complaining that the carnival games are rigged (which of course they all are), and I’ve put her in charge of the payroll. She intimidated the whole staff so much, not one person complained last week when I paid them in gravel instead of actual money. In short, she is a joy to have around. If I weren’t already married to my arch-nemesis, that sociopathic lunatic Madame Savage, I would seriously consider asking Mirabella to marry me.
Thank you again, your dear friend,
The Ringmaster
‘Are you sure you’ve made the right decision in quitting the column?’ asked Samantha. ‘You’re clearly incredibly talented at solving other people’s problems.’
‘True, I do have a gift for advice,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘But as you know I am not a modest pig, and I like to think I’m even better at bei
ng a nanny.’
The children could not agree more, and to show their agreement they gave Nanny Piggins a big hug.
The children knew things were doomed to go horribly wrong as soon as they heard the probation officer allocate Nanny Piggins her next job. He was sending her to help out at the library. Nanny Piggins and libraries did not rub along well together. Now, do not get me wrong, Nanny Piggins loved books. She was an avid reader, especially at three o’clock in the morning when she should be asleep, or during parent teacher interviews when she was supposed to be listening to long and boring lectures from Headmaster Pimplestock. But Nanny Piggins did not care for institutions in general and libraries, in particular, irked her.
You see, all institutions have rules. Lots and lots of rules. And this makes sense if you are running an important institution like a prison – to have rules like ‘No letting the murderers escape’ is quite wise. Or if you run a hospital, having rules like ‘No leaving your car keys inside a patient’s chest while performing open heart surgery’ is only reasonable. But you do not often get life-threatening situations in a library (unless you get a very nasty infection from a paper cut). So the sheer weight of rules in their local library drove Nanny Piggins to distraction.
Why must she whisper? Would the world really come to an end if she folded over the corner of a page to mark her place? And was it really necessary to fine her just for enjoying a book so much that she did not want to return it for another week? (Or, more realistically, because she had dropped it in a bowl of cake batter and did not want to return it for another week until she had a chance to lick it all off?)
So it was with these dark thoughts in mind that Nanny Piggins reported to work at her local library. She was already well known to the head librarian. Indeed, Nanny Piggins’ picture was stapled to the wall above the lending desk, with the words ‘this pig is banned from the library’ written in bold print underneath.