by R. A. Spratt
‘Good afternoon,’ said Mr Green. ‘My name is Lysander Green.’
The crowd sniggered. There is something about the name ‘Lysander’. Like someone burping unexpectedly, it makes even the most intelligent adult giggle.
‘I have been a leading tax lawyer in this town for many years.’ Mr Green looked over his glasses at the audience, expecting them to be impressed. They were not. As soon as he said the words ‘tax lawyer’ most people immediately started willing themselves to sleep.
‘And I am running for mayor because I want to see –’ continued Mr Green.
‘Stop right there!’ said Nanny Piggins, leaping to her trotters.
This caught the audience’s attention. Even the people who had fallen asleep in a doughnut-induced haze snapped awake at the prospect of a good yelling match.
‘First of all, before we allow you to continue I want to be clear – are you in fact you, or your own identical twin brother posing as Mr Green as part of some diabolical plot to subvert the natural order?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.
‘What are you doing here?’ responded Mr Green. ‘Why aren’t the children in school?’
‘Don’t change the subject!’ accused Nanny Piggins. ‘If you are an imposter it is a good job I kept the children out of school because the police will need to take a sample of their blood for DNA testing.’
‘Would you go home immediately!’ hissed Mr Green. ‘These are important political proceedings. No-one wants them to be interrupted by a pig!’
‘Yes we do!’ heckled a politics student in the back row, who was very happy that her essay on local government was going to be a lot more fun to write than she had imagined.
‘But if you are the real Mr Green, why on earth are you running for public office?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Because I have ideas to improve this city. I have lived here all my life and I want to serve the community,’ declared Mr Green.
The audience clapped. Usually people only ran for mayor because they were angry about parking meters or not being allowed to cut down the trees in their garden.
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You must have a secret despicable motive.’
‘How dare you!’ spluttered Mr Green.
‘If you just admitted you only wanted to be mayor because you’d figured out a way to siphon off council funds into an offshore bank account to fund your expensive Brylcreem habit,’ argued Nanny Piggins, ‘I might actually have respect for your initiative and give you my vote. After all, to have a despicable, morally bankrupt tax lawyer diverting public money would be marginally better than having to put up with this blathering windbag for another four years.’ Nanny Piggins pointed at Mayor Bloomsbridge.
This drew more applause and even cheers from the audience.
‘Hey!’ complained Mayor Bloomsbridge. He was not good at quick retorts.
‘I don’t expect a pig like you to understand,’ said Mr Green, ‘but I want to make this city better for my children and my children’s children.’
Nanny Piggins gasped. ‘Now that is just a big fat lie. If you care so much about your children, I challenge you to name any one of their favourite cakes.’
‘Um . . . er . . . this is ridiculous,’ blathered Mr Green.
‘You can’t, can you?’ denounced Nanny Piggins.
‘Chocolate cake. Their favourite is chocolate cake!’ yelled Mr Green desperately.
Nanny Piggins scowled at him for a moment. ‘That question was too easy. Everyone likes chocolate cake the best.’
At this point two burly security guards grabbed hold of Nanny Piggins and tried to drag her out. Fortunately she’d had the good sense to sew velcro into her designer ensemble, so she quickly whipped her dress off, revealing her hot-pink wrestling leotard underneath, then proceeded to give a 35-minute demonstration on mixed martial arts. Neither of the other two candidates got to speak, and before long the Police Sergeant arrived, lured Nanny Piggins into his squad car with a chocolate biscuit and drove her home.
‘I just don’t understand it,’ said Nanny Piggins as she shoved another profiterole in her mouth (she had made a Taj Mahal of profiteroles when she got home to overcome the ordeal). ‘Why on earth would your father run for mayor?’
‘Perhaps he does want to serve the community,’ suggested Samantha.
‘I doubt it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He’d have to have some sort of brain-altering stroke to have such a radical change of character. If that happened there would be other symptoms, like dribbling or slurred speech. And I haven’t noticed your father doing any more of that than usual.’
‘Perhaps he has a guilty conscience about all the wicked things he’s done,’ guessed Boris.
‘If he had a guilty conscience the first thing he would do,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘is stop being wicked. And I know he hasn’t done that because I saw him steal Mrs Simpson’s newspaper off her nature strip this morning.’
‘Perhaps he wants to be mayor so he can get loads more tax deductions,’ guessed Michael.
The others nodded as they pondered this. It was the first explanation that made any sense. Mr Green did love tax deductions.
‘He’d be able to claim all the dry-cleaning for the mayor’s robes,’ said Michael.
‘And he’d be able to stop getting his suit dry-cleaned because the mayoral robes would cover all the stains,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.
‘It sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to avoid paying his dry-cleaning bill,’ said Samantha.
‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘I agree. I suspect your father is up to something even more weaselish.’
‘Does one of your extra pig senses detect weaselishness?’ asked Derrick.
‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but my familiarity with your father does.’
DING-DONG.
The doorbell rang.
‘Who could that be?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Perhaps it’s the Police Sergeant,’ suggested Samantha. ‘He did drop his handcuffs in the kitchen when he was wrestling with you to stop you going back to the public meeting, then wrestling with you to let him have some of your shortbread biscuits.’
‘Sometimes I think he drops his police equipment here on purpose so he’s got an excuse to come back and get more biscuits,’ said Nanny Piggins as she got up to answer the door.
But when she swung the door open, it was not her dear friend from the police force. It was a scrawny lower-level bureaucrat from the local council.
‘Good afternoon, madam,’ said the scrawny bureaucrat. ‘I am here today to inform you of a development proposal for your local area. A new freeway is going to be built two kilometres west of your house, which the council is legally obliged to inform you may have a 14 per cent effect on the through traffic in your street.’
‘Sorry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘What did you say? I didn’t hear anything after you rudely labelled me “madam”.’
‘I apologise,’ said the lower-level bureaucrat. ‘Would you prefer Ms?’
‘I would not!’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘I prefer to be addressed by my full title, Doctor Nanny Piggins – World’s Greatest Flying Pig.’
‘Doctor?’ questioned Derrick. ‘You’re not a doctor.’
‘Yes I am,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I have an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina. It’s where the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane, so they appreciate my contribution to flight.’
The bureaucrat handed Nanny Piggins a leaflet. ‘Everything you need to know about the new motorway is in here,’ he said. ‘If you have any questions, you can call our helpline.’
‘If I do call your helpline will I be forced to listen to cheaply recorded classical music, punctuated every 45 seconds by a pre-recorded lie that my call is important to you and if I just hold the line the first available operator will be with me shortly?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Probably,’ admitted the scrawny bureaucrat.
‘Then you can answer my questions now,�
�� said Nanny Piggins. ‘When is this motorway going to be built?’
‘Next year,’ said the scrawny bureaucrat, ‘after the council holds discussions with the community they will decide on the exact route.’
Suddenly the scrawny bureaucrat had her full attention.
‘Are you telling me that the mayor will get to decide where this motorway goes?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘After a public consultation process, yes,’ said the scrawny bureaucrat.
‘No wonder your father is running for mayor!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘I knew he was up to something.’
Sadly, with his terrible lack of timing, Mr Green chose that exact moment to pull up in his Rolls-Royce.
‘You!’ accused Nanny Piggins as he got out of the car. ‘What are you up to? Why do you want to control the course of the new motorway? Are you going to divert it to cover over a hole in the woods where you bury all your old tax returns so the tax office can never discover what wickedness you’ve been up to?’
‘Yagh!’ yelped Mr Green. He did not know what to be more shocked by. The fact that his nanny had figured out his plans to divert a motorway or the fact that his nanny knew that he buried his incriminating tax returns in a hole in the woods.
‘What are you planning?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.
The bureaucrat took the opportunity to run away. (Sadly he ran immediately next door where Mrs McGill was even meaner to him.)
Mr Green looked about at the accusing glares of his children and decided the jig was up. While he had always been excellent at lying in general, he had never been good at lying when he had to make eye contact. He’d received a D in the subject when he’d had to study it at law school.
‘All right, all right,’ said Mr Green. ‘I decided to run for mayor after I heard about the new motorway. I thought I could really cash in.’
‘How?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘I could get the motorway to run right through our house,’ explained Mr Green. ‘The council would have to buy us out. Then I could buy a much cheaper one-bedroom flat in the city and pocket a fortune.’
‘But where would the children live?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘I don’t know, I was hoping a banana plantation in Chile,’ said Mr Green. ‘Aren’t they old enough to leave home yet?’
‘Are you old enough to leave home yet?’ demanded Nanny Piggins. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it is you who should stay at home and be monitored fulltime by a trained professional.’
‘Anyway, now you know,’ said Mr Green, ‘I was wondering if you could do a couple of things to help with my campaign?’
‘What?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘You know, print off some leaflets, put up some signs, write a few speeches, doorknock the neighbourhood and tell everyone to vote for me?’ asked Mr Green.
‘You mean you want Nanny Piggins to run your whole campaign for you?’ asked Samantha.
‘Well, yes,’ said Mr Green. ‘All that talking to people isn’t really my cup of tea. And I’ve got to get to work. So I’ll leave it to you to handle all that.’
‘You will do no such thing,’ declared Nanny Piggins.
‘What?’ spluttered Mr Green. ‘But that’s insubordination.’
‘Too right it is,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘Not only will I not help you, I intend to thwart you in every way.’
‘Oh, come on now,’ said Mr Green. ‘There’s no need for that.’
‘I shall not let you divert a motorway to destroy the children’s home. And I shall not let you become mayor and hold one iota of power over anybody in this town,’ denounced Nanny Piggins. ‘You are a small-minded, selfish, weaselly man, and while normally that would make you perfectly suited to be a politician, on this occasion I refuse to allow it.’
‘I don’t see how you can stop me,’ challenged Mr Green.
‘I shall stop you,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘by running for mayor myself and trouncing you in the local elections!’
There was a moment of complete silence, before Mr Green burst out laughing.
‘What are you laughing at?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.
‘As if anybody would ever vote for you!’ he laughed. ‘You’re a pig!’
The children winced.
‘We shall see,’ said Nanny Piggins in a menacingly quiet voice. ‘Come election day you will discover whether the people of Dulsford would rather be represented by a pig or a tax lawyer.’
‘They might vote for the incumbent mayor,’ said Derrick.
‘Or the shopkeeper who doesn’t like parking meters,’ said Michael.
‘Pish,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll soon deal with them.’
‘But the election is only two months away,’ blustered Mr Green. ‘You haven’t got time to launch a proper campaign now. You missed the first event today.’
‘Two months is more than enough time for me to convince the voters in this city that you are a weaselly good-for-nothing and I am Nanny Piggins, World’s Greatest Flying Pig!’ declared Nanny Piggins.
‘But you are Nanny Piggins, World’s Greatest Flying Pig,’ said Michael, slightly confused.
‘Exactly,’ agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘which is why it will be so easy to convince people.’
‘Please don’t,’ pleaded Mr Green. ‘I know I can beat the mayor because I have a copy of his tax return, which is very incriminating. But if you get involved it is only going to make everything more complicated and theatrical.’
‘Nothing you could say could convince me to change my mind,’ declared Nanny Piggins.
‘I’ll buy you a chocolate cake,’ said Mr Green.
Nanny Piggins visibly flinched.
‘Oooh,’ said Derrick, impressed by his father’s ingenuity, ‘perhaps Father would make a good politician after all.’
Nanny Piggins wrestled against her instinctive lust for cake for a few seconds before the greater good won out. ‘No amount of cake could make me change my mind,’ she said. ‘I don’t want your cake!’
The children gasped. They had never heard her utter such words before.
‘What about . . . a leaning tower of Pisa of cake,’ asked Mr Green, ‘like that profiterole tower you had this morning?’
Nanny Piggins shuddered. She really had to battle her hungry side now.
‘Never,’ she cried.
‘What about a leaning tower of Pisa of cake that wasn’t a scale model,’ said Mr Green. ‘One that was life sized – over 50 metres tall.’
Nanny Piggins grasped Derrick and Samantha for support. Her knees were buckling at the thought of so much delicious cake.
‘You’re lying. There’s no way you could get your hands on such a cake,’ Nanny Piggins whispered.
‘Yes I could,’ said Mr Green. ‘I do the tax return for the Slimbridge Cake Factory too. I know they over-claimed on their chocolate chip shipments. I can bend them to my will and their ovens could bake a cake of monumental proportions.’
Nanny Piggins closed her eyes and reached deep within herself for every ounce of her considerable courage. ‘No!’ she said, ‘No, no, no! I will not let you become mayor. And if I have to defy my natural instinct to be a reckless cake-eating maverick and instead assume the responsibility of high office, then that is what I shall do. Good day, sir.’
Nanny Piggins stepped back and slammed the front door closed in Mr Green’s face.
‘You realise you just shut Father out of his own house?’ asked Michael.
‘It seemed the appropriate thing to do,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘When you have worked in the circus for as long as I did, you get wonderful instincts for these dramatic gestures. Besides, he can come around and let himself in the back door if he wants to.’
‘So are you really going to run for mayor?’ asked Samantha.
‘It looks like it,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but don’t worry. Beating your father will be simple. I’ll just turn up at a few events looking glamorous and easily trounce him. It won’t affect my nannying duties at all.’
> The children were not so sure.
Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were exhausted. It was only 6 o’clock in the morning but they had been up all night making cake. And unlike all the other occasions when Nanny Piggins stayed up all night making cake, on this occasion she had not eaten any (at least, not very much) because she was not making them for herself, she was making her cakes for the voters. Her plan was to go door-to-door handing out cake. Traditionally, would-be politicians go door-to-door explaining their policies and making political promises. But Nanny Piggins thought voters were much more likely to be swayed by a chocolate mud cake. So they were all sitting around the kitchen table jamming the last of the silver balls into the inch-thick chocolate icing on the last of the two thousand cakes they had made during the course of the night.
‘There are thirty thousand people living in Dulsford,’ said Samantha. ‘Are you really intending to make another 28,000 cakes?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If we make two thousand a night that will only take us two weeks.’
‘But we’re all exhausted now, just from making these cakes,’ said Derrick, ‘and we haven’t even gone out and delivered them all yet. I don’t know if we can keep this up.’
‘Euaaaah euaah,’ said Michael. He was snoring because he was only seven years old and had fallen asleep sometime around three in the morning in the middle of spreading cream and jam across the centre of a cake. Luckily his face had fallen sideways as he collapsed across the table, so the cream-covered sponge was actually providing him with a very comfortable pillow.
‘Well, on average, about three per cent of people are diabetic, so it would be irresponsible to give them a slice of cake. I’ll give them tickets to the circus instead,’ continued Nanny Piggins. ‘Then we can also exclude people we don’t like, such as Nanny Anne and Headmaster Pimplestock. I refuse to give them anything. Then we only have to make another 27,088 cakes. So that isn’t so bad at all.’
The children did not say anything, partly because they were too tired and partly because there was no reasoning with Nanny Piggins when it came to maths, it was like talking to an Eskimo in Swahili. Luckily they were saved from forcing their sluggish minds to form reasoned arguments by a knock at the door.