by R. A. Spratt
‘This is ridiculous,’ complained Vincello. ‘It’s impossible. No-one can climb that.’
‘Really?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Then watch this.’
Nanny Piggins grabbed the rope and climbed up it so quickly it was as though she had a jet pack installed under her dress. (She did not, she was just good at climbing rope.) Soon she was standing on the platform looking down at the soldiers.
‘And now,’ announced Nanny Piggins, ‘I am going to eat the cake.’
‘But you promised that to us,’ complained Thor.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I shall eat it very slowly. If you get up here quickly enough, I shall share it with you.’
The men launched into action.
‘We’ll never get up there individually,’ said Vincello. ‘Our hands are all too sore. And Crevasse’s head has swollen up from being stung by a bee. The only way we’ll get up there is if we work as a team and form a human pyramid.’
And that is what they did. They organised themselves into rows, climbed up on each other’s shoulders, building a higher and higher structure with their own bodies until Thunder (the smallest and lightest soldier) was able to grab hold of the platform and pull himself up by his fingertips, just in time to see Nanny Piggins pop the last slice of cake in her mouth.
‘Well done,’ she said with a muffled voice because her mouth was so full of cake. ‘Excellent teamwork. You’re improving.’
And so the training regimen continued. Every morning Nanny Piggins would force the soldiers out of bed with another brutal training exercise, fuelled by the promise of cake if they succeeded. She got them crawling underneath barbed wire by dragging cupcakes on strings in front of them; scaling cliff faces by throwing Madeira cake off first; and she got them running the obstacle course in record time by sticky-taping an exploding coffee cake to the top of the last obstacle.
But on Friday morning things did not go so smoothly. Nanny Piggins entered the barracks banging her saucepan at 4 am, but none of the men got out of bed. They did not even look up.
‘Go away,’ said Vincello.
‘Perhaps you’ve overtired them,’ worried Boris.
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘but we’ll soon fix that. Today I’m strapping a sticky date pudding to the underside of a remote control aeroplane to see if you can catch it. I thought we could go and do it in the forest, so you get lots of practice climbing trees, hiding behind branches, and leaping out at things that are flying past.’
‘We’re not interested,’ said Peregrine.
‘Really?’ said Nanny Piggins. She turned to the children and Boris. ‘I’m not losing my touch, am I? This sticky date pudding smells seriously good to me.’
Boris sniffed it. ‘It’s definitely seriously good. It’s taking all my willpower not to lick it.’
‘I saw you lick it on the walk over here,’ said Michael.
‘I know,’ said Boris, ‘which makes it even harder to resist licking it again.’
‘We don’t need your sticky date pudding or your cake or your desserts,’ said Thor. ‘We’ve got our own.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Have you learnt to be bakers? If so I must congratulate you. I will happily help you run away from the army so you can pursue a much more important career in baked goods.’
‘No, we just rang a bakery and got them to deliver all the types of cakes you’ve been tormenting us with,’ said Vincello, ‘then we sat up all night eating. We couldn’t eat another thing if we wanted to.’
‘But where did you get the cake from?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘A local place,’ said Thunder. ‘What was it called?’
‘I’ve got their business card,’ said Vincello. ‘It was Hans’ Bakery.’
Nanny Piggins gasped. ‘The treachery! How could Hans do that to me?’
‘To be fair,’ said Samantha, ‘Hans didn’t know that you were secretly training an elite military unit in the woods.’
‘No, but he could have guessed,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Remind me to have a stern word with him when I see him next.’
‘Can you go now?’ asked Crevasse. ‘We’d like to have a lie-in.’
‘But the war games are in five days and you’re not ready!’ protested Nanny Piggins.
‘Are you kidding?!’ complained Vincello. ‘In the last week you’ve had us climb ropes, hike mountains, master taekwondo, crawl through mud, swim through a swamp and learn all the words and harmonies to HMS Pinafore. We’re the most thoroughly trained soldiers in the country.’
‘Yes, you know all the military techniques and the Gilbert and Sullivan harmonies,’ agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘but you don’t have the killer instincts.’
‘The Drill Sergeant said you’re not actually allowed to kill anybody,’ warned Derrick.
‘No, I mean the absolute determination to succeed at any cost,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Training is good, but an untrained enemy who is truly determined will beat skilled soldiers every time.’
‘You’re talking rubbish,’ said Peregrine.
‘I’ll prove it to you,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘with one more training exercise.’
All the men groaned.
‘It will be a simple one,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You will just have to defend the sweet shop in town.’
‘From who?’ asked Thunder.
‘All the neighbourhood children,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and one or two sweet-loving adults.’
The men laughed.
‘Sounds like a piece of cake,’ said Bridge.
‘That expression has always baffled me,’ said Nanny Piggins, shaking her head. ‘There is nothing easy about a piece of cake. It certainly isn’t easy to make one properly. People are forever making terrible mistakes such as putting carrot in it or using low fat spread instead of butter.’
‘What happens if we do this?’ asked Vincello.
‘If you succeed,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and defend the sweet shop so not one sweet, lolly or chocolate is eaten between six and twelve on Saturday morning, I will go away and leave you all alone.’
‘Hurray!’ cheered the men.
‘But,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘if I win, you have to do fifty push-ups, compose an opera about me and how I’m always right, bake me an enormous chocolate cake and always do everything the Drill Sergeant says from now on.’
The men conferred, mumbling among themselves.
‘What equipment can we use to defend this sweet shop?’ asked Vincello.
‘Any military equipment you like,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Just no guns or explosives. The mothers wouldn’t like that. They are reluctant enough to let their children come over to our house for a play date as it is.’
The soldiers looked at each other and nodded. They were in agreement.
‘You’re on,’ said Vincello.
The morning of what in future years would be known as The Battle of the Dulsford Sweet Shop dawned. The soldiers had set up a large reinforced barricade on one side of the sweet shop, and to defend the other side (because it was a corner shop and therefore vulnerable on two fronts), they had parked an enormous tank.
‘Tsk, tsk, tsk,’ said Nanny Piggins.
She, Boris and the children were hiding in the bushes of a garden opposite, using binoculars to watch everything the soldiers did. ‘Those naughty boys. I told them no guns.’
‘I guess they think a tank is okay if they don’t actually fire it, they just use it as a blockade,’ said Derrick.
‘I’m impressed by their deviousness,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Perhaps they learnt more from me than I realised.’
‘Do you still think we can win?’ asked Samantha.
‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I have plenty of tricks up my sleeve.’ Nanny Piggins glanced at her watch. ‘In fact, it’s time to deploy our first weapon.’ Nanny Piggins took out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. ‘Cue the first assault.’
‘Are you going to use a cannon?’ asked M
ichael hopefully.
‘No, something much more dangerous,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Here she comes.’
The children peered through the bushes and saw the distinctive perfect blonde curls of seven-year-old Margaret Wallace as she rode her tricycle down the street. She looked so sweet and innocent in her perfectly ironed pink frilly dress and pigtails. Margaret stopped right by the barricade.
‘Go away, little girl,’ hissed Vincello from behind the barricade. ‘This is a military training exercise.’
Then Margaret Wallace did the unthinkable. She burst into tears. ‘I want my mummy!’ wailed Margaret, with startling volume for such a diminutive child.
‘Shhhh, shush,’ pleaded the soldiers. ‘We can’t help you, we’re busy.’
‘I want my mummmmmy!’ wailed Margaret, even louder.
Nanny and the children could hear the soldiers arguing among themselves. Eventually Vincello stuck his head out from behind the barricade, looked both ways to see if the coast was clear, then ran out to Margaret Wallace and gave her a hug.
Nanny Piggins nodded approvingly. ‘I knew Vincello was leadership material.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Vincello. ‘If you come in the shop we can call your mummy from there.’
As he picked Margaret up and turned back to the shop, Margaret’s face was turned to where Nanny Piggins was hiding. Margaret gave a big wink.
‘She’s in,’ said Nanny Piggins triumphantly.
They watched Vincello carry Margaret back to the shop, and as soon as he unlocked the front door, Nanny Piggins stood up, whipped a bugle out of her handbag and blasted a resounding signal.
Two hundred neighbourhood children simultaneously jumped out from their hiding spots all around the sweet shop. Unlike the unimaginative soldiers, the children had thought to attack on all six sides (left, right, front, back, the rooftops and below, through the cellar via the green grocer next door). They all ran, leapt and launched themselves at the sweet shop among the deafening sound of cheers, whoops and shrieks of delight.
‘That’s awesome,’ said Derrick, ‘but surely the soldiers will be able to hold them off. They’re just children.’
‘I have another secret weapon,’ said Nanny Piggins. She took out the walkie-talkie again. ‘Melanie, you’re up.’
In an instant Melanie, the fat lady from the circus, burst out of her hiding place – the telephone booth across the street. (It is amazing that she ever fit in there, but at the circus she had learnt a thing or two from the clowns who jam themselves into the tiny car.) When the children had last seen her, Melanie weighed an impressive 400 kilograms, but she had been working at her craft since then and now easily weighed 450 kilograms. As she ran at the barricade at full speed, wobbling and screaming ‘CHOCOLATE!’, she was an astonishing sight.
The local children had all been forewarned, so they all got out of the way. But the soldiers had never expected to be charged by a huge bellowing fat lady – they had no idea what to do. She ran right over the top of them, slammed into the front door of the shop and knocked it right off its hinges. The children streamed inside, grabbing sweets off the shelves and shoving them in their mouths.
‘Now for the piece of resistance,’ said Nanny Piggins as she got up and pulled back a bush to reveal her old cannon from the circus.
‘How long has that been there?’ marvelled Derrick.
‘I had it installed months ago,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I thought it important to have artillery on hand in case trouble broke out and the sweet shop needed to be defended.’
‘But you’re going to use it to attack the sweet shop,’ said Samantha.
‘I know,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s funny how these things work out so conveniently.’
Nanny Piggins climbed into her cannon, Boris lit the fuse and Nanny Piggins blasted out across the street yelling, ‘IIIIIIII TOOOOOOLLLLLD YOOOOOOOUUUU SOOOOOOO!’ as she flew over the heads of the bamboozled soldiers, smashed through the upstairs window of the shop and ran downstairs to join in all the fun.
‘Shall we join them?’ asked Boris, holding out his hand to Derrick, Samantha and Michael. ‘I’ll help you get past the soldiers. I’ll roar at them and pretend to be fierce if they give you any trouble.’
‘Forget that,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll roar at them and pretend to be fierce myself.’ He leapt out and ran towards the shop; Derrick soon followed and even Samantha, who was usually so trepidatious, had a rush of blood to the head (perhaps inspired by the heady scent of confectionery in the air) and took off towards the sweet shop with Boris jogging behind.
A few short minutes later, two hundred exhausted children sat outside on the footpath finishing off the last of the sweets. The soldiers nursed their wounds, which were mainly psychological, although there was one hard-boiled-lolly-to-the-eye injury, a candy cane up the nose to remove and a victim of a particularly nasty wedgie. (He had been standing in front of the fudge counter, so he only had himself to blame.)
Nanny Piggins sat on the gutter, proudly licking the last of the chocolate off her trotters with a very smug expression on her face.
The Colonel and his friend the Drill Sergeant pulled up in their jeep.
‘Drill Sergeant, how wonderful to see you!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve broken the will of your men for you, and given them a short sharp lesson in military tactics.’
‘All I’ve learnt is that children can be terrifying,’ grumbled Peregrine.
‘That’s because they were properly motivated and focused on their objective,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘They just wanted sweets,’ complained Thor.
‘Exactly,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If you can master that level of intensity and single purpose you will win any battle. Now that I have thoroughly thrashed you, I want you all to promise to do everything the Drill Sergeant says from now on.’
The men groaned.
‘I know he can be mean and grumpy, and he wants you to do all sorts of wearisome exercises,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but he only does it because he loves you.’
‘Steady on there,’ said the Drill Sergeant. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘You can hush up as well,’ ordered Nanny Piggins.
‘Yes ma’am,’ said the Drill Sergeant.
‘You might be so out of touch with your emotions that you don’t realise how much you love your men,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but I can see it as clear as the slightly bent nose on your face. So I want you all to be good soldiers and do as the Drill Sergeant says. Otherwise I’ll round up all these children, bring them down to the base and set them on you again.’
‘We’ll be good, we promise,’ said the soldiers quickly.
‘Remember you’re not just doing this for yourselves or for your country,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘you’re doing it for the right to wear a jaunty little brown beret that will look fabulous on all of you.’
And so the men went back to the base having learnt a valuable lesson in military tactics – never take on a pig or two hundred hungry children.
Nanny Piggins, Boris, Derrick, Samantha and Michael went home for breakfast — the 20 metre tall statue of Nanny Piggins. They had to eat it because Mirabella had turned up before Piers had a chance to finish it, and she had vandalised the statue by sticking a huge marzipan moustache under Nanny Piggins’ nose. Nanny Piggins thought it looked quite fetching, but she wanted to be mayor, not a bearded lady, plus she was peckish so she thought it best if they just ate the whole thing (she could always commission a chocolate statue to be carved later).
Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children had enjoyed a busy morning. They had been paying a visit to the local fire station so that Boris could get his monthly shower. (When you are a ten-foot-tall bear with a serious honey habit, your fur does tend to become extremely matted.) And Boris was too tall to fit in a regular shower cubicle so when he needed a wash, Nanny Piggins took her brother to the fire station to be blasted with their giant hoses. It was very beneficial for the firemen as well,
because Boris would run around screaming, ‘Oooh aah oooh, it tickles, ooh stop it, oh more, that’s the spot, again again again,’ which was an excellent training exercise for them because it was just like having to put out a spreading bush fire.
But this was not the exhausting part of their morning. The exhausting part came after Nanny Piggins noticed that the firemen were throwing out their old pole, the one they used to use to get from their dormitory upstairs to the fire truck downstairs in super quick time.
The occupational health and safety officer had made them get rid of it because it was too likely to cause sprained ankles, completely ignoring the fact that sliding down a pole in the middle of the night with a siren blaring is so much fun it is totally worth any ankle injury.
Seeing the long brass pole lying there in the driveway, Nanny Piggins immediately knew she had to take it home. She was not quite sure what she would use it for but she knew anything that long and fun to slide down had a lot of potential.
Normally Nanny Piggins would have gone home, sat at the kitchen table and eaten cake as she contemplated the possibilities. But on this occasion it only took thinking of cake for Nanny Piggins to have a brilliant idea.
‘I could run the pole from my bedroom down to the kitchen!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘That way, if I fancy a slice of cake in the middle of the night there’ll be no need to waste valuable time on opening the door or walking down the stairs in my hurry to get to it.’
So the next hour or two were spent chainsawing a hole in Nanny Piggins’ bedroom floor. Followed by chainsawing another hole in Mr Green’s bedroom floor when they realised he had the bedroom above the kitchen. (Nanny Piggins was not disappointed to have vandalised her own floor. She was sure there were advantages to having a hole in her room. For example, with the aid of a system of mirrors she would be able to watch The Young and the Irritable on the living room television without getting out of bed.)
All in all it was an action-packed morning. Especially for Boris whose job it was to stand in the kitchen, holding the pole in place while Nanny Piggins bolted the top to Mr Green’s ceiling. It is always physically tiring work to hold something still for prolonged periods, but it is particularly wearisome when your overexcited sister keeps dropping her hammer onto your head from two floors above. And it isn’t as though Boris could let go of the pole to rub his head because then the pole would scoot away and Nanny Piggins would hit the floor, or even worse, the sore spot on Boris’ head.