by R. A. Spratt
‘At the 12 o’clock bulletin we must report some actual news,’ argued the news director.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve already called a few friends to drop in and help us out.’
At ten minutes to twelve the entire cast of The Young and the Irritable turned up.
‘Darlings!’ cried Nanny Piggins with delight. ‘It’s so good to see you.’ (Nanny Piggins had once been the head writer of The Young and the Irritable. For more information, see Chapter 8 of Nanny Piggins and the Daring Rescue.)
‘Where’s the cake?’ asked the actor who played Vincent. ‘You told us there would be cake if we arrived before noon.’
‘And there will be,’ promised Nanny Piggins. ‘I just need you to do a little bit of acting for me first.’
What followed was spectacular, because now Nanny Piggins was reading the news and crossing to live dramatisations acted out by her soap-opera-star friends.
The actor who played Vincent played the head of the Water Quality Authority, who was responsible for a thousand tonnes of ping pong balls falling into the ocean. He gave a passionate speech accepting all the blame, but explaining that he made the terrible mistake because he was in love with the woman who checked his gas meter.
Then the woman who checked his gas meter burst into the studio (she was being played by the actress who played Bethany) and declared that she wasn’t really a menial water board employee, she was actually the head of police on a sting operation to entrap him. But she had found no evidence because he was blameless, and instead had fallen deeply in love with him.
The news bulletin ended with a ten-minute session of them kissing passionately, in between looking off into the middle distance and talking about how lucky they were to have found each other.
For the one o’clock bulletin, Nanny Piggins got Buff Senior and Buff Junior to play political rivals who gave up on reasoned debate and settled their differences by stripping off their shirts and combatting in professional wrestling.
And in the two o’clock bulletin, the actress who played Sabrina pretended to be the prime minister of Turkey, and sang a heartbreaking ballad about how devastated she was to learn that the prime minister of Turkey did not get to eat roast turkey every day for lunch.
Between all the cake and the heady atmosphere of drama and requited love, even the crew started to really enjoy themselves. Broadcasting the news had never been so much fun. It was such a relief to have a day with no talk of car accidents, war or politics. Everything was going swimmingly until the real boss, the chairman of the board of directors, burst into the studio.
‘What on earth is going on here?!’ demanded the chairman of the board.
‘Um . . .’ said the news director. On hearing the question put so plainly, he suddenly realised it would sound foolish to say they had let a pig take over the news and make everything up.
Fortunately Nanny Piggins came to his aid. ‘Do not blame your staff. If they showed any weakness of character it is purely because of their low blood sugar levels because you, as their employer, failed to provide adequate doughnuts in the break room. Therefore, I have hijacked this newsroom in the name of happiness, to prevent them from broadcasting any more misery-inducing stories about reality or what mean people are doing to each other in far distant countries.’
‘Well, whatever you’re doing,’ yelled the chairman, ‘keep it up! The ratings have gone through the roof. They’ve doubled with each bulletin. There were 67 people watching the 9 o’clock bulletin.’
‘That would be my mum and her friends at the nursing home,’ said the floor manager. ‘They like to watch so they can laugh at me when I come to visit.’
‘Now there are tens of thousands of people tuning in,’ continued the chairman. ‘With ratings like that we’ll actually be able to attract advertisers and give everyone pay rises.’
‘These workers don’t want pay rises,’ protested Nanny Piggins.
‘Yes we do,’ protested the workers.
‘Okay, yes they do,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘But more importantly they want doughnuts, and chocolate biscuits and real coffee, or better yet hot chocolate in the break room.’
‘And perhaps a window?’ suggested the floor manager. ‘I ended up in hospital last year from vitamin D deficiency.’
And so the Dulsford Community Television Station became the first television news service to entirely fictionalise the news (although tabloid newspapers had been doing a similar thing for years) and specialise solely in happy news, with the guarantee of at least one declaration of love and wedding per bulletin. It was a huge success. News stations around the world syndicated their program or copied it outright. And in show business, there is no higher form of flattery than plagiarism and violating someone’s copyright.
‘Will you stay and oversee the transformation of our news service?’ asked the chairman.
‘I’d love to,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but I’m afraid I have an even more vitally important job, looking after these three children.’
‘Plus you’re running for mayor,’ Michael reminded her.
‘Oh yes, that too,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I think of that more as a silly hobby than an actual job.’
‘You’d better not mention that in any of your campaign speeches,’ suggested Derrick.
Derrick was sitting quietly in his science class trying to pretend he knew what kinetic energy was when Nanny Piggins burst into the room (demonstrating kinetic, potential and sound energy in one dramatic move). She scanned the room and spotted him.
‘Derrick, you must come with me immediately. It is a matter of the utmost desperate urgency,’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins as she strode over and started to help Derrick gather up his things. (She then threw them out the window because where they were going he would not be needing school books.)
‘Hang about, what’s going on?’ asked the teacher. ‘You can’t just pull Derrick out of class without written permission.’
‘But there has been a dreadful tragedy,’ sobbed Nanny Piggins.
‘Father?’ asked Derrick.
‘No, no,’ said Nanny Piggins, struggling to hold back tears. ‘Something far worse.’
The teacher was a man, and a scientist, so he was doubly uncomfortable with displays of emotion. The last thing he wanted was for a lady pig and a young boy to burst into tears in his classroom. His cat had died the previous week and if he saw other people crying it would set him off too. And if his class saw him cry he just knew they would never hand their homework assignments in on time again. So he ushered Derrick and Nanny Piggins out of the classroom as fast as he could, promising to send a memorial wreath as soon as possible.
Nanny Piggins did not stop with Derrick. Next they went to Samantha’s classroom and dragged her away from the clutches of a well-meaning student teacher. Then Michael was fetched simply by pulling him out a window when his teacher’s back was turned.
‘What’s going on, Nanny Piggins?’ asked Derrick. ‘What’s happened that is so bad?’
‘Is there a warrant out for your arrest?’ asked Samantha.
‘Is the Ringmaster trying to kidnap you?’ asked Michael.
‘Did you accidentally break into the Slimbridge Cake Factory and eat all their finger buns again?’ asked Derrick.
‘Oh no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘This is a real tragedy – something that affects us all. It will devastate the community if we don’t do something right now.’
‘Tell us all about it from the beginning,’ suggested Derrick.
‘I was at the library this morning,’ began Nanny Piggins.
‘But what about the restraining order?’ interrupted Michael.
‘That says I mustn’t go in the library. It doesn’t say I can’t stand outside the door and yell things,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And just this morning I thought of some really good rude names to yell at the head librarian so I had to go down to try them out.’
‘Did they work?’ asked Michael
.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘The head librarian wouldn’t come out of her office. But the junior librarian jotted them all down and promised to send them to the head librarian in a memo.’
‘And how did that lead to tragedy?’ asked Samantha.
‘While I was yelling through the front door of the library, I happened to notice their window display, where the council posts all the plans for their new development projects.’
‘Like when they’re building new shopping centres and stuff?’ asked Michael.
‘If only they were building something as benevolent as a shopping centre,’ lamented Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m afraid our local council is doing something a thousand times more wicked.’
The children struggled to imagine what Nanny Piggins could think was so wicked.
‘Not a . . .’ Samantha hesitated to use the next word because she knew it had a strong effect on her nanny, ‘a bacon factory?’ she asked.
Nanny Piggins flinched in horror. ‘Good lardy cakes, nothing that bad. What an atrocious thought. No, but definitely something terrible.’
‘What is it?’ asked Derrick.
‘You know the vacant lot on Hazelnut Street?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Yes,’ said the children.
‘Well the council is going to turn it . . .’ said Nanny Piggins, pausing for emphasis, ‘into a park!’
‘A car park?’ asked Michael.
‘No, a park,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘You mean a public park?’ asked Derrick.
‘With swings and play equipment?’ asked Samantha.
‘Yes, exactly,’ said Nanny Piggins.
The children all looked at each other. They were not sure how to assimilate this information. Derrick spoke first. ‘But Nanny Piggins, surely a new park is a good thing?’
‘But what about our vacant lot?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I looked at those plans closely. They are not making any promises to build another one somewhere else. If they go ahead with this “park” plan there will be no vacant lots in easy walking distance of our house.’
‘The vacant lot on Hazelnut Street is covered in builders’ rubbish and weeds,’ said Michael.
‘And burnt-out cars,’ said Samantha.
‘And there’s an open stormwater drain running through the middle,’ said Derrick. ‘At night-time the whole place is crawling with rats.’
‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘which is what makes it such a wonderful place to explore with children. There is so much scope for imagination and role play. On a swing you just swing. But in a burnt-out car you can pretend to be a runaway pig escaping from the law.’
‘Why do you need to pretend?’ muttered Michael. ‘That’s what you do most days.’
‘In the stormwater drain you can pretend to be convicts chained together and on the run from bloodhounds,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘But there is a danger of flash flooding,’ said Derrick.
‘And big weedy bushes and builders’ waste are perfect for pretending to be soldiers attacking the enemy’s cake factory to cut off their supply,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘But if there is a park, there will be flowers and lawn,’ said Samantha. ‘It will look very nice.’
‘Hah, nice,’ scoffed Nanny Piggins. ‘Anywhere can be nice. But being a thrilling playground for the imagination is not so easily achieved.’
‘So why did you pull us out of school?’ asked Michael. ‘Not that I’m complaining. I wasn’t really enjoying learning about the exploration of river tributaries.’
‘So we can put a stop to it, of course,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘How?’ asked Samantha, desperately hoping her nanny’s answer would not be something that involved chaining herself, or others, to a bulldozer.
‘According to council regulations, a development plan can be stopped immediately,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘All you need is ten thousand signatures on a petition.’
‘Ten thousand!’ exclaimed Derrick.
‘I know, it’s not many, is it?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Just five thousand each if we get Boris, split into two groups and get started right now, I’m sure we’ll have a couple of thousand by dinnertime.’
Sadly Nanny Piggins’ epic optimism was somewhat deflated when they met again around the kitchen table just seven short hours later.
‘How many signatures did you get?’ asked Michael as his nanny slumped down in her chair and started comfort eating the raw cake ingredients she found in the cupboard.
‘None,’ said Nanny Piggins sullenly.
‘Not even the people she threatened to bite,’ said Samantha.
‘Not even the people I did bite,’ added Nanny Piggins.
‘Well, we did better than that,’ said Boris proudly.
‘You did?’ asked Nanny Piggins, immediately perking up.
‘Yes,’ said Boris. ‘We got one signature.’
‘Really?’ said Samantha. Seven hours of door-knocking had made her realise that the general population was in fact very pro-parks and anti-rat infested vacant lots. ‘Who was the one signature?’
‘Mrs McGill next door,’ said Derrick.
‘She hit Boris over the head with her handbag first,’ said Michael.
‘She didn’t hurt me physically,’ said Boris with a sniff, ‘but she did hurt my feelings.’
‘But then when she found out we wanted her to sign a petition about the park she cheered up,’ said Derrick. ‘She signed it right away.’
‘She says the sound of children enjoying themselves gives her a migraine,’ explained Michael.
‘But she wouldn’t be able to hear children in a park six blocks away,’ said Samantha.
‘Yes, but she says she would know they were there enjoying themselves and to her mind that would be just as bad,’ explained Michael.
‘I don’t like to abandon anything,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘particularly babies. I know it worked for Moses’ mother when she put him in a basket and set him afloat on the Nile but, as a general rule, leaving infants with no discernible nautical skills in charge of a vessel is a bad idea. That instance aside, in this case, I think we are going to have to abandon the petition.’
‘Does that mean we have to go to school tomorrow?’ asked Michael.
‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Tomorrow you must help me prepare.’
‘You’re not going to go and buy a long chain, are you?’ asked Samantha, envisioning the bulldozer scenario becoming ever more likely.
‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I need to prepare some really good arguments. There is going to be a public meeting next week when members of the general public can tell the council what we think of their wicked plans to vandalise our beloved play area.’
‘You’ve started coming up with arguments already, haven’t you?’ guessed Michael.
‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Fortunately I have a long list of colourful insults because I can re-use the ones I prepared for the head librarian. It would be a shame to let such evocative imagery go to waste.’
It was a full three days until the meeting, so Nanny Piggins had a lot of time to read the speeches of Winston Churchill regarding his determination to win World War II, and listen to the speeches of various professional wrestlers regarding who they were going to tear apart with their bare hands. So when she arrived at the meeting, she was fully prepared to eviscerate her local council members with her cutting wit or leap on them in an atomic pile driver, whichever felt more appropriate in the moment.
What Nanny Piggins did not realise was that the councillors knew a thing or two about not listening to their local constituents. These public meetings were held every month and the councillor in charge of the subcommittee on public consultation (the least important councillor in council) would always give a long and boring talk about fiduciary responsibility, or water rates, or something equally boring so that anyone planning to complain would be put to sleep or be totally exhausted with the dreariness o
f it all and therefore keep their own comments short.
Finally, after a two-and-a-half-hour report on the installation of a drip system in the sewage treatment plant’s garden, the councillor threw the meeting open to the floor when he asked for ‘any other business’.
Surprisingly, Nanny Piggins did not immediately leap to her trotters. It took the children a couple of seconds to wake her up by waving a coffee cake in front of her snout. So the first person to the microphone was Nanny Piggins’ arch nemesis, Nanny Anne.
‘I’d like to complain about the plan to build a park on the Hazelnut Street vacant lot,’ said Nanny Anne.
Nanny Piggins rubbed her ears. ‘Am I dreaming,’ she asked, ‘or has the polarity of the entire planet reversed? Because I can’t think of any other earthly reason why Nanny Anne would be championing my argument.’
‘Shh, just listen,’ said Derrick.
‘What’s the basis for your objection?’ asked the councillor.
‘I don’t want there to be a park because parks are too dirty,’ said Nanny Anne.
‘Phew,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘For a moment there I thought she was going to say something reasonable.’
‘But there are going to be beautiful flowerbeds and lawns,’ said the councillor.
‘The lawns are the worst bit,’ protested Nanny Anne. ‘If there are lawns, children will sit on them or, even worse, run across them and fall over. Have you ever tried to get a grass stain out of a pair of white espadrilles?’
‘I can’t say that I have,’ conceded the councillor.
‘And flowers will only lead to bees and where there are bees there is honey,’ continued Nanny Anne.
‘Mmm honey,’ said Boris.
‘. . . and honey is packed full of sugar, which causes childhood obesity,’ said Nanny Anne, ‘and I don’t see how you can stand by and encourage childhood obesity.’
‘But the children will run around the park and burn off energy,’ said the councillor.
‘Not if they’ve been raised properly, they won’t,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘Running is undignified. Thieves run. And people who are late.’