by R. A. Spratt
Nanny Anne looked like she was going to explode, or pull her hair out, or pull the teacher’s hair out. But after some effort she managed to rein in her dignity.
Next was the rollcall for Samantha’s class, where each student had to present their egg to show that it had survived the week intact. Samantha was relieved to discover that she was actually in the majority to no longer have a perfect egg. Some of the children had cracks in their eggs, one had brought in her egg in a plastic bag because it was entirely smashed, and one boy brought in the egg-soaked dish cloth his mother had used to clean his egg off the floor when he had fallen on it while practising a professional wrestling move on his sister.
Samantha was, however, the only student to present her egg in the form of a slice of cake. After a long morning of wrangling children who were overexcited by the Egg Day celebrations, the teacher was delighted to sink her teeth into Samantha’s slice of sponge.
‘Delicious,’ she pronounced. ‘Technically I have to give you an F because your egg was smashed.’
Samantha’s heart sank.
‘But I’m going to give 100 extra credit points for making such a delicious cake,’ added the teacher.
‘But I didn’t make the cake,’ Samantha confessed.
‘Okay, I’ll give you 100 extra credit points for bringing me a slice of cake to eat,’ said the teacher, ‘which brings your mark up to an A+++.’
Samantha almost fainted on the floor. She’d never had an A+++ before. It was such an auspicious occasion. Luckily Nanny Piggins had another slice of cake on hand to help her celebrate.
After several hours of egg throwing, egg-and-spoon races and sucking eggs into bottles with fire, they finally came to the most anticipated part of the day, when Derrick’s class would throw their eggs off the third storey roof of the science block.
There is something so joyful and free-spirited about watching an egg plummet three storeys. It would almost be a disappointment to see it land safely. It makes such a satisfying noise and spatter when it does not. Fortunately very few of the devices invented by Derrick’s class did the job. Their various attempts at protecting their eggs with balloons, foam rubber or packing peanuts were all to no avail.
One boy who was an optimist (with poor work ethic) just threw his egg over the edge and called out to the crowd below to ‘Catch it!’. Most of the crowd had the good sense to take a step back and not get involved. Only Boris stepped forward to catch the egg. Unfortunately for the boy above, Boris did not really understand the spirit of the competition, so he caught the egg in his mouth and ate it. (He often ate raw eggs. They tasted disgusting but gave a lovely gloss to his fur.)
When Samson Wallace stepped forward with his egg-dropping contraption, the whole crowd was impressed. His egg was encased in a beautiful tetrahedral prism made entirely of drinking straws.
‘And how did you get the idea for your design?’ asked his teacher.
‘I was reading about the specifications for NASA’s re-entry capsule,’ said Samson Wallace.
‘That’s a great big fib,’ denounced Nanny Piggins, turning on Nanny Anne. ‘You made that device for him, didn’t you!’
Nanny Anne smiled. ‘It’s my job to be caring and supportive.’
‘Hmmph!’ said Nanny Piggins, not liking to use the retort she was really thinking of in front of so many children.
The crowd gave Samson a countdown. ‘Three, two, one!’ He dropped his device off the building. And it dropped slowly, like a beach balloon, through the air. Through the clear plastic straws everyone could see the egg carefully protected inside. Nanny Piggins’ heart sank. Nanny Anne really had made a beautiful device. But then, when the capsule hit the ground, the unexpected happened. The straws crumpled, and the egg hit the bitumen firmly.
Everyone gasped, but then fell silent. They had heard the egg hit the ground but it had not broken.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Boris.
‘She boiled the egg!’ accused Nanny Piggins.
‘I did no such thing!’ said Nanny Anne. ‘You can’t prove anything.’
‘Yes, I can!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Quick Boris, eat the egg and tell me if it’s hard-boiled or not.’
‘No, don’t!’ yelled Nanny Anne. ‘Keep that bear away from my egg.’
But no-one in the crowd was silly enough to stand between a 700 kilogram bear and a meal. Boris scoffed the egg, shell and all, in a millisecond.
‘Delicious,’ declared Boris, ‘although it would have been nicer with a bit of salt.’
‘Was the egg hard-boiled?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
‘Definitely,’ said Boris. ‘Eight minutes in boiling water at the very least.’
‘You can’t prove anything!’ said Nanny Anne. ‘The evidence is in the bear’s stomach.’
‘I can regurgitate it if you like,’ offered Boris.
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I am happy to have won the moral victory. And we don’t want to embarrass Samson. It’s not his fault his nanny is morally bankrupt.’
‘Look!’ called Samantha. ‘It’s Derrick’s turn.’
Derrick had pushed a large sheet-covered trolley over to the edge of the building.
‘What sort of device is he going to drop?’ Michael asked.
‘He isn’t going to drop anything,’ said Nanny Piggins, looking mysterious.
‘But those are the rules,’ snapped Nanny Anne. ‘The egg has to be dropped.’
‘No, the egg has to go over the edge of the building,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘There is nothing to say that the egg can’t first go up before it goes down.’
Derrick whipped back the sheet.
‘A cannon!’ exclaimed Samantha.
‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins proudly.
The crowd started to count, ‘Three, two, one . . .’
KABOOM!!!
The cannon fired in an ear-splitting blast and Derrick’s egg, encased in a huge bullet-shaped capsule, flew up into the sky.
‘But firing it up will only make it hit the ground harder,’ said Michael.
‘Pish,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Terminal velocity is terminal velocity. It doesn’t matter what height you drop it from. But the higher you go, the more time for the devices to deploy.’
‘Devices?’ asked Samantha.
At that moment Derrick’s projectile reached the peak of its parabola and with a POP!, a huge parachute billowed out. Stitched into the parachute were the words ‘I love Egg Day’.
The crowd cheered.
‘Blatant pandering,’ muttered Nanny Anne. ‘It’s just a parachute. Any child could think up that.’
Far in the distance above them the crowd heard another POP!
‘What was that?’ asked Michael.
‘Oh nothing,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Just the compressed helium canisters activating.’
Suddenly a huge jumping castle dropped down from the capsule containing the egg and started to rapidly expand as it filled with helium. Now, with a parachute above and a helium-filled jumping castle below, the egg started to drift downwards at a very slow pace indeed.
The children in the crowd laughed and cheered as they rushed one way, then another, trying to anticipate where the jumping castle, egg and parachute would land.
It finally touched down right in the middle of the school quadrangle.
‘Wait for it,’ called out Nanny Piggins. ‘There is one last device to activate.’
Just as the jumping castle brushed the bitumen, the egg capsule split open, and the actual egg dropped down onto the edge of a mixing bowl and split in two so that the contents fell into a pile of sugar, flour and butter. Then as the parachute flopped down, a cake mixer descended into the bowl, mixing up the perfect cake batter.
Everyone applauded and cheered.
‘Quick!’ called Nanny Piggins. ‘First one on the jumping castle gets to lick the spoon!’ All the children surged forward and had a wonderful time playing with the jumping castle, parachute and cake mi
x.
‘But his egg broke, he didn’t win!’ yelled Nanny Anne, though barely anyone was listening.
‘Why would you want to win,’ asked Nanny Piggins dismissively, ‘when you could lose so spectacularly?’
‘You built that whole device yourself,’ accused Nanny Anne. ‘You’re just as bad as me.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I let Derrick do the whole thing himself. It’s just that during his time with me he has learnt a lot about parachutes, projectiles and inflatable castles.’
Nanny Piggins then rushed forward to have a go on the jumping castle herself.
‘This has been a wonderful week,’ reflected Nanny Piggins as she walked home with the children later. ‘I had always loved eggs and their contribution to the art of cake, custard and pavlova. But now I know they provide such excellent entertainment as well, I shall look at chickens with a renewed sense of gratitude.’
It was nine o’clock in the morning and Nanny Piggins and the children were enjoying a lovely lie-in in bed. It was not as decadent as it sounds. They had only been in bed for half an hour because they’d had a busy night. They had been on safari.
Nanny Piggins would quite like to have gone to Africa, but the $3.12 they’d found in Mr Green’s pockets as he napped on the couch was not going to be enough for airfares. So they had to make do with the wildlife they could find in the local area. Which is why they decided to hold their safari at night. Nanny Piggins decided it would be much easier to pretend that possums and labradoodle puppies were exotic African animals if it was pitch black outside.
They had a wonderful time, of course. They encountered a man-eating lion (Mr Mahmood’s cat), a deadly piranha (Michael had fallen in Mrs Lau’s fish pond) and a rampaging wildebeest (Mrs McGill in her dressing-gown and hair curlers, chasing them out of her yard with a mop). So they were in a deep and exhausted sleep when they were cruelly awoken by the doorbell.
‘Agh! Quick hide!’ screamed Nanny Piggins, as she snapped awake. ‘They’re coming to take me away!’ She was a bit brain-addled because she had been in the middle of a dream about a team of Swiss chocolatiers trying to kidnap her and force her to become their chief chocolate taster.
The doorbell rang again.
‘Why must kidnappers be so persistent?’ moaned Nanny Piggins as she got out of bed and took the abseiling gear out of her underwear drawer, ready to rappel down the back of the house and run away.
‘Hang on,’ said Derrick. ‘We don’t know if it’s kidnappers.’ He was being the most reasonable because he’d had a nap during the night. (When they were playing hide-and-seek he had accidentally locked himself in Mrs Simpson’s outdoor toilet for two hours.)
‘It could be a delivery person,’ suggested Michael, ‘coming to give you a big box of chocolates, and if you don’t go down and sign for it you’ll lose them forever.’ (He’d been having a lovely dream about someone delivering a big box of chocolates.)
‘You’re right!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘I still think it is more likely to be a kidnapper. But if there is even the smallest chance it could be a deluded person inexplicably giving away large amounts of chocolate, then I must take the risk of going down to see.’
So they all went downstairs to the front door (still in their pyjamas) to see who it was. Nanny Piggins did pick up the fire poker on the way through, just in case. She almost never used the fire poker for poking the fire but found it enormously useful for poking a great many other things – cakes, jellies and annoying people who needed to be given a warning. (Sometimes when she was feeling generous, Nanny Piggins did warn a person before biting their shins, usually when she’d just put lipstick on and did not want to mess it up.)
Nanny Piggins swung open the front door and then stepped back into a defensive stance. ‘If you’ve brought me a big box of chocolates, just toss it on the ground and then run away. We don’t want to hurt you,’ she called. But no chocolates were forthcoming.
Nanny Piggins edged forward and peered out. She could not see anyone. No chocolate delivery person. And no kidnappers.
‘No-one’s there!’ exclaimed Samantha.
‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We definitely heard the doorbell. Unless it was some wicked reprobate who rang the bell, then ran away as some sort of cruel practical joke.’
‘You did that to half our neighbours at three o’clock this morning,’ Samantha reminded her.
‘Yes, but not as a trick,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I was just trying to find someone with some hot chocolate because it was getting a little nippy and I didn’t want you children to get a chill. I was just being a good nanny.’
‘Hello,’ interrupted a voice.
Nanny Piggins and the children recoiled.
‘What was that?’ asked Samantha.
‘It was a voice,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘But whose voice?’ asked Derrick. ‘There’s no-one there.’
‘Don’t be frightened,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s probably just a ghost. Michael, run next door and ask Mrs Simpson for some garlic.’
‘Are you going to use garlic to drive the ghost away?’ asked Samantha.
‘No, of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Just because he’s a ghost doesn’t mean we can be rude. I need garlic because I’ve heard that ghosts enjoy Italian food.’
‘I’m not a ghost,’ said the voice. ‘It’s me. Awk!’
‘Awk?’ said Derrick.
‘I know of only one person who punctuates their speech with the word ‘Awk’!’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘Percy? Is that you?’
Nanny Piggins leaned out the doorway and looked down onto the front step, and there was a small red parrot.
‘Awk! Allo, Sarah,’ said Percy. ‘Who’s a pretty girl then?’
‘Stop it, Percy,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You’ll make me blush.’
‘This is a friend of yours?’ asked Michael.
‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I know Percy from the circus. He’s the World’s Greatest Talking Parrot.’
‘I’m surprised we haven’t met him before,’ said Samantha.
‘Well, Percy has a huge advantage over everyone else who works at the circus,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘When the Ringmaster is being his most irritating and megalomaniacal, Percy can fly away.’
‘Awk!’ agreed Percy. ‘The Ringmaster tried substituting styrofoam for my birdseed last year so I flew away and spent six months being a pirate’s parrot.’
‘A real pirate?’ asked Derrick.
‘Oh, yes. It was a lot of fun,’ said Percy, ‘but don’t ever get mixed up with music piracy. I made that mistake once. Sitting on someone’s shoulder while they sit at a computer illegally downloading songs from the internet is not nearly as exciting as sitting on someone’s shoulder as they sail the high seas stealing treasure.’
‘Do people really still bury treasure on deserted islands?’ asked Michael.
‘Oh my word, yes,’ said Percy. ‘Sure there’s always a chance a rival pirate could steal it, a monkey could eat it or an earthquake could cause the whole island to sink into the sea. But it’s still much safer than putting it in a bank.’
‘Well, you must come in,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t think we have any birdseed. But I could whip up an orange and poppyseed cake.’
They all went inside and ate lots of cake, before Percy explained himself. Nanny Piggins rightly assumed that anyone who turned up on her doorstep looking for help would have a long story to tell, and it is always best to listen to a long story on a full stomach, otherwise your brain will not hear a word of it.
‘Has the Ringmaster been wicked to you again?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘You really should use your 50 year binding contract as lining for the bottom of your cage.’
‘No, the Ringmaster is no worse than usual,’ said Percy, ‘although I am going to break my contract.’
‘Good for you,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m tremendous friends with the local Police
Sergeant, so if he comes to arrest you I know just what to bake to bribe him into letting you fly away.’
‘That’s not my problem,’ said Percy. ‘My problem is that I’ve got a job at a radio station.’
‘How is that a problem?’ asked Derrick.
‘Regular employment can be very confronting to circus folk,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘Being expected to turn up at an office that has biscuits in the break room and indoor plumbing in the bathroom can make a circus performer anxious. It seems too good to be true.’
‘Awk, that’s not it,’ said Percy. ‘The problem is I’ve got the job, but they haven’t met me yet, so there are certain crucial things they don’t know about me.’
‘Like what?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘That you don’t care for salsa music, that san choi bow is your favourite Chinese dish, or that you have an ideological aversion to Lego?’
‘No, they don’t know that I’m a parrot,’ explained Percy.
‘How could they not know that?’ asked Michael. ‘No offence but it was kind of the first thing I noticed about you.’
‘They’ve only spoken to me on the telephone,’ explained Percy. ‘I used to ring up the talkback radio station every day and give my opinion about things. The key is to talk about how silly the person before you was. Anyway, they liked me so much, they’ve offered me a job.’
‘I don’t see what the problem is,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘How can they be upset about you being a parrot?’
‘I find that humans aren’t always broad-minded when they’re interacting with a parrot,’ said Percy. ‘Sure, they’re happy to offer you a cracker. But they very rarely give you one. And for some reason they insist on calling me Polly even when my name is actually Percy.’
Nanny Piggins shook her head sadly. ‘They really are a narrow-minded species.’
‘Hey!’ protested Michael.
‘Not you three, obviously,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But only because you’ve been raised properly by me and you know you should always show good manners towards every species except –’
‘Aardvarks,’ supplied the children.