Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice (10 page)

‘But a very, very beautiful one,’ Michael assured her.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If I’m a pig and I’m not wearing a wedding ring, how did I come to have three children?’ She turned to look at Derrick, Samantha and Michael.

‘We’re not your children,’ explained Samantha.

‘I’m a pig
and
a kidnapper!?’ exclaimed a horrified Nanny Piggins.

‘No, you’re our nanny,’ explained Michael.

Nanny Piggins slumped down in a chair. ‘I’m a domestic servant? Why, that’s even worse. At least if
I was a kidnapper I would be showing some career initiative.’

‘I think we should take Nanny Piggins to see a doctor,’ said Derrick. ‘Aside from having no memories of anything, she doesn’t seem to be thinking straight.’

After several X-rays, a cat scan (which sadly did not involve an actual cat) and lots of prodding Nanny Piggins’ head exactly where it hurt, the doctor took Boris and the children aside to tell them his conclusions.

‘Your nanny is very lucky,’ said the doctor. ‘She has an unusually thick skull.’

‘Yes, it’s because chocolate is a dairy food,’ explained Michael.

‘But what about Nanny Piggins’ amnesia?’ asked Derrick. ‘When will it go away?’

‘It’s hard to say. These things differ from case to case,’ said the doctor.

‘But I want my sister back,’ sobbed Boris, while shaking the doctor by his lapels.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the doctor. ‘The brain is a tricky thing.’

‘You’re a neurosurgeon and that’s the best you can come up with?’ scoffed Nanny Piggins. (She could hear every word he was saying because the curtain they were standing behind was not sound-proof.) ‘Where did you get your medical degree? The back of a cereal packet?’

‘I’ve got an idea!’ exclaimed Boris, letting go of the doctor and whipping out a watermelon. ‘How about I hit her over the head again?’

‘No!’ screamed everyone in the room.

‘You have to give her brain time to heal,’ explained the doctor. ‘She will be all right. The human body has wonderful self-healing abilities.’

‘She isn’t a human, she’s a pig,’ Michael whispered to the doctor.

‘Sorry, I keep forgetting,’ admitted the doctor. ‘She’s just so attractive.’

Boris and the children took Nanny Piggins home and let her re-acquaint herself with the house while they tried to figure out what to do.

‘Your father must be quite a man to have such a lovely house,’ said Nanny Piggins as she looked around. ‘Are he and I romantically involved?’

‘Gross!’ exclaimed all three children simultaneously.

‘I only ask because I do remember from reading romance novels that nannies are catnip to men,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘What are we going to do with her?’ asked Derrick.

‘We can’t go to school and leave her like this,’ said Samantha.

‘We’ll just have to take the day off,’ said Michael.

‘If Nanny Piggins wasn’t out of her mind, it’s what she would want,’ agreed Derrick.

Unfortunately no sooner had the children decided to play truant than Miss Britches, the truancy officer (and another one of Nanny Piggins’ arch-nemeses) turned up. It was almost as if she had listening devices planted in the house and knew that their nanny had fallen ill. And without their nanny’s superior shin-biting-, door-slamming-, and escape-route-finding skills, the children were defenceless. In fact, in her memory loss state Nanny Piggins invited the truancy officer in for a cup of tea and a chat, which the truancy officer took to be a ruse to slip her doctored cake, and so she grabbed the children and fled as fast as she could.

The children worried about their nanny all day. They found it even harder to concentrate on the
tedious lessons and teacher waffle than usual. After a long day of learning nothing, they could not wait to get back to the house to see if their nanny was all right.

But when they burst into the living room, they were met with a horrible sight. There, in the best armchair, sat Nanny Piggins’ arch nemesis – Nanny Anne. A nanny so perfectly perfect her hair looked like it had been ironed (as indeed it had, but Nanny Anne never admitted this because she did not want people to know that she did something as undignified as resting her head on an ironing board). They were shocked to see her because Nanny Piggins had banned Nanny Anne from entering their house ever since the time she had whipped an electric razor out of her handbag and tried to shave Michael’s head, claiming to have seen a nit. He actually did have nits but Nanny Piggins’ secret shampoo recipe (which primarily contained chocolate) remedied that in a way that was much kinder to the nits and Michael’s hairstyle.

But even more horrifyingly, sitting right next to Nanny Anne was a woman who looked exactly like Nanny Anne in all respects, except for the fact that she was two feet shorter.

‘Where’s Nanny Piggins?’ demanded Derrick.

Nanny Anne ignored them and turned to address her clone. ‘Now this is exactly what I was just talking
about,’ smiled Nanny Anne. ‘Your children need a lesson in manners. It isn’t nice to burst in and start yelling at a guest.’

‘You’re no guest,’ scoffed Samantha. ‘Where’s our nanny?’

‘Sitting right in front of you,’ said Nanny Anne with a smirk.

‘Good afternoon children, did you have a good day at school?’ asked the Nanny Anne clone.

The children recoiled in horror, for they now realised this clone was a pig. A pig who, if you ignored the bleached blonde hair, perky lavender twin-set and natty little pearl necklace, looked a lot like Nanny Piggins.

‘It’s one of Nanny Piggins’ evil twin sisters!’ exclaimed Michael.

‘Who are you? Anthea, Beatrice, Abigail, Gretel, Deidre, Jeanette, Ursula, Nadia, Sophia, Sue, Charlotte, Wendy or Katerina? And what are you doing here?’ demanded Derrick.

Nanny Anne laughed. ‘Don’t you recognise your own nanny when you see her?’

The children peered at the alien-looking pig.

‘It can’t be Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha. ‘She would rather die than wear pearls. She takes the expression “pearls before swine” very personally.’

‘And she’d never bleach her hair,’ added Derrick. ‘She likes referring to herself as a raven-haired beauty too much.’

‘It is Nanny Piggins,’ gasped Michael. ‘Look, you can see the scar on her leg where she climbed up on the kitchen bench and banged into the toaster oven while she was trying to eat the pancake that was stuck to the ceiling.’

‘What have you done to her?’ accused Samantha.

‘Nanny Anne has been kind enough to help me with my appearance,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘There’s so much I don’t remember. And she has been telling me all the things I need to know about manners, politeness and being nice.’

‘But you hate being nice,’ argued Derrick. ‘You prefer being fabulous or very cross or staggeringly beautiful.’

‘You’re never something as dull as
nice
,’ said Michael.

‘But Nanny Anne has been teaching me that as a nanny, it is my place to be dull,’ said Nanny Piggins.

Nanny Anne nodded and smiled (a smile that looked nice but which the children knew to be pure wickedness).

‘And Nanny Anne says that if I give her all my cake recipes she will let me join her etiquette club so I can socialise with the other nannies,’ continued Nanny Piggins.

‘But you hate etiquette,’ protested Samantha.

‘And you hate clubs,’ added Michael.

‘And you hate Nanny Anne,’ added Derrick. ‘Every time you turn your back she tries to wash behind your ears with a scouring pad.’

‘Older boy, you must not say that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Telling a guest that you hate them is bad etiquette.’ Nanny Piggins looked to Nanny Anne for confirmation.

Nanny Anne nodded. ‘And how are you going to punish him?’ prompted Nanny Anne.

‘I have to punish him?’ asked Nanny Piggins, rubbing her head.

‘Oh yes, punishment is character building,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘An outburst like that warrants, at the very least, being sent to bed without any supper.’

‘But Nanny Piggins, you don’t approve of withholding meals. You always say that the only people who should be sent to bed without any supper are murderers, to teach them a lesson, and people who don’t eat chocolate, so they will come to their senses,’ argued Samantha.

‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘Arguing in front of a guest is also bad etiquette.’

‘It is?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘I think that requires some time in the naughty corner.’

‘But Nanny Piggins usually encourages us to be naughty in all corners of the house,’ countered Samantha.

‘Tsk tsk tsk,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘Answering back, you can’t accept that, Nanny Piggins.’

‘I can’t?’ asked Nanny Piggins, her head starting to throb. ‘All right, girl-child, you don’t get any supper either.’

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Michael. ‘I’m getting Boris and telling him to bring the watermelon.’ Michael ran out of the room.

‘Threatening to hit your nanny over the head with a watermelon is punishable too,’ called out Nanny Anne.

‘So the little boy doesn’t eat either?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Anne.

‘I never realised that nannying was so like policing,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Oh it is a lot harder,’ said Nanny Anne, ‘because we aren’t supposed to use batons and handcuffs.’

‘What do I do now?’ asked Nanny Piggins, as she looked at Samantha fuming in the newly established naughty corner and Derrick glaring at her from the couch.

‘After a hard day nannying, I think we deserve a treat,’ smiled Nanny Anne. ‘I brought over a cake especially for you.’

‘Really? What type of cake is it?’ asked Nanny Piggins as Nanny Anne retrieved a plate of cake from her basket.

‘Chocolate cake,’ said Nanny Anne.

‘That sounds nice,’ said Nanny Piggins, perking up. She scooped up a polite little morsel of cake and put it in her mouth.

‘With zucchini grated into it for extra fibre,’ added Nanny Anne.

Nanny Piggins did not swallow. She held the cake in her mouth for a moment before her face began to turn a very disturbing shade of purple. Then Nanny Piggins’ whole body began to shudder.

‘Are you all right, Nanny Piggins?’ asked Samantha.

Nanny Piggins did not speak. She was too busy pulling the most pained face the children had ever seen. Eventually when she could not stand it
anymore, Nanny Piggins leapt to her feet and spat the glob of cake onto Mr Green’s expensive Persian carpet.

‘Phah, phah, phah!’ said Nanny Piggins as she spat many more times, trying to get the taste out of her mouth, ‘Are you trying to poison me?’ She turned on Nanny Anne. ‘Are you trying to murder me with vegetable-tainted cake?’

‘Nanny Piggins, get a grip of yourself,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘You are being rude.’

‘You are the one who is being rude!’ denounced Nanny Piggins. ‘Rude to the institution of cake by daring to bring a zucchini within a five-mile radius of one. How dare you! Samantha, fetch me the telephone. I am reporting Nanny Anne to the police for crimes against cake.’

‘I think Nanny Piggins is feeling better,’ said Derrick happily.

‘There’s no such thing as crimes against cake,’ protested Nanny Anne.

‘Then I shall run for parliament and have the laws introduced immediately,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘And I am keeping this cake –’ She snatched up the zucchini-tainted chocolate cake – ‘and using it against you as evidence. Get out of my house!’

‘What’s going on here?’ said Mr Green, walking into that room. ‘This is my house. No-one orders people out except me.’

‘You can get out too!’ yelled Nanny Piggins. ‘Taking advantage of a woman with a head injury! You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘He took advantage of you?’ asked Derrick, totally shocked.

‘Yes, after you left for school this morning,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘he got me to do his laundry!’

‘I thought that was within the job description of what a nanny –’ began Mr Green.

‘I’m going to start counting,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And when I get to three, anybody who is still in this house whom I regard to be very naughty, will get a good hard stamp on the foot. One . . .’

Nanny Anne and Mr Green both ran for it as fast as they could.

The next moment Boris burst in through the back door with a huge watermelon held above his head. ‘Where is she?’ asked Boris.

‘There’s no need to hit me over the head with a watermelon, Boris,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Aaagghh!’ shrieked Boris. ‘Nanny Anne has turned into a pig!’

‘It’s not Nanny Anne,’ explained Samantha.

‘Then it’s one of Nanny Piggins’ evil identical fourteenuplet sisters!’ squealed Boris.

‘No, it is I,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘Your sister, Nanny Piggins.’

‘Sarah?’ asked Boris, peering past the hideous hair and clothing. ‘Oh no, what happened to you?’

‘Nanny Anne gave me a makeover,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘You poor, poor pig,’ said Boris, crushing his sister to his chest in a big bear-hug. ‘What an evil woman to take advantage of you when you had come down with a little brain damage.’

‘Come along, there will be plenty of time for hugging later,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We’ve got work to do.’