Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice (19 page)

‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Everyone I know has written to you for advice,’ accused Miss Britches, ‘and you have advised every single one of them to either leave me or punish me.’

‘Yes, there does seem to be a bit of a recurring theme,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘What an unfortunate coincidence.’

‘It’s not a coincidence,’ shrieked Miss Britches. ‘You’re systematically ruining my life.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ said Michael. ‘The other way of looking at it is that you’ve systematically ruined your own life by being such a meanie.’

‘How dare you!’ yelled Miss Britches.

‘Ah Michael, we are not here to judge,’ chided Nanny Piggins. ‘We must be impartial. This poor woman may have been reduced to being a shrieking banshee because everyone else in the world has
been mean. Don’t worry, I’m sure we can solve your problems.’

‘You can?’ asked Miss Britches.

‘Isn’t that what you kidnapped me hoping I could do?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘No, I was going to force you to make a video admitting that you were a fraud – one that I could distribute to all the news networks,’ explained Miss Britches.

‘That’s quite a good idea,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You’ve got a talent for this. Perhaps we can do that later. But first, let’s deal with all these problems of yours.’

‘All right,’ conceded Miss Britches. ‘Where do we start? Are you going to help me kidnap back my boyfriend?’

‘No,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘I suspect the poor man has suffered enough already. No, I think we should start by eating a slice of cake. I think your blood sugar is a little low and it’s making you cranky.’

Upstairs in Miss Britches’ kitchen Nanny Piggins quickly whipped up a delicious fluffy chocolate cake, which served its purpose. It made Miss Britches stop yelling and threatening Nanny Piggins long enough for her to go out into the hall and make a phone call.

‘Who are you calling?’ asked Miss Britches between mouthfuls.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Have another slice of cake. I’m just going to arrange a lovely surprise for you.’

Thirty minutes later, as they were just eating their way through their fourth cake (Miss Britches was very hungry for cake having been cut off by Hans for over a week now), suddenly the kitchen window was smashed in by a flying canister. The canister hit the floor and smoke began to spew out of it.

‘Quick, children!’ urged Nanny Piggins. ‘Hold a slice of cake over your mouths and noses.’

The children had been well trained and immediately did as they were told, because they knew that chocolate cake was an excellent improvised gas mask. Unfortunately Miss Britches was not as trusting of Nanny Piggins’ advice and she almost immediately collapsed in a deep sleep onto the floor.

The next moment a short fat-bottomed figure, dressed in a bright red tail coat and wearing a gas mask, came swinging in through the window.

‘The Ringmaster!’ exclaimed the children from behind their cakey gas masks.

‘Sarah Piggins, darling!’ exclaimed the Ringmaster. ‘It’s so good to see you!’

He then kissed her on each cheek (which is not easy when you are wearing a gas mask) and she responded in the traditional way by stomping on each of his feet (which is quite easy when you are holding a slice of cake to your face).

‘Is this my latest recruit?’ asked the Ringmaster, pointing to Miss Britches slumped on the floor.

‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She’s a remarkable woman. She has quite a talent for the sheer volume with which she can yell, and she’s utterly unpleasant. So I’m sure there’s no end of ways you’ll be able to put her to work at the circus. Either in the freak show or as a barker, shouting out to the crowds.’

‘Or both!’ suggested the Ringmaster.

‘And given her aptitude for kidnapping,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘you might even consider putting her on an apprenticeship training program, because really, she’s so unpleasant she’s got all the skills to make an excellent Ringmaster some day.’

‘What a good idea!’ exclaimed the Ringmaster. ‘It would be good to have a protégé, just in case I accidentally end up having to spend a little time in jail again.’

And so the Ringmaster took Miss Britches away, and Nanny Piggins declared that was the last person she would ever give advice to. She quit her job as advice columnist immediately. The editor was devastated. ‘You can’t leave!’ he exclaimed. ‘Circulation has tripled since you started solving everyone’s problems.’

‘But that’s just it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I shouldn’t do that. It’s upsetting the balance of nature. Humans are meant to have problems. It’s how the world works. You can’t all be as remarkable as pigs.’

‘But who am I going to get to give advice now?’ asked the editor.

‘I’ve got just the woman for you,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Her name is Nanny Anne. You may have heard of her? She loves giving people advice. It is almost always wrong. And some of her ideas about hygiene are dangerously puritanical. But I think getting advice from a hygiene-obsessed lunatic will be enormously entertaining for your readers.’

And so everything returned to normal. The people of Dulsford went back to being just as troubled as they ever were. And Nanny Anne’s advice (usually to soak whatever person, thing or body part was causing the problem in disinfectant) helped not at all.

Then one morning Nanny Piggins got a letter from the Ringmaster . . .

Dear Sarah Piggins,

Thank you for sending me Mirabella [for that was Miss Britches’ name]. She has turned out to be such a treasure. She yells so loudly people in the next city know when the freak show is about to start, she frightens away anyone who thinks about complaining that the carnival games are rigged (which of course they all are), and I’ve put her in charge of the payroll. She intimidated the whole staff so much, not one person complained last week when I paid them in gravel instead of actual money. In short, she is a joy to have around. If I weren’t already married to my arch-nemesis, that sociopathic lunatic Madame Savage, I would seriously consider asking Mirabella to marry me.

Thank you again, your dear friend,

The Ringmaster

‘Are you sure you’ve made the right decision in quitting the column?’ asked Samantha. ‘You’re clearly incredibly talented at solving other people’s problems.’

‘True, I do have a gift for advice,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘But as you know I am not a modest pig, and I like to think I’m even better at being a
nanny.’

The children could not agree more, and to show their agreement they gave Nanny Piggins a big hug.

The children knew things were doomed to go horribly wrong as soon as they heard the probation officer allocate Nanny Piggins her next job. He was sending her to help out at the library. Nanny Piggins and libraries did not rub along well together. Now, do not get me wrong, Nanny Piggins loved books. She was an avid reader, especially at three o’clock in the morning when she should be asleep, or during parent teacher interviews when she was supposed to
be listening to long and boring lectures from Headmaster Pimplestock. But Nanny Piggins did not care for institutions in general and libraries, in particular, irked her.

You see, all institutions have rules. Lots and lots of rules. And this makes sense if you are running an important institution like a prison – to have rules like ‘No letting the murderers escape’ is quite wise. Or if you run a hospital, having rules like ‘No leaving your car keys inside a patient’s chest while performing open heart surgery’ is only reasonable. But you do not often get life-threatening situations in a library (unless you get a very nasty infection from a paper cut). So the sheer weight of rules in their local library drove Nanny Piggins to distraction.

Why must she whisper? Would the world really come to an end if she folded over the corner of a page to mark her place? And was it really necessary to fine her just for enjoying a book so much that she did not want to return it for another week? (Or, more realistically, because she had dropped it in a bowl of cake batter and did not want to return it for another week until she had a chance to lick it all off?)

So it was with these dark thoughts in mind that Nanny Piggins reported to work at her local library.
She was already well known to the head librarian. Indeed, Nanny Piggins’ picture was stapled to the wall above the lending desk, with the words ‘this pig is banned from the library’ written in bold print underneath.

The children came with Nanny Piggins. They were beginning to worry that their nanny had been caught up in the classic criminal trap of recidivism. Even though she had been doing community service for several months, the number of hours she had to complete had actually increased, not decreased, because she kept getting in trouble with whoever she was sent to help. (People who run community service programs are not always the broadest-minded individuals. They like rules and punishment too much for that.)

‘Now remember, Nanny Piggins, no biting,’ coached Samantha as they approached the library.

‘Yes, don’t bite any librarians or any cake,’ warned Michael. He knew that librarians were almost as incensed by finding cake crumbs in a first edition as they were about needing stitches in their shins.

‘Yes, yes,’ muttered Nanny Piggins. ‘You know I do try to be good. It’s not my fault if these people provoke me.’

‘Yes,
we
understand,’ said Derrick. ‘It’s just that
ordinary people, like on a jury, might not understand how “asking you not to sing light opera in the encyclopaedia section” could be seen as provocation for physical violence.’

‘It’s the way librarians ask you to not do things,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘with their reasonable voices and measured smiles. They could be complimenting me on my dress and I’d still want to pinch them.’

‘Yes, well at the very least, try not to mention that when you see the head librarian,’ said Samantha.

‘All right,’ grumbled Nanny Piggins. ‘I promise not to speak the truth or give unsolicited fashion tips, no matter how desperately she needs them.’

The automatic doors of the library hissed open (the noisiest thing in the library on most days). Nanny Piggins and the children entered. The head librarian was standing behind the lending desk, waiting for them. She glared at Nanny Piggins and Nanny Piggins glared back. They were like gun-fighters facing off at high noon.

‘Good morning, Nanny Piggins,’ said the head librarian in her quiet and reasonable voice.

Nanny Piggins fought the urge to lunge forward and bite her old nemesis (yet another one). ‘Good morning, head librarian,’ she said.

‘I understand you are here to help us today,’ said the librarian.

‘That is my court-appointed task, yes,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Well I’m sure we can find plenty to keep you busy,’ said the head librarian.

Nanny Piggins moved to enter into the library proper.

‘If,’ said the head librarian, stopping Nanny Piggins in her tracks, ‘you promise not to eat, bake or throw cake; bite, wrestle or berate any library visitors; and you do not, under any circumstances, fold over the corner of a page to mark your place.’

Nanny Piggins trembled as she struggled to control her emotions. She knew she should not argue but she could not help herself. ‘What if I discover a bomb in the library?’ asked Nanny Piggins, ‘and I find a book on bomb disarmament, read it and need to mark the page with the relevant information so I can diffuse the bomb?’

‘Then you should write down the page number on a notepad,’ said the librarian.

‘I don’t have a notepad,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Then memorise it,’ said the librarian.

‘I can’t,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Have you ever heard of someone having a photographic memory?
Well I have the opposite of a photographic memory when it comes to numbers. Anything that is even vaguely associated with mathematics makes my mind go blank.’

‘If there was a bomb in the library,
and
the only way for you to disarm it was by folding over the corner of a page in the Swahili to Tibetan dictionary,
and
it was the only book in the entire library that has never been borrowed or referred to, I would still want you to walk away, leaving the page unfolded and allowing the entire library to explode,’ said the librarian.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘It makes complete sense,’ said the librarian. ‘I know you, Nanny Piggins. I know the chances of the library being blown up by a bomb are very low to nil. Whereas the chances of you
thinking
the library is about to be blown up are probably quite high, which is why we have these rules. Rules that must be obeyed.’

The head librarian and Nanny Piggins glared at each other some more. Nanny Piggins would dearly have loved to give the librarian a good piece of her mind and a good bite on her shin, but she was beginning to feel the pressure of having 5372 hours of community service to work down.

‘All right, I agree to your terms,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘What do you want me to do to help? Bake a tart, or juggle some books, or get blasted out of something? I’m good at those things.’

‘No, thank you,’ said the librarian. ‘I think we’ll take baby steps at first. I’d like you to begin by dusting.’

‘Dusting what?’ asked Nanny Piggins suspiciously. ‘Dusting off my tap shoes and putting on a show?’

‘No, I’d like you to begin by dusting the books. All of them,’ said the head librarian as she reached under the desk and took out a feather duster.

Nanny Piggins was appalled. ‘Is that a dead bird tied to a stick?’ She had never seen a duster before because she did not believe in doing housework. Nanny Piggins found if you left dirt and dust long enough it would get swept away eventually when you let the bath overflow, or when your brother the ballet-dancing bear fell through the ceiling in the middle of a torrential rainstorm.

‘It’s a feather duster,’ whispered Samantha. ‘People use it to brush the dust off things.’

Nanny Piggins peered at the device. ‘So the bird is dead, isn’t it?’

‘It’s just the feathers. There’s no bird,’ explained Derrick.

‘There had to be a bird at some stage,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If I agree to this cleaning, am I going to find some poor naked bird down the back of the reference section?’

‘Just get on with it,’ said the head librarian, actually beginning to show some mild signs of anger. ‘I haven’t got time for this, I’ve got fines to post.’

And so Nanny Piggins kissed the children goodbye, assured them she would get into no trouble (which she honestly believed was true) and set to work serving the community. And to give her credit she dusted admirably for an entire forty-three minutes before she snapped.

She was just brushing off the cobwebs on the eighteenth-century poetry section when children’s story time began. Nanny Piggins did not mean to eavesdrop but children’s story time is the only occasion when anyone is allowed to speak in a normal voice in the library, so the sound of the junior librarian reading to the children carried over to where she was working.

Nanny Piggins did not realise what the noise was at first because the drone was so deadpan and uninteresting. Even though the librarian was reading
about wicked pirates, Nanny Piggins found the sound of her voice was so boring it lulled her to sleep. It was only when she slumped forward and her snout banged on a bookend that Nanny Piggins realised what was going on.

‘Oh my goodness!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘The junior librarian is trying to bore the preschool children to death! It’s up to me to rescue them!’

Nanny Piggins leapt into action. She vaulted over the picture book rack, snatched the book from the junior librarian and woke up the sleeping children. Then she gave the youngsters a valuable life lesson, by demonstrating exactly how a real pirate would tie up a librarian and throw her overboard. (Nanny Piggins did not really throw the junior librarian into the sea, just over a low set of shelves into the political history section.)

She then proceeded to read the story the way it should be read, acting out all the good bits, paying special attention to the sword fights, the plundering and the swinging from the sails. (There were no sails in the library but Nanny Piggins found that the curtains would do.) After she’d finished reading out the good bits she started to make up even better bits involving crocodiles, an evil helicopter and chipmunks with super-strength.

The head librarian was hard at work in her office issuing fines when she first realised something was dreadfully wrong. She could hear screams of delight coming from the children’s corner.
Captain Pugwash
had never made children scream before (except for that one child who was afraid of beards).

When the head librarian marched out into the library it was to find Nanny Piggins hiding behind a bookcase yelling, ‘You’ll never catch me, ye scurvy dogs!’ as the children pelted her with paperbacks.

‘What is going on here?’ demanded the head librarian.

‘I’m helping them appreciate literature,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘The children are throwing books,’ accused the head librarian.

‘Don’t worry, they’re only paperbacks,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They won’t hurt me.’

‘I’m more worried about the books,’ said the head librarian.

‘But you wanted them dusted,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and throwing them about like this is much better than brushing them with a dead bird.’

‘I am calling your probation officer!’ announced the head librarian.

And so that is how Nanny Piggins came to find herself sitting once more outside Judge Birchmore’s courtroom, waiting to face the magistrate.

‘This is so unfair,’ moaned Nanny Piggins. ‘If I end up going to jail because I dented a few paperbacks, I’ll be really cross.’

‘Maybe Judge Birchmore will be in a good mood today,’ said Samantha optimistically.

The others turned and looked at her.

‘Do you really think that’s possible?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

Samantha burst into tears. ‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘I think she’s going to be nasty and cross and send you to jail for a very long time.’

‘There, there,’ said Nanny Piggins, giving Samantha a hug. ‘It will be all right. I’m good friends with so many of the inmates down at the maximum security prison, they’ll help me dig my escape tunnel and I’ll be home before you know it.’

‘But that’s the men’s maximum security prison,’ said Derrick. ‘You won’t be going there. You’ll be going to the women’s prison.’

‘They have gender-segregated prisons?’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘That must make it very difficult doing seating arrangements for their dinner parties.’

‘I don’t think they allow dinner parties in prison,’ said Derrick.

Nanny Piggins shuddered. ‘I know they are meant to be horrible places because that is the punishment, but no dinner parties? That’s just cruel. And what do they do at the women’s prison when the women need someone to reach something off a very high shelf, or open a difficult jam jar?’