Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice (20 page)

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Derrick.

‘Perhaps they have a bear there,’ guessed Michael. ‘Boris always does those things for you.’

‘True,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t know how we ever managed without him. It is so handy having a ten-foot-tall bear around the house. Speaking of which, where is Boris?’

But the children never got to answer.

‘The people versus Piggins,’ called the bailiff.

‘Hello Henry,’ replied Nanny Piggins. ‘We’re over here.’

‘Hello Nanny Piggins,’ called Henry the bailiff. He and Nanny Piggins had become firm friends during her last visit. Being bitten hard on the shins and then receiving an apology sticky date pudding tends to bond people together. ‘Are you going to be a good girl today?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I never leave
the house intending to get in a wrestling match with a man in uniform, and yet it so frequently seems to happen.’

‘Well, if it comes to that, just try not to hurt me too much,’ said the bailiff. ‘It’s my anniversary tonight and my wife wants me to take her dancing.’

‘All right,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I won’t aim for your legs. I’ll aim for your head. Your wife will never notice a mild concussion.’

‘You’re probably right,’ agreed the bailiff as he led Nanny Piggins into the courtroom.

‘Isn’t the law firm sending someone to defend you?’ asked Michael, scanning the crowd for Montgomery St John.

‘Isabella Dunkhurst is still in Botswana,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Every time she tries to leave, they give her more diamonds to stay. And Montgomery St John got fired.’

‘What for?’ asked Samantha.

‘Well, apparently he never did have any chapstick in his car,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘and he’s been using that excuse for years. But the receptionist at the firm assured me they’d send a lawyer.’

‘They have,’ said a surly voice behind them.

Nanny Piggins and the children spun around to see none other than Mr Green.

‘Father!’ exclaimed the children.

‘I’m doomed!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

‘They’ve sent me to defend you because I am most familiar with your case,’ said Mr Green gloomily.

‘But are you even qualified to be a trial lawyer?’ asked Derrick.

‘It’s just a magistrate’s hearing,’ said Mr Green. ‘Anyone can do that. I did go to law school, you know. They did give me some training.’

‘In the law?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Or did they just focus on training you to be the world’s most boring misery guts?’

‘They trained me to be a tax lawyer,’ said Mr Green proudly.

‘Same thing,’ muttered Nanny Piggins.

‘All rise for the honourable Justice Birchmore,’ called Henry.

‘If she does put me away,’ Nanny Piggins whispered furtively to the children, ‘and your father tries to feed you healthy food, remember, I have hidden chocolate behind the wallpaper in my room.’

‘Which part of the walls?’ asked Michael.

‘All the walls,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘There is an inch-thick layer of chocolate underneath all four of them.’

‘How on earth did you do that?’ asked Samantha.

‘You can import chocolate wall-panelling from Switzerland,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s how they get through all those long cold winters in the Alps and why Swiss people are always yodelling so happily.’

Judge Birchmore made her entrance, striding to her chair.

‘Be seated,’ called Henry.

‘Ah, Piggins, we meet again,’ said Judge Birchmore gleefully. ‘It seems you have been very busy in the interim. Busy flouting authority and breaking the terms of your probation, by the look of it.’

‘She’s also helped a lot of people!’ yelled out Michael.

Judge Birchmore peered over her reading glasses at him. ‘Don’t think the fact that you are an unusually short child will stop me from sending you to a juvenile detention centre for contempt of court,’ she warned, before turning on Nanny Piggins. ‘Now, I have read the report from your probation officer.’

‘I’m sorry,’ mouthed the probation officer from the far side of the courtroom. (He was terribly upset. Much like the Retired Army Colonel he had fallen deeply in love with Nanny Piggins and her chocolate chip biscuits. He did not want to lose either one from his life.)

‘He says he has sent you out to 17 different organisations, and you haven’t lasted more than three days at any of them,’ said Judge Birchmore.

‘It’s not my fault if it only takes three days to either solve all their problems or point out all their deficiencies,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘And that you have bitten three community service providers, slapped another two and poked one repeatedly in the bottom with a nail on a stick,’ accused Judge Birchmore.

‘Ah yes, the litter collection supervisor. In my defence, it was a very large bottom,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and really, if your bottom is that big and you spend your whole day dealing with petty criminals with pointy sticks, you shouldn’t be surprised if they are unable to resist the urge to poke it to see if it will burst.’

‘Does your lawyer have anything to say in your defence?’ asked Judge Birchmore.

‘Send her to prison and throw away the key!’ yelled Mr Green.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Judge Birchmore. Even she, who had done so much to break the will and crack the spirits of the most seasoned defence attorneys, had never before seen defence counsel capitulate so quickly.

‘Your Honour can’t be seen to go soft on crime,’ urged Mr Green. ‘You can’t let pigs like this run wild.’

Nanny Piggins turned on Mr Green. ‘You’re fired! You’re even worse than Montgomery St John. At least he had the decency to pretend he had chapped lips and leave.’

‘You can fire me,’ said Mr Green picking up his briefcase, ‘but I’m not leaving. I want to be here to see you get sent away for a very long time.’

‘I like the cut of your jib, Mr Green,’ said Judge Birchmore. ‘I wish there were more lawyers like you. It would certainly make the trials much shorter.’

‘See you in twenty years, Piggins,’ said Mr Green, and he climbed one row back so he could watch the proceedings from the gallery.

‘It now gives me great pleasure to announce my sentence,’ said Judge Birchmore. ‘You, Nanny Piggins, are a blight on society –’

‘All she did was tightrope walk across to a slice of cake!’ protested Derrick.

‘And dent a few paperbacks!’ added Samantha.

‘Surely that’s not a crime!’ pleaded Michael.

‘It’s a crime if I say it’s a crime!’ screamed Judge Birchmore. ‘And I say that you three are in contempt
of court. Bailiff, once I give my judgement I want you to throw them all in the holding cells.’

‘But your Honour, they’re children! You can’t –’ protested Henry.

‘Right, that’s it!’ screamed Judge Birchmore. ‘When this trial is over I want you to throw yourself in a cell too.’

‘Yes, your Honour,’ said Henry, deciding a nice rest in the cells was just what he needed after an afternoon in court with Judge Birchmore. Plus it would also get him out of having to take his wife dancing.

‘Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins,’ continued Judge Birchmore, raising her gavel ready to pound the desk when she pronounced her sentence. ‘For your blatant rule-breaking and crimes against decency, I sentence you to –’

‘Stoooooopppp!’ yelled Boris as he burst in through the back of the courtroom.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ demanded Judge Birchmore. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t lock you in the cells for contempt of court too.’

‘Because if you do,’ said Boris, ‘I shall have no alternative but to take this matter to a higher court, where your original judgement shall be overturned and you shall be humiliated in front of the entire legal profession.’

This made Judge Birchmore pause.

‘I have evidence,’ continued Boris, ‘that proves you should never have presided over Nanny Piggins’ original hearing. You were unfit to do so.’

‘How dare you!’ hissed Judge Birchmore. ‘What evidence?’

‘Your former fiancé!’ declared Boris, stepping aside to reveal the Retired Army Colonel who lived around the corner.

Everyone in the courtroom gasped – partly from surprise and partly from being really impressed, because the colonel was wearing his full dress uniform. (Being a military man, he knew how to look dashing.)

‘You had a fiancé?’ marvelled Henry the bailiff, emboldened by the fact that he was already headed for the cells and there was not much more that Judge Birchmore could do to him.

‘Hello Letitia,’ said the Retired Army Colonel, looking a little embarrassed as he waved to Judge Birchmore.

‘Cyril,’ murmured Judge Birchmore, a blush coming to her cheeks.

‘His name is Cyril?’ marvelled Nanny Piggins. ‘I always thought his first name was “Retired”.’

‘Do you deny, Judge Birchmore,’ said Boris,
striding to the front of the courtroom, ‘that this man is, in fact, the love of your life?’

Everyone gasped again. The court stenographer actually fainted. She had worked in Judge Birchmore’s courtroom for eight years and had no reason to believe that the judge was capable of any human feeling, let alone love.

‘I’ve never seen him before in my life,’ spluttered Judge Birchmore.

‘Need I remind you, your Honour, that the punishment for perjury is imprisonment!’ declared Boris.

‘All right, all right,’ said Judge Birchmore. ‘We were
fond
of one another.’

‘You were in love,’ accused Boris.

‘I held him in regard,’ quibbled Judge Birchmore.

‘You were in love. L-O-V-E love! And you cannot deny it, because I have proof!’ declared Boris, holding aloft several sheets of pink stationery. ‘The poems you wrote to the Colonel in which you describe, graphically and in rhyming couplets, your true feelings for him. Shall I read from them?’

‘No!’ screamed Judge Birchmore.

‘Yes!’ called Nanny Piggins. ‘Please do.’ She did not normally care for poetry. But in this instance she could not help but be curious.

Boris began reading: ‘Oh how I love you, Cyril, like a nut is to a squirrel, like a flower is to a bee, is what you are to me –’

‘I admit it! I was in love. I was in love,’ yelled Judge Birchmore.

‘Head over heels, giggly as a schoolgirl, squishy as a marshmallow love?’ asked Boris.

‘Yes, yes,’ confessed Judge Birchmore. ‘That sort of love.’

‘Then I call upon my witness, Colonel Cyril Bryce-Chalmers, to describe the events of the evening of November nineteenth, ten years ago,’ said Boris.

The Retired Army Colonel slid into the witness box, and Judge Birchmore straightened her wig, trying to make herself look more attractive.

‘Letitia and I were sitting in my convertible being affectionate, you know . . . kissing,’ began the Retired Army Colonel.

There were retching noises from the gallery as several members of the public tried and failed to not be sick.

‘We do not need the graphic details,’ said Boris. ‘Some of us intend to eat later.’

‘Some of us are eating now,’ said Nanny Piggins, as she chomped on a nougat.

‘We were sitting there when we heard this noise,’
continued the Retired Army Colonel. ‘It was faint at first. But then it grew louder.’

‘What sort of noise?’ asked Boris.

‘It sounded like a pig yelling “Wheeeeeeeeeeee”,’ said the Retired Army Colonel.

‘Then what happened?’ asked Boris.

‘Well, the sound got louder and louder, until SMASH, a pig landed in the car right between us,’ explained the Retired Army Colonel.

‘And who was this pig?’ asked Boris, triumphantly turning to the gallery.

‘The defendant,’ said the Retired Army Colonel longingly. ‘The most beautiful pig in the entire world.’

‘That’s enough of this fiasco!’ snapped Judge Birchmore.

‘Oh no, it isn’t,’ said Boris. ‘We are just getting to the nub of it, as your Honour knows full well.’ He turned back to the witness. ‘Colonel, describe your feelings for the defendant, Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins, who landed between you and your fiancée all those years ago.’

‘It was love at first sight,’ said the Retired Army Colonel as he gazed at Nanny Piggins. (Nanny Piggins sighed. She knew she should not be angry with men for constantly falling in love with her, but
it did grow wearisome.) ‘You should have seen her in the moonlight in her skin-tight yellow flying suit. She took her helmet off and shook out her chestnut brown hair, then turned to me and said – I’ll never forget the words – “Sorry to drop in on you like that. Here, would you like a slice of cake?”’

‘That does sound like me,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

‘And the cake!’ gushed the Retired Army Colonel. ‘Yes, it was squashed from her landing but it was the most heavenly slice of vanilla whipped cream cake I’ve ever tasted.’

‘And how did this affect your relationship with Judge Birchmore?’ asked Boris.

‘It was over,’ said the Retired Army Colonel. ‘I thought I was in love with her but once I saw Nanny Piggins I knew the true meaning of the word “love”.’

‘Can we stop this now? I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Judge Birchmore.

‘Me too,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘Although that may be the six dozen lardy cakes I ate for breakfast.’

‘It is all immaterial anyway,’ said Judge Birchmore. ‘I am a professional judge, I would never let my personal feelings affect my judgements.’

‘Excuse me, your Honour,’ interrupted Henry the bailiff, ‘but that just isn’t true. You let your feelings affect your judgements all the time.’

‘Name one example,’ challenged Judge Birchmore.

‘Every time they serve fish in the courtroom canteen,’ said Henry, ‘you always get so incensed that you convict everyone on trial that afternoon and give them twice the usual sentence.’

‘Well, fish is disgusting!’ yelled Judge Birchmore. ‘Whatever sauce you put on it, it still tastes like fish.’

‘I can see why the Colonel prefers me to her,’ Nanny Piggins whispered to the children. ‘I think she’s got anger management issues.’

Boris confronted the judge. ‘You should have excused yourself from Nanny Piggins’ trial as soon as you realised she was the woman who stole the love of your life,’ he accused.

‘You can’t prove anything!’ protested Judge Birchmore. ‘I deny it all!’