Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster (13 page)

A few moments later everyone from the reunion was gathered on the gravel driveway as they watched Nanny Piggins scale the front of the school building.

‘What’s she doing?’ asked Boris.

‘Clearing Father’s name,’ explained Michael.

‘Because the Ringmaster framed him,’ added Derrick.

‘That’d be right,’ said Boris. ‘But why is Nanny Piggins climbing the building? Is she trying to show off how good she looks in a full-length skirt?’

‘We don’t really know,’ admitted Samantha.

Nanny Piggins was on the roof now. Like a gymnast on a balance beam she carefully made her way along a sandstone railing, leaping over gargoyles as she went until she reached the central statue of Hubert Bradfield fighting the three-headed gorgon.

‘Here it is!’ yelled Nanny Piggins.

‘What is she talking about?’ asked Boris.

The children shrugged.

Then Nanny Piggins did the most unexpected thing. She unhitched her sledgehammer (she’d carried it up onto the roof in her garter belt), swung it about her head and smashed Hubert Bradfield’s head clean off.

‘Oh no!’ squealed Samantha. ‘She’s sure to go to jail for this!’

The sandstone carving sailed out of its place in the sculpture, spiralling end-over-end in an arc through the sky, before gravity got the better of it and it began to plummet to the earth. Several former students had to dive out of the way as it smashed into the driveway, right in the middle of the crowd.

But instead of shocked silence, or noisy recriminations, there were gasps of awe. Because when the sandstone head hit the ground the
stone exterior shattered away revealing something shiny within.

‘The Lacrosse Champion’s Cup!’ gasped Mr Green.

‘Lysander didn’t steal it!’ said Horatio Darval. ‘It was hidden in full view this whole time.’

Nanny Piggins then leapt off the roof of the three-storey building, caught hold of the flagpole and gracefully slid to the ground (just to remind everyone of how impossibly athletic and glamorous she really was).

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she announced. ‘You should count yourselves lucky that you all attended school with someone as evilly brilliant as the Ringmaster and the worst thing that happened was a misplaced lacrosse trophy.’

‘Hang on,’ said Horatio Darval, ‘but that’s not the only thing that happened. Remember the time the herd of wildebeest was released in the school hall during the physics exam?’

Suddenly everyone started to remember strange and inexplicable events.

‘And the time Mrs Hilliard fell into the tank of frogs’ spawn,’ said another classmate.

‘And the time someone sold all the school’s geography textbooks,’ said another.

‘And the time someone dug up all the turf on the school oval and sold it to a landscaping company,’ recalled Pablo.

‘And the time the PE teacher’s car caught fire,’ added the former PE teacher.

And so Nanny Piggins led Boris and the children to the car, while Mr Green’s classmates continued to recall the until now, mysterious string of spectacular crimes that had befallen their year. And Mr Green tried to make Horatio write him a written apology for defaming his name for 25 years.

‘How did you know that the cup would be inside the statue’s head?’ asked Derrick.

‘The Ringmaster once did the same thing with the payroll at the circus,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘Oh yes, I remember,’ said Boris. ‘When payday came around the Ringmaster said he didn’t have any money for us. But that same day a giant sandstone sculpture of him was delivered outside his caravan.’

‘At first we assumed he’d spent our wages on the statue,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘But then when Nanny Piggins decided to teach the Ringmaster a lesson about spending other people’s
wages and knocked the head off the Ringmaster’s statue,’ added Boris, ‘we found that the money was stashed inside his sandstone skull.’

‘He’d hired a sculptor to make a hollow head,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘How clever,’ marvelled Michael.

‘I know,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘If the Ringmaster ever put half the effort he uses in his evil schemes into actually running the circus, he would be a very rich man.’

Mr Green hurried over to join them. He had a black eye.

‘Father!’ exclaimed Samantha. ‘Did Horatio hit you?’

‘No, his wristwatch exploded in my face,’ said Mr Green, ‘and when the smoke cleared, he was gone.’

‘Are you relieved to have your name cleared, Father?’ asked Samantha.

‘Yes, yes I am,’ said Mr Green. But there was something about his tone that sounded unconvincing.

‘No, you’re not,’ contradicted Nanny Piggins.

‘Whatever do you mean?’ protested Mr Green. ‘Of course I’m relieved. It is a great burden from my mind to have my innocence finally proven.’

‘No, you’re secretly disappointed, aren’t you?’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘Because it’s just been proven that the most interesting and exciting thing you ever did in your life was something you didn’t actually do. You have allowed your whole adulthood to be shaped by resentment of false accusations. And now that everyone knows you didn’t do it, it seems a silly way to have spent your life.’

‘Especially when you could have just knocked the headmaster’s head off yourself years ago,’ added Boris.

‘That’s enough from you, chauffeur. Keep your eyes on the road,’ scolded Mr Green.

And so they drove home in silence with everyone other than Mr Green having had a wonderful night of delicious food, spectacular dancing and even more spectacular statue vandalising.

‘It’s all right, Boris, there’s no need to be ashamed,’ said Nanny Piggins as she led her extremely sticky and dishevelled brother home.

‘It could happen to anybody,’ Samantha said supportively.

Which was, strictly speaking, untrue. Only a ten-foot-tall dancing bear with an insatiable love of honey could wreak quite so much havoc in the town’s newly opened Honey Emporium. But it was
a tribute to how much Samantha loved Boris that she (a normally very honest girl) was prepared to tell him such a very large fib, just to make him feel better.

‘They’re probably not going to let me go back in their shop, are they?’ asked Boris with a sniff.

‘Oh no,’ said Michael (also fibbing). ‘I’m sure they’d love to see you back.’

‘After a week or two,’ said Derrick (more truthfully), ‘when they’ve cleaned up the mess.’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘Normally a shop that only sold honey and honey-related products would be a ridiculous business doomed for failure, but those shopkeepers are lucky. They set up their business in a town that is home to a ten-foot-tall dancing bear with a healthy appetite, due to his active lifestyle.’

Boris nodded his head, ‘My two favourite hobbies – dancing and napping – both stimulate the appetite.’

‘I’m sure the people at the Honey Emporium will soon appreciate you, not as a “barbaric vandal” as they said this morning, but as their very best customer,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘And they only have themselves to blame for the mess at the shop,’ said Samantha. ‘If you are going to set up a Honey Emporium, it really
would be sensible to make sure everything is bear-proofed.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Michael. ‘With a clear aisle from the front door to the huge vats of honey.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Boris, starting to cheer up. ‘If they are going to put little delicate china knick-knacks everywhere, how is a bear meant to get through?’

‘That’s the spirit,’ encouraged Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t know what the need for all that screaming, fuss and police involvement was about.’

‘I’ll never be able to pay for the damages,’ sobbed Boris. ‘I’ve only got 26 cents.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘All we need to do is come up with an ingenious money-making scheme to repay the thousands of dollars worth of damage you did to their shop and it will be as if the whole incident never happened.’

Boris smiled now, and a little bit of spring returned to his step. ‘And in the meantime, I know what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘I’ll start work on choreographing a ballet for them, to express just how truly sorry I feel.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ enthused Nanny Piggins. ‘Although perhaps you shouldn’t perform it in their shop. If they didn’t have the foresight to bear-proof it, I doubt they had the foresight to ballet-proof it.’

‘And there might not be enough space between the cash register and the honey jars to do a grand jeté properly,’ added Michael.

Now, dear reader, as Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children had this conversation, they just happened to be walking through the cafe district of town. This was a newly established area where a couple of enthusiastic restaurateurs were trying to encourage al fresco dining by putting tables and chairs outside, right next to the busy high street, so that diners could enjoy carbon monoxide fumes with their food. And it just so happened that a man in one of these outdoor eating areas was looking at Boris intently.

‘Nanny Piggins,’ whispered Michael. ‘There is a man over there staring at Boris.’

‘Of course there is,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He is the world’s greatest ballet-dancing bear, he can hardly walk the street without being recognised.’

‘He’s taking photographs!’ added Michael.

‘How dare he!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, her head whipping round. ‘I won’t allow the paparazzi to hound my brother.’

‘He’s coming this way!’ squealed Samantha in panic, running to hide behind Boris.

The man was certainly behaving in a most peculiar way. He had formed his thumbs and forefingers into a rectangle and he was looking at Boris through this shape, while weaving from side to side, so that he could stare at Boris from different angles.

‘Do something, Sarah,’ urged Boris. ‘The strange man is frightening me.’

‘I’ll protect you,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘You!’ she barked at the man. ‘Who are you? And what do you want with my brother?’

‘I want to make him a star,’ said the man, handing Nanny Piggins a business card. It read:

Marc Menzies C.S.A

Casting Agent

‘Well, you’re too late,’ said Nanny Piggins dismissively, dropping the card and grinding it into the ground with her trotter. ‘My brother is already a star. He is the greatest ballet-dancing bear in the entire world.’

‘Ballet dancing?’ said the casting agent. ‘Well, that’s just swell. But I’m talking about a
real
star.’

‘Wah!’ yelped Boris. ‘He’s going to turn me into a giant burning sphere of gas in distant outer
space!’ Boris grabbed Samantha and tried to hide behind her.

‘No, I’m going to turn you into a movie star!’ said the casting agent.

‘But I’m not interested in becoming a moving man,’ protested Boris. ‘Sure, I get job offers all the time because of my size, strength and ability to leap up artistically placing things on high shelves. But carrying a grand piano up twelve flights of stairs is never as much fun as you think it will be. And people get ever so cross when you drop things, especially grand pianos, down twelve flights of stairs.’

‘No, I want to cast in you in a film!’ enthused the casting director. ‘A huge motion picture blockbuster!’

‘Why?’ asked Nanny Piggins suspiciously. ‘Is someone making a movie about a ten-foot-tall Russian dancing bear?’

‘Not exactly,’ said the casting director. ‘But trust me, your brother is perfect for the part.’

‘Hmmmpf,’ said Nanny Piggins, still feeling suspicious.

‘I’d like to set up a meeting for you with our director,’ said the casting agent. ‘Name your favourite restaurant, we’ll do lunch tomorrow.’

‘You’re taking me to lunch?’ asked Boris excitedly. ‘Anywhere I want?!’

‘Sure, I can get us in anywhere in town,’ said the casting agent.

‘What about the Honey Emporium?’ asked Boris.

And so despite Nanny Piggins’ misgivings about strange men who sat around in outdoor cafes waiting for bears to walk past, Boris went to the meeting. And somewhere between draining the second and third 100-gallon vats of honey in the shop, he signed a contract agreeing to be in a film.

Nanny Piggins was very begrudging about the situation.

‘You’re not jealous are you, Nanny Piggins?’ asked Derrick.

‘Jealous? Of a film career?!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘Certainly not. We all get those offers to star in blockbuster movies. But some of us say “no”.’

‘Why would you say no?’ asked Michael. ‘You’d be a brilliant movie star.’

‘I know. I often look at Elizabeth Taylor or Meryl Streep and think I could be so much better,’
agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘but I couldn’t stand the lifestyle. Film stars have to live in trailers and it is terribly hard to bake cakes properly in one of those miniature ovens they have.’

For his part, Boris was very excited about having an acting job. He started behaving as he thought an actor should, by wearing a purple cravat and blue silk smoking jacket, then walking around the house, enunciating all his words very clearly. He could not wait for the script to arrive so he could practise his actual lines and not just stand in front of the mirror practising looking handsome and debonair (although having worked on it eight hours a day, he was getting to be very good).

A week after he was offered the part and just three days before he was due to start shooting, the script arrived. Boris ran through the house with it, squealing, ‘The script is here, the script is here!’

They all gathered around in the living room to read it together.

‘What is your character’s name?’ asked Derrick.

‘According to the slip in the envelope, I’m playing Wontha,’ said Boris proudly.

‘Wontha?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘What sort of name is that?’

‘Perhaps it’s set in an exotic foreign country where Wontha is a common name for dashing handsome bears,’ said Samantha.

‘Let’s flick through the script and find your lines,’ suggested Derrick.

They flicked through for some time before they came to Boris’ first line and when they found it, it was not exactly a moving soliloquy.

‘Euunnnnaaaah,’ read Boris.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Look, here’s your second line,’ said Michael, pointing it out on the next page.

‘Aagggh-nnnn-aaahh,’ wailed Boris, trying to get in character.

‘Is this film in Italian or something?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘The other characters’ lines are in English,’ said Samantha as she scanned the page.

‘Look, here’s your third line and it doesn’t look much better,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Euuunnnagh,’ practised Boris.

‘Perhaps you’re playing someone with a speech impediment,’ said Michael. ‘That’s good. It means you’re more likely to win an Academy Award.’

‘No, wait a minute,’ said Derrick, who had taken the script and was reading it from the beginning. ‘This film is set in outer space.’

‘He
is
going to turn me into a gaseous sphere!’ panicked Boris.

‘No,’ said Derrick. ‘You’re playing an alien. A Branthod from the planet Snookshu.’

Everyone sat and thought about that for a moment.

‘I’m not sure if I should take this as a compliment or not,’ said Boris.

‘Oh, I think you should,’ said Samantha. ‘After all, you don’t look like an alien, you look like a bear. So it is obviously a compliment to your acting ability that the casting agent and director think you can transform yourself so completely.’

‘Is the alien a little green man?’ asked Boris, ‘because I have great confidence in my performance skills, but I think even I would struggle to convince an audience that I was three feet tall.’

‘According to the script, Wontha is ten foot tall, weighs 650 kilograms and is covered in long brown hair,’ read Derrick.

‘Hmm,’ said Boris, ‘I think I can pull that off.’ Then he added with a blush, ‘It’s very kind of them to think I can pass for 650 kilograms.’

‘And it will be easy learning your lines,’ said Michael. ‘They’re exactly the sort of noises you make when you accidentally eat the plastic bucket the honey comes in.’

And so everyone helped get Boris ready for his first day on set. Nanny Piggins made him a picnic lunch (honey sandwiches, honey cake, honey biscuits and, of course, honey). The children helped him learn his lines. Boris struggled at first, but then he accidentally ate a honey bucket and it all came back to him. On his first morning they all got up at 5 am to see him off.

‘Now you be good and play nicely with the other actors,’ said Nanny Piggins, as she affectionately stood on a stepladder to straighten her brother’s fur.

A tear trickled down Boris’ nose. ‘I’m going to miss you all terribly,’ he sobbed.

‘We’ll see you again late tonight,’ said Nanny Piggins, giving him a big hug.

‘Why do actors have to work such ridiculously long hours?’ asked Michael.

‘Because they are so flaky,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘The producers like to keep them on set as much as possible to stop them running off with someone else’s wife or getting arrested for not knowing how to drive, or something equally silly.’

‘You won’t do any of those things, will you, Boris?’ asked Samantha.

‘Oh no,’ said Boris. ‘At least not on my first day.’

And so Boris went to work.

Nanny Piggins and the children missed him terribly. To help the time pass, Nanny Piggins even allowed the children to go to school.