Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster (5 page)

As Nanny Piggins stood on top of the giant cake facing the Duke of Sloblavia (having been raised up there in a cherry picker), she got her first good look at the groom. He was tall, which Nanny Piggins knew from reading romance novels was supposed to count for something. And his face was classically handsome. But he was not an attractive man because the expression on his face was so miserable.

‘Have you recently lost a pet?’ Nanny Piggins enquired sympathetically.

‘I’m not here to make chit-chat. Why can’t we just get on with it?’ asked the Duke stroppily.

‘Because the bride hasn’t arrived yet,’ explained
Nanny Piggins slowly, beginning to be concerned the poor groom had suffered a head injury.

‘That would be right …’ muttered the groom. ‘Typical woman.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Nanny Piggins, beginning to glower.

But at this moment they were interrupted by Michael rushing to the side of the cake and yelling up, ‘Nanny Piggins, you’d better come quickly!’

‘What’s the matter?’ called down Nanny Piggins.

‘Probably can’t decide which shoes to wear,’ muttered the groom. ‘Ridiculous females.’

Nanny Piggins turned back to bite him, but Michael wailed, ‘Please, Nanny Piggins, come quickly.’ She slid down the solid chocolate fireman’s pole conveniently built into the back of the cake (all structures over ten metres’ tall have to have an emergency exit) and hurried off with Michael.

When Nanny Piggins arrived at the Princess’ bedroom it was to find Her Royal Highness face down on her bed, weeping loudly.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘She hasn’t lost a pet, has she? I don’t understand why
everyone is in such a bad mood. In most countries weddings are celebrated as happy occasions.’

‘Tell Nanny Piggins what you told us,’ Samantha urged.

Princess Annabelle raised her face from her pillow long enough to wail, ‘I don’t want to marry the Duke!’ before breaking into wracking sobs.

‘Then why on earth did you say you would?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I just wanted a wedding so I could have one of your wedding cakes,’ sobbed the Princess.

‘Oooooh,’ said Nanny Piggins. As a cake lover herself, this made complete sense to her.

‘But you didn’t need to get engaged to that awful man just to have one of my cakes,’ said Nanny Piggins, sitting down next to the Princess and giving her a hug.

‘But Daddy wouldn’t have paid for it unless it was for a wedding,’ said the Princess.

‘Nanny Piggins would have made you a cake anyway,’ said Derrick. ‘She makes cakes for everyone.’

‘When you have a talent such as mine it is important to share it,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

‘But you needed Daddy’s deposit to rent the hydraulic system from NASA,’ wept the Princess. ‘I thought a lifetime of being married to a miserable
bore would be worth it for the chance of being lowered into a fifteen-metre-high octo-choc-chocolate cake with extra chocolate, and eating my way out. But now I realise it’s not.’

‘Tell Nanny Piggins the rest,’ urged Samantha.

‘There’s more?!’ asked Nanny Piggins, thinking this day was getting to be even more exciting and dramatic than an episode of
The Young and the Irritable
.

‘I’ve fallen in love with another,’ sobbed Princess Annabelle.

‘With another wedding cake?’ asked Nanny Piggins. She was struggling to keep up.

‘Oh no,’ Princess Annabelle assured her, clutching Nanny Piggins’ hand. ‘My heart is forever true to your cake. No, I’ve fallen in love with another man.’

‘Really?’ said Nanny Piggins, thinking of all the very unimpressive courtiers she had met during her stay and trying to work out which one was the least revolting. ‘Who?’

Princess Annabelle began to look a little sheepish at this point. ‘Hans,’ she whispered.

‘The baker?!’ yelped Nanny Piggins. She did not begrudge Hans the happiness of having a Royal Princess fall in love with him – no-one deserved
joy more than him after all the cake-related bliss he brought to others. But the thought of anyone loving Hans entirely took her by surprise. You see, Nanny Piggins was so in love with Hans’ baked goods, it never occurred to her to think of him in any other way.

‘These past few days, watching him beat eggs, melt butter and wedge silver balls into four-inch thick chocolate icing – he stole my heart. I’ve never seen a more attractive man,’ gushed Princess Annabelle.

‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. Now that she thought about it she realised that falling in love with a master baker was the most sensible thing she had ever heard of. It was a wonder that there weren’t hordes of women in love with Hans and trying to beat down his shop door. But most people are terribly superficial and would be put off by the fact that he was very short and hairy. (If he was not a man, Hans would have made an excellent bearded lady.)

‘But now Daddy is going to make me marry that odious Duke,’ wept Princess Annabelle.

‘He smells as well?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Who knew one man could have so very many faults.’

‘We can’t let Princess Annabelle marry into a lifetime of misery,’ said Samantha.

‘Of course not,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘If I did,
I’d have to hand in my
The Young and the Irritable
fan club card from shame.’

‘But what can we do?’ asked Derrick. ‘This is a castle surrounded by guards, and built on an island in the middle of the sea. They aren’t going to let us just waltz off with their Princess.’

Nanny Piggins was rubbing her snout – something she always did when she was thinking hard. ‘Don’t worry, I am having the beginnings of a brilliant idea,’ said Nanny Piggins.

A short time later, Nanny Piggins was standing toe to toe with Princess Annabelle’s father, yelling at him.

‘If you can’t find the Princess, then I’m taking my cake and going home!’ yelled Nanny Piggins.

‘The wedding will go ahead as planned and that is an order!’ barked the King.

‘Your men have been searching for an hour and they haven’t found the Princess or the baker she fell in love with. I can’t dillydally here all day, I’ve got the Partridge–Dingleberry wedding cake to make back at home,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Fine,’ said the King. ‘Take your cake and go! I’ve got better things to do than stand around arguing
with a pig.’

‘I didn’t know you were arguing with the Duke as well,’ said Nanny Piggins, looking over her shoulder to see if he was there.

‘He means you,’ said Derrick.

‘He does? Oh yes, of course, even I forget I’m a pig sometimes,’ said Nanny Piggins.

The King was just leaving the room to find some more people to yell at when Nanny Piggins called after him. ‘May we borrow your biggest helicopter? It’s just that I don’t think the airlines will let us take on a fifteen-metre-tall cake as hand luggage.’

‘Do what you like,’ snapped the King.

Ten minutes later Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were safely inside the helicopter and flying back home. And as I’m sure you have cleverly figured out, Princess Annabelle and Hans the baker were hidden inside the cake, which was hanging beneath the helicopter as it sped over the ocean.

‘Do you think they’re all right down there in the cake?’ asked Samantha.

‘Of course they are,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They have each other, they have true love, and they have three metric tonnes of octo-choc-chocolate cake. What more could a young couple ask for?’

Nanny Piggins was standing at the bottom of a long trench in Mr Green’s front garden, digging. For once she was not her usual glamorous self. She had mud smeared on her face, hair and Chanel satin dress. She had sweat on her brow. And she was cross.

‘Can we get you anything?’ asked Derrick.

The children were standing at the top of the trench, watching their nanny work. They had offered to help. But Nanny Piggins was such a ferocious
digger that standing anywhere near her when she had a shovel in her hands meant they tended to get showered with dirt.

‘You can get me a good stick to hit your father with,’ muttered Nanny Piggins as she kept digging. For it was Mr Green with whom she was cross.

Earlier that day she had been having a long luxurious bath when inspiration had struck. She suddenly thought of the most delicious way to make orange and poppy-seed cake even yummier (it largely involved leaving out the poppy seeds and replacing them with chocolate chips. But there were other subtle alterations as well). Naturally Nanny Piggins had to write it down immediately, and being in the bathroom the only tools to hand were a mascara brush and toilet paper. Nanny Piggins used up two rolls as she meticulously jotted down all the intricacies of her new recipe. When she got out of the bath Nanny Piggins felt triumphant. Not only did she have a marvellous new recipe that she could not wait to try out, she also looked fabulous (bathing in chocolate milk always did wonders for her complexion).

But this is where the story takes an unhappy turn. You see, Nanny Piggins rushed to her bedroom to put on her best baking dress, an Yves Saint Laurent
cocktail dress. (Nanny Piggins always saved her best clothes for baking. She thought a baking session was a far more important event than a wedding, state dinner or awards night.) But when she returned to the bathroom she was horrified to see Mr Green shoving the last of her toilet paper recipe into the toilet and reaching for the flush button.

‘Don’t touch that flusher!’ screamed Nanny Piggins.

Mr Green flinched. He hated being confronted by women at any time. But to be confronted by a woman in his very own bathroom was just wrong.

‘It’s my house, I’ll do what I like,’ said Mr Green, his finger beginning to depress the button.

‘Noooooooooooo!!!’ yelled Nanny Piggins, hurling herself at Mr Green. But it was too late. A pig cannot change the laws of physics. Even though it only took her a split second to leap across the bathroom, slam into Mr Green’s chest and knock him to the floor, his finger had managed to move the few millimetres needed to depress the button even quicker. When Nanny Piggins looked into the toilet bowl it was to see the last square of mascara-scrawled paper spiralling into the S-bend.

‘How could you?’ demanded Nanny Piggins, turning on Mr Green.

‘I won’t have toilet paper left strewn about my bathroom like the aftermath of some undergraduate prank,’ said Mr Green self-righteously.

‘Would you flush the Mona Lisa down the toilet?’ demanded Nanny Piggins. ‘Would you flush the Venus de Milo down the toilet?’

‘It would be hard to get a marble statue down a toilet,’ said Derrick. (The children had come running when they heard their nanny start yelling.)

‘What are you talking about?’ spluttered Mr Green. ‘That toilet paper wasn’t valuable, was it?’ The idea of losing something of monetary value appalled Mr Green.

‘No, it wasn’t valuable,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It was priceless! It was a work of culinary art of a quality not seen since Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandma Piggins invented the chocolate éclair in 1819!’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Mr Green. He found it hard to follow what Nanny Piggins was talking about at the best of times, but it was even more difficult when the nanny was shaking him and banging his head against a towel rack.

‘You lost her cake recipe,’ explained Michael.

Nanny Piggins sat down on the floor and wept.

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Mr Green as he stood up and straightened his clothes. ‘All this fuss over a cake recipe.’

Nanny Piggins looked up. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.

Mr Green was afraid. The only thing more alarming than being yelled at and manhandled by his nanny was being whispered at with contained rage.

‘Quick, Father,’ urged Samantha. ‘Run!’

Mr Green did not need to be told twice. He leapt out the door, sprinted down the stairs and crashed out through the front door, running as fast as he could to get away from his house. (Living with Nanny Piggins had actually been good for Mr Green’s health. Running away from her had given him a lot of aerobic exercise.)

So that is how Nanny Piggins came to be digging a trench in the front garden. She was trying to find the waste pipe from the toilet so she could smash it open and retrieve her recipe before it was swept out into the sewerage system.

‘But surely even if you find the toilet paper,’ said Samantha (kindly because she did not want her
Nanny to fly into another rage), ‘you won’t be able to read it because it will be soaked in water?’

‘Not at all. I used waterproof mascara!’ said Nanny Piggins proudly. ‘So if I can unravel the wet wad of paper the recipe should still be clearly written. If not, I shall be going down to the cosmetics factory tomorrow to bite a few shins. Now where’s Boris? Has he got me that jackhammer yet?’

‘Here I am,’ said Boris happily, as he entered the front gate and passed the large wrecking tool down to his sister. ‘The men from the building site said you can have it for as long as you like, as long as you promise to make them some more of those scones with jam and cream.’

‘Okay,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Ear protection on, everybody. I’m going to crack open this pipe.’

The children shoved earplugs in their ears. They had come to carry earplugs at all times. Since Nanny Piggins had come to live with them, they never knew when a cannon would be fired, a stove was going to explode or a Scottish pipe band would pay them a visit. Nanny Piggins may have had a reckless disregard for safety in most respects, but she was a stickler for ear safety. As she often told them: ‘The only ringing you want in your ears is the type you get after sustaining a nasty head injury.’

Nanny Piggins turned on the jackhammer. You never would have thought that a petite pig such as herself, being only four foot tall and weighing forty kilograms, would be able to control such a large piece of equipment designed for use by big burly men. But Nanny Piggins had a way with anything that was powerful, loud and dangerous, so she soon had the pipe smashed open.

‘Aha! I see the toilet paper!’ yelled Nanny Piggins delightedly.

The others did not respond because they still had their earplugs in and could not hear a word she was saying. But they could see their nanny lie face down in the mud, reach her trotter up the pipe and pull out a great big sodden lump of mascara-smeared paper.

‘My recipe!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins happily.

‘Hurray!’ cheered Boris and the children.

The recipe was so wet it was translucent and fragile. Nanny Piggins held it carefully in her trotters.

‘Are you sure you are going to be able to read that?’ asked Michael.

‘Of course!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If they can figure out who a jewel thief is from something as teeny tiny as his fingerprint, or figure out who
Bethany’s real father is (her favourite character from
The Young and the Irritable
) from something as microscopically minute as DNA, then there must be some scientist brilliant enough to be able to restore my recipe from this.’ She proudly held up the sodden lump.

The children looked down at it doubtfully.

‘Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins?’ An official-sounding man interrupted the moment.

Nanny Piggins looked up to see two men in grey suits peering down into the trench.

‘You can’t have my sodden lump!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, quickly holding her recipe behind her back.

‘That’s all right, Miss,’ said the older of the two men. ‘We haven’t come for your lump. I’m Special Agent Worton, this is Special Agent Egner and we’re from the SSBI.’ The two men held up official government identification.

‘The Secret Society of Blithering Idiots?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Because if I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a thousand times, I am not giving the keynote speech at their conference.’

‘No, we’re from the Secret Scientific Bureau of Investigation,’ said Special Agent Egner.

‘I’ve never heard of it,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘That’s because it’s secret,’ said Special Agent Worton.

‘So is the truth about the Loch Ness Monster,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but we all know what really lives at the bottom of that Scottish lake.’

The children looked at each other in confusion. They did not.

‘It’s a giant pig with scuba gear,’ whispered Boris. ‘Gillian McPiggins, one of Sarah’s more eccentric cousins.’

‘You can’t take our nanny away,’ said Samantha, stepping between the special agents and her nanny. ‘You just can’t.’

‘Sure, technically, she does occasionally break the law,’ added Derrick, ‘but she always does it for the nicest possible reasons.’

‘Or because she’s hungry,’ added Michael.

‘Now everybody calm down,’ said the special agent. ‘We are not here to take anybody or any sodden lumps away.’

They all collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

‘We’re here because we need your help,’ said Special Agent Worton.

‘Why didn’t you say so?’ asked Nanny Piggins. She enjoyed helping the government. It meant she had something to bargain with next time she got
caught doing something wrong, ‘Someone hold my toilet paper so I can climb out of this trench.’

Ten minutes later, after Nanny Piggins had had a shower (rest assured, using a lot of soap. Hygiene is very important after you have been digging up sewer pipes), she whipped up some chocolate-chip brownies, and they all sat around the kitchen table eating and talking.

‘So how can I help you?’ asked Nanny Piggins between chewy chocolate mouthfuls.

‘It’s about your identical twin sister,’ said Special Agent Worton.

‘Which one?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Anthea, Beatrice, Abigail, Gretel, Deidre, Jeanette, Ursula, Nadia, Sophia, Sue, Charlotte, Wendy or Katerina?’

‘Deidre,’ said Special Agent Egner.

‘Yuck, not her!’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘What’s wrong with Deidre?’ asked Michael.

‘Is she insane?’ asked Samantha.

‘Is she a criminal?’ asked Derrick.

‘Does she have a weird love of vegetables?’ asked Michael

‘Worse,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She’s a nuclear physicist.’

‘Really?’ said Boris. ‘I didn’t know you had any academics in your family.’

‘Pish!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If you can call nuclear physics academic. There’s more ground-breaking scientific research in cake-baking if you ask me.’

The children looked unconvinced.

‘You tell me why the cake doesn’t stick to a non-stick pan then?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

The children shrugged. That definitely was a mystery.

‘Actually your sister isn’t just an ordinary nuclear physicist anymore,’ said Special Agent Worton. ‘She is a world famous professor. The whole scientific community is in awe of her latest research.’

‘That’d be right,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Scientists are easily excited. Somebody leaves an orange to go mouldy, the mould just happens to cure all bacterial infections, they call it penicillin and everyone in the scientific community practically wets themselves.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Special Agent Egner. ‘Your sister, Professor Deidre Piggins, has made such an amazing discovery that the Nobel Prize committee wants to award her the Nobel Prize for Physics.’

‘Those hacks,’ said Nanny Piggins, rolling her eyes. ‘They still haven’t given me
my
Nobel
Prize for physics for my extensive work on the projectile capabilities of a pig. Even after I wrote and offered to demonstrate by blasting them all out of a cannon myself.’

‘Yes, but your sister –’ began Special Agent Worton.

‘I don’t want anything to do with her,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Sure, she is my sister and I love her. But if she has invented some new way to turn unstable radioactive material into a nasty great big nuclear bomb, I shall be really cross.’