Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion (4 page)

In the distance they could hear the sound of a siren as the police approached.

'Well I hope you've learnt your lesson,' said Boris. 'Never ever cross a flying pig.'

The police soon dragged Valerie away. The Police Sergeant was so grateful to Nanny Piggins for solving Valerie's one-woman crime wave (six hundred and eighty-one burglaries over a twenty-three-year period) that he gave Nanny Piggins permission to make as many citizens' arrests for crimes against fashion as she liked for a whole week. (Nanny Piggins planned to go down to the school the next morning and round up all the teachers.)

It turned out that the free torch given away by Neighbourhood Watch to all new members actually contained a secret satellite-tracking device, and that is how Valerie knew exactly where each Neighbourhood Watch patrol was, and where she could strike. If she had not been evil, Nanny Piggins would have almost admired her.

'Have you ever considered joining the police force and being trained to make arrests properly?' asked the Police Sergeant.

'Oh no,' said Nanny Piggins. 'It is much more fun to be an amateur who dabbles. If I was arresting criminal masterminds every night it would get tedious eventually.'

'And it wouldn't be fair on the criminals,' added Boris. 'They'd be in jail all the time.'

And so Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children celebrated by playing another game of Spotlight in the backyard. They could not use their Neighbourhood Watch torch because it was now in police custody as evidence. But they did insist that Nanny Piggins wear her hot-pink leotard to give the rest of them a sporting chance of tagging her.

'Ooooh. Aaaaahhh. Hurraaayyy!!!' cheered the bus passengers as Nanny Piggins demonstrated the difference between a triple-somersault and a double-cutaway-with-twist.

Derrick, Samantha, Michael and Boris clapped and cheered too. This was the wonderful thing about catching public transport with Nanny Piggins. You only had to say something in passing like, 'So what are the different tricks you can do on a trapeze?' and before you knew it she had borrowed two silk ties from a pair of businessmen, a sturdy umbrella from a retired librarian, and rigged up a swinging trapeze from the handrail along the roof of the bus.

Nanny Piggins was just swooping back and forth, building up momentum, getting ready to do a backflip-with-half-pike, when the bus driver stopped the bus, got out of his seat and started walking down the aisle towards her.

'I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the bus,' said the bus driver.

'Aww,' groaned all the other passengers.

Nanny Piggins leapt off the swing, did a perfect double-tuck-backflip and landed gracefully on the middle of the back seat.

'Why?' she asked, glowering at the driver.

'Yes, why?' chorused the passengers.

'I haven't been able to take on any new passengers for the last seven stops because no-one is getting off . They are all enjoying watching your performance,' explained the bus driver. 'And if I don't drop off or pick up any passengers I'm going to get in trouble when I get back to the bus depot.'

'Oh,' said Nanny Piggins. Normally she liked to buck authority, but a sad balding bus driver was not much of a figure of power, and she did not want to get him in trouble. He obviously had enough problems in life, what with him not having the courage to confront a pig performing circus tricks on his bus for over half an hour. 'All right, but why do you have to throw us off the bus? Couldn't I just sit on a seat like a normal passenger?'

'That won't work. The other passengers still won't get off,' said the bus driver, 'because they'll all want your autograph and to have their photos taken with you.'

'Is this true?' Nanny Piggins asked the other bus passengers.

They all nodded. Nanny Piggins was by far the most fabulous person any of them had ever met on a bus, or anywhere else for that matter.

'All right, I'll get off,' said Nanny Piggins, 'but I want a full refund on our tickets. If we are going to walk home we will have to spend our fares on lollies to recover from the ordeal.'

'Thank you, thank you so much,' gushed the bus driver as he rushed back to the front to return the money for six tickets. (Even though there were only five of them, the bus driver had made Nanny Piggins buy two tickets for Boris because he took up two bus seats, which is the reason why the bus driver had become frightened of Nanny Piggins in the first place. She had spent a full five minutes telling him off for being species-ist and insensitive to an otherwise athletic bear who just happened to have big bones.)

Anyway, that is how Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children came to be walking home. It was not a long walk, but walks with Nanny Piggins always took longer than they were supposed to. She kept having to stop and look at things in people's gardens, and sometimes go right into people's houses to confront them about the things she had found. For example, she did not understand garden gnomes at all, so she was forever confronting the owners and demanding that they explain their affection for diminutive bearded men.

On this particularly occasion they had been walking for just a few minutes when a sign in someone's front garden caught Nanny Piggins' eye:

Lavender Cottage B&B
Vacancies available

Nanny Piggins had a flood of questions. 'How is a cottage different to a house?' 'Why is it called
Lavender
Cottage when it is clearly made out of brick?' 'Are the bricks made of lavender?' 'What is a B&B?' 'Do two bees live there?' 'Does that mean they sell honey?'

The children struggled to think of the answers.

'Um . . . it's called a cottage because cottage sounds nice,' explained Samantha.

'And the owner is calling it Lavender because it's got that tiny wilted lavender bush near the front door,' added Derrick.

'And B&B means a bed and breakfast,' explained Michael.

'They're selling beds and breakfasts?' asked Nanny Piggins. 'What a curious shop. Still, it makes sense. Breakfast in bed is one of my seven favourite meals of the day. Really, when you think about it, it's amazing more restaurants don't serve meals in bed. It's much better than eating at a table, because if you drop something it doesn't fall on the floor, so you don't have to wait until everyone is looking the other way to pick it up and eat it. You can just scoop it straight up off the bedding and put it back in your mouth.'

'No, a B&B is not a restaurant or a shop,' explained Derrick. 'It's a type of hotel. You stay the night and breakfast is included in the price.'

'Ooooh,' said Nanny Piggins. She liked any business transaction where breakfast was included. 'And how much do they charge for this service?' Nanny Piggins assumed it could not be much. It was rude to ask a guest for money to stay in your home and breakfast food was very inexpensive. She supposed the most you could reasonably charge would be one or two dollars.

'About one hundred dollars,' said Derrick. (Mrs Green had often taken the children away for the weekend and stayed in B&Bs before she had died, so he was quite the expert.)

'One hundred dollars!' exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

'More if it's really fancy,' said Michael.

'More! How fancy could it possibly be?' asked Boris.

'That depends on how much potpourri they put in your room,' said Samantha wisely.

'Hmm,' said Nanny Piggins as she stared long and hard at the sign. She did not say any more on the whole walk home, although she did borrow a pen and do a lot of sums on the back of Michael's shirt while muttering to herself things like: 'We're going to be rich, rich! Rich, I say!!'

As soon as they walked in the front door Nanny Piggins made an announcement. 'Well, children, I've decided to open a Bed & Breakfast,' she declared.

'Oh,' said Derrick.

Samantha and Boris just burst into tears, and Michael ran forward and clutched his nanny in the biggest hug he could manage.

'We'll miss you,' said Derrick, bravely sniffling and trying to stop the tears leaking out of his eyes.

'What are you talking about?' asked Nanny Piggins. 'I'm not going anywhere to do it.'

'You're not?' asked Samantha.

'No, I'm going to open my B&B right here in the house,' explained Nanny Piggins.

'But what about Father?' asked Derrick. 'He'll never allow that!'

'Pish! He won't notice,' said Nanny Piggins dismissively. Mr Green's ability not to notice even very large things (for example, a ten-foot-tall dancing bear living in his garden shed) was really quite extraordinary.

'But where will you put the guests?' asked Michael.

'We can put two in the spare room, and another two in your father's room,' said Nanny Piggins.

'With father?!' asked Samantha.

'Of course not. We want our guests to have a pleasant time. No, I'll make a place for Mr Green on the floor of the broom closet,' said Nanny Piggins.

'But what will you tell Father when he asks "why"?' asked Derrick.

'What I always tell him,' said Nanny Piggins. 'To stop asking questions and do as he's told.'

And so Nanny Piggins and the children set to work refurbishing the Green house. It did not take long because Nanny Piggins had a knack for interior decoration. They started by going to Mr Green's room and throwing out all his personal possessions (a broken comb, a jar of hair grease and a book about tax law); they then moved on to painting the four walls with a giant mural of a flying pig dazzling a big top full of circus-goers. This completely transformed his bedroom from a dowdy unpleasant place that smelt slightly of cockroaches, into a glamorous boudoir where people could actually enjoy spending time.

Next, Nanny Piggins turned her talents to the living room. It was full of old musty furniture that Mr Green's great grandmother had foolishly left unattended in her locked garage. The furniture had been hideous when it was brand new back in the nineteenth century, so now it was both hideous and old. Obviously something radical needed to be done.

Nanny Piggins decided to pay a visit to the retired Army Colonel who lived around the corner (and was deeply in love with her), and borrow some of his old parachutes from when he was a paratrooper. She then got Boris to drape the huge sheets of silk down from the ceiling, which made the room look like an indoor tent. Then she covered all the furniture with faux leopard-print velvet, which gave the house an exotic safari feel.

Finally, Nanny Piggins dramatically improved the appearance of the front of the house by putting up a huge sign:

Nanny Piggins' B&B&S&C&C&MC
Vacancies Available

'What does B&B&S&C&C&MC stand for?' asked Michael curiously.

'Bed & Breakfast & Show & Cake & Chocolate & More Chocolate,' explained Nanny Piggins. 'If I'm going to charge money I thought I should throw in a few extra things to make it good value.'

'That's brilliant,' said Derrick.

'Why would anyone want to stay anywhere else?' agreed Boris.

'But surely Father will notice the sign,' worried Samantha. It was very large and Nanny Piggins had used every colour of paint in her paintbox.

'I doubt it,' said Nanny Piggins confidently. 'Now we're all set up, we just have to sit back and wait for our first guest.'

The Nanny Piggins' B&B&S&C&C&MC was soon inundated with enquiries. There was a dental convention in town and dentists lead such dull lives, the idea of staying somewhere that offered a show, plus cake, plus chocolate, plus more chocolate really appealed to them. (When you are a dentist you can never really enjoy eating chocolate in your own home town, in case one of your patients spots you, which is why dentists always love to go away to conventions, so they can binge on sugary food.)

So the Nanny Piggins' B&B&S&C&C&MC was soon full of visitors. Nanny Piggins herself had to move in with Samantha to make another room available. And Nanny Piggins turned Mr Green out of his office saying that he could not get in there for two weeks because there was a uranium deposit under the floor and he had to wait until it met its half-life. (Nanny Piggins was sure that when it came to anything involving the exponential decay of radioactive material, Mr Green, like most people, would be too proud to admit that he did not have a clue what she was talking about.)

Amazingly Mr Green did not notice the sign on his front lawn, the parachutes in his living room, the cabaret show being performed in the kitchen every night or the seven extra people sitting around the breakfast table every morning (eating the most spectacular breakfast they had ever had in their lives) until they had been there for three days. And then he was too embarrassed to say something in front of strangers, when they were clearly such upright respectable citizens because their teeth were so shiny. Instead he followed Nanny Piggins out to the kitchen as she was taking away the plates (to fetch fifth helpings of triple choc-fudge pancakes for everybody).