Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan (7 page)

‘How are we going to get rid of her?’ asked Derrick.

‘Are you sure you want to?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘What?!’ exclaimed all three Green children. ‘Of course we want to get rid of her.’

‘But you haven’t got to know her yet. And she has done a lovely job of cleaning the oven, sweeping the patio and disinfecting the tupperware. Wouldn’t you
like to have a new mother?’ asked Nanny Piggins

The Green children had to think about this for a moment.

‘I still like our old mother,’ said Michael, sniffing.

The three Green children thought about their own mother, who actually used to talk to them, bake them cakes and kiss them goodnight when she tucked them in. Their eyes became wet and itchy.

‘I know no-one can replace your own mother,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but this woman might grow on you.’

They watched as she polished the silver teapot so hard the sun glinted off it and blinded them.

‘I doubt it,’ said Samantha.

‘There’s something else …’ Derrick struggled to put his finger on what it was that was wrong with Jane Doeadear.

‘Clean!’ said Michael. ‘She’s just too clean.’

And Nanny Piggins had to admit that Jane had done a thorough job of committing genocide on the bacteria population of the Green house.

Sadly Mr Green did not share his children’s concerns. He loved being able to see his face in the side of the kettle, the top of his shoes and the bathroom mirror. He was delighted with the hygiene
improvements Jane had made in a few short days.

Jane Doeadear had only been staying in the house for one week when, at breakfast, Mr Green cleared his throat and said, ‘I have an announcement to make.’ He looked about and smiled at his children, which only made them fear the worst. He had not smiled at them since he had announced he would stop giving them pocket money (on the morning after their mother died). Mr Green cleared his throat again for dramatic effect. ‘I have asked Jane to marry me.’

‘And what did Jane say?’ asked Nanny Piggins, barely able to conceal her astonishment.

‘Yes,’ said Jane, before returning her attention to her sausage and eggs.

‘We’re getting married on Saturday,’ said Mr Green. ‘I’m taking the morning off work for the ceremony,’ he added, smiling fondly at his fiancée, who was ignoring him. Just what he wanted in a wife.

The children were too astonished to speak. Mr Green stood up to leave. ‘So er, Miss Piggins –’ It was always a bad sign when he stopped calling Nanny Piggins, nanny – ‘we won’t be needing your services anymore. I’m giving you two weeks’ notice.’

Michael lunged at his father. He would have strangled him too, if the serving dish Samantha
threw at Mr Green had not hit Michael in the head instead. Derrick had gone for a more pacifistic approach. He had merely barred the door and yelled, ‘Noooo, we won’t let you!’

But Mr Green did not hear his son, he was too blissfully in love with his own cleverness. Marrying a woman was going to cost practically nothing, whereas paying Nanny Piggins cost slightly more than nothing.

‘I have to go to work. Darling –’ Mr Green said, turning to Jane, ‘could you take my car into the garage for me. The engine is making a funny noise.’

‘Certainly, darling,’ said Jane. ‘But there’s no need to pay a mechanic. I can take a look at it. I know a thing or two about motor cars.’

‘A fiancée who cleans
and
does automotive repairs!’ gushed Mr Green, as he imagined the fortune he was going to save on getting his car serviced. ‘I am such a clever … I mean, lucky, man.’

Mr Green handed his fiancée the keys to the car, and left.

Nanny Piggins and the children turned their attention to Jane. She was still calmly eating her breakfast.

‘Do you have a history of mental illness in your family?’ enquired Nanny Piggins.

‘You can’t honestly want to marry Father!’ said Derrick.

‘I’ll give you my teddy bear if you just go away,’ said Michael.

Jane finished her mouthful and looked up. ‘Just because I’m marrying your father does not mean I have to speak to any of you. Once the marriage certificate is signed I don’t plan to speak to him either. Now kindly stand aside. I have to see to your father’s car.’ With that, she left.

‘There is nothing for it, children, we shall have to get rid of her,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘But how?’ asked Derrick.

‘With stealth and intelligence,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Or brute force. Whichever works best.’

So Nanny Piggins and the children set about trying to discredit their future stepmother. (Fortunately, they had plenty of opportunity because Jane spent all day locked in the garage, like a good future wife, working on Mr Green’s car.) They searched her room but found nothing incriminating. All she had was a suitcase full of lovely designer dresses, and a one-hundred-and-eight-piece spanner set, which was odd but not illegal.

Next, Nanny Piggins tried using brute force. She told Jane there was a five-cent piece under the
sofa and when Jane lay down on the floor to look for it, Nanny Piggins rolled her up in the Persian carpet, put the carpet in the wheelbarrow and had Boris wheel her down to the tip. But, sadly, it did not work. Jane always carried a pocketknife, so she was able to cut her way out of the carpet, jump up and bop Boris over the head, then walk back to the house again.

The children even tried having her locked up. Working on the assumption that anyone who wanted to marry their father must be criminally insane, they went down to the police station and tried to have her institutionalised. But, surprisingly, there were no outstanding arrest warrants for Jane Doeadear. She had not escaped from any local mental institutions. She did not even have a criminal record.

So the morning of the wedding arrived and the children were very sad indeed. Once the ceremony and the reception (a cup of tea out of a thermos on the courthouse steps) were over, they would have a new mother. And their nanny would be banished forever. It seemed like there was nothing they could do. Their father was whistling happily to himself in his bedroom as he put on his best grey suit. And their future stepmother was happily locked in the garage fixing their father’s car.

‘It’s all over,’ said Samantha.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Derrick.

‘We’re going to have a stepmother,’ said Michael.

‘There is one last thing we can try,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘What?’ asked the children.

‘I’m going to kick in that garage door, and bite her on the leg,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘What good will that do?’ asked Samantha.

‘It will make me feel better,’ said Nanny Piggins.

So the children followed Nanny Piggins through the house as she marched towards the garage. Nanny Piggins had an eighth dan black belt in Taekwondo, so it only took one spinning reverse sidekick to reduce the door to splinters. But Nanny Piggins never bit Jane on the leg, she was too busy staring in stunned silence. Because, as she and the children burst into the garage, they discovered exactly what Jane had been doing in there all that time. She had completely transformed Mr Green’s poo-brown Rolls Royce. There was now a giant number 23 painted on the side, a roll-cage built into the chassis and support beams welded into the bonnet and boot.

‘Leaping Lamingtons!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘You don’t love Mr Green at all! You’re only marrying him for his Rolls Royce.’

‘Of course,’ laughed Jane maniacally. ‘A fool like that doesn’t deserve this masterpiece of British engineering. I’ve seen the way he drives it. Always five kilometres per hour below the speed limit. Slowing down for orange lights. Braking for pedestrians. It’s practically a crime!’

‘So you’re going to enter it in a motor race?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Motor racing is for wimps,’ said Jane dismissively. ‘I’m entering it in a Demolition Derby.’

Nanny Piggins gasped.

‘What’s a Demolition Derby?’ asked Michael.

‘It’s where ten cars drive into an arena and only one car leaves. They ram and smash each other into oblivion,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘And with this car I will be unstoppable,’ declared Jane.

Nanny Piggins glared at Jane through squinted eyes as though only seeing her for the first time. ‘I only know of one woman who would marry a man just for his car.’

‘Who?’ asked Boris.

‘Charlotte Piggins, my twin sister!’ declared
Nanny Piggins, whipping the horned rimmed spectacles off Jane Doeadear’s face.

The children gasped. Boris fainted. They were looking at an exact replica of Nanny Piggins.

‘I knew you looked familiar!’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘So this is another one of your identical fourteentuplet sisters?’ asked Derrick.

‘It is indeed,’ confirmed Nanny Piggins. ‘This isn’t the first time she’s done this either. How many men have you married for their cars now?’

‘This will be my eleventh,’ admitted Jane (Charlotte Piggins). ‘I always make sure they put “to love, honour and give me a copy of their car keys” into the wedding vows.’

‘You’re practically an evil genius,’ conceded Nanny Piggins.

‘Thank you,’ said Charlotte Piggins (Jane).

‘Father is going to be so upset when he finds out he’s marrying a pig,’ said Samantha.

‘He’ll never notice,’ said Charlotte. ‘Men are so unobservant.’

‘But there’s no reason to marry him at all,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘There isn’t?’ asked Charlotte Piggins.

‘I can give you a key to the car,’ said Nanny
Piggins. ‘I have my own.’ She took a key to the Rolls Royce out of her pocket and showed it to her identical twin sister.

‘You mean I cleaned his oven for nothing?!’ exclaimed Charlotte. ‘You had a key the whole time?’

‘You only had to ask,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘That’s fantastic!’ exclaimed Charlotte, snatching up the keys, ‘Because there’s a bachelor in the next town with a Morris Minor I’ve had my eye on.’

So Nanny Piggins allowed her sister to drive off at top speed without biting her on the leg, on the condition that she promised never, ever to try marrying Mr Green again.

Mr Green was naturally devastated. Partly because he lost his fiancée/nanny/domestic slave. But mainly because he lost his poo-brown Rolls Royce, which was not insured, because Mr Green was too cheap to pay for insurance.

Nanny Piggins eventually took pity on him because she got tired of listening to him sobbing in his room. She found another Rolls Royce going for a bargain price (the same colourblind employee who accidentally painted Mr Green’s first Rolls Royce poo-brown also painted another Rolls Royce
vomit-yellow). So Mr Green was happy again. As happy as a miser who has just been forced to buy a new car could be. But more importantly, the children were happy, because they got to keep their beloved nanny and stay motherless, at least for the time being.

Nanny Piggins and Michael sat in the doctor’s waiting room. Michael was not sick. He simply had a bucket stuck on his head. It was a red plastic bucket. The type you take to the beach and use to build sandcastles. It came to be stuck on Michael’s head partly because it was so red and tempting, and partly because Nanny Piggins had bet him he could not fit it on there. And being an enthusiastic boy
who liked a challenge, Michael won the bet. Which is how he came to be in need of medical attention.

‘Can you breathe all right, Michael?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes, so long as I don’t eat anything because I can only breathe through my mouth,’ said Michael. Both his nostrils were entirely sealed because his nose was pressed hard against the inside of the plastic bucket.

‘What about angel cake? It’s very light and airy,’ suggested Nanny Piggins.

‘That would probably be all right,’ conceded Michael.

Nanny Piggins rummaged around in her handbag before finding a slice. ‘Just take a deep breath before you put it in your mouth, then chew quickly,’ she advised.

Michael did as he was told and on the whole he decided angel cake was worth the risk. He would take oxygen starvation over actual starvation any day.

Nanny Piggins looked about the waiting room. She did not like being made to wait. To have an actual room purely for waiting struck her as a very bad sign. She never had to wait at the ice-cream shop or the bakery. And in her opinion ice-cream makers and bakers were far more important, busy professionals than doctors.

When they had first arrived at the surgery, the receptionist had assured Nanny Piggins that they would not have to wait long. But the receptionist’s idea of what ‘long’ meant seemed to bear no reference to any commonly understood concept of time. Nanny Piggins wondered if the receptionist’s brain was existing in a parallel universe where an hour was really five seconds. Because they had already been waiting for twenty minutes and in that time no-one had come in or gone out of the doctor’s room. And as there were six people waiting ahead of Nanny Piggins and Michael, it was clearly going to take forever.

Michael could tell from the tapping of her trotter that his nanny was getting impatient. ‘Why don’t you read a magazine?’ he suggested.

Nanny Piggins looked at the dog-eared pile of magazines slumped on the coffee table.

‘They are all at least five years old,’ said Nanny Piggins dismissively.

‘So?’ questioned Michael.

‘The crosswords have been done, all the good recipes have been torn out and the celebrities in the celebrity gossip articles aren’t famous anymore,’ explained Nanny Piggins.

‘Oh,’ said Michael.

‘Plus they’ve been sitting in a doctor’s waiting room for five years. Which means every page has five years’ worth of germs wiped on them from sick people’s hands,’ declared Nanny Piggins.

‘Gross,’ said Michael.

The patients currently reading magazines began to look uncomfortable.

‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And just think, some people lick their fingers before they turn the pages.’

The other patients now put their magazines down.

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Michael. Under the bucket he was turning a nasty shade of green.

Nanny Piggins looked about the waiting room at the other sick people. Her curiosity was starting to bubble. She turned to a haggard-looking woman sitting next to her. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘I’ve got chronic fatigue syndrome,’ said the haggard-looking woman.

‘You’ve got chronic whatsiewhat?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I’m tired all the time,’ explained the woman.

‘You know what you need – a big slice of chocolate mudcake every hour on the hour,’ advised Nanny Piggins.

‘But some mornings I can’t even get out of bed,’ said the haggard woman.

‘Then get someone to bring the cake to your bed,’ urged Nanny Piggins. ‘Better still, put a whole family-sized chocolate mudcake on the pillow next to you before you go to sleep at night. It will be impossible to be tired and depressed when you wake up to that glorious sight in the morning.’

‘Really?’ asked the woman.

‘I guarantee it will perk you up,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Once, when my circus was travelling through India, our lion tamer dropped dead. You have to understand, he was an elderly man and it was a very hot day. But I wafted a slice of chocolate mudcake under his nose and he perked right up again. He tamed lions for another eight years.’

‘Before he died of old age?’ asked the haggard woman.

‘No, he was eaten by a lion,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but that’s the way all lion tamers want to go – putting on a show.’

‘Thank you,’ said the haggard woman. ‘I’m going to try it. The doctor hasn’t been much help. And it’s so exhausting sitting here waiting. I’m off to the bakery.’ The haggard woman stood up to leave.

‘Here,’ said Nanny Piggins, offering her a bar of chocolate. ‘Have some chocolate. It will give you the energy to get to the bakery.’

The other patients watched enviously as the woman left.

Nanny Piggins was starting to enjoy herself. It was fun helping people. And now there was one less person ahead of them waiting to see the doctor. Nanny Piggins turned to the elderly man sitting on the other side of Michael.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I’ve got a cold,’ sniffed the elderly man.

‘There’s no cure for the common cold,’ chided Nanny Piggins. ‘Surely you’re old enough to know that.’

‘But I feel so awful,’ said the old man. ‘I thought there might be some way the doctor could help me.’

Nanny Piggins rolled her eyes. ‘For a start, the doctor is not going to help you. They are trained not to do that at medical school. They either cure you and expect you to be grateful, or they don’t cure you and expect you to be ashamed for wasting their time,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘What am I going to do?’ asked the old man.

‘If you have a cold, the best thing to do is
boost your body’s natural defences with vitamin C,’ instructed Nanny Piggins.

‘So I should get some vitamin C tablets?’ asked the old man.

‘No, I recommend lemon cake at least five times a day,’ advised Nanny Piggins.

‘Lemon cake?’ asked the old man.

‘Oh yes, it’s full of vitamin C. As well as other health foods, like butter and sugar, which are sure to give you a boost,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘It’s worth a try,’ said the old man. ‘It’s better than waiting endlessly only to be told off for wasting the doctor’s time.’

So the old man got up and left. Now there were only four people ahead of Michael. Nanny Piggins was getting rid of the other patients effectively. And still no-one had come out or gone in to the doctor’s room yet.

‘What do you think he’s doing in there?’ a pale young woman asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Why is it taking so long? Do you think he’s got someone seriously ill in there?’

‘Oh goodness no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He’s probably got a secret back door out of his office and he’s snuck off to play video games for half an hour.’

‘Do you think so?’ asked the young woman.

‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s what most doctors do. If they could think of some way of charging us all for seeing them without actually seeing them, I’m sure they would.’

‘I’d go home right now but my leg hurts so much I don’t know that I could make it that far,’ said the pale young woman.

‘What have you done to yourself?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I locked myself out of my fifth-floor flat. And I sprained my ankle trying to climb in through the window,’ said the young woman.

‘You fell five storeys?!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. As a former professional flying pig she had suffered many long falls herself but even Nanny Piggins was impressed by a five-storey fall with nothing more serious than a sprained ankle.

‘No, I got up the five storeys all right. But when I got in through the window I fell and landed awkwardly on the tumble dryer,’ explained the young woman.

‘Hard luck,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Landings are always the hardest part.’

‘Now my ankle is all swollen,’ said the young woman, raising her trouser leg to show an unnaturally large, bright red ankle.

‘You know what you need?’ began Nanny Piggins.

‘Some type of cake?’ guessed Michael.

‘Exactly,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘An ice-cream cake. You can use it as a cold compress on your ankle. But make sure you have a spoon in your hand to eat the ice-cream as it melts.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea!’ said the young woman as she got up and hobbled to the door.

‘Keep your foot elevated and in the fridge!’ called Nanny Piggins, ‘so the ice-cream doesn’t melt too quickly.’ By now the other patients had all perked up and were eagerly awaiting treatment by Nanny Piggins.

And so in the time it took for the doctor to finish pretending to see one imaginary patient, Nanny Piggins managed to cure a whole waiting room worth of invalids. Of course, she had a huge advantage over the doctor. Whereas he had gone to medical school and had to learn the names and effects of thousands of drugs, she simply prescribed cake.

When the doctor eventually came out to see his next patient, not even Michael and Nanny Piggins were there. (Between diagnoses, Nanny Piggins had been amusing some small children by re-enacting the time she was chased by an ostrich across the African
Sahara. She accidentally fell off the coffee table and knocked Michael hard on the back, which made the bucket fly off his head.) The doctor was horrified to discover a completely empty waiting room.

‘Why is nobody waiting in my waiting room?’ demanded the doctor.

‘A pig cured them,’ explained the receptionist.

‘A pig!’ exclaimed the doctor. He would have fired his receptionist on the spot but he could not because she was his wife. So he had to satisfy himself with stalking back into his office and slamming the door. But then he had to come out again, because the more he thought about it the more he wanted to know – what pig?

Back at the Green house, Nanny Piggins and the children were enjoying a game of bullrush. Bullrush is normally played on an open field. One person is in, then everybody else rushes from one side of the field to the other, trying not to get tagged. But Nanny Piggins had discovered that this already excellent game could be dramatically improved by playing it indoors. It added to the excitement to be rushing past Mr Green’s valuable antique furniture
and fragile porcelain. So, as you can imagine, they were all having a marvellous time and naturally felt resentful when they heard the front doorbell ring.

‘Doorbell,’ called Michael.

‘I suppose we have to answer it,’ moaned Nanny Piggins.

‘It might be someone fun who wants to play bullrush,’ said Samantha. She had become a little overexcited about the game and was not thinking clearly.

‘In my experience, whenever you’re enjoying good loud fun, no-one ever knocks on the door to encourage you to have even more fun,’ said Nanny Piggins sadly.

‘I’ll answer it,’ volunteered Derrick. ‘If it’s someone come to complain about the noise, I’ll just say we’re burglars and we don’t live here.’

‘Good idea,’ approved Nanny Piggins.

As it turned out they were partly right. When Derrick opened the door, the man on the step
had
come to complain, but not about the noise. It was the doctor.

‘Is there a pig living here?’ asked the doctor rudely. For even though he had not said anything technically rude, he had the knack of making otherwise polite sentences sound rude.

‘Maybe,’ said Derrick, not wanting to get his nanny in trouble.

‘I want to speak to her,’ demanded the doctor.

‘That’s nice,’ said Derrick, shutting the door in his face.

The doctor knocked on the door again. Derrick opened it again.

‘I said I wanted to speak to the pig,’ snapped the doctor.

‘Well we don’t always get what we want, do we?’ said Derrick, swinging the door shut again.

The doctor knocked on the door yet again. Derrick opened it yet again. The doctor took a deep breath and through gritted teeth said, ‘Please may I speak to Miss Piggins.’ After all, he was not a stupid man, just a slow learner.

‘Wait here,’ said Derrick, shutting the door on the doctor for a third time.

The doctor waited on the doorstep for forty-five minutes before the door swung open again. He was really furious. The doctor drew in his breath to start yelling but then he stopped because right in front of him stood the most beautiful pig he had ever seen. He had to pause and think for a moment. When he had imagined himself yelling at a pig, the pig he had imagined had not looked like this at
all. The pig of his imagination certainly had not been wearing designer clothes and eye make-up. Derrick, Samantha and Michael stood behind Nanny Piggins waiting to see what she would do to the doctor.

‘Did you enjoy that?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Did I enjoy what?’ asked the doctor, having no idea what she was talking about.

‘Waiting,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘No, it’s very rude to leave me standing out here for so long,’ complained the doctor.

‘Exactly,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now you know what it’s like. I hope you don’t make your patients wait so long in the future.’