Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan (8 page)

‘But that’s different,’ spluttered the doctor. ‘They have a comfortable waiting room with magazines.’

‘Don’t get her started on the magazines,’ advised Michael. ‘It will make you feel sick.’

‘There is nothing comfortable about putting a group of diseased people in a confined space and leaving them there for an hour,’ argued Nanny Piggins.

‘Look here, you have completely ruined my business,’ complained the doctor.

‘Have I?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘All my patients have left me and taken up eating cake,’ said the doctor.

‘I’m sure they’re a lot happier,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘That’s not the point,’ protested the doctor. ‘It is my job to make sure they are well.’

‘You’re not doing a very good job then,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘I spent six years at medical school learning to be a doctor,’ said the doctor. ‘You can’t come along and steal all my patients by prescribing cake!’

‘Oh, can’t I?’ said Nanny Piggins, her eyes narrowing.

This just goes to show how very unwise the doctor was. Because anyone who knew Nanny Piggins knew that you should never
ever
tell her she could not do something. Once, one of the acrobats at the circus had made a similar mistake. He said Nanny Piggins would never be able to pogo-jump all the way across Belgium dressed up as Henry the Eighth. Three days, two million jumps and one very sweaty Henry the Eighth costume later, he was made to look very silly indeed. Telling Nanny Piggins she could not do something was always the best way to make sure that is exactly what she did.

Indeed, humans underestimating the willpower of pigs is a common theme throughout history. It was a pig who built the Great Wall of China to
keep the Mongol hordes from invading. (Which is why to this day in every Chinese restaurant you get Mongolian lamb, not Mongolian pork.) And it was a pig who discovered America but, unlike Christopher Columbus, she had the good sense to keep her discovery to herself because she found lots of yummy food there.

Nanny Piggins had planned to spend the next day setting up a ham radio and gossiping with her friends on the Falkland Islands. But the doctor had annoyed her, so she decided to annoy him back.

The next morning, when the doctor arrived at his surgery, there were, yet again, no patients waiting.

‘Where are all my patients today?’ ranted the doctor. His wife/receptionist did not bother explaining, she just pointed out the window. There, on the other side of the road, sat Nanny Piggins. She had set up a cake stall with a sign overhead reading ‘Holistic Cake Healer’. And, unlike the doctor, she was surrounded by eager patients.

‘Now she’s gone too far!’ exploded the doctor.

He set out across the street to give Nanny Piggins a piece of his mind. ‘You cannot treat ill people purely by giving them cake!’ he yelled at Nanny Piggins.

‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s why I’m branching out.’

‘You’re what?’ spluttered the doctor.

‘I’m using honey to treat wounds,’ started Nanny Piggins.

‘It’s an excellent antiseptic,’ supplied Samantha.

‘Lemonade to treat sore throats,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘It’s very soothing,’ added Boris.

‘And I’m using fudge to treat irritable bowel syndrome,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘How does fudge help irritable bowel syndrome?’ demanded the doctor. He did not really want to ask but he could not help but be curious.

‘It doesn’t,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘but it really cheers the patient up.’

‘Why are you trying to ruin my business?’ asked the doctor.

‘I’m not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m merely trying to supply a better alternative.’

‘Cake, lemonade and fudge are no alternative to clinical medicine,’ complained the doctor.

‘Maybe not, but it is a quicker alternative,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and people are tired of waiting in your waiting room.’

‘This won’t last,’ prophesied the doctor. ‘My
patients will come back. They will have their cake, but they will want their medicine too.’

With that the doctor stormed back to his surgery and sat inside, sulking, as Nanny Piggins did a roaring trade, selling cake and sweet goods all day long.

As I am sure you have already guessed, the doctor was completely wrong. Three days later, his waiting room was still completely empty and Nanny Piggins’ cake stall was still thriving. He sat in his office, looking out the window and feeling very sorry for himself. For the first time in twenty years of practising medicine, a thought occurred to him that had never occurred to him before. Maybe he was not as important as he thought he was. It was a very depressing idea. It made him feel all hollow and empty inside. His eyes started to itch. A lump formed in his throat. Then the doctor realised what he needed. He needed a piece of cake to cheer himself up.

And so the doctor swallowed his pride because he wanted to swallow some cake. He crossed the street and approached Nanny Piggins, looking very sad.

‘What do you want?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘A slice of lemon drizzle cake please,’ mumbled the doctor.

Nanny Piggins considered torturing him some more, pretending she had run out of cake, and making him beg for it. But she could see he was a broken man. So, being a compassionate pig, she cut him a large slice (and a slice that Nanny Piggins considered large was very large indeed).

‘A lesser pig would tell you to go away. But when I became a holistic cake healer, I took the Hippopigic Oath – swearing to never withhold cake from anyone who needed it, no matter who they were, how rude they were, or how long they kept their patients waiting in their waiting room.’

‘That seems an awfully specific oath,’ said the doctor.

‘Do you want your cake or not?’ snapped Nanny Piggins.

And the doctor hurriedly took it. As soon as he swallowed his first bite, he started to feel better. ‘So are you going to have your cake stall here forever then?’ he asked resignedly.

‘Perhaps not quite forever,’ admitted Nanny Piggins.

‘You’re not?’ asked the doctor, now starting to really brighten up.

‘Much as I enjoy being a holistic cake healer, it isn’t really my calling,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘It’s not?’ asked the doctor, actually starting to smile again, in between shovelling mouthfuls of lemon drizzle cake into his mouth.

‘You see, I have a career dilemma. While I am a very good at prescribing cake, my true talent lies elsewhere. I have an even greater gift for eating cake,’ said Nanny Piggins immodestly, but truthfully. ‘It presents a terrible conflict of interest.’

‘It does?’ said the doctor. Now he almost wanted to kiss Nanny Piggins he was so grateful.

‘Tell him the real reason you want to give up being a holistic cake healer, Nanny Piggins,’ chided Samantha.

Nanny Piggins looked away shiftily. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’re going to need the doctor’s help to solve the problem,’ prompted Derrick.

‘You have a problem I can help with?’ said the doctor, now positively gleeful.

‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins petulantly.

‘Lying is wrong,’ Michael reminded her.

‘All right, all right! I’ll admit it. My patients have been coming down with a few problems,’ confessed Nanny Piggins.

‘Oh dear,’ said the doctor.

‘They are very happy with my treatment. And I always cure their problem. But Holistic Cake Therapy seems to have an unfortunate side effect,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘What side effect?’ asked the doctor.

‘Stomach-ache,’ said Derrick matter-of-factly.

‘Ah,’ said the doctor knowingly, struggling hard not to look smug.

‘I tried prescribing more cake,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That always works for me when I have a stomach-ache.’

‘I see,’ said the doctor.

‘I tell the patients – all you have to do is tough it out and push through the cake barrier. If you just keep eating cake, eventually your body becomes so high on sugar and numb from overeating that you start to feel all right again. But for some reason, it doesn’t seem to work for all my patients.’

‘Perhaps,’ suggested the doctor diplomatically, ‘because they are not pigs?’

‘I suppose that might have something to do with it,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘Humans can be very weak sometimes.’

‘It’s our own fault,’ said the doctor humbly.
‘We’re not lucky enough to have your superior digestive capabilities.’

‘True,’ acknowledged Nanny Piggins.

And so Nanny Piggins and the doctor came to an agreement. She would stop being a holistic cake healer right outside his surgery. And he would make sure he saw all his patients as promptly as possible. No more sneaking out the back door to play video games. (He admitted that was what he had been doing.) And if for some unforeseen reason, a patient did have to wait for more than ten minutes, the doctor would provide them with a slice of cake – one for every ten minutes they were delayed, until he was able to see them.

This regimen worked beautifully. All the doctor’s patients returned. They were glad to be seen more promptly. And they were even more glad when he could not see them promptly because they enjoyed eating cake. Indeed, sometimes, when she was hungry, Nanny Piggins went along and sat in the waiting room without putting her name down, just so she could have a slice of cake too.

Nanny Piggins was relaxing in the bath. She had been in there so long, her skin was even pinker than usual and the paperback she was reading had fallen in the water three times. So, as she read, she had to carefully peel back each page or she might tear it (and subsequently never find out who murdered Mrs Bottomly in the conservatory with a pair of long-handled garden shears). Nanny Piggins had
one rule when she was in the bath: ‘Don’t interrupt me unless you’re bringing a snack.’

So when a noise disturbed her and Nanny Piggins looked up to see a chocolate bar sliding under the door, she knew one of the children was outside and wanted to speak to her.

‘Yes?’ said Nanny Piggins. (She was curt because she was not entirely ready to tear herself away from the world of brutal murder just yet.)

‘Nanny Piggins, there
was
someone at the door,’ said Derrick.

‘Well if they’ve gone away, what’s the problem?’ asked Nanny Piggins, still furtively reading to find out if her suspicions were true, and that cousin Gertrude the physicist was the one who put the poison in the gardener’s hot chocolate.

‘He was at the door, now he’s climbing up the drainpipe,’ explained Derrick.

‘The Ringmaster!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, as she leapt out of the bath. For she knew only one man impertinent enough to take a closed front door as an invitation to climb up the outside of the building and in through an upstairs window.

And indeed, she had barely wrapped herself in her robe before the bathroom window was shoved open and the Ringmaster’s fat bottom started
to wiggle its way into the room. Nanny Piggins instinctively picked up the toilet brush and hit him hard. (Nanny Piggins would never dream of spanking children. But in her professional opinion most fully grown men could do with a good spanking at least once a day.)

Surprisingly, the Ringmaster did not say ‘Ow!’, although we must presume he thought it. Instead he turned to Nanny Piggins, with the most sickeningly insincere smile on his face, and said, ‘Sarah Piggins, what a wonderful surprise!’ Then he kissed her loudly on each cheek. To which Nanny Piggins naturally responded by stomping hard on his foot. (This was the way Nanny Piggins and the Ringmaster always greeted each other. There was a time when Nanny Piggins would go to the trouble of biting his leg every time they met. But one day she got a piece of his trousers caught between her teeth and she had to go to the dentist, so she did not risk that anymore.)

‘I am not coming back to your circus to be a flying pig again,’ declared Nanny Piggins boldly.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ lied the Ringmaster.

‘Really? Well I know for a fact that my sister Katerina, who replaced me as your flying pig, has recently run away from you,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘That was entirely my own fault,’ said the
Ringmaster. ‘Given her inexplicable love of vegetables I should never have taken the circus to Wales. The local leeks were always going to be impossible for her to resist.’

‘True,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. Katerina was obsessed when it came to green vegetables. ‘But I’m still not going back to being a flying pig.’ (Not that Nanny Piggins minded the actual flying part of being a flying pig. She just did not enjoy the no-hot-and-cold-running-water part of living in a circus.)

‘There is no need for you to return to the circus,’ said the Ringmaster. ‘We have replaced your sister with a flying chicken.’

‘What’s so remarkable about a flying chicken?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘All chickens can fly.’

‘We put the chicken in a pig costume,’ explained the Ringmaster.

‘Ah,’ said Nanny Piggins. This made perfect sense. ‘So why exactly have you invaded my private bathroom. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t hit you with the toilet brush again?’

‘I’ve just come to catch up with a dear old friend,’ said the Ringmaster.

‘Who?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘You,’ said the Ringmaster.

Nanny Piggins hit the Ringmaster on the leg
with the toilet brush just for good measure. ‘You know perfectly well we are not good friends, but arch enemies.’

‘Are you all right in there, Nanny Piggins?’ asked Samantha from the other side of the bathroom door. ‘Would you like us to call the police or something?’

‘I’d like you to fetch me the fire poker,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The toilet brush doesn’t seem to hurt enough.’

‘All right, I’ll admit, I was wondering if you could do me a little favour. Not so much for me, but for another dear friend of mine who is having a terrible career crisis,’ said the Ringmaster.

‘If she works for you I’m not surprised she’s having a career crisis,’ said Nanny Piggins, who had herself chewed through a thick canvas tent and stolen an Indian elephant in her bid to escape the Ringmaster’s workplace.

‘She’s waiting outside. I’ll bring her in,’ said the Ringmaster. ‘Would you like to dress and come downstairs, or should I get her to climb up and in through the bathroom window?’

Nanny Piggins whacked the Ringmaster one more time for his impertinence, then followed him downstairs. She did not get dressed because she knew if she took her eyes off the Ringmaster for two
seconds, the children would go missing and turn up three months later in Belorussia working as trapeze artists. It was not so much that the Ringmaster was evil (although he certainly was) as that he could not help himself. Being a true showman, he was always recruiting new talent whether they wanted to be recruited or not.

Nanny Piggins and the children sat in the living room, waiting for the Ringmaster to return with his troubled protégé. Boris was there too, but he was still frightened of the Ringmaster, so he hid underneath the hearth rug.

The Ringmaster returned a few moments later with a woman. But to call her a woman is not really fair on women generally. Because she was so dazzlingly beautiful and gorgeous it was as if she belonged to another species. She had all the stereotypical attributes associated with beauty. She was tall and skinny, and her hair was so shiny it looked like it had been painted with decking oil. Nanny Piggins’ instinct was to hate her immediately. But then the tall, thin, beautiful woman shocked Nanny Piggins by saying, ‘Sarah Piggins, how wonderful to see you again!’ and giving her a big hug.

Nanny Piggins wished she had brought the toilet brush downstairs so she could hit this strange
woman too. ‘I’ve never seen you before in my life,’ declared Nanny Piggins.

‘Oh yes you have,’ said the Ringmaster. ‘It’s Lavinia.’

‘You remember me, don’t you? From the circus?’ asked Lavinia.

Nanny Piggins squinted at Lavinia closely. ‘The only Lavinia I know was Lavinia the Fat Lady.’

‘Exactly. That’s the problem. This is my Fat Lady,’ said the Ringmaster, pointing at Lavinia with disgust.

Lavinia looked ashamed of herself.

‘No!’ gasped Nanny Piggins. ‘The last time I saw you, you weighed four hundred kilograms.’

‘Hey,’ came the muffled cry of Boris from under the carpet.

‘Not that that’s a lot,’ said Nanny Piggins hastily, for she did not want to hurt her brother’s feelings. Boris weighed over seven hundred kilograms and was very sensitive about the subject.

Nanny Piggins looked Lavinia up and down. ‘What happened to you? Did you get some sort of intestinal parasite? Or did an evil villain lock you in a cellar and force you to eat muesli?’ Nanny Piggins eyed the Ringmaster as she said this. It was just the type of thing he would do.

‘No,’ said Lavinia. She was obviously both embarrassed and ashamed.

‘Tell her,’ said the Ringmaster sternly.

‘Do I have to?’ pleaded Lavinia.

‘If she is going to help you, she needs to know the truth,’ said the Ringmaster.

‘But I’m so ashamed,’ protested Lavinia.

‘All the more reason to make a clean breast of it,’ said the Ringmaster.

‘My aunt –’ Lavinia broke off as she started to sob. ‘Spit it out,’ urged the Ringmaster.

‘My aunt gave me an aerobics video for Christmas,’ admitted Lavinia, breaking into tears.

Nanny Piggins gasped.

Boris gasped. Then he choked and coughed because he had sucked in a mouthful of dust under the carpet.

‘What was she thinking?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘You’re a Fat Lady!’

‘I know,’ said Lavinia the Fat Lady.

‘Tell her the rest,’ said the Ringmaster severely.

‘There’s more?’ asked Nanny Piggins, who did not think she could be more shocked.

‘I went on a diet,’ admitted Lavinia.

‘No!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

‘Niet!’ exclaimed Boris, who was so shocked he reverted to speaking Russian.

‘And –’ cajoled the Ringmaster, ‘tell her everything.’

‘I started jogging,’ admitted Lavinia as tears of shame rolled down her cheeks.

‘You poor, poor woman,’ said Nanny Piggins, taking Lavinia in her arms and giving her a hug.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ sobbed Lavinia. ‘I’ve ruined my career. Being a Fat Lady is all I know.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins comfortingly. ‘You’ve come to the right place. We will help you. You’ll soon be so disgustingly fat, people will pay to point at you and stare again.’

‘Do you think so?’ asked Lavinia hopefully.

‘No-one knows more about eating high-calorie food than Nanny Piggins,’ Michael assured her.

‘Thank you, thank you so much,’ wept Lavinia.

‘Excellent,’ exclaimed the Ringmaster. ‘Lavinia needs to be five times her current body weight by a week from Friday because we’re taking the circus to Morocco.’

‘Get out of this house before I risk my teeth and bite you on the leg,’ said Nanny Piggins.

Fortunately Nanny Piggins did not have to carry out her threat because the Ringmaster had already
done a commando leap out of the living room window and was running off down the street.

Nanny Piggins turned and looked at the sorry sight of the svelte and beautiful Fat Lady. ‘I hardly know where to begin,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Yes I do! Lie down,’ ordered Nanny Piggins.

‘What, here on the floor?’ asked Lavinia the thin Fat Lady.

‘Just do it! Right now. You have to stop exercising immediately. Standing up is burning too many calories,’ declared Nanny Piggins.

Lavinia dropped to the floor. Because, despite being thin and beautiful on the outside, she was fat at heart, and as such, very kind and obedient.

‘But how am I going to get about?’ asked Lavinia from her position on the floor.

‘Boris will carry you,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Boris?!’ said Lavinia and Boris simultaneously. Lavinia because she had not realised that Boris was there, and Boris because he did not realise that Lavinia stopping doing exercise meant he was going to have to start doing exercise.

‘Look at her, Boris. She’s so thin. She desperately needs your help,’ said Nanny Piggins.

Boris poked his head out from under the carpet and got his first look at Lavinia. He had to admit
she was skinny. ‘I’ll barely notice carrying her,’ said Boris.

‘He carried a hitchhiker around for a week without noticing,’ explained Michael.

‘I actually ended up noticing the smell. He didn’t bathe as often as he should,’ added Boris.

Lavinia was delighted to see Boris. They were old friends from the circus and would often share a litre of honey together. ‘I didn’t realise you were hiding under the carpet, Boris. I thought Nanny Piggins had just swept a lot of rubbish under there.’

‘Oh no. I would never do that. I always sweep the rubbish under the carpet behind the couch. It’s much less noticeable,’ said Nanny Piggins, pointing to an even lumpier carpet on the other side of the room.

‘Where do we start?’ asked Lavinia.

‘The first thing we need to do is go to the bakery and buy some cakes,’ decided Nanny Piggins.

‘Because eating cake is a good way to gain weight?’ asked Samantha.

‘No, because eating cake helps you think,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But I suppose it will be good for that too.’

And so Nanny Piggins, Boris, Lavinia and the children walked down to the bakery. Boris pushed
Lavinia in a wheelbarrow, so she would not burn any calories, but she could look about and point at things she might like to eat.

They stood outside the bakery, looking in through the window at the display of cakes for some time. Nanny Piggins believed buying cake was a serious decision-making process that should never be rushed. Fortunately Hans the baker was very understanding about it. He employed a full-time staff member, Michelle, just for cleaning the marks customers left from pressing their noses against his window. (All truly good bakeries have to.)

‘If Lavinia is going to gain hundreds and hundreds of kilograms, she is going to have to eat a lot of cake,’ said Samantha.

‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We will
all
have to eat a lot of cake. Because it would be unsupportive to force Lavinia to do it all on her own.’

‘But how are we going to afford all that cake?’ asked Samantha.

‘Fortunately, I had the foresight to sell one of your father’s valuable tax law books on the internet last night,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘You did?’ asked Derrick, feeling both horrified and thrilled at the same time.

‘Yes, I sell something of his every time he irritates
me. So I usually sell five or six things of his every night. On Tuesday last week, when he complained that I hadn’t ironed his underwear, I sold seventeen pairs of his cufflinks to a Russian Mafioso,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘But what if Father finds out?’ asked Michael.

‘I’ll give him the Russian Mafioso’s address and encourage him to try to get them back,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Come on, let’s go inside and place our order.’

They all went into the shop.

‘What would you like, Lavinia?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘A salad,’ said Lavinia, without realising what she was saying. Her hands flew to her mouth as if to catch the already escaped words. ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’ Tears welled in her eyes.

‘It’s all right, dear,’ said Nanny Piggins firmly. ‘We’re here to help you. Let me make the decisions.’ Nanny Piggins proceeded to order enough cake, meringue and doughnuts to give a battalion of soldiers a sugar high for twelve months. Hans the baker soon realised he would have to hire a full-sized removalist’s truck to convey all the cake to the Green house. But Nanny Piggins was far and away his best customer, so it would be worth the extra cost.