Nanny Piggins and the Daring Rescue 7 (15 page)

Nanny Piggins had just learnt that Mrs Hesselstein, of the Hesselstein Chocolatorium, was having her annual stock clearance sale that afternoon, and she would be selling all chocolate that was past its use-by date at ninety per cent off. For Nanny Piggins, this was like all her Christmases come at once, except better because there would be none of that unpleasant business of receiving lurid yellow socks from Great Aunt Edith or having to write Christmas cards to everyone she had ever accidentally fired herself into (a surprisingly long list).

Nanny Piggins had to pick the children up and get them to the Chocolatorium by 4 o'clock, because Mrs Hesselstein (knowing full well how much chocolate lovers really love chocolate) only expected the sale to last seven minutes. She held these sales once every four years and it was akin to scheduling a tornado to hit the store.

The school gate was up ahead. There was not a second to lose. All those years of chasing ice-cream vans and running after cake trucks were going to pay off.

Nanny Piggins looked up and saw the minute hand on the Town Hall clock start to move. With just moments to go she dived, skidding to a halt face-down on the gravel just as the bell rang. When the dust settled, Nanny Piggins was too busy checking the damage to her Yves Saint Laurent dress to notice who was standing over her.

‘Good afternoon, Nanny Piggins,' smirked Nanny Anne. ‘Are you running a little behind schedule today?'

Nanny Piggins looked up and glowered. Nanny Anne was her arch nemesis. A nanny so perfectly perfect, she ironed her underwear three times (once before she put it away, once before she put them on, and once again while she was wearing them, just to be sure).

‘What are you doing here?' grumbled Nanny Piggins. ‘I thought you made Samson and Margaret catch the bus so that they could stay in touch with how common people live.'

‘Usually that is the case,' agreed Nanny Anne. ‘It is so important to inspire a child what not to live up to.'

‘Then why are you here?' asked Nanny Piggins, feeling the growing urge to bite Nanny Anne (knowing that the taste would soon be washed away by delicious Hesselstein chocolate).

‘Because it's Egg Week, of course,' smiled Nanny Anne.

Nanny Piggins glowered harder. She had no idea what Nanny Anne was talking about and Nanny Anne knew it. The question was, would Nanny Piggins crack and ask her?

‘You do know all about Egg Week, don't you?' asked Nanny Anne.

‘Of course,' fibbed Nanny Piggins.

‘The children told you all the details?' asked Nanny Anne, needling Nanny Piggins to see if she would snap. ‘When Samson and Margaret come home they always spend the first half hour, before afternoon tea, writing me a report on how they spent their day.'

‘Yes, well, Derrick, Samantha and Michael don't have time to write reports. They can't wait to fill me in on every detail of their school curriculum,' said Nanny Piggins, ‘which is why I'm here today. Derrick was so anxious to tell me about his last biology experiment that he had a brain aneurysm on the bus ride home, and his neurosurgeon said I had to meet him at the school gate because he clearly loves me so much, the anticipation of waiting to tell me about his day was literally making his mind explode.'

Nanny Anne was momentarily stunned by the medical severity of this story. She warred with herself. It was so obviously a load of poppycock. But if it was true, then it would be polite to enquire after Derrick's mental health and Nanny Anne had to, at all times, be polite. Luckily Nanny Anne was saved from making a terrible social faux pas by several hundred children bursting out of the building, screaming with delight to be liberated from their educational establishment.

Derrick, Samantha and Michael spotted their nanny and walked over quickly. They did not run because they were all holding eggs.

‘My goodness,' exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘It really
is
Egg Week!'

‘I told you so,' smirked Nanny Anne (her four favourite words in the English language).

‘What do we have to do with them?' asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Make an omelette?'

Nanny Anne laughed. ‘You might as well. There's no chance you are going to win. Samson and Margaret take the prize every year.' Nanny Anne took her two charges by their hands and briskly led them away.

‘Samantha, hand me your egg,' said Nanny Piggins.

‘Why?' asked Samantha.

‘I want to throw it at Nanny Anne's head,' explained Nanny Piggins, reaching for Samantha's egg. But Samantha protectively jerked it away.

‘You can't!' exclaimed Samantha.

‘Oh yes, I can,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘She isn't too far off yet. And I don't mind chasing after her to make sure I get in a really good shot.'

‘No, I mean you can't because I need to keep my egg safe,' said Samantha. ‘That's the assignment for school.'

‘What? To let a perfectly good egg go to waste?!' asked Nanny Piggins. ‘What higher purpose could an egg have than congealing into the back of Nanny Anne's perfectly perfect hair?'

‘I'm supposed to pretend this egg is a baby, take it everywhere with me and protect it from danger,' said Samantha.

‘Why?' asked Nanny Piggins. ‘In case all the chickens of the world go on strike and there is a worldwide egg shortage, making eggs more valuable than gold? Which actually isn't a half-bad idea, I must suggest it to my friend Brenda. She's a chicken and she's been looking for a plan for world domination for years and that just might do it.'

‘Looking after an egg is supposed to teach us about how hard it is to look after children, so we appreciate our parents more,' explained Samantha.

‘Because they think there is a real chance your parents might fry you up and eat you with some toast soldiers?' asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Although in your father's case, I wouldn't put it past him.'

‘I have to carry the egg everywhere with me and return it safely at the end of the week,' explained Samantha.

‘Why didn't you tell me about this Egg Week?' asked Nanny Piggins. ‘It's obviously a big deal.'

‘Well,' began Samantha, looking to her brothers for help, but they avoided her eye. ‘It gets very . . . competitive.'

‘Children compete to see who can look after the eggs better?!' asked Nanny Piggins.

‘No, the parents compete,' explained Samantha, ‘and we know you have a little bit of a competitive streak yourself, Nanny Piggins, so we thought it better not to mention it.'

‘Me? Competitive? Whatever do you mean?' asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Well you did try to throw Mr Brennan out a second-storey window by his tie when he didn't judge Derrick the winner of the science fair,' Michael reminded her.

‘But Derrick deserved to win!' protested Nanny Piggins. ‘The chocolate blancmange he created was the greatest contribution to chemistry since . . . since . . .' Nanny Piggins struggled to think of an example. ‘. . . since cavemen invented the wheel so they could ride their bicycle to the cake shop.'

‘Anyway, you know now,' said Samantha. ‘It isn't a hard assignment. I just have to be careful for a few days.'

‘What about you two?' asked Nanny Piggins, looking at Derrick and Michael's eggs. ‘Do you have to protect your eggs too?'

‘No,' said Michael. ‘Each class has to do something different. I have to spin mine. I have to practise all week. Then on Friday there will be a competition and whoever spins their egg longest wins.'

‘That makes moderately more sense,' conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘If you ever needed to make an egg dizzy, spinning it would do the trick.'

‘And I have to drop my egg off a three-storey building,' said Derrick.

‘Really?' asked Nanny Piggins, riveted by this exciting suggestion.

‘I've got to build something that will protect my egg from a three-storey fall,' explained Derrick.

‘Finally, this school is teaching you something useful,' approved Nanny Piggins. ‘Do you then put your teacher in the contraption to see if they survive the fall?'

‘No,' said Derrick firmly, before Nanny Piggins got any more wild ideas.

‘Well, those assignments sound simple enough. I'm sure we'll win this competition easily,' said Nanny Piggins as they began walking home.

‘It isn't a competition. It's just a school assignment,' said Samantha.

‘Pish!' said Nanny Piggins. ‘Everything in life is a competition. Sometimes it is a competition that doesn't matter terribly much. But it might matter to someone else. So for their sake it's important to try to beat them.'

‘That's not what you said on the morning of the cross-country carnival,' Michael reminded her. ‘You said that competitions are silly and we should all just go and have a nice bar of chocolate.'

‘Agh! Chocolate!' screamed Nanny Piggins.

‘What?!' asked the children.

‘Hesselstein's is having a sale! And it started –' Nanny Piggins grabbed Derrick's wrist to look at his watch – ‘One minute ago! Quick, run!'

The children needed no further explanation. They took off running towards the Chocolatorium.

‘Is this going to be safe for Eggbert?' asked Samantha.

‘Who?' asked Nanny Piggins.

‘My egg,' said Samantha. ‘Won't there be jostling at the shop?'

‘If there isn't now, there will be when I get there,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘No-one is standing between me and one of Mrs Hesselstein's finest five kilogram bars.'

And so poor Eggbert was undone less than ten minutes after leaving the school grounds. A chocolate-loving housewife was so overcome with desire for the big bags of Belgian white chocolate that she tried to put Nanny Piggins in a headlock to stop her getting at it first. This was a mistake. A big mistake. No-one saw quite which jujitsu move Nanny Piggins inflicted on her but Nanny Piggins got the chocolate, the housewife got a slipped disc in her lower back and Samantha was bumped ever so slightly into a display of life-sized chocolate Santas, which toppled down on her, causing a slight crack in Eggbert's shell.

As the children sat with Nanny Piggins on the pavement outside, licking the chocolate stains off their faces and sucking the chocolate smears out of their school uniforms, Samantha stared forlornly at Eggbert.

‘Maybe your teacher won't notice,' suggested Nanny Piggins. (Eating three times her own body weight in chocolate always made her optimistic.)

‘She'll notice,' said Samantha. ‘She brought in an infra-red light especially so she can see the tiniest crack. And that's not a tiny crack.'

‘Well, you made it worse yourself,' Michael said, ‘when you lunged for those chocolate-covered honeycombs.'

‘I thought Boris would like some,' said Samantha defensively.

Derrick snorted. ‘Is that why you just ate six yourself?'

‘Now, now,' chided Nanny Piggins. ‘We must never judge anybody harshly for wanting to eat a chocolate bar. Let he who is without chocolate stains on his school uniform cast the first stone.'

The boys looked sheepishly at their chocolate-covered ties.

‘The assignment is to not break the egg,' said Nanny Piggins, ‘and it isn't broken, just slightly cracked. If you are super-duper careful for the rest of the week I'm sure Eggbert will make it through just fine.'

The next morning Nanny Piggins and the children were awoken by a bloodcurdling scream. Except for Michael. He was the one doing the screaming. He leapt out of his bed and ran to his nanny as fast as he could.

‘What's wrong?' asked Nanny Piggins, wrapping Michael protectively in a big hug.

‘There's a strange woman in my bedroom,' shuddered Michael.

‘What does she want?' asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I don't know,' said Michael. ‘When I woke up she was standing over me and she just said “Hello”.'

‘Well, she sounds like a perfectly polite strange woman,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘Apart from the breaking and entering into our home bit. But I'm sure we can overlook that if she's got a good reason. Let's go and say “Hello” back.'

Nanny Piggins led the way to Michael's room. The children cowered behind her.

‘Yoo-hoo?' called Nanny Piggins as she pushed open the door. When she saw who it was, a curvaceous woman with a tattoo of a snake on her neck, seven nose rings in one nostril and peroxide blonde hair, Nanny Piggins rushed forward and gave her a huge hug. ‘Alexandra! How marvellous to see you,' she cried.

‘You asked one of your friends to come and scare the living daylights out of me?' asked Michael, a little hurt.

‘Not at all,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘This is Alexandra. I've asked her to come and help you with your spinning assignment. She is the plate spinner from the circus. No-one knows more about spinning than her.'

‘Oh,' said Michael, not knowing whether to be grateful or horrified.

‘With her help you're sure to win,' said Nanny Piggins confidently.