Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster (12 page)

‘What an ugly statue,’ remarked Nanny Piggins.

‘Which, the headmaster or the gorgon?’ asked Boris.

‘Both,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If it weren’t for the three heads it would be hard to tell them apart.’

Inside, the decor was even more impressive. There was crimson and gold drapery and an extraordinary number of chandeliers for a school building. And to celebrate the reunion, individual colour glossy photographs of everybody in the class were pinned up around the walls. Before they could actually go into the gym (or ballroom as it was being called on this evening), they had to check-in at a registration table, and pick up name tags.

Mr Green was obviously beginning to regret his decision to come (not that he had been given much choice). His face turned a whitish green. His hands were clammy and his feet dragged. It was as if his brain knew it had to go in, but his feet thought they could still dash back to the car park.

‘Come on, Mr Green,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s like ripping off a bandaid. Best to do these painful things quickly.’

‘But you always soak a bandaid off in the bath,’ puzzled Michael.

‘I was speaking metaphorically,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘and when you speak metaphorically you can say any old rubbish.’

Nanny Piggins pushed Mr Green towards the desk.

‘Name?’ asked an officious looking 43-year-old woman.

‘Green,’ said Mr Green.

The woman sighed impatiently. ‘What is your
first
name?’

Mr Green gulped. He leaned towards her and whispered something inaudible.

‘I didn’t catch that,’ she said in a loud voice. ‘Are you disabled? I know I have to find a ramp for Debra Winning because her leg got bitten off by a hippopotamus in a waterskiing accident in Africa. But I’ve been told nothing about having to deal with someone who can’t answer a simple question.’

People were now beginning to stare at Mr Green and his group.

‘My name,’ said Mr Green slowly, ‘is Green. Lysander Green.’

Everyone in the ballroom gasped. The music stopped mid-song. All eyes stared at Mr Green. The
silence was finally broken by Nanny Piggins, who could not contain her response any longer. She burst out laughing.

‘Your name is Lysander?!’ she exclaimed, between tears of laughter. ‘Ly-san-der?!’

At this point she actually had to get down on the floor and roll around laughing for several minutes.

‘I never even knew Father had a first name,’ marvelled Samantha.

‘Let alone one so funny,’ agreed Michael.

‘I guess it explains why every Christmas he gives us monogrammed socks with ‘LG’ written on them,’ said Derrick.

‘You’ve got a lot of nerve turning up here. Lysander,’ came a voice from behind them.

They spun around to see a dashingly handsome man in a tuxedo. He looked like an international super-spy, the type you see in movies, who has a secret computer in his wristwatch that can either summon an expensive European sports car or blow up the entire world, depending on which way you turn it.

‘Horatio Darval,’ growled Mr Green.

‘And his name is Horatio?!’ giggled Nanny Piggins. ‘This gets better and better.’

‘What are you doing here, Lysander?’ asked Horatio. ‘Are you finally going to confess to what you did with the Champion’s Cup?’

‘I did not steal that cup!’ exclaimed Mr Green.

‘You disgust me,’ said Horatio, walking forward and stabbing Mr Green with his forefinger. ‘Once a thief, always a thief.’

Mr Green bristled. He was not a brave man. But he puffed his chest out and glared back, because he did not like to be poked.

‘Nanny Piggins, do something,’ urged Samantha. ‘I think Father is going to be in a fist fight.’

‘And why should I do something?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘We haven’t been to the buffet yet,’ said Michael.

‘Good point,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll put a stop to it.’

The children assumed Nanny Piggins would leap in the middle, put both men in a cobra lock and give them a good telling off. But instead, she silenced them in a much easier way. Nanny Piggins simply took off her coat.

Everyone in the room gasped and stared.

Nanny Piggins’ dress was entirely covered in gold shiny stuff. There were beads, buttons, baubles
(left over from Christmas), flashing fairy lights and sequins. Indeed, if you stared at her too long the glare off her dress could actually cause temporary blindness. But when worn so gracefully and by such a glamorous pig the effect was magically alluring.

‘Wow!’ exclaimed Horatio. ‘Who is that woman?!’

‘That’s not a woman,’ said Mr Green ungraciously. ‘She’s the nanny.’

‘I think I’m in love,’ said Horatio, clutching his hand to his heart (in case he was not in love and the heart spasm was actually a mild angina attack).

‘I should warn you,’ said Mr Green, ‘she is a pig.’

‘I will never ever eat bacon again,’ said Horatio breathlessly, which truly shows how deeply in love he had fallen in those two seconds.

‘What a charming thing to say,’ said Nanny Piggins, giving Horatio her trotter to kiss.

‘Would you do me the honour of dancing with me?’ blushed Horatio (who actually was an international super-spy; one who had not blushed since he was four years old and his pre-school teacher had discovered he did not know how to tie his shoelaces).

‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘as long as we dance straight over to the buffet table.’

And so Nanny Piggins allowed Horatio Darval to twirl her away. Mr Green went to sit on his own in the corner. And the children set out to enjoy themselves as best they could in a room full of 180 stuffy adults.

As Mr Green sat alone at an empty table, he soon discovered that the only thing worse than being denounced by everyone he’d gone to school with, was being ignored by everyone he’d gone to school with. Nobody spoke to him or even about him. They were too busy talking to each other, showing off photographs of their children and their weddings, and their divorces and remarriages.

Nanny Piggins was on the dance floor doing the tango with Pablo Rodriguez, the former school handball champion. They were surrounded by a group of admirers, who gaped and applauded her every flashy move.

The only pleasure Mr Green got was when Pablo tried to dip Nanny Piggins and her heel broke, causing her to fall on the floor. But Pablo enjoyed it even more because he got to fall on top of her.

Nanny Piggins was not at all perturbed. She had a cordless drill and a screw set in her handbag (as every lady who wears vintage shoes should), so she allowed Pablo to carry her over to her seat next to Mr Green so she could take a minute to mend it.

‘I thought you wanted to come so you could clear my name,’ sulked Mr Green.

‘I will,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but in a room with a buffet table and 90 men who want to dance with me, first things first.’

‘It was a mistake coming,’ mumbled Mr Green. ‘You’ll never be able to uncover the real thief now, after all these years. Owlface hasn’t even turned up.’

‘Who is Owlface?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Huh,’ snorted Mr Green. ‘A nobody. Just a weedy little nerd. But if it wasn’t for his ridiculous scientific research, I never would have been accused.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘On the morning of the theft he was using a weather balloon to take photographs of the algae in the school duck pond, when he inadvertently took a photograph of me going into the headmaster’s office at exactly the time of the theft,’ explained Mr Green.

‘So you did do it!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

‘No, I did not!’ yelled Mr Green. ‘I was on the other side of town, flat on my back having been knocked unconscious by a falling coconut.’

‘There was a palm tree in this town?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes, and it had only been planted the previous day,’ said Mr Green.

‘Then how could you be in the photographs?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Mr Green.

‘You don’t have an identical twin, do you?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘No, I don’t,’ said Mr Green.

‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And I suppose it can’t have been altered digitally because computers hadn’t been invented fifty years ago.’

‘Twenty-five years ago, I was only at school twenty-five years ago,’ said Mr Green.

‘Oh yes, I keep forgetting,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So where is this Owlface? And why does he have such a peculiar name.’

‘Owlface wasn’t his real name,’ said Mr Green. ‘It was a nickname I gave him because he wore glasses.’

‘So you were a great wit even then,’ observed Nanny Piggins.

‘His surname was Master, but nobody knew his first name, just his initials T. R.’ explained Mr Green. ‘He must have had some silly name he was embarrassed to reveal.’

‘It seems to be a common problem at this school,’ noted Nanny Piggins.

‘If you want to know what he looks like,’ said Mr Green, ‘his picture is right behind you on the wall.’

Nanny Piggins turned around to see a photograph of a very short, thin boy, with thick brown-framed glasses and a chunky calculator in his breast pocket.

‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He looks strangely familiar.’

Just at that moment Derrick, Samantha and Michael rushed up.

‘Father,’ said Derrick, ‘where’s your photograph? We’ve been looking everywhere and haven’t found it.’

‘It’s over there by the stage,’ pointed out Mr Green.

‘Where?’ asked Samantha. ‘All I can see is that huge photograph of the handsome blond school captain, looking really athletic in his lacrosse uniform and holding the Champion’s Cup over his head.’

‘That’s me,’ said Mr Green.

‘Nooooo!’ cried Nanny Piggins and the children in unison.

‘You were the school captain?’ asked Derrick.

‘And captain of the lacrosse team?’ asked Michael.

‘And you had thick wavy blond hair?’ asked Samantha.

‘And you looked good in shorts?’ marvelled Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes, yes, yes it’s all true,’ sobbed Mr Green. ‘I used to be all those things. But after I was wrongly accused, I changed. Everywhere I went I was taunted. So I stopped having friends, smiling and going to social functions, and concentrated on the only thing I could rely on – mathematics.’

‘What a terrible story,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘So that’s why Mother married you,’ said Samantha, still looking at the photograph. ‘Because she knew you when you looked like that.’

‘Yes, thanks to her exchange trip to Paris, your mother never witnessed my fall from grace,’ Mr Green stood up, scraping his chair back. ‘She never saw the way Owlface ruined my life. Well now it’s time for me to get revenge!’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Just you watch!’ said Mr Green. He took a pen out of his breast pocket, turned to Owlface’s photograph and drew a big curly moustache on him. ‘Hah!’ said Mr Green proudly. ‘Who’s the fool now?’ Mr Green walked away to drown his sorrows in more non-alcoholic punch.

But Nanny Piggins was not paying attention to Mr Green anymore. She was staring at the photograph in shocked silence.

‘What’s wrong, Nanny Piggins?’ asked Michael.

‘Look.’ She pointed at the photograph.

They all looked. And suddenly, just as when you stare at one of those magic pictures with all the dots long enough, they saw what she saw.

‘Oh my goodness!’ squealed Samantha.

‘It can’t be!’ whispered Derrick.

‘No!’ exclaimed Michael.

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘it is – the Ringmaster!’

‘Father went to school with the Ringmaster!’ marvelled Derrick.

‘T. R. Master stands for The Ring Master,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘What an ingenious secret identity.’

‘So the Ringmaster framed Father?’ asked Samantha.

‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘All he had to do was plant a coconut-laden palm tree in exactly the right location, hire a Mr Green look-alike and forge a comprehensive study of the algae in the school’s duck pond. Such a thing would be second nature to him.’

‘Then we’ll never find the Champion’s Cup now,’ said Michael.

‘Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘for I know how the Ringmaster’s mind works. Follow me. I know exactly where he would hide it.’