Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster (3 page)

‘He’s got a point,’ said Derrick.

‘What do you think, Nanny Piggins?’ asked the Police Sergeant.

Nanny Piggins sniffed the Ringmaster, stared hard into his eyes, then pinched him hard on the thigh.

‘Ouch!’ squealed the Ringmaster.

‘I think he is telling the truth,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘But if Father wasn’t kidnapped,’ asked Samantha, ‘then where is he?’

‘Either someone else kidnapped him, which would be quite a coincidence,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘or Mr Green has run away under his own volition. And given that Mr Green is a weak-minded man of limited intelligence, where would he hide?’

‘Somewhere warm,’ said Derrick.

‘Somewhere quiet,’ said Samantha.

‘Somewhere with free tea- and coffee-making facilities,’ said Michael.

‘Exactly!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He would hide at work!’

Twenty minutes later Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were with the Police Sergeant as he kicked in Mr Green’s office door and discovered him cowering under his desk, clutching several packets of company tea bags. Mr Green leapt to his feet. ‘It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it! You can’t prove anything!’

Eventually, after Nanny Piggins had emptied a vase of flowers over his head to silence his hysteria and the Police Sergeant dragged him down to the station and threatened to arrest him for perverting the course of justice, Mr Green finally explained what had happened. ‘I was standing in that box, beating on the glass, begging to be let out, when suddenly a trap door below me opened up and a strange hairy woman grabbed me by the ankle.’

‘You expect us to believe that?!’ exclaimed the Police Sergeant.

‘It’s all true,’ said the Ringmaster. ‘It was Rosalind, my bearded lady. She has excellent forearm strength.’

‘The next thing I knew I was inside a portable lavatory,’ said Mr Green, ‘and … I … I did not need to go to the lavatory at all.’ Mr Green started to weep.

‘What happened next?’ asked Nanny Piggins, fighting the urge to shake him.

‘I opened the door and looked out,’ sniffed Mr Green, ‘and the crowd was watching the box smash to the ground. So I took the opportunity to sneak away. I was so traumatised I forgot my briefcase.’

‘And nobody saw you go?’ asked the Ringmaster.

‘Nobody ever notices Mr Green,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s like bird spotting. Unless he moves or squawks, you’d never realise he was there.’

‘Didn’t you realise we all thought you had been kidnapped?’ asked the Police Sergeant.

‘Oh … well … no … of … course … no such thing …’ stammered Mr Green.

‘Or did you realise exactly what was going on?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘And think this was your big opportunity to flee the country and abandon your children.’

‘Maybe,’ admitted Mr Green.

The Police Sergeant sighed. ‘You are lucky, Mr Green, that there are no laws against being a very annoying man, or else I would be able to lock you away for an extremely long time.’

‘You wouldn’t do that, would you?’ begged Mr Green. ‘I’m an important tax lawyer. I have tax exiles to support. Their wealth would be lost without me.’

‘You’d better leave before I throw the book at you,’ said the Police Sergeant.

‘Just throw it anyway, Sergeant,’ urged Nanny Piggins. ‘I throw books at him all the time; it is very cathartic.’

Mr Green scurried away.

The Ringmaster got to his feet. ‘Now that it has become apparent that I am entirely innocent,’ said the Ringmaster, ‘perhaps you would be so good as to remove these handcuffs and let me go.’

The Police Sergeant picked up his handcuff keys. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Not so fast!’ declared the Inspector, bursting into the station with three police constables trailing behind him, all carrying large document boxes. ‘Mr T. Ringmaster, you are under arrest!’

‘His name is Ringmaster?’ marvelled Derrick.

‘It’s a family name,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘He comes from a long line of Ringmasters. His mother was Peru’s leading ringmaster for many years.’

‘What does the T stand for?’ asked Michael.

‘
The
, of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘How many times have you heard me refer to him as
The
Ringmaster?’

The children’s minds boggled as they assimilated this information.

‘This is an outrage,’ declared the Ringmaster. ‘This is victimisation. On what grounds are you going to arrest me?’ (The Ringmaster had to ask because he knew it could be any number of things – llama rustling, tattoo forging, tent stealing … just to name a few.)

‘I am arresting you for failing to file a tax return,’ announced the Inspector smugly.

‘What?’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘According to these papers we found in the Ringmaster’s caravan, he has not filed a tax return,’ accused the Police Inspector. ‘Not ever!’

‘Come now,’ said the Ringmaster. ‘You’re not going to get upset about a little thing like paperwork, are you?’ He was smiling again now. ‘If it is a matter of a small fine, I’ll happily pay that now. With my apologies for the paperwork oversight.’

‘I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of this situation,’ said the Inspector, starting to look menacing. ‘The punishment for withholding tax and failing to file a tax return for twenty-five years is – three years in jail!’

‘You’ll never catch me!’ yelled the Ringmaster. Then, with a level of acrobatic athleticism that can only be picked up from years of working with trapeze artists, he sprang over the Police Sergeant’s desk
(which is not easy when you are wearing handcuffs), ran across the room and leapt at the front window.

If it had been a normal window he would have smashed through and run off down the street. Unfortunately for the Ringmaster it was not a normal window. It was reinforced glass, so he thudded into it, slid down and landed in a heap on the floor.

‘Good,’ said the Police Inspector. ‘Now I can add resisting arrest to his list of charges.’

‘Sarah, do something, say something, you have to help me!’ pleaded the Ringmaster as two burly constables dragged him away.

‘You have been kidnapping circus performers, hoodwinking authorities and short-changing audiences for decades,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Surely you knew your day of reckoning would come.’

‘But I always did it in the nicest possible way,’ protested the Ringmaster.

For once his cheesy smile had faded, even his slicked hair was a mess. For the first time since the children had known him, the Ringmaster looked like an ordinary man and not a larger than life character.

‘What can I do?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I am just one pig, and with no formal legal training.’ She turned to the Police Sergeant. ‘Watching
Judge Gillian
on TV doesn’t count as formal legal training, does it?’

The Police Sergeant shook his head.

‘I know, I’ll bake you a cake with an electric angle grinder cooked into it,’ called Nanny Piggins as the door slammed shut on the Ringmaster.

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Nanny Piggins,’ said the Police Sergeant.

Later that evening, Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children sat around their kitchen table eating chocolate cake. They had sent Mr Green to bed with a bowl of soup (as punishment for being so naughty) and a copy of an addendum to the tax code (to help calm his nerves). Nanny Piggins had grounded him for a week, so that he would have the opportunity to reflect on his poor behaviour. And unlike Mr Green, she had no qualms about policing her punishment.

‘Well, children,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘it’s been quite a day. Who would have thought your father would have the imagination to fake his own kidnapping.’

‘I don’t think we can give him credit for the idea,’ said Derrick. ‘It never would have occurred to him if the Ringmaster hadn’t stuffed him in a portaloo.’

‘True,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

‘So are you pleased that the Ringmaster is finally behind bars?’ asked Michael.

Nanny Piggins thought for a moment before she answered. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘But now you don’t have to worry about him trying to kidnap you anymore,’ said Samantha. ‘Surely that’s a relief.’

Nanny Piggins smiled. ‘My dear child, I am a circus star. Being kidnapped by ambitious ringmasters is all part of the job. If there weren’t regular kidnap attempts on my person, I would begin to think I was losing my edge.’

‘So you’re sad that the Ringmaster is behind bars?’ marvelled Michael.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Nanny Piggins sincerely. ‘It’s like when you go to an aquarium and see a shark in a tank. Yes, it’s a man-eating killer and you wouldn’t want to fall in the tank with it. But it’s still pathetic to see such an impressive animal swimming around in circles.’

‘But things will be more peaceful now,’ Samantha pointed out.

‘True,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘But I’ve always thought peace and quiet are terribly overrated.’

Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were feeling very sorry for themselves. None of them had sustained an injury. But the most important person in their entire world had. Hans the baker was out of action.

It all started when Nanny Piggins had woken up the previous day with a yen for angel cake. She had immediately kept the children out of school, and gone down to place an order with Hans. He
had initially said there was no way he could possibly make 500 angel cakes in just one day, but after Nanny Piggins had shaken him by the collar and beseechingly explained just how much she really needed angel cake, Hans agreed to try his best.

Unfortunately, somewhere around the seventh hour of hand-whipping egg whites (his electric mixer had burnt out after two hours), Hans was stricken with a debilitating pain in his right forearm. And when Nanny Piggins rushed him to the doctor, it was concluded that Hans had baker’s elbow – a stress fracture in his ulna – caused by too much whipping.

‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Nanny Piggins when they returned home after dropping Hans at his flat over the bakery.

‘Buy Hans a nice card and perhaps some flowers,’ suggested Samantha.

‘Yes, of course we’ll do that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But I meant what are we going to do for cake – I’m starving!’

‘You could make a cake yourself,’ said Derrick.

‘No, no, no, that will not do,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I need cake now! If I tried to make cake myself I would just be overcome with hunger and eat all the mixture before I put it in the oven.’

‘We could drive into town and find another cake shop,’ suggested Samantha.

‘No,’ sighed Nanny Piggins. ‘Their cakes wouldn’t be as good as Hans’. It would only remind me of how much I miss him.’

‘He’s only been out of action for an hour and a half,’ said Michael.

Nanny Piggins began to sob. ‘Has it been that long already? What am I going to do? Will I ever eat cake again?!’

‘I know!’ said Derrick. ‘Let’s drive over to the cake factory in Slimbridge.’

‘But it’s closed on Saturdays,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘We could break in,’ suggested Michael.

‘No, they’ve installed new heat-sensing technology and retina eye scanners on all the doors, ever since the last time I let myself in for a little snack,’ sighed Nanny Piggins.

‘But if we’re never going to eat cake again,’ said Boris, his lower lip beginning to tremble, ‘what are we going to do on my birthday?!’ He burst into loud wailing sobs and collapsed on Samantha’s shoulder (causing her to collapse and pinning her to the floor).

‘There must be somewhere we can go where
there’s cake,’ said Michael.

Nanny Piggins instantly snapped out of her depression and leapt up from the table, ‘You’re a genius!!!’ she exclaimed.

‘I am?’ asked Michael.

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins, a big smile on her face. ‘Where is the very finest cake always served on a Saturday afternoon?’

The children looked at each other in confusion. They had no idea. And Boris was still weeping too hard to contribute to the conversation.

‘At weddings!’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘People are always getting married on Saturdays and where there is a wedding there has to be a cake! Usually a great big delicious cake with lots of marzipan icing and sugar decorations!’

‘But we haven’t been invited to any weddings,’ said Samantha.

Nanny Piggins looked down at her (Samantha was still pinned to the floor) and smiled fondly. ‘The only reason we haven’t been invited to any weddings is because the brides and grooms have never had the opportunity to meet us. I’m sure if they had we would have been the first people on their list. We’re a lot more fun than a bunch of boring old aunts and cousins.’

‘But isn’t wedding crashing wrong?’ said Derrick.

‘It’s only wrong if you just eat the cake and leave,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m fully prepared to dance with everyone and tell them some of my very best stories. Trust me, by the time we leave they will be pressing extra cake into our pockets.’

And so Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children got into Mr Green’s car. (They had to throw Mr Green out to do so, because it was Saturday so naturally Mr Green was trying to drive to work. But Nanny Piggins told Mr Green he had to walk because his doctor had rung up saying ‘his legs would wither away if he didn’t use them at least once a fortnight’.) Then they got Boris to stop crying long enough to get into the car, by reminding him that his birthday was eleven months away and chances were that Hans’ stress fracture would be healed by then.

After the initial excitement of heading off to eat cake at a wedding, it soon occurred to them that they had no idea when or where any weddings were occurring.

‘Couldn’t you use your extraordinary sense of smell to find one?’ asked Samantha.

Nanny Piggins leaned out the window and sniffed the air. ‘You would think so, but unfortunately the types of distinctively weddingy smells I could normally smell – the fear of the groom, the cooking sherry being secretly drunk by the vicar, or the gaffer tape holding the bride’s strapless dress up – are all masked by the mass of flowers in the bouquets and arrangements.’

‘Couldn’t you sniff for the flowers then?’ asked Derrick.

‘I could,’ agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘but flowers are actually quite common in flowerbeds as well. So we could find ourselves drawn into several wild goose chases. So I think the best tactic is to drive around looking for churches surrounded by deliriously happy people throwing rice.’

‘Are we going to eat the rice too?’ asked Michael.

‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘For some reason they only throw uncooked rice at weddings. Although if you think about it, it would make sense to throw cooked rice, preferably something delicious like Thai special fried rice or a nice creamy rice pudding. That way the bride and groom would have something to
nibble while they were getting their photos taken.’

‘There’s one!’ screamed Boris.

‘One what?!’ asked Nanny Piggins, slamming on the brakes of the car. ‘A dodo? If so, well spotted because I’ve always wanted to see one.’

‘No, better than that!’ said Boris. ‘A wedding!’

Sure enough, up ahead was a church with guests pouring out to congratulate a very happy-looking bride and groom.

‘Excellent!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, getting out of the car. ‘Come along, children, we must give our best wishes to the lovely couple.’

‘Why?’ asked Derrick.

‘If we just turn up at the wedding and start scoffing cake, that will look suspicious,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We must first establish our cover as invited guests.’ With that Nanny Piggins marched across the road, her arms spread wide, calling out, ‘My dears, you look breathtaking! I can’t wait to get to your reception to celebrate this happy union. Oh, and speaking of which, perhaps you could give me directions to the venue.’

As usual Nanny Piggins was right. They did have a wonderful time at the wedding. Nanny Piggins delighted the other guests with her death-defying stories. She even acted them out (fortunately there
was a chandelier for her to swing on and a pair of replica seventeenth-century duelling swords on the wall she could fence with). Then, after the meal, she danced. And oh, what a dance! Suffice to say, the bride is lucky she married the groom earlier in the day, for if she had not, his head would have been quite turned by Nanny Piggins.

Finally, the moment they had all been waiting for arrived – the cutting of the cake. Nanny Piggins insisted they use a seventeenth-century duelling sword, so they could cut really big pieces. And as soon as she, Boris and the children sank their teeth into their first bite, they knew it had all been worth it. There is something about weddings that brings out the best in people. It is the one day in their life when they say – ‘Go on, put another stick of butter in that cake mix’ and ‘Why stop at one? Let’s have two inches of creamy thick icing.’

As a result, the cake was so good that after one bite you had to quickly take a drink, because there was so much sugar in the icing, the process of osmosis caused it to suck all the moisture out of your mouth. Nanny Piggins was in heaven. She stopped speaking altogether for a full two minutes and just made noises like, ‘Mmmmmm-mmmm’ and ‘Aaaaah-mmm’ as she ate.

When they finally left the reception after saying goodbye to everyone and promising to come to the first anniversary party the following year, Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children returned home very satisfied.

‘What a wonderful day,’ declared Nanny Piggins.

‘It was good cake,’ agreed Derrick.

‘
Good
is not the word,’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘It was
divine
. We’ll definitely have to do that again tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?!’ exclaimed Samantha.

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The doctor said Hans will be out of action for at least a fortnight. I can’t go a whole two weeks without eating another cake like that.’

‘But Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha. ‘It’s one thing to gatecrash
one
wedding. But to gatecrash
two
weddings. That’s just naughty.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I wasn’t planning to gatecrash two weddings.’

‘Good,’ sighed Samantha.

‘I was planning to gatecrash another three,’ said Nanny Piggins, taking out a crumpled list from her pocket. ‘The caterer gave me the skinny on where all the weddings are happening across town tomorrow.’

‘We’re going to gatecrash three weddings in one day?’ asked Derrick.

‘Don’t think of it as gatecrashing,’ advised Nanny Piggins. ‘Gatecrashing is wrong. No, what we are doing is providing entertainment in the form of our delightful company in exchange for a small sample of their wedding cake.’

‘Today you ate the entire second tier of the wedding cake all on your own,’ reminded Samantha.

‘For which the bride should thank me,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You know what humans are like. Always watching their weight. She should be grateful I saved her from having all that cake lying around her home tempting her.’

And so, the next morning, Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children put on their best party clothes and headed out to celebrate the institution of marriage, again. Despite the children’s concerns about being thrown in jail for the serial theft of cake, they ended up having a wonderful day.

All the weddings were very different. The Wong–Yap wedding had lion dancers (although
Nanny Piggins could not understand why they used men in lion suits and not real lions). The Fitzgerald– FitzSimons wedding had a bouncy castle, which was a good idea in theory, but not so good in practice at an event where people are eating large amounts of food. (Fortunately the maître d’ had a hose handy.) But the Lee–Edwards wedding was the best as far as Nanny Piggins was concerned because they had a chocolate fountain. You were meant to dip strawberries in it. But no-one noticed when Nanny Piggins stuck her whole head under the warm chocolately flow (although it did have a spectacular effect on her hairstyle, and her hat was lost for three hours, until the father of the bride dipped in a strawberry and drew out the elegant bonnet).

Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children returned home that night, very tired and very full of cake.

‘Well, that was fun,’ admitted Samantha, ‘but we aren’t going wedding crashing tomorrow, are we? We have school. And no-one gets married on a Monday.’

‘No, there will be no more wedding crashing,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

The children were relieved. After four weddings
in two days they felt if they ate any more they would explode.

‘The wedding cakes were good, delicious even,’ continued Nanny Piggins. ‘But there was something lacking. I thought there was room for improvement.’

‘But you cried when you ate the chocolate orange layer cake at the Wong–Yap wedding because it tasted so good,’ said Michael.

‘Yes, but I was very hungry at the time,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It was only when I ate my eighth slice that I began to realise there was room for improvement. Where were the chocolate chunks? Where were the chocolate sprinkles?’

The children had no answers for these rhetorical questions.

‘Why were none of the four wedding cakes entirely dipped in chocolate?’ asked Nanny Piggins.