Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster (6 page)

‘No, you don’t understand,’ said Special Agent Egner. ‘She
was
the world leader in weaponised nuclear physics, but then last year she had a breakthrough. She was trying to find a new way to make a bomb that didn’t only kill people but cockroaches as well, when she stumbled across a new way to harness nuclear energy. She invented the world’s first nuclear-powered ice-cream maker.’

‘Really?’ said Nanny Piggins, finally impressed. ‘I guess her Piggins blood is beginning to show through.’

‘It is an astonishing breakthrough,’ explained Special Agent Worton. ‘With this technology we’ll be able to end world hunger forever. And not with those tasteless dehydrated ration packs the UN
drops on villages, but with tens of thousands of litres of the most delicious creamy ice-cream.’

‘How wonderful,’ said Nanny Piggins, dabbing away a tear of pride. ‘But what has that got to do with me. Do you need someone to test the ice-cream? Because my skills at eating ice-cream are superior even to my sister’s skills at doing really tricky sums.’

‘No, that’s not it,’ said Special Agent Egner. ‘We need you to be your sister.’

‘No way!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I absolutely refuse to get an advanced degree in anything that involves mathematics.’

‘No, you don’t understand. We just need you to pretend to be your sister at the Nobel Prize presentation ceremony,’ explained Special Agent Worton. ‘You see, because her ice-cream technology is so revolutionary, and potentially so lucrative, every government in the world wants to kidnap her and put her to work for them.’

‘I understand,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And knowing my bookish sister, she is not as deft at biting shins and fighting off kidnappers as I would be.’

‘According to our file on you,’ said Special Agent Egner, ‘you have successfully fought off 289 kidnap attempts from one Mr T. Ringmaster alone.’

‘So you’re perfect. You’ve had all the training you need,’ enthused Special Agent Worton.

‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Of course you’re right. I am perfectly suited to thwarting international espionage agents. But you are overlooking one major detail.’

‘We are?’ said the special agents.

‘Yes,’ continued Nanny Piggins. ‘How can I impersonate my sister when I look nothing like her?’

‘I thought you and your sisters were identical fourteenuplets,’ said Derrick.

‘Yes, but we are only identical genetically,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘My sister Deidre has long curly blonde hair and wears glasses. So we look nothing alike.’

‘We thought of that,’ said Special Agent Egner, opening the aluminium briefcase he had handcuffed to his wrist. ‘Try these on.’

He handed Nanny Piggins a wig and a pair of purple square-framed glasses.

Nanny Piggins deftly put them on and turned to face the children. They gasped in shock. It was like looking at an entirely different pig.

‘Sarah, is that you?’ asked Boris, beginning to weep a little. He got terrible separation anxiety
whenever he thought his beloved sister had somehow disappeared in front of his very eyes.

‘Yes, it’s still me,’ said Nanny Piggins, lifting the glasses and winking at them. They all breathed a sigh of relief.

‘All right, I agree to do it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But I will have to bring my brother and the children.’

‘But it will be dangerous,’ protested Special Agent Egner.

‘All the more reason to bring Boris,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He is a Russian ballet dancer and therefore very good at weeping dramatically. And I find nothing gets assistance faster than a 700-kilogram bear lying on the floor, sobbing.’

‘But the children,’ protested Special Agent Worton. ‘You can’t bring them. It’s not safe.’

‘It will be safer than leaving them with their father,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Last time I popped out for twenty minutes leaving him in charge, he tried to kill them.’

‘Really?’ said Special Agent Egner, genuinely shocked.

‘He fed us high-fibre breakfast cereal,’ explained Samantha. ‘He didn’t realise Nanny Piggins felt so strongly about bran.’

‘Believe me, they’ll be much better off in the firing line of international agents,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Being bundled into the back of a waiting helicopter and flown off to a secret island never did a child any harm. But who knows what damage that breakfast cereal would have done if I had not returned in time to smack the box out of Mr Green’s hand and throw it out the window?’

And so Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were soon jetting to Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremony. Nanny Piggins was already wearing her wig and glasses and operating under her assumed identity. Special Agent Worton tried to use the time to coach Nanny Piggins on the speech Deidre had written.

‘I can’t read this!’ protested Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s written in Swedish!’

‘No, those are physics terms,’ explained Special Agent Worton. ‘Do you want me to explain them to you?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t, thank you very much,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Unless this is physics for: “Where is the nearest chocolate vending machine?” it’s of no use to me.’

At this moment the air hostess interrupted to offer them all a snack. ‘Peanuts?’ she asked.

Nanny Piggins was just about to put the peanuts in her pocket, in case she should meet any monkeys in Stockholm, when she looked up and caught the air hostess’ eye.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You look familiar. Have we met before?’

‘No,’ said the air hostess, a little too quickly.

‘Take off your jaunty little air hostess cap,’ ordered Nanny Piggins.

‘You can’t make me,’ said the air hostess, backing away.

‘Oh yes I can!’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Sarah!’ exclaimed Boris. ‘Don’t attack the air hostess. She hasn’t served the in-flight meal yet!’

But it was too late. Nanny Piggins and the air hostess were wrestling on the floor. And it was a surprisingly even match. Nanny Piggins gave the air hostess a good bite on the shin. But the air hostess gave Nanny Piggins a good tug on her wig. Nanny Piggins whacked the hostess on the head with an in-flight entertainment guide. The air hostess tried to shove a sick bag up Nanny Piggins’ nose. So there was a great deal of rolling about while they alternated between one of them yelling ‘Take that!’
and the other yelling ‘Ow!’, before Nanny Piggins finally leapt up holding a red wig and the jaunty little stewardess cap.

‘Aha!’ shouted Nanny Piggins. ‘I knew it! You’re no air hostess. You’re my identical fourteenuplet sister Wendy!’

Everyone was shocked.

‘Another one?!’ exclaimed Michael.

‘Which one is Wendy?’ Samantha asked Boris.

‘The evil one,’ whispered Boris.

The air hostess got to her feet and, if not for the fact that she was wearing an air hostess uniform, it would have been impossible to tell her apart from Nanny Piggins.

‘I’m hijacking this plane!’ announced Wendy.

‘Why?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Airline food isn’t that good.’

‘I’ve been paid to kidnap you,’ explained Wendy.

‘Well, you won’t be paid today,’ announced Nanny Piggins, ‘because I’m not Deidre, I’m Sarah.’ Nanny Piggins whipped off her own wig and glasses, revealing her beautiful brown bob.

‘No!’ gasped Wendy. ‘I don’t believe it. How do I know you’re not just Deidre wearing a wig, on top of a wig, as a brilliant double disguise?’

‘When have you ever known Deidre to do anything that clever?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

Wendy nodded. She had to concede her sister was right.

‘I’m arresting you for attempting to kidnap a physicist!’ declared Special Agent Worton.

‘I’d like to see you try!’ said Wendy as she ripped off her stewardess blazer, revealing the micro-parachute she had strapped to her back, then wrenched open the plane door (causing the plane to decompress and peanuts to go everywhere, much to Boris’ distress), then leapt out into the blue sky.

The children (who fortunately were safely strapped in their seats. Which just goes to show you should always obey the seatbelt rules on a plane just in case a pig does try to hijack it) looked out the window and watched their nanny’s evil twin sister plummet back to earth.

‘Will she be all right?’ yelled Samantha over the roar of air whipping out of the cabin.

‘Of course,’ shouted Nanny Piggins. ‘She may be evil, but she’s still a Piggins.’

In the far distance, Wendy Piggins’ parachute popped open.

Inside the aeroplane cabin Nanny Piggins managed to restore calm by getting Boris to sit in
the open doorway. His bottom was large enough to completely block it, without there being any chance of him accidentally getting sucked through. (The only way he had got in the plane was by coming through the baggage hold, then punching a hole up through the cabin floor.)

After they touched down safely, Nanny Piggins, Boris, the children and the special agents managed to make it to the awards ceremony with only two more kidnap attempts.

The first one Nanny Piggins managed to thwart by smacking the kidnapper hard on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and sending him to sit on the naughty step to think about what he had done (a trick she had picked up from Nanny Anne; the only useful thing Nanny Anne had ever taught her. And rest assured, Nanny Piggins would only ever do something so degrading to an international espionage operative who had been really, really naughty).

She then thwarted the second kidnap attempt even more ingeniously by offering the kidnapper a slice of chocolate cake. The kidnapper was so unused to such kindness he immediately burst into tears, said ‘thank you’ and ran off to eat his cake quietly in his hotel room while planning a new career path.

When they arrived at the awards ceremony Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children did not know what to expect. They knew the Nobel prizes were important, but they did not realise there would be quite so many pompous overdressed Swedish people everywhere.

‘I didn’t realise it was such a formal event,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I haven’t brought a thing to wear.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Special Agent Egner. ‘We have flown in a leading Paris fashion designer to dress you.’

‘Hah!’ scoffed Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m not letting any of those amateurs anywhere near me. I saw their spring range. And if sweater vests are back then I’m a monkey’s uncle.’

‘Well, you are a monkey’s aunt,’ pointed out Boris. ‘Remember your little niece Bobo.’

‘Regardless,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘I shall dress myself. Give me a moment.’ Nanny Piggins disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Do you think she’s gone to get herself a snack?’ asked Derrick.

‘If she has, I’m sure she’ll bring back plenty to share,’ said Boris.

Nanny Piggins emerged a few moments later but not carrying food. She was dressed immaculately in
a black tail coat and white tie. Nanny Piggins rarely wore men’s clothes, because she always suspected they had not been washed properly, but when she did she looked spectacular.

‘Where did you get the suit?’ asked Samantha.

‘One of the waiters,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘He swapped it for a slice of chocolate cake I had in my handbag.’

‘It’s lucky you brought that chocolate cake,’ said Michael.

‘Luck has nothing to do with it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘A lady should always carry a chocolate cake. It is much more useful than a handkerchief or lipstick … or any of the other ridiculous things women usually carry around.’

‘You can’t accept the Nobel Prize wearing men’s clothes,’ protested Special Agent Worton.

‘Why not?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘At least I’ve combed my hair, which is more than you can say for most scientists. Why is it that studying for a PhD makes a person forget how to use a hairbrush?’

The special agents decided not to argue the point and simply ushered Nanny Piggins into the theatre, and to her seat in the front row.

The ceremony was incredibly boring. Partly because it was in Swedish, partly because all the
speeches were done by old people who talked slowly, but mainly because the talk was all about science and how important it was.

So the only interesting thing about the night was when Nanny Piggins periodically leapt to her feet yelling, ‘What a pack of lies!’ or ‘Baloney,’ or ‘No, I take that back, it discredits the deliciousness of baloney to associate it with your pack of lies.’

Eventually the ceremony dragged on to the important part as far as the Pigginses were concerned – the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The awards presenter spent so long sonorously blathering about Deidre’s achievements that Nanny Piggins fell asleep twice before Deidre’s name was finally announced. Then she leapt up on to the stage, dipped her head to accept the prize (a large gold medal) and took the microphone.

‘Why don’t one of you brilliant scientists invent a boredom-detecting microphone?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Then it could cut off fools like you before you even got started.’

‘The speech, give your sister’s speech,’ hissed Special Agent Egner from the auditorium.

‘Oh yes, the speech,’ said Nanny Piggins, taking the crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. She wiped the chocolate smears from the page and started
reading. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy, it is a great honour … blah blah blah … let me just skip to a good bit here … Nope, there are no good bits. I’ll just wing it.’