Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion (15 page)

'You mean this whole thing, the broken ankle and letting me dance Odette, was all a trick?' said Boris.

'Of course it was,' snapped Mikhail. 'We only toured here so we could lure you back. We couldn't believe it when you did not buy tickets to the show.'

'We had to break into your shed and put a three-week-old newspaper in there,' added Svetlana. 'I almost broke my ankle for real climbing in through the window.'

'Wow! That was a really elaborate trick,' said Michael, struggling not to be impressed.

Boris looked at the bill poster. 'So you only want me so I can dance like a buffoon?'

'Of course. You are perfect for the role,' said Svetlana. 'The crowds would flock to see you lumber about like a giant idiot.'

Boris drew himself up to his full height (ten and a half feet when he stood up straight) so his head brushed the theatre's huge chandelier. 'I, Boris the bear, am the greatest ballet dancing bear in the world. It is you who are the fools, for spurning my superior talent and trying to make a mockery of me. I spit on your job offer.'

'Boris,' chided Nanny Piggins.

'At least I would, if spitting weren't vulgar,' added Boris. 'You can go back to Russia and play your own buffoon. Farewell forever!'

With that Boris spun on his heel and strode dramatically out of the theatre.

Nanny Piggins glowered at Mikhail and Svetlana. 'Samantha, do you still have that notepad?'

'Yes,' said Samantha, taking the soufflé notepad and pencil from her pocket.

'Write this down. "Note to self – get revenge on the Russian Ballet Company",' dictated Nanny Piggins.

'Got it,' said Samantha as she wrote down every word.

'And be sure to stick that on the refrigerator when we get home so I don't forget,' added Nanny Piggins.

Then she and the children left in search of Boris. They found him sitting on the kerb, crying.

'There there, you'll get another dancing job,' Nanny Piggins assured him. 'You are the best dancing bear in the world.'

'You're the best dancing anything in the world,' said Michael.

'Everyone loved your Odette,' Samantha reminded him.

'When they hear that you have come out of retirement all the ballet companies will want you,' assured Derrick.

'That's not why I'm crying,' sobbed Boris. 'I know I am a much better dancer than those double-left-footed idiots. I'm crying because I've been such a bad brother and friend. Can you ever forgive me?' With which he grabbed Nanny Piggins and the children in such a tight bear hug it was several minutes before they had enough air in their lungs to assure him he was entirely forgiven.

'But aren't you sorry to leave the ballet theatre behind?' asked Samantha.

'Well, I do like some bits, like starring in the show, throwing the other dancers high in the air, and everyone in the audience cheering and clapping. But I'd forgotten about all the bad bits,' confessed Boris.

'What bad bits?' asked Michael.

'You have to practise every single day. Even on days when your toes are tired,' said Boris.

'How awful,' sympathised Michael.

'And they don't let you sleep peacefully in your shed until two in the afternoon,' said Boris. 'They make you get up early in the morning. Sometimes as early as 10 am!'

'That's ridiculous,' said Nanny Piggins. 'You need your rest, you're a growing bear.'

'But that's not the worst part,' Boris started to tear up again.

'You can tell us, Boris,' said Samantha, gently patting his hand.

'They made me go on a diet!' he wailed, before completely breaking down into wracking sobs. It was hard to understand what he said next because he was weeping so loudly, but it was something like, 'They said I weighed six hundred and thirty kilos more than a normal ballet dancer.'

'You poor, poor bear,' said Nanny Piggins, hugging him tightly. 'We rescued you not a moment too soon. Come along, we will take you home. And if you promise to cry quietly in another room while we make it, we will give you a slice of "The Boris".'

'You named a dessert after me?' asked Boris, cheering up immediately. 'What is it? A cake? A steamed pudding? Something meringue-based?'

'No, "The Boris" is a chocolate and honey soufflé!' announced Nanny Piggins.

'With a great big piece of honeycomb stuck in the middle,' added Michael. 'That bit was my idea.'

Nanny Piggins hugged Michael proudly. 'Not since Mozart has one so young created something so beautiful. Now let's go home and whip up a few dozen Borises so we can all have lots and lots for lunch.'

And things in the Green household soon returned to normal. With one exception. While he did not want to be an international ballet superstar, Boris did still love to dance. So Nanny Piggins introduced him to the old lady who ran the local ballet school, and she gave him a job teaching a preschool ballet class on Saturday mornings. The little girls and boys loved Boris because he was such a great teacher. And he loved choreographing little ballets for them – about the delight of eating fairy bread, the fun of making mud pies, and the joy of having a sister who makes delicious soufflé. All of which were far better than that very silly story about a tights-wearing hunter and a depressed swan.

At the back of the school hall, Boris was fast asleep and snoring loudly while Nanny Piggins and the children avidly read a thrilling vampire novel. They read it in an unusual way. After Nanny Piggins finished a page she would tear it out and hand it to Derrick who read it and handed it to Samantha, who read it and handed it to Michael. They often enjoyed books this way – they found it saved arguments (and the subsequent wrestling matches) over who was going to read the book first. And this is how they always whiled away the time when they went to the school's monthly P&C meetings. Nanny Piggins did not believe in listening to all the boring things that Headmaster Pimplestock blathered on about. She was just waiting for the good bit, when the chairman would ask, 'Any other business?'.

This was when Nanny Piggins would leap to her trotters and start giving the parents and citizens a piece of her mind. The subject of her ranting was always the same – school uniforms. She would begin by denouncing the concept generally, then go on to specifically list every one of the design faults in both the boys' and girls' uniforms.

The P&C had heard this speech many times before. They even mouthed along the words in the good bits. They all enjoyed the part where Nanny Piggins pointed her trotter at Headmaster Pimplestock and accused him of being an alien from a distant galaxy who had come to Earth and abducted the real headmaster's body just so he could inflict his own terrible taste in clothes on the citizens of this planet. When Nanny Piggins finished and sat down, everyone clapped. Her speeches were the only interesting thing ever to happen at the P&C meetings (if you don't count the great kikuyu grass versus paspalum grass debate of 1972).

'Please, Nanny Piggins,' pleaded Headmaster Pimplestock. 'I have told you time and time again, the school just does not have the money to fly in a leading Italian designer to overhaul the school uniform.'

'Well what are you wasting the school fees on?' demanded Nanny Piggins. 'I've seen the cheques Mr Green writes out to you and they are enormous!' (They were not enormous at all. Mr Green had enrolled his children in the cheapest private school he could find, because he wanted the status of having privately educated children without actually having to bear the cost. But you have to understand, Nanny Piggins only earned ten cents an hour so to her, any figure above three digits was huge.)

'The fees pay for books, electricity bills and building maintenance,' said Headmaster Pimplestock.

'Pish!' said Nanny Piggins. 'I've seen how many chocolate biscuits you have with your morning tea. I know how you really spend it.'

The crowed giggled. Headmaster Pimplestock was a little tubby. He went bright red in the face. 'Perhaps we should move on to the next item on the agenda. The school fete is coming up. Who is going to volunteer to run a stall?' he asked, frantically trying to change the subject.

Nanny Piggins leapt to her feet again. 'The fete is a fundraising event, isn't it?'

'Yes,' said Headmaster Pimplestock warily.

'Then why can't that money be used to fly in the Italian designer?' asked Nanny Piggins.

'Because we need that money to repair the hole in the library roof you made when you fired yourself out of a cannon during book week,' accused Headmaster Pimplestock.

'Oh,' said Nanny Piggins. (She could not deny she had made a rather large hole.) 'But the children did learn a lot about physics from my demonstration.'

'Ballistics is not the type of physics we want them to learn here,' said Headmaster Pimplestock crushingly.

'Which is why so many of them fall asleep in class,' muttered Nanny Piggins. (No-one ever fell asleep during one of her cannon demonstrations, not unless they got hit on the head by a falling roof tile.)

'So as I was saying, the school fete –' began Headmaster Pimplestock.

'Wait a moment,' said Nanny Piggins as she rubbed her snout in concentration. 'If the fete makes more than enough money to fix the roof, can we use the extra money to hire the designer?'

Headmaster Pimplestock just laughed. 'The estimate for the roof repair is $50,000 and given that the school fete has never raised more than $6000, I don't think that is going to happen.'

'But if we do, can we?' pressed Nanny Piggins.

'Sure, why not,' said Headmaster Pimplestock, anxiously wanting Nanny Piggins to take her vampire novel and go home. 'If we raise more than $50,000 then I promise to hire the greatest fashion designer in all of Milan to fly in on Monday.'

'Excellent!' exclaimed Nanny Piggins. 'Then I volunteer to run the cake stall.'

At this point everyone burst out laughing.

Now, Nanny Piggins enjoyed a joke as much as the next pig, but she did not like being laughed at. (Nobody does, not even clowns, which is why they cry themselves to sleep every night.) Nanny Piggins particularly did not like it when a whole hall full of people laughed at her and she did not understand why.

'What?' she demanded.

'Nanny Anne runs the cake stall,' explained Headmaster Pimplestock. 'She always does. It is the most successful part of the fete.'

Nanny Piggins scowled across the hall at Nanny Anne. Nanny Anne was her nemesis. She had perfect hair, perfect manners and perfect etiquette, which made Nanny Piggins want to be sick. Right at that very moment Nanny Anne was sitting in her chair with perfect posture, as if the school had not bought three hundred of the most uncomfortable plastic chairs ever made. Everyone else in the room slouched, slumped, leaned or teetered on their seats, desperately trying to find a half-comfortable position. But not Nanny Anne. She sat perfectly upright and still, because Nanny Anne thought it was much more important to be perfect than to be comfortable.

'Last year Nanny Anne made $7000,' praised Headmaster Pimplestock.

Nanny Anne smiled.

'I thought you said the fete had never made more than $6000?' said Nanny Piggins.

'The tombola stand ran at a loss after Mrs Arjuana suffered a rush of blood to the head and ran off to Vanuatu with the cash box,' explained Headmaster Pimplestock.

It was Mrs Arjuana's turn to blush.

'That was money well spent as far as I'm concerned,' said Nanny Piggins. 'I've seen your holiday snaps, Mrs Arjuana, and you obviously had a lovely time.'

Mrs Arjuana smiled at Nanny Piggins.

Headmaster Pimplestock sought to move the meeting along. 'If you want to be involved, Nanny Piggins, why don't I put you down for the bookstall, since you so clearly enjoy reading?'

Everyone in the hall sniggered. They all knew Nanny Piggins spent every meeting reading thrilling novels. In fact, when the novel was particularly good, Nanny Piggins got Michael to keep passing the pages on around the whole room, so that everyone could enjoy them. (They'd had a wonderful evening the time Nanny Piggins brought in
The Case of the Speckled Band
. Absolutely no school business had been accomplished at all.)

'Books?' said Nanny Piggins. 'Haven't you got anything more exciting? A catapult stand? A rat-catching demonstration? Fire-breathing lessons?'

'I can offer you books or knitwear,' said Headmaster Pimplestock smugly. He so rarely got the better of Nanny Piggins and he was enjoying himself, which was very silly because, as you have no doubt noticed, Nanny Piggins did have an amazing talent for getting retribution.

'All right, I'll take books,' sulked Nanny Piggins.

'Good. Then meeting adjourned!' announced Headmaster Pimplestock, beating the table with a gavel and sprinting to his car before any of the parents (or nannies) could confront him, or notice how many packets of chocolate biscuits he had on the back seat.

Nanny Piggins and the children were just gathering up all the loose pages of their vampire novel when Nanny Anne approached.

'Nanny Piggins, so good to see you,' lied Nanny Anne with a saccharine smile.

'Nanny Anne,' scowled Nanny Piggins. 'I see you haven't been sacked yet.'

'I'm so glad you're going to run the little bookstall this year,' said Nanny Anne. 'If you need any pointers on how to handle a stall, just let me know. I have won Best Stallholder at the school fete for the last seven years.'

'But Samson has only been going to this school for five years,' queried Nanny Piggins.

'I know, but I wanted to get involved in the school community early. It is so important to be a joiner,' said Nanny Anne.

'Well, selling books is hardly rocket science. And since I know more than most rocket scientists, I think I can handle a bookstall,' said Nanny Piggins.

'Yes, you would think so, but a nanny has to know her limitations,' said Nanny Anne with false concern. 'If it is too much for you, you mustn't be afraid to ask for help.' Nanny Anne smiled her fake smile and walked away.

'I knew I should have worn my wrestling leotard to the P&C meeting,' growled Nanny Piggins. 'Samantha, hold my handbag. I'm going to crash-tackle her.'

Samantha grabbed her nanny's trotter instead. 'You'd better not. You know Nanny Anne always makes you pay her dry-cleaning bills when you attack her. Besides, Derrick needs help waking up Boris. We think he's fallen into one of his super-deep hibernation sleeps again.'

And so, after Nanny Piggins had awoken her brother by blasting him in the face with a fire extinguisher, they all went home. On the way, Nanny Piggins tried to work out how they could earn over $50,000 at a bookstall.

'You could try to get hold of some really valuable books,' suggested Derrick.

'What? You mean romance novels?' asked Nanny Piggins. These were her own personal favourite kind of books, and so she naturally assumed other people must value them as much as her.

'No, the really valuable books are rare, old ones,' said Samantha.

'Old books! Yuck!' said Nanny Piggins. 'They always smell of dust and mould. And you never know who's been reading them, or whether they washed their hands before they turned the page. I don't believe anybody would pay a lot of money for tatty old books.'

'They would,' said Derrick. 'A Gutenberg Bible is worth millions and millions of dollars.'

'You're pulling my trotter!' said Nanny Piggins sceptically. 'Millions of dollars? But there's a copy of the Bible in every hotel room in the world. And people give them away free at railway stations.'

'But a Gutenberg Bible is the oldest book ever printed. There are only twenty-one perfect copies left in the world. That's why they're so valuable,' explained Derrick. (He had learnt this by watching a gripping mystery movie where someone was murdered for their Gutenberg Bible.)

'Really?' said Nanny Piggins. 'Then let's hope someone has donated one to the bookstall.'

The next morning they were awoken by the delivery of the books (at what Nanny Piggins considered to be an obscenely early hour for a Saturday morning – 10 am). Throughout the year parents, students and good Samaritans were able to drop off books in anticipation of the annual school fete. The only problem was that nobody ever donates their good books to a bookstall. They keep those for their own bookshelves. They only donate their awful books – the ones they are forced to read at school, the ones relatives buy for them as Christmas presents, and the ones they bought at the previous year's bookstall because they felt they just had to buy something. So when Nanny Piggins and the children opened the boxes they were bitterly disappointed.

'Peuw! These books stink of dust! Can anyone see a Gutenberg Bible?' asked Nanny Piggins optimistically.

'No,' said the children.

'I've found a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica,' said Samantha.

'Well, that's good,' said Nanny Piggins.

'Except the 'C' volume is missing,' added Samantha.

'Nobody would want to buy a set of encyclopedias with 'C' missing. That's the best volume. The one with all the references to cannons, cake and chocolate,' said Nanny Piggins.

'I've got a box full of phrase books,' called out Michael.

'Well that would be handy to anyone planning to go on holiday,' said Nanny Piggins.

'Except none of them is in English,' explained Michael. 'There's Swahili to Thai, Russian to Esperanto, and Czech to Samoan . . .'