Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion (5 page)

'Um, Nanny Piggins,' began Mr Green. 'Perhaps you could tell me. Who are those, er . . . people sitting around the breakfast table?'

'Mr Green, shame on you,' scolded Nanny Piggins.

'What have I done?' asked Mr Green, as he went bright red in the face. (He had done so many shameful things he was wondering which one Nanny Piggins was referring to. Mr Green just hoped she did not know about the hedge fund he had set up using the money Mrs Green had left in her will for the children's education. Actually Nanny Piggins did know, but she thought a 'hedge fund' was when someone put aside money to grow a row of bushes in the garden, so she was yet to appreciate the full wickedness of Mr Green's actions.)

'Don't you recognise them?' said Nanny Piggins. 'They are your cousins. They are paying you a visit.'

'Well throw them out!' exclaimed Mr Green, totally aghast. 'I don't want relatives staying in my home!' As far as Mr Green was concerned it was bad enough he had to give house space to his children.

'All right, if you insist,' said Nanny Piggins, turning back towards the dining room.

'I insist,' insisted Mr Green.

'It's just a shame when they're so rich,' said Nanny Piggins.

'What did you say?' asked Mr Green as he leapt with surprising agility to block Nanny Piggins' path. (Talk of money always brought out Mr Green's athletic side.)

'They're your rich cousins,' fabricated Nanny Piggins. 'The ones who are thinking about leaving you all that money in their wills.'

'Really?' asked Mr Green. 'Just how rich are they?'

'Very very,' said Nanny Piggins. 'You see that woman over there?' Nanny Piggins pushed the door open a crack and pointed to one of the dentists. 'The one eating strawberry jam out of the jar with her finger. Well, she told me she is so rich she never has to wear a pair of socks twice. When she takes them off she throws them away. And the next day she puts on some brand new ones.'

'The decadence!' gasped Mr Green. He personally wore every single one of his socks for years and years until they totally disintegrated and became just a tangle of thread at the bottom of his shoe.

'Still, if they don't leave it to you, I'm sure all their money will go to another worthy cause,' said Nanny Piggins. 'Perhaps The Cat Protection Society.'

'Cats!' screamed Mr Green.

'Or the Home for Retired Circus Pigs,' continued Nanny Piggins.

'Pigs!' squealed Mr Green, before struggling to compose himself. 'Um, Nanny Piggins, I think after all, since family is so important, we really must be hospitable to our cousins. Here, let me carry that food out to them. Don't stint on the cream. We must keep them happy.'

And so, not only did Mr Green fail to notice that his nanny was running a Bed & Breakfast in his very own house, he also allowed himself to be tricked into becoming the unpaid bellboy, waiter and errand-runner, scurrying around after all the guests and fulfilling their every wish.

'Where do you find such good staff?' asked one of the dentists, as Mr Green lay rose petals at her feet to welcome her home after a long day at the convention.

'The secret is the training,' admitted Nanny Piggins truthfully. 'You have to be very strict. And if they're naughty, don't be afraid to give them a little smack on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.'

Things were going very well. The house was full of guests every night, and Nanny Piggins had made many, many hundreds of dollars. Admittedly, she had not saved any of it. Nanny Piggins believed in investing money. So she invested all the profits into the breakfasts. And that investment paid dividends.

The breakfasts Nanny Piggins served were by far the most amazing breakfasts eaten anywhere in the world ever. She had waffles flown in from Belgium every morning, the finest chocolatiers in Switzerland were custom-making a special breakfast chocolate to Nanny Piggins' specifications (it was a chocolate that contained extra chocolate) and, of course, Nanny Piggins baked her own mouth-wateringly good cakes. At the end of the meal some of the dentists actually wept because the food was so good (and because they knew, once the conference was over, they would have to go back home to their sugarless gum and gargling with fluoride mouthwash).

Even Mr Green was enjoying himself. Sometimes after he had carried a particularly heavy suitcase up three flights of stairs, or helped an overweight guest cut his toenails, or ran into town to fetch an important chocolate delivery – one of the 'cousins' would press a fifty-cent piece into his hand as a thank you. Mr Green loved getting tips. He would rush to his broom closet and hoard it carefully in an old jar of silver polish.

All in all, Nanny Piggins' B&B&S&C&C&MC could not have been a happier place. Then one day, an important looking envelope arrived in the mail. (You are probably wondering how an envelope can look important. Well this one did. It was made of heavy cream-coloured paper, the type that can give you a nasty paper cut if you try to open it by sticking your finger in the edge.) And inside there was a card that read:

Your B&B has been brought to our attention as being of the superior variety. A critic will visit you shortly to assess your establishment for inclusion in
The Maxwellian Guide.

'You're going to be reviewed by
The Maxwellian Guide
!' gasped Boris. 'That's wonderful.' (Boris knew all about Maxwellian guidebooks. His performance of
Swan Lake
had once been reviewed by a Maxwellian critic who said 'Boris the Bear's portrayal of a dying swan was so beautiful it made me want to join Greenpeace and fight for swans' rights'.)

'It is?' asked Nanny Piggins. She had never heard of Maxwellian guides before.

'If you get five Maxwellian stars the B&B will be packed out every night,' explained Boris.

'It is already packed out every night,' said Nanny Piggins.

'Yes, but it will be packed out with a different type of people – rich people. You will be able to charge them more,' said Boris.

'More than a hundred dollars a night!' exclaimed Nanny Piggins, struggling to wrap her mind around the concept. 'What do you mean? One hundred dollars and fifty cents?'

'No, more than that. If you have five Maxwellian stars you could charge one hundred and twenty dollars!' declared Boris.

Nanny Piggins had to sit down and dab her forehead. 'But that is so much money. I wouldn't dare.'

'People wouldn't mind,' Derrick assured her.

'I heard one of the dentists say he would sell his house just for one of your chocolate éclairs,' said Michael.

'And think what you could do with all that money,' said Samantha.

'You could buy another shed for the garden and move Father out of the house entirely,' suggested Michael.

'Or you could buy that catapult you've had your eye on,' suggested Derrick.

'Or you could buy more chocolate,' said Boris, because he knew his sister best, so he knew which would be the most convincing argument.

'All right, let's do it. Let's impress that critic,' decided Nanny Piggins.

'How?' asked Samantha.

'Well, everything already looks fabulous. And I don't think I could do anything to improve the breakfasts, short of inventing a new element for the periodic table and calling it Chocolatonium,' said Nanny Piggins. 'Really there is only one blemish on the Nanny Piggins' B&B.'

'What is it?' asked the children.

Michael quickly tried to rub off the chocolate smear behind his ear in case that was the blemish she was referring to. But it was not.

'Your father,' said Nanny Piggins. 'I think we will have to hide him.'

'You could put a lampshade on his head,' suggested Boris.

'That works when
you
do it because you are a ballet dancer so you can make your body look like a lamp stand,' said Nanny Piggins. 'But I doubt Mr Green has the same ability.'

'You could lock him in the broom closet,' suggested Derrick.

'Hmm, locking people in closets is very heavily frowned on by the Nannies Union,' said Nanny Piggins.

'It's just a shame that technically this is Father's house,' said Michael.

'I know. Never mind, we'll just have to hope for the best,' decided Nanny Piggins. 'If the critic does meet your father, I can always explain that I hired him as a bellboy as part of a program to help keep lunatics off the streets.'

The next morning, Nanny Piggins and the children stood in the front hallway waiting for the arrival of the critic.

'How will we know who he is when he arrives?' asked Michael.

'Hopefully he'll tell us,' said Nanny Piggins. 'Otherwise we'll just have to search all the guests' luggage until we find him.'

But they need not have worried. It became immediately apparent who Wolfgang Van Der Porten was as soon as he got out of his limousine. Nanny Piggins had never seen a man hold his nose so high in the air without the aid of standing on stilts. He did not greet his welcoming party, even though Nanny Piggins stepped forward and held out her trotter. He merely shrugged his coat off his shoulders (so it fell to the floor, the first bad mark for the Nanny Piggins' B&B – no-one had leapt forward to catch it), took out a little notepad and started scribbling down criticisms.

'I see your entrance has a floor and a ceiling. How predictable,' the critic said dismissively before sailing into the living room. 'An indoor tent! How last autumn of you.'

'Would you like some chocolate?' offered Nanny Piggins, rushing forward with a plate of Nanny Piggins' Special Breakfast Chocolate (the most welcoming gesture she knew).

'Yuck! I can't stand the stuff,' said the critic, turning his nose up even higher. 'Chocolate rots your teeth, clouds the mind and clogs the bowels. Take it away.'

Nanny Piggins did not take the chocolate away. She ate it to get over the shock of meeting someone who did not like chocolate.

'I don't think he's going to like your breakfast then,' whispered Michael.

The critic continued to wander about the house writing down more criticisms – 'Vertical walls – what a cliché,' 'Taps you have to turn on with your hands – how rustic,' and 'No gym, but a twenty-four-hour all-you-can-eat cake buffet – so unhealthy.'

'What a simply dreadful man,' muttered Nanny Piggins. 'He could get a job in the circus. People would pay to come and stare at him. I don't think I've ever met anyone so horrible. Except of course your –'

At that exact moment Mr Green entered the room, spotted the critic and immediately started grovelling. 'Ah, cousin, so good to see you!'

'Cousin? What a peculiar greeting,' said the critic.

'We're all family here,' said Mr Green, bowing so low his nose actually touched the carpet. 'Is there anything I can do for you? Rub your feet? Handwash your underwear? Run into town to fetch you anything, anything at all.'

'Really? Anything you say? Well, what if I said I wanted a sack full of lead ball bearings?' asked the critic.

'Right away,' said Mr Green, with which he dashed out of the house.

'Just as I thought. Staff making promises they can't fulfil,' criticised the critic as he continued to scrawl in his notepad.

But half an hour later the critic was astonished to see Mr Green sweating his way back up the street carrying a heavy sack full of lead.

'Extraordinary,' exclaimed the critic.

'Anything for a rich . . . I mean a
dear
cousin,' panted Mr Green.

'This is some kind of stunt, isn't it?' said the critic. 'Well, we'll just see how servile your service really is. Do five hundred jumping jacks.'

'Of course,' smiled Mr Green as he launched into the horrible exercise. By the time he finished Mr Green had gone purple in the face, but he continued to smile at the man he thought was his rich cousin. The critic just stared at him. In his thirty years of reviewing hotels he had never met anyone so obsequiously obedient.

Nanny Piggins and the children watched in enthralled wonder, waiting to see what the critic would make Mr Green do next.

'Fetch me a garden salad,' demanded the critic.

'Er . . . right away,' said Mr Green, disappearing out into the kitchen.

'This ought to be good,' said Nanny Piggins. 'I bet your father has no idea what a garden salad is.' Nanny Piggins did not know herself, but she was sure a meal that contained the words 'garden' and 'salad' could not be good.

Mr Green rushed back a few moments later with a large bowl of grass clippings. Nanny Piggins had been right. Mr Green knew nothing about preparing any type of meal, so he had simply run out into the garden and grabbed a handful of the first green thing he saw. Luckily for Mr Green, however, a pure grass garden salad was all the rage in Paris that week, so the critic could not have been more impressed.

'Well, Nanny Piggins, your decor is hideous, the pervasive stench of chocolate throughout every room is nauseating and I am pretty sure I saw a ten-foot-tall bear roaming about in the garden. But I have to say, this member of your staff is so utterly grovellingly obliging – I love it. I am going to give your B&B five stars,' declared the critic.

'Hurray!' cheered Nanny Piggins and the children.

'Thanks to
The Maxwellian Guide
, your B&B will soon be filled with the richest, most exclusive, international travellers,' said the critic. 'People just like me.'