Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan

About the book

Once Mr Green announces he has decided to get married, his children are horrified. It's not even for tax reasons! When they discover his real motive (he can finally sack their beloved nanny, Nanny Piggins), the children wonít stand for this diabolical plan. Obviously their father has to be stopped, and Nanny Piggins is just the pig to do it . . . Because you should never ever cross a flying pig.

The Adventures of Nanny Piggins

Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan

Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion

Nanny Piggins and the Accidental Blast-off

Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster

Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice

Mr Green rolled up his sleeves and inspected his tools. He had a crowbar, a pick axe, a long-handled shovel and a chainsaw all laid out on the ground in front of him. He was not sure which to use. He was not a man who was used to manual labour, because he was a lawyer, so he never did any real work. Certainly not work that involved his hands.

Meanwhile, across the street, Nanny Piggins, Derrick, Samantha, Michael and Boris (the dancing bear) all crouched hidden in Mrs Pumpernickel’s azalea bushes watching Mr Green.

‘What’s he up to?’ whispered Michael.

‘He’s not gardening, is he?’ asked Samantha. She was sure her father’s idea of gardening would involve killing all the plants and pouring concrete over everything.

‘Perhaps he’s murdered someone and he’s digging a grave,’ suggested Derrick. (He did not want anyone to be murdered, but he rather liked the idea of his father being put in jail for twenty years.)

‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins, because she was too busy watching to say anything more complicated.

‘Look! He’s putting on gloves,’ exclaimed Boris, who had a better view than anybody else. Being ten foot tall, his head stuck out above the azalea bushes.

‘And he’s picking up the chainsaw!’ exclaimed Michael.

‘He
is
going to kill someone!’ exclaimed Derrick.

‘No, it’s even better than that,’ exclaimed Samantha. ‘He’s going for the sign!’

And sure enough, Samantha was right. There had been a sign standing in the Green’s front lawn
for many months. It read ‘Nanny Wanted – Enquire Within’. And Mr Green was now approaching this sign while revving the chainsaw.

‘I can’t watch,’ squealed Boris, who was very sensitive.

With a roar of the chainsaw Mr Green sliced through the wooden stake that held the sign aloft, then stood back and watched as the weather-beaten placard flopped facedown on the lawn.

‘Do you know what this means?’ asked Samantha, clutching her nanny joyously. ‘He’s stopped looking for a human nanny.’

‘He doesn’t want to replace you anymore!’ said Michael.

‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. She had known Mr Green for many months now, and it had only taken her three seconds to accurately gauge his character. So she suspected he had a less kind-hearted reason than that. ‘Children,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘I think your father might be up to something.’

And that was, indeed, the case. Mr Green
was
up to something. And even though Nanny Piggins and the children had tremendous imaginations as a result of reading an awful lot of trashy novels, even they could not have imagined the wickedness Mr Green had in mind.

It was all revealed the next morning at breakfast. The Green family was gathered around the breakfast table, except for Boris. (Mr Green had not yet realised there was a giant dancing bear living in his garden shed, so Boris still had to stay hidden. At breakfast time he sat outside the window and Michael passed out slices of honey-covered toast to him. Fortunately, not only had Mr Green failed to notice the ten foot bear in his garden, he also had not noticed that he was paying for two hundred litres of honey to be delivered to the house every week. He was not an observant man.) Everyone was eating breakfast quietly, waiting for Mr Green to leave, when he disappointed them by clearing his throat.

That could only mean one thing. He was going to talk to them seriously about something. Samantha and Derrick stifled a groan. Michael groaned outwardly. And Nanny Piggins shoved seven jam-filled doughnuts in her mouth and braced herself for the worst.

‘As you know, your mother has been dead for some time,’ began Mr Green. (Not a pleasant conversation starter, I think you will agree.)

‘Two years, three months and five days,’ supplied Derrick.

‘And eleven hours,’ added Samantha.

Michael didn’t add anything, he just sobbed.

‘And of course I miss her,’ continued Mr Green. ‘I miss having someone to do my laundry, cook my meals and fetch my dry-cleaning.’

‘So you’ve decided to buy a slave?’ asked Nanny Piggins, as she tried to both hurry Mr Green up and guess where this conversation could possibly be going.

‘No,’ said Mr Green, pausing for no reason. (He always left long pauses in the middle of sentences. It’s a trick lawyers use, because they charge their clients by the hour, so if they speak slowly they get paid more.) ‘I have decided to get married.’

‘What?’ yelled Derrick.

‘No!’ hollered Samantha.

‘Mpf,’ spluttered Michael, because he had just been hit in the face with seven partly chewed doughnuts spat out in shock by Nanny Piggins.

‘To a woman?’ asked Samantha, just to be sure, because she was finding it very hard to wrap her mind around the idea. The children could never understand why their own mother had married Mr Green. They just assumed she had taken too much
cold medication that day, or been hit on the head by a falling air-conditioning unit, or something. It had never occurred to them that their father might find another woman, who was equally, temporarily insane.

‘Who is she?’ asked Nanny Piggins, deciding to immediately ring the poor woman and try to talk her out of it.

‘I haven’t met her yet,’ said Mr Green.

‘Oooh,’ said Nanny Piggins and the children with a huge sigh of relief. They were pleased that it was just Mr Green who was insane, not some poor woman. They all seriously doubted that Mr Green could ever find anyone crazy enough to marry him.

‘But I do have a date,’ added Mr Green.

Now this amazed them.

‘With a woman?’ asked Nanny Piggins, just to be sure.

‘Of course,’ spluttered Mr Green.

‘All right, no need to be species-ist,’ said Nanny Piggins, who had never understood what humans saw in each other.

‘Is she blind and deaf?’ asked Michael. He felt it would be easier for his father to trick someone who could not see or hear him.

‘Her name is Miss Pettigrove and she works at our firm,’ explained Mr Green.

‘So she’s a lawyer?’ asked Nanny Piggins. She was having visions of an awful female version of Mr Green.

‘No, she’s a cleaning lady,’ said Mr Green.

‘A cleaning lady!’ exclaimed Derrick, Samantha and Michael. They were astonished.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Green. In fact it was her ability to clean that had drawn his admiration. Mr Green, like any man, was attracted to tall, beautiful blondes. But he was even more attracted to a woman who would get down on her hands and knees at five o’clock in the morning and make a linoleum floor shine until you could see your face in it. He had not seen his face in his own kitchen floor for years. Two years, three months and five days, to be exact.

Nanny Piggins and the children sat there in stunned silence. They did not know what to think, so they certainly did not know what to say. Nanny Piggins had even stopped eating she was so shocked.

But Mr Green had not finished. He had something else to add. He cleared his throat to regain his family’s attention.

‘So, er …’ said Mr Green. (He always struggled to know how to ask for something. Nanny Piggins
said it was because he must have had all his charm surgically removed as a child.) ‘So, um …’ continued Mr Green, ‘I will be needing you, Nanny, er … Piggins, to do me a favour.’

‘Really?’ said Nanny Piggins. She loved it when Mr Green asked for favours. It almost always resulted in him buying her a cake.

‘I intend to take Miss Pettigrove on a picnic,’ said Mr Green. (He had planned a picnic because it was cheaper than going to a restaurant.) ‘So …’ he continued, ‘I will need you to look after her baby.’

‘She has a baby?’ queried Nanny Piggins. This was most unexpected.

‘Yes, she’s a widow,’ explained Mr Green.

‘Then shouldn’t she be
Mrs
Pettigrove?’ asked Samantha.

‘I suppose so,’ said Mr Green. He had never really thought about it. The truth was, not only did Mr Green have Miss Pettigrove’s title wrong, he had her name wrong as well. Her name was really Mrs Pettigrain. But Mr Green was the type of man who did not think something like his cleaning lady’s actual name was important. ‘Anyway, she’ll be arriving here in –’ Mr Green looked at his watch – ‘three minutes so I’ll need you to babysit the child for the rest of the day.’

‘And what will I get in exchange?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

Mr Green looked baffled. It had not occurred to him that Nanny Piggins would want something in exchange for doing him a favour. ‘Er … the pleasure of helping me out?’ suggested Mr Green.

The children rolled their eyes. Nanny Piggins shook her head sadly. ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

Mr Green looked terrified for a moment. He thought Nanny Piggins was about to ask for a raise. But then he remembered all his previous negotiations with his nanny. ‘I could buy you a cake?’ he suggested hopefully.

‘A chocolate mudcake one metre in diameter!’ demanded Nanny Piggins.

‘Fifty centimetres in diameter,’ countered Mr Green. (He enjoyed negotiating.)

‘Two metres in diameter!’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Um, I’m not sure you understand the principles of negotiating,’ said Mr Green.

‘Three metres in diameter!’ demanded Nanny Piggins.

‘All right, all right,’ said Mr Green, realising it was better to give up now. (He never enjoyed negotiating with Nanny Piggins.)

‘Deal!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, springing across the table happily and shaking his hand. After all, how hard could babysitting a baby be? But Nanny Piggins’ self-congratulation and excitement was soon interrupted by a terrible wailing noise.

‘What on earth is that dreadful noise?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

No-one had time to answer because the doorbell rang. And the children were too busy running to the living room to peek out the window and see the woman crazy enough to go out with their father.

Mr Green insisted on opening the front door himself, which meant that they all had to watch him being nice to Mrs Pettigrain. It was disgusting. It was not so much what he said – they were perfectly normal things like ‘Hello, how are you, do come in’ – but it was the way he said it, all smirking and simpering, like he was trying to sell her a used car. Though, in a way, he was trying to sell her something much worse: himself.

Mrs Pettigrain was not at all what they expected. She was small and thin, with worn old clothes. And she looked both sad and frightened at the same time. This surprised the children. Their father was usually obsessed with appearances, so they realised he must be very keen on having his floors waxed to think
it was a good idea to date such an unimpressive-looking lady.

Meanwhile, the wailing continued.

‘Where is that dreadful noise coming from?’ Nanny Piggins asked the children as she shoved pieces of doughnut in her ears to block out the sound.

‘It’s the baby,’ explained Samantha, pointing to the pram Mrs Pettigrain had left in the corner of the room.

‘Has the baby swallowed some kind of police siren?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘No,’ explained Derrick. ‘The baby is crying.’

‘Does it have to do it so loudly?’ asked Nanny Piggins. Nanny Piggins was not a great one for crying herself, unless something really terrible happened. Like someone eating the last piece of chocolate cake. Or her trotter getting painfully caught in a vending machine when she was trying to return a health bar and swap it for the chocolate bar she really wanted.

‘Babies always cry like that,’ said Michael. And he would know because he was only seven years old, so he was the one who had most recently been a baby himself.

‘We’ll see you at four o’clock,’ said Mr Green as he grabbed Mrs Pettigrain firmly by the upper
arm and whisked her out of the house before Nanny Piggins had a chance to reconsider their agreement.

Nanny Piggins and the children found themselves left alone with the baby. They peered in over the edge of the pram. The baby looked very red in the face and unhappy as it screamed louder than anything that small had a right to be able to scream. ‘Well, the first thing we need to do is stop it from making that awful wailing sound,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Wait here.’

Nanny Piggins hastily disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later she reappeared, carrying a huge slice of chocolate mudcake, saying, ‘This ought to cheer it up.’

‘No,’ yelled the Green children in unison. Fortunately Derrick was able to grab Nanny Piggins’ wrist and Samantha was able to put her hand in front of the baby’s mouth before Nanny Piggins could jam the cake in there.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Babies this age don’t eat cake,’ explained Michael.

‘They don’t?’ asked Nanny Piggins, with genuine surprise. ‘Then what do they eat?’

‘They only have milk,’ explained Samantha.

‘Surely not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Surely you mean, they only have milk chocolate.’

‘No, Samantha’s right,’ added Derrick. ‘Babies only drink milk.’

‘No wonder they are so unhappy and cry all the time,’ said Nanny Piggins with genuine sympathy. ‘The poor little things. Aren’t they even allowed hot chocolate? That’s got milk in it.’

‘No, just plain milk,’ said Samantha firmly.

Now Nanny Piggins felt like crying, she felt so sorry for the little baby. ‘But how do we get it to stop crying?’ she asked, thinking it would be worth trying the chocolate mudcake, because having bits of jam doughnut shoved in her ears was getting sticky and unpleasant.