Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan (14 page)

The judges were so shocked by his brilliance they immediately made him do a drugs test and show them his birth certificate in case he was secretly a very short Olympic athlete pretending to be a chubby little boy.

But Michael passed the tests and Nanny Piggins was awarded champion of the Westminster Nanny Show. Nanny Anne was seen fake-smiling so hard she cracked a tooth. Nanny Piggins was so happy to win she felt she could be magnanimous. So she only ran around the ring three times yelling, ‘Hah hah, I beat you, I beat you all!’

The editor of
Nannying Monthly
rushed up, shook Nanny Piggins’ trotter, and begged her to write a regular column for his magazine. ‘We’ve always known your articles were brilliantly funny. But we never realised you actually knew how to take care of children as well.’

Of course Nanny Piggins said no. Because writing abusive and insulting letters to magazines is fun as a hobby but it takes all the joy out of it when it is a job.

So as Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children hitched a lift home in one of the catering vans, they were all very happy. Nanny Piggins kept hugging the children each in turn, then all together, then Boris too, so he would not feel left out.

‘What I don’t understand is how on earth were you able to do the obstacle course so quickly,’ Derrick asked Michael.

‘It was all the training I’d done,’ said Michael as
he took a spoonful of the litre of ice-cream Nanny Piggins had bought him.

‘But you didn’t do any training,’ said Samantha.

‘Yes I did. We train all the time. How many times have we had to leap over walls, crawl through hedges, and dodge around garden gnomes since Nanny Piggins has been our nanny?’ asked Michael.

Derrick and Samantha thought about it and they had to admit, the answer was quite a lot.

‘And doing an obstacle course when there isn’t a savage dog or a stick-wielding neighbour chasing you is actually much easier,’ explained Michael.

‘But Nanny Piggins said something to you just before the starter’s pistol. Something that made you run extra fast, didn’t she?’ asked Boris.

Michael smiled, ‘Yes, she did.’

‘What was it?’ asked Derrick and Samantha.

‘She said –’ said Michael. Boris, Derrick and Samantha leaned in close to hear the secret – ‘she said she would buy me a litre of ice-cream if we won.’

‘Could there be any greater motivation?’ declared Nanny Piggins, before giving them each, then all together, another hug.

Nanny Piggins was teaching the children to pick a lock. Partly because she thought it was an important life skill, but mainly because she had forgotten her keys and locked herself out of the house. This would not have mattered so much, if they had not just bought fifty litres of choc-chip ice-cream, which urgently needed to go in the refrigerator. Consequently, Nanny Piggins was desperately racing Boris
to see whether she could break into the house quicker than he could eat the ice-cream.

Boris seemed to be winning. Nanny Piggins was very good at picking locks with a hairpin. But the problem is, if you have a hairpin, then you have the type of hair that needs to be pinned up. Which means, if you take the pin out, your hair will fall in your face and distract you. Plus Nanny Piggins could not stand having unattractive hair, even when she was breaking and entering into her own home in an urgent attempt to rescue ice-cream.

Her lock-picking lesson, however, soon became irrelevant when a man barged past her, screaming, ‘Get out of the way!!!’

The man slammed into the locked door, which only momentarily stopped him, because he was fat enough and moving with enough speed to break the lock and the doorframe, smashing the door open and landing sprawled on the inside doormat.

When Nanny Piggins stepped into the hallway and turned on the light she was shocked to discover that the screaming man was, in fact, Mr Green himself.

‘It’s your father!’ gasped Nanny Piggins.

‘Do you think he’s gone insane?’ asked Michael optimistically.

‘Years ago,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But he seems extra especially bad right now.’

‘Close the door! Quickly close the door!’ begged Mr Green.

Boris pushed the door closed. (Mr Green did not even ask why there was a ten-foot-tall dancing bear in his home, which shows just how distracted he was.)

‘Now lock it!’ pleaded Mr Green.

‘We can’t lock it,’ said Derrick. ‘You just smashed the lock.’

‘Then fetch me a hammer and nails,’ ordered Mr Green.

Michael ran as quickly as he could to the shed and back with the required equipment. His father rarely used tools, so he knew this was going to be entertaining. And it was. As soon as Mr Green began nailing the door shut, it became clear he had no idea what he was doing. He kept banging himself on the hand, or dropping the hammer on his foot.

After she had finished laughing (and finished eating the remaining seventeen litres of ice-cream), Nanny Piggins took pity on Mr Green. She took the
hammer and sealed the door with a few vicious but well-aimed wallops.

‘Now, Mr Green, why don’t you come into the living room and tell us what is going on?’ suggested Nanny Piggins.

‘No time,’ muttered Mr Green manically. ‘I must pack my bags. Consult my lawyer. Book an airfare to a secret foreign location.’

‘Why? Have you killed someone?’ asked Samantha.

‘No, no,’ said Mr Green.

‘Does someone want to kill you?’ asked Nanny Piggins. She knew at least two dozen people off the top of her head who definitely did. ‘Apart from the usual people, I mean.’

‘It’s worse than that,’ said Mr Green.

‘Someone wants to force you to study calculus?’ suggested Michael.

‘No, much, much worse. There’s a woman …’ said Mr Green.

‘No way!’ interrupted Nanny Piggins.

‘And she wants to marry me!’ said Mr Green.

At this point Nanny Piggins lost track of what Mr Green was saying because she had fainted. Now you have to remember, Nanny Piggins had seen rebellions, earthquakes and circus clowns without
their make-up, all without ever batting an eye. So for Nanny Piggins to be so totally shocked that her body stopped pumping blood to her head really says something.

Boris wafted chocolate cake under Nanny Piggins’ nose to revive her. They knew she was coming round when her eyelids began to flutter and she snapped the slice out of Boris’ hand, nearly amputating one of his fingers.

‘I’m sorry, children,’ apologised Nanny Piggins. ‘I must have had a dream. I thought I heard your father say that a woman wanted to marry him.’

‘He did,’ said Derrick.

‘Quick, more cake,’ called Samantha, as Nanny Piggins’ eyes rolled back in her head and she started to faint again.

Half a chocolate mudcake later, Nanny Piggins had revived enough to hear the rest of Mr Green’s story.

‘I went to one of those speed-dating evenings,’ began Mr Green.

‘An evening where you quickly eat dates?’ queried Boris.

‘No, it’s an evening where you go on lots of two-minutes dates with lots of different women because you are scared they will find out what you
are really like if they talk to you for longer,’ explained Derrick.

‘So it’s got nothing to do with sticky date pudding?’ asked Boris.

‘No,’ admitted Derrick.

‘What a shame,’ sighed Boris. He was particularly fond of sticky date pudding.

‘So what happened?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I met a woman …’ began Mr Green.

‘I wish I hadn’t eaten all that chocolate cake, I’m starting to feel sick listening to this,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘And she fell in love with me,’ said Mr Green.

‘Was this speed-dating held at a lunatic asylum?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘No,’ said Mr Green pathetically.

‘Are you sure it wasn’t just an elaborate practical joke?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Perhaps one of your colleagues wanting to get back at you for being an insufferable bore.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mr Green. ‘When they want to do that, they usually just steal my yoghurt from the lunch-room fridge.’

‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Nanny Piggins assured him. ‘I’m sure when this woman wakes up tomorrow morning, and the mental health workers remind
her to take her medication, she will realise she has made a terrible mistake and never want to see you again.’

‘But it’s been a week already! I went speed-dating last Friday and she has been stalking me ever since,’ sobbed Mr Green. ‘She turns up at the office, bumps into me in the street and showers me with gifts.’

‘What sort of gifts?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Chocolates,’ whimpered Mr Green.

‘Then what’s the problem?’ asked Nanny Piggins, totally perplexed.

‘This morning, she cornered me in the elevator,’ blubbered Mr Green, ‘and … and … she proposed to me!’ With that Mr Green totally broke down.

‘But I thought you wanted to get married?’ said Derrick.

‘I do. But I want to marry a nice, quiet woman,’ sobbed Mr Green.

‘Who is easy to ignore?’ suggested Nanny Piggins.

‘Exactly,’ said Mr Green.

‘And this woman is not easy to ignore?’ guessed Nanny Piggins.

‘She is impossible to ignore,’ declared Mr Green.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Nanny Piggins assured him.
‘You’re safe here because she doesn’t know where you live.’

(Now dear reader, having read the first eleven chapters of this book you will have realised that Nanny Piggins is rarely wrong. But this is one occasion where she has made a boo-boo. In fact, she was not just wrong, she was really, really wrong. For not only did the woman Mr Green met at speed-dating know where he lived, she was actually, at that very moment, hiding in a bush in the front yard watching the Green house. She had been there the whole time. She had seen Mr Green barge his way in. She had heard Nanny Piggins nail the door shut. And she had watched through the window as they sent Mr Green to bed, then sat up eating the other half of the mudcake and giggling about Mr Green’s predicament. So having watched the house so closely, Arianna Rommanickle knew exactly when everyone inside had gone to bed and gone to sleep.)

The next morning, Nanny Piggins and the children were halfway through breakfast before they noticed something peculiar.

‘There is something odd about this morning,’ said Nanny Piggins, sniffing the air.

‘What is it?’ asked Derrick.

‘I’m not sure. But for some reason this breakfast food tastes even better than normal,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Perhaps there’s extra sugar in the marmalade,’ said Michael.

‘I know there’s extra sugar in the marmalade because I put twelve teaspoons in myself,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But there’s something else. The sun seems to be shining brighter, the birds seem to be singing more sweetly, the world seems to be a happier place this morning.’

They all looked around the room trying to figure out what it was. It was several moments before Samantha exclaimed, ‘I know what it is! Father’s not here!’

They all turned to look at Mr Green. And Samantha was quite right. He was not there. His seat was empty.

‘What a lovely surprise!’ said Nanny Piggins delightedly.

And they all went back to eating their breakfast.

But after a few moments more, a thought occurred to Derrick. ‘Why isn’t he here?’

This question stumped Nanny Piggins. Mr Green certainly would not skip breakfast just so they could enjoy their meal.

‘Perhaps he’s sleeping in,’ suggested Nanny Piggins.

‘He doesn’t like to sleep,’ said Michael. ‘He can’t bill the time to a client.’

‘Perhaps he’s gone to work without breakfast,’ guessed Nanny Piggins.

‘He doesn’t like to get breakfast at work,’ said Samantha, ‘because then he has to pay for it.’

‘I suppose we should check his room,’ said Nanny Piggins reluctantly.

The children agreed to this idea. But they also agreed to finish their breakfast first. If something dreadful had happened to their father, it would be better to celebrate on a full stomach.

A short time later, Nanny Piggins and the children stood outside Mr Green’s bedroom door, unsure what to do. They wanted to find out what had happened to him. But they did not want to burst in and see him wearing anything less than a three-piece suit.

‘Mr Green, are you in there?’ called Nanny Piggins tentatively.

There was no reply.

‘Why don’t we just wait a week or two?’ suggested Nanny Piggins. ‘If he is in there we’ll find out eventually. And if he’s not, does it matter whether we know?’

‘I need him to sign my permission slip to go to the zoo,’ said Michael.

‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Then there is nothing for it. We shall have to go in. Cover your eyes, children, in case there is anything shocking in there.’

Nanny Piggins covered her own eyes, then kicked the door in with her trotter. (The door was actually unlocked but she enjoyed kicking in a door. It added a certain drama to any tense situation.) Then, summoning the courage to peek through her trotter, Nanny Piggins discovered there was nothing shocking in Mr Green’s bedroom at all. Not even Mr Green was in Mr Green’s bedroom. His bed was empty. The window was open. And the curtains were flapping in the breeze.

‘Father’s gone!’ exclaimed Michael.

‘Hurrah!!!’ screamed Derrick, Samantha, Michael and Nanny Piggins simultaneously.

When they had finished dancing and hugging each other with excitement they looked about the room. What they should have noticed immediately, if their eyes had not been clouded by tears of joy, was
the note stabbed into the wall with a ruby-studded dagger directly above Mr Green’s bed.

‘That’s a nice dagger,’ said Nanny Piggins conversationally. ‘Rubies always remind me of strawberry jam.’

‘Perhaps we should read the note,’ suggested Samantha.

Nanny Piggins, Derrick and Michael groaned.

‘I don’t want to either,’ protested Samantha, ‘but when your father goes missing and someone stabs a message into the wall with a dagger, you could get in trouble with the police if you don’t even read the note.’

‘I suppose so,’ moaned Nanny Piggins as she removed the knife from the wall and took a closer look at the slip of paper. The note had been written in purple ink and it read:

‘He’s been kidnapped by the Queen of the Gypsies,’ marvelled Derrick.

‘Cool!’ exclaimed Michael.

‘I guess that means we can stay up late and watch horror movies tonight then,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Come along, children. You don’t want to be late for school.’

‘But shouldn’t we rescue Father?’ asked Samantha.

Nanny Piggins, Derrick and Michael thought about this for a several moments.

‘I don’t see why we should,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Because we need Father to pay for our food,’ said Samantha, knowing this argument would weigh strongly with her nanny.

Nanny Piggins turned pale. ‘Leaping lamingtons!! You’re right!’ she exclaimed. ‘Quick children! We must rescue your father immediately.’

It took three minutes for Nanny Piggins to gather all the essential equipment (compass, rope, grappling hook and chocolate), as well as the children and Boris into Mr Green’s car.

‘Let’s go!’ declared Nanny Piggins.

‘But where are we going?’ asked Samantha. ‘How are we going to find them?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Gypsies wander randomly wherever their fancy takes them. So all we have to do is wander randomly and we should soon stumble across them.’