Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice (5 page)

‘I absolutely refuse to work with ghosts,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Just because they are trapped for eternity between worlds doesn’t give them the right to go around waking people up with their wailing.’

And with that she disappeared down into the black stinking hole.

The sewers turned out to be every bit as unpleas
ant as you might imagine. They were smelly, slimy and wet. The absolute last place you should go if you happened to be wearing a suede, lemon-coloured bodysuit. But Nanny Piggins was on a mission and therefore heedless of her appearance.

‘This way,’ she whispered. (You should always whisper in a sewer so as not to attract the attention of the rats.) They set off following the blip, only now they moved more slowly and cautiously. (The sewer is one place you really do not want to fall over.)

As the morning wore on they got closer and closer to the blip. Bramwell actually moved quicker than his sister, because he dived into the sewers like they were waterslides, slipping and sliding from one tunnel to the next. But he also stopped to rest all the time and that is how Nanny Piggins and the children gained ground on him.

After several hours they finally had him within reach. ‘He’s just up ahead,’ whispered Nanny Piggins excitedly. ‘Down this tunnel and around the bend.’

They crept forward quietly until they got to the corner. Then Nanny Piggins leapt out to confront her brother.

‘Aha! There’s no escaping now!’ she yelled.

But Bramwell was not there.

‘Where’s he gone?’ asked Nanny Piggins, looking
down at her monitor. The blip had disappeared.

‘Look,’ called Derrick. He was pointing to a shower of shortbread cookie crumbs on the floor.

‘Oh no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He found the shortbread cookie and ate it.’

‘Won’t the tracking device still work in his stomach?’ asked Michael.

‘I doubt it. Mother taught us to chew all our food 32 times,’ said Nanny Piggins forlornly.

And so Nanny Piggins and the children had to abandon their pursuit of Bramwell. They climbed out of the sewers and made their way home. Which was almost as unpleasant as being in the sewers, because everyone they walked past leapt away in horror, or fainted from the stench of their now ruined clothes. Nanny Piggins’ beautiful suede bodysuit was certainly not lemon-coloured anymore.

After they got home and had scrubbed themselves vigorously with several bars of soap for a considerable amount of time, Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children gathered in the kitchen to cheer themselves up with a few serves of banoffee pudding (a wonderful confection of banana, toffee and cream
that is excellent for restoring spirits).

‘Are you terribly disappointed that you didn’t catch Bramwell?’ Michael asked his nanny.

‘Not really,’ said Nanny Piggins, between bites. ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up again some day – posing as someone incredibly glamorous like an astronaut, or a race car driver, or a nanny – and when he does, I’ll bite him.’ (Eating pudding always made her feel philosophical.)

‘I’m exhausted,’ said Boris. ‘When they built those sewers I don’t think they had ten-foot-tall bears in mind. I banged my head so many times.’

‘I told you not to do so much leaping in the air,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘I can’t help it. I’m a ballet dancer,’ said Boris. ‘I always do a grand jeté when I see a rat.’

Boris took a bucket of honey from the cupboard and trudged out to his shed. The children and Nanny Piggins were just helping themselves to their seventh servings of banoffee pudding when their munching was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream.

‘Yaaaaaaggghhhhh!’

‘That sounded like Boris,’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, leaping to her trotters.

But then there was a second even more blood- curdling scream.

‘Wwaaaaaagggghhhhh!’ said another screamer.

They all burst out the back door just as Boris burst out of the shed. (Unfortunately he missed the doorway and smashed out a bear-shaped portion of wall.)

‘Sarah, save me!’ Boris squealed. ‘There’s someone in my bed.’

‘Not that Goldilocks again!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Why won’t she leave you poor bears alone and take a nap in her own house for once?’

‘I don’t think it is Goldilocks this time,’ said Boris, ‘unless she has gained weight.’

Nanny Piggins and the children peered through the large hole in the shed wall. On Boris’ bed they could see an enormous lump, not unlike a huge beach ball covered in a blanket.

‘That lump looks familiar,’ said Nanny Piggins as she climbed into the shed and picked up a garden trowel. She then gave the lump a sharp whack. And lo and behold her brother leapt up, screaming.

‘Bramwell!’ exclaimed the children.

‘Why on earth would he go to so much trouble to run away from you, only to come here?’ marvelled Samantha.

‘Because he might have a genius for escape,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but he is still a nitwit.’

‘I had nowhere else to go,’ blubbered Bramwell, still rubbing his bottom. (Which was not easy because his arms were barely long enough to reach it). ‘I spent all my book advance on cupcakes. And no hotel will take me. I have been blacklisted from anywhere that serves a buffet breakfast.’

‘But why come here?’ asked Derrick.

‘I didn’t think anyone would notice me in the shed,’ said Bramwell.

‘Normally that is true,’ said Boris. He certainly had gone unnoticed living there for the longest time. And a ten-foot-tall bear is even more eye-catching than a four-foot-wide pig.

‘Well, you can’t stay here,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You’ll just have to go back to your old job.’

‘Bramwell has a job?’ asked Michael.

‘Yes, he is a waste disposal technician at a factory,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘He takes out garbage?’ asked Derrick.

‘Not exactly,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He eats it.’

‘What?!’ exclaimed the children, thinking that Bramwell was even more unhygienic than they had imagined.

‘It’s not as bad as it sounds,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘Bramwell works at a chocolate factory, so if someone accidentally ruins a batch of chocolate by
burning it, curdling it or adding a coconut filling, Bramwell comes in and cleans it all up. He’s a much more environmentally friendly alternative than putting it in landfill.’

‘It’s not very glamorous though,’ sulked Bramwell.

‘But you’re not very glamorous, are you?’ Nanny Piggins pointed out. ‘And the sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be. The whole world can’t be filled with impossibly glamorous incredibly talented pigs. It would be exhausting. No, there are fourteen of us, and that is just the right number.’

So Nanny Piggins sent Bramwell packing (with twelve large chocolate cakes and a crate of sherbet lemons to sustain him on his bus ride home). And everything returned to normal. Well, almost normal. The publicist did still call twenty times a day begging Nanny Piggins to sign a book deal.

‘I’m so sorry, Nanny Piggins,’ said the probation officer for the forty-seventh time.

‘There’s no need to apologise,’ said Nanny Piggins, while offering him another slice of cake. ‘It’s not your fault the criminal justice system is so terribly unjust and that Judge Birchmore is a raving psychopath.’

‘If only there was some way I could give you community service right here in our office,’ lamented
the probation officer. ‘You could do a little filing, type some letters, or just take a nap. I’d let you do it if I had my way.’

‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins, patting his hand kindly, ‘but I don’t mind going out into the community. And I’m not afraid of hard work.’

‘It’s true,’ agreed Michael. ‘Nanny Piggins often stays up all night working on her cake recipes.’

‘I can tell,’ said the probation officer as he stuffed even more cake into his mouth.

‘So do your worst,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Treat me as you would any other law-breaking miscreant. Which part of the community do you want me to serve? I could sniff out bombs for the bomb disposal squad, teach trapeze to school teachers or give a wrestling workshop to the army.’

‘Oh, we don’t do any community service like that,’ said the probation officer. ‘I’m afraid what I can offer you is far less glamorous.’

‘How much less glamorous?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘The Golden Willows Retirement Home needs a volunteer,’ said the probation officer.

‘To do what?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Help the old people re-enact historical scenes from their pasts?’

‘No, just talk to them,’ said the probation officer. ‘The nursing home’s television broke down last week. The residents are getting restless. They need someone to go down and talk with them or organise a game of bingo. That sort of thing.’

Nanny Piggins leaned towards Derrick. ‘Is bingo that game where you fire rubber darts at police officers, trying to knock their hats off?’ she whispered.

‘That’s what
you
call bingo,’ said Derrick. ‘But there is another far more boring version of the game.’

‘And what are the alternatives to this “talking to old people”?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Don’t you have something that would better use my athletic cannon-blasting skills?’

‘Sorry,’ said the probation officer. ‘I have very strict instructions from Judge Birchmore that I am to give you no alternatives and make you do the worst job available.’

‘Talking to old people doesn’t sound that bad,’ said Samantha.

‘No, you wouldn’t think so, would you?’ agreed the probation officer. ‘But I sent five people down to the retirement home last week and they all came away crying. Three of them opted to go to jail rather than complete their community service.’

‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Give me the address. I’m sure the old people can’t be that difficult. If I can’t placate them with my cake baking, I do still have the Howitzer I borrowed from the war museum. I can always try threatening them.’

Forty minutes later, Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children arrived at the old people’s home.

‘Are you nervous?’ asked Michael.

‘Not at all,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Sure, old people can be crotchety. And when you help yourself to their boiled lollies they can yell at you for hours while trying to hit you with their walking sticks. But on the bright side, you can always outrun them.’

With that she stepped forward and pressed the doorbell. They then waited for a minute before it became clear that no-one was coming to answer the door. Nanny Piggins pressed the doorbell again and yelled, ‘Yoo-hoo, is anyone home? I’m the court-appointed criminal who is being forced to help you!’

But again no-one answered.

‘Does this mean we can go home?’ asked Boris.

‘We’ve only been here for 75 seconds,’ said
Nanny Piggins. ‘If we went home now it would take me two thousand years to get through my community service. We’d better just let ourselves in.’

So Nanny Piggins kicked in the front door (entirely knocking it off its hinges) and they all walked inside.

‘What is that odour?’ asked Nanny Piggins as she sniffed about. ‘It smells like someone is growing mushrooms in here.’

‘And why is it so warm?’ asked Boris. ‘Is this a nursing home for old people who want to pretend they’re living in the tropics?’

‘I think old people like things to be warm,’ explained Samantha. ‘It’s got something to do with them having bad circulation.’

‘Packing them into a mouldy sauna isn’t going to help that,’ said Nanny Piggins, throwing open a few windows to let in the fresh air. ‘The only way to improve circulation is by circulating, preferably down the road to the bakery. A couple of dozen chocolate brownies always get my blood flowing.’

Just then a cleaning woman edged backwards into the room, wiping the floor with a mop.

‘Hello,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m Nanny Piggins.’

‘I don’t speak English,’ said the cleaning woman in perfect English.

‘What?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I only speak Chinese,’ said the cleaning woman.

‘Really?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You don’t look Chinese.’

‘All right,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘I only speak Portuguese.’

‘
Onde fica o grande gerente
?’ asked Nanny Piggins (which is how you say ‘Where is the big boss?’ in Portuguese).

‘I’m also a deaf mute,’ said the cleaning woman.

‘You don’t have to feel threatened by me,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve just been sent by my probation officer as part of my community service.’

‘Oooh,’ said the cleaning woman, ‘so you’re today’s convict. Sorry, I thought you were from the health department. And I’ve been given strict instructions not to tell them where we buy our cleaning products.’

‘Where do you buy your cleaning products?’ asked Samantha.

‘I can’t tell you,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘Once you know you have to pretend you can only speak Chinese.’

‘Who’s in charge here?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Some up-and-coming 29-year-old investment analyst from a big merchant bank in town,’ said the cleaning woman.

‘Where is he?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Not here,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘He doesn’t like the smell of old people. Besides, it’s a different up-and-coming investment analyst every week. They keep getting promoted to a better job, or leaving to serve jail-time for insider trading.’

‘But there must be some kind of manager here?’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘No,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘The manager had the highest salary, so she was first to go. The 29-year-old said it was a new decentralised management strategy.’

‘What? So there’s no-one in charge and no-one knows what they’re doing?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Exactly,’ said the cleaning woman. ‘Admittedly, it is very similar to the old centralised management strategy. The old manager used to drink a lot.’

The cleaning woman started mopping the floor again and Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children watched her edge away.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Samantha.

‘Well, I’m supposed to be keeping the old people company, and helping them come to terms with the
loss of their television,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So I suppose I’d better find out where the old people are kept.’

Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children made their way down a long green hallway that opened out into a large common room.

‘Finally!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, upon sighting a dozen elderly people sitting around in plastic-covered armchairs. ‘Some old people to do my community service on. Hello, I’m Nanny Piggins!’

The old people did not move or say a word. They just kept staring catatonically into the middle distance.

‘Do you suppose they’ve eaten too much cake?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I sometimes feel like that after 60 or 70 chocolate mud cakes.’

‘Why don’t I try to fix the TV?’ suggested Boris.

‘Good idea,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

‘Hang on,’ said Boris as he peered at the ancient TV set. ‘Someone’s broken off most of the knobs!’

Nanny Piggins had a closer look. ‘They’ve broken the knobs off for all the good channels!’

‘And look at this sign,’ said Samantha.

On top of the TV set was a sign printed in bold block letters saying:

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOW THE OLD PEOPLE ANYTHING OTHER THAN BALLROOM DANCING OR LAWN BOWLS. IT ONLY GETS THEM OVEREXCITED.

Nanny Piggins looked at her watch. ‘
The Young and the Irritable
is on in twenty minutes. Boris, run home and fetch our television.’

‘But what if they get overexcited?’ whispered Michael, looking worriedly at the catatonic old people.

‘It would do them a world of good,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now, while we’re waiting for Boris, let’s look about.’

Upstairs Nanny Piggins and the children found a long corridor with bedrooms on either side. ‘I’m going to start introducing myself to more residents,’ said Nanny Piggins, raising her trotter to knock on the first door. ‘Hello, I’m Nanny Pigg–’

But as the door swung open Nanny Piggins was horrified to be confronted by a masked figure, wearing all black and holding a ticking bomb.

‘Aaaaggghhh!’ screamed Nanny Piggins and the children.

‘Sorry,’ said the figure, pulling off the ski-mask to reveal that she was really a sweet old lady. ‘I’m Mrs Hastings and this isn’t really a bomb. It’s just a couple of empty shampoo bottles painted black, my alarm clock and some pretty coloured wires from out of the back of the television.’

‘What on earth are you doing dressed like that and carrying a fake bomb?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘I was going to catch the 10.15 bus into town to rob the bank,’ explained Mrs Hastings.

‘Why were you going to rob a bank?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Probably to buy a new television,’ guessed Michael.

‘No,’ said Mrs Hastings. ‘I’m not really going to rob a bank,’ she chuckled. ‘I’m going to let them catch me. Then they’ll put me in jail. I’m hoping if I hit one of the policemen over the head with my handbag I’ll get life imprisonment.’

‘Why do you want to get life imprisonment?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Because the food is much better in prison than it is here,’ said Mrs Hastings. ‘Plus you get an hour in the exercise yard every day. We’re never allowed out in the yard here; the neighbours complain we’re bad for local property prices.’

‘That can’t be right,’ said Derrick. ‘That food is better in prison than in a nursing home?’

‘Oh it is,’ said Mrs Hastings. ‘Doris from room 4B was the first to think of it. She got herself put away for attempting to murder the visiting library lady. I went and visited her in prison and she says they get pesto every Tuesday, chicken cacciatore every Wednesday and once a month they have Mexican night with as many tacos as they can eat!’

‘What are their desserts like?’ asked Nanny Piggins, wondering for a millisecond if perhaps she had made a mistake in agreeing to community service if there was secretly a brilliant catering regimen at the local women’s prison.

‘It’s mainly tinned fruit and custard,’ admitted Mrs Hastings.

‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. She liked custard.

‘But every Saturday, as a treat, they get carrot cake,’ added Mrs Hastings.

‘Carrot cake!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘How dreadful! I didn’t know they were allowed to torture people in jail. Offering them cake, then purposefully tainting it with vegetables. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it. Still, I suppose if you break the law you deserve to be punished.’

‘You broke the law,’ Michael reminded her.

‘Yes,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘And I suppose I should be thankful the judge didn’t think to give me any carrot-cake-related punishment.’

Suddenly they were interrupted by a loud BOOM! The building shook and plaster fell from the ceiling.

‘Now that
was
a bomb!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes, that’s just the man in 12C,’ explained Mrs Hastings. ‘He’s new. He isn’t reconciled to being here yet.’

Nanny Piggins and the children went to investigate. Nanny Piggins nudged open the door of 12C, more cautiously this time, calling softly, ‘Hello?’ She didn’t want to startle a geriatric armed with explosives.

But when the door swung open she was again shocked, this time on coming face-to-face with her old friend, the Retired Army Colonel from around the corner (who was deeply in love with her). He was sitting in a wheelchair with his two legs in plaster casts sticking straight out in front of him.