Nanny Piggins and the Daring Rescue 7 (12 page)

‘Really?' said Samantha, not truly understanding. ‘And is this a popular style of acting?'

‘Oh yes,' said Boris, ‘with actors who don't like to act.'

‘Since there is so much cake-eating in the script, I want you all to eat cake while you're reading your lines,' instructed Nanny Piggins.

‘But won't we get fat?' protested a young slim beautiful actress.

‘Probably,' conceded Nanny Piggins, ‘but that is a good thing. Then you'll be able to take up more space on the TV screens and you'll be even more famous.'

And so the read-through progressed. The actors ended up having a wonderful time, because Nanny Piggins let them improvise. She did not mind if they said, ‘Mmmm-mmm-mm', ‘Aawwww-mmm-yum' or ‘nyumnyum-mm-mm-mmmm' when their characters were eating cake.

And the cake-eating really added to the exciting bits. Screaming ‘I'd die before I married you!' or ‘She's not your baby, her real father is Enrico the Bolivian polo player!' is even more dramatic if you spray cake everywhere while you're doing it.

The network executives were so excited to get
The Young and the Irritable
back on air that they decided to make the first episode back a live episode – that way they would not have to waste time on editing the footage. And they could start earning advertising revenue again more quickly. The only problem was that in live TV, if anyone makes a mistake or accidentally rips another actor's wig off, then that gets broadcast live. Live TV is like a sporting event: there are no do-overs, which is nerve-racking for the actors. Fortunately it is not hard to learn a script when over fifty per cent of the lines are just eating noises.

On the day of the shoot, the Slimbridge Cake Factory sent over their biggest truck full of cake so there would be ample supplies to get the actors through the recording session. The actor who played Crevasse had become so good at dramatically spitting cake while proposing to women that he went through a whole chocolate mud cake in every scene.

The Slimbridge Cake Factory promised an unlimited supply of free samples on the condition that Buff Snr mentioned their products three times while proposing to the woman dressed up as a man pretending to be his pool cleaner (Sabrina's rival).

Everything was going swimmingly well until suddenly the costume designer came screaming out of Sabrina's dressing-room.

‘What's the matter?' asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Is Buff Jnr trying to wear a blue shirt with a green tie again? If he is you can give him a short sharp bite on the leg and say it is from me.'

‘No, much worse,' said the costume lady.

‘Worse than wearing clashing colours?' asked Boris. ‘Then it must be something very bad.'

‘Sabrina's run off,' wailed the costume designer.

‘Yes, with the pool cleaner in scene seven,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘I know. I wrote it.'

‘No, the actress who plays Sabrina has run off. She left a note,' said the costume lady waving a cake-smeared letter at Nanny Piggins. ‘She has run off with the truck driver from the Slimbridge Cake Factory.'

Nanny Piggins could not be angry. ‘A very wise woman,' she said. ‘Earning millions of dollars as a glamorous actress is one thing. But a man with access to entire truckloads of baked goods – that is too good to pass up.'

‘It's like winning the lottery and marrying Prince Charming on the same day,' agreed Boris.

‘Plus she can spend the rest of her life living in the cab of a truck. Think how wonderful and glamorous that will be,' agreed Nanny Piggins.

‘But what are we going to do?' exclaimed the producer. ‘We start recording in an hour and there is no-one to play our lead vixen.'

‘There must be another option,' muttered Nanny Piggins.

‘Beautiful glamorous women who can act brilliantly and consume vast amounts of cake don't just grow on trees, you know,' complained the executive.

‘I know where we can find one,' said Michael.

‘You do?' said Nanny Piggins and the executive.

‘Nanny Piggins!' exclaimed Michael. ‘She's beautiful and glamorous, she can eat cake better than anyone else in the whole world and when she performed
Hamlet
last year she was brilliant.'

‘It's true,' agreed Boris. ‘When Nanny Piggins performs Shakespeare she does it so well you can understand one in three words, which is a lot more than I can usually follow.'

‘But do you know the lines?' asked the producer.

‘Pish! I don't need to learn the lines,' said Nanny Piggins, ‘I'm the writer. If I can't remember what to say, I'll just make something up.'

‘But what about the other actors?' asked Samantha. ‘How will they know what to say if you're just making things up?'

‘Half their lines are just eating noises,' said Nanny Piggins, ‘so that shouldn't be a problem. And then if they start to say something that doesn't fit with what I want to say I'll just slap them hard in the face.'

‘That seems a little harsh,' said Derrick.

‘Oh no, they're soap opera actors, so they'll be used to it,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘People in soap operas get slapped all the time.'

‘What if someone tries to slap you?' asked Michael.

Nanny Piggins scoffed. ‘I'd like to see them try.'

‘But if you're playing the lead role, when will you have time to write the scripts?' asked the executive.

‘Oh, I can write those in next to no time now,' explained Nanny Piggins. ‘Once I put in all the mmm-m-mmm noises, and the chomping sounds and the cutaways of people looking longingly at cake, there is barely any space left for actual dialogue. A sentence here and a sentence there and it's done.'

‘All right, you can go on for Sabrina,' said the executive. ‘I suppose we'll have to make some kind of announcement letting the audience know that a new actress will be playing the part.'

Nanny Piggins just laughed. ‘Don't worry about that. I am good enough at acting so that no-one will notice the change.'

‘But you're two feet shorter than her,' protested the executive, ‘and a pig!'

‘What's your point?' asked Nanny Piggins.

‘She really is that good,' said Derrick.

‘You might as well trust her to pull it off,' said Samantha. ‘She usually does pull off everything she tries.'

And so Nanny Piggins played Sabrina and, naturally, she was brilliant in the part. The scene where she brought Granite out of a coma by shoving cake crumbs in his mouth made everyone cry. The scene where she put him back in a coma by shoving poisoned cake crumbs in his mouth made everyone angry. And the scene where she fled Vincent's amorous advances and takeover bid of her lawn-mowing empire by blasting herself out of a cannon and onto a yacht five miles out to sea was a brilliant finale.

When the floor manager called, ‘Clear! We're on an ad break,' the crew spontaneously burst into applause. Academy Awards were not usually given to daytime soap opera actors, but they thought there was a very good chance they would rewrite the rules in this instance.

‘You're doing really well, Nanny Piggins,' said Samantha encouragingly.

‘I know,' said Nanny Piggins, ‘but I think I could do more with the part.'

‘What did you have in mind?' asked Michael.

‘Pass me that script,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘I'm going to make a few adjustments.'

‘But you can't change the script now, the other actors won't have time to learn their new lines,' protested Derrick.

‘You're right,' agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I'll just have to cut their lines.' With which she took out a big blue felt-tip pen and started doing a lot of crossing out.

‘Ten seconds and we're back from the ad break,' called the floor manager.

‘Perfect,' said Nanny Piggins. ‘All done.'

What followed was the most spectacular episode of daytime television ever. In just thirty minutes, Nanny Piggins' character got married and divorced three times. And married and widowed twice (both times to the same man). She was kidnapped, unkidnapped and lost at sea; possessed by a poltergeist and forced to work in a travelling circus as a flying pig. (Nanny Piggins thought it would be nice to add an autobiographical touch.)

The other actors were in a state of shock. Fortunately they had so much cake in their mouths that they just had to say ‘Mmmbff' whenever Nanny Piggins proposed to them, accepted their proposal or announced that they only had three minutes to live.

When the end credits rolled the actors and crew alike slumped down, exhausted from the emotional roller-coaster.

‘Nanny Piggins, I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go,' said the executive producer.

‘But why? I thought the show was better than ever,' protested Nanny Piggins.

‘For a start, we're concerned our viewers will develop type 2 diabetes, because watching this show will make them want to eat so much cake. Secondly you've just burnt through five years' worth of plot in one episode,' explained the executive.

‘It was a good episode though, wasn't it?' said Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes,' agreed the producer, ‘but frankly, we're more comfortable making mediocre episodes. It's what we're good at.'

And so Nanny Piggins retired from her career as a television writer. As a severance package, the studio arranged for her to be driven home in a fully stocked truck from the Slimbridge Cake Factory. They expected her to ride up front in the cab, but Nanny Piggins had them open the back doors so she could dive head first into the jam rolls and teacakes, then instructed the driver to drive slowly. The children and Boris joined her as soon as she had eaten enough cake to make room.

‘Are you sad to be leaving TV?' asked Michael.

‘Not really,' said Nanny Piggins between mouthfuls. ‘Television is much more fun to watch than it is to make.'

Nanny Piggins stared hard at the cake displays. She was making a decision, a very important decision. Nanny Piggins had come into a windfall. Her Great Aunty Doris had sent her ten dollars for her birthday.

It wasn't Nanny Piggins' birthday, but Aunty Doris believed in celebrating all her relatives' birthdays on the same day (the way people do with horses) as it saved having to remember all those dates. So she had nominated 27 April as her Comprehensive Relative Birthday Day, then sent out ten-dollar notes to all her relatives who were younger than her, and rude accusing birthday cards to relatives who were older than her (usually denouncing them for not sending her ten dollars on her birthday).

Ten dollars was a significant sum for Nanny Piggins because she only earned 11 cents an hour. More importantly, it was significant because ten dollars would allow her to buy four of Hans' cakes. But the difficulty was making a decision when there were so many good choices.

Nanny Piggins approached this sort of choice with the consideration and thoroughness that usually only top world leaders use in negotiating trade treaties.

There were so many factors to take into consideration. Chocolate éclairs were delicious but so too were lemon tarts. The crème brûlées were mouth-watering but the tiramisu was breathtaking. And if you were lucky enough to be able to afford more than one, there was the added dilemma of what combination to buy them in: perhaps a light meringue to stimulate the stomach, then a tangy key lime pie to cleanse the palate, finishing with a huge piece of chocolate mud cake to deaden the senses. The options were limitless. It was a very serious decision. She could not let her Great Aunt down. Aunty Doris would expect a ten-page letter describing the deliciousness of Nanny Piggins' choice in the return mail.

The children sat silently eating mud cake at a table behind Nanny Piggins. They knew it was vital to allow her to concentrate on such an important matter. They also periodically fed her chunks of cake, because thinking always made her hungry.

‘The pecan pie is good today,' said Hans, attempting to be helpful.