The Adventures of Nanny Piggins (7 page)

Nanny Piggins tried the suitcase first. It proved to be very disappointing. All it contained was one clean dress, six sets of clean underwear and a big thick instructional manual entitled 'How to Raise Children Properly'. Nanny Piggins briefly flicked through the book. It had chapter headings such as 'The Pros and Cons of Beating', 'When to Lock a Child in the Cellar' and 'The Medicinal Benefits of Cod Liver Oil'. Nanny Piggins tossed the book aside and turned to the guitar case. It was fastened with a large combination lock. This struck Nanny Piggins as unusual. In her experience, guitarists usually wanted to be able to open their guitar cases as quickly as possible so they could bore people with folk songs at the slightest provocation.

To a normal person this large combination lock would be very hard to break open. But Nanny Piggins happened to have a pair of industrial strength bolt cutters in her pocket so she easily demolished the lock in half a second. But when she flipped open the lid she could not believe what she saw.

The guitar case was absolutely chock full of doorknobs. Doorknobs of all different shapes and sizes and colours and textures. Some were old, some were new, some were shiny and some were dull. They had obviously come from dozens of different buildings. And in the middle lay the plain brass doorknob from Nanny Piggins' own bedroom. 'Nanny Alison is a doorknob thief!' exclaimed Nanny Piggins. She raced downstairs to tell the children.

Nanny Alison was in the middle of providing after-lunch entertainment in the form of a marionette puppet show. Mr Green thought it was fabulous, mainly because it was free. It did not even need electricity.

The children were bored witless until they heard Nanny Piggins' news. 'Why on earth would anyone want to steal doorknobs?' asked Derrick.

'It is probably a form of mental illness,' suggested Nanny Piggins.

'How are we going to catch her out?' asked Michael, because he had read a lot of detective novels so he knew catching people red-handed was the best way to solve a crime.

'I've thought of that,' said Nanny Piggins. 'And the answer is superglue!' Nanny Piggins held out a tiny tube to show them.

'What will that do?' asked Samantha.

'We'll put it on all the doorknobs. Then when Nanny Alison tries to steal one she will stick to it and we will have caught her red-handed,' explained Nanny Piggins. The children liked the sound of this plan. They helped Nanny Piggins, each taking it in turns to sneak about the house, smearing glue on doorknobs, while Mr Green laughed a little bit too loudly at the marionette puppet show.

'Right,' said Mr Green. 'We'd better get on with the Nanny Games. Although Nanny Alison is already winning five points to zero. You only have to lose one more point, Miss Piggins, and that is it. I'm afraid you'll be looking for a new job.' Again, Mr Green was not really afraid of this. He was feeling the exact opposite.

Mr Green cleared his throat and read off his notebook, 'For the sixth round the Nannies will be required to . . .' But Mr Green never got to reveal what the sixth round was because at that moment Samantha triumphantly screamed, 'Ah-ha!'

'What?!' asked Mr Green, bewildered.

'Nanny Alison was trying to steal the doorknob. Look, she's stuck to it!' declared Samantha. And, indeed, Nanny Alison was unable to remove her hand from the living-room doorknob.

'That proves she was trying to steal it,' declared Derrick.

'What are you talking about, you stupid boy?' said Mr Green. 'It only suggests that she was trying to open the door.'

And so Mr Green's mediocre legal mind had found a flaw in Nanny Piggins' brilliant plan. Opening doors was a perfectly legitimate reason for touching doorknobs.

'Why on earth would anyone want to steal a doorknob?' asked Mr Green incredulously.

'Mental illness,' suggested Michael helpfully.

'Who gave you such a stupid idea?' asked Mr Green.

The children gave Nanny Piggins away by looking everywhere but at her.

'I might have guessed,' said Mr Green, puffing out his chest ready for a good long rant. 'Not only are you a second-rate nanny and a pig, you also have the audacity to slander the name of Nanny Alison.'

Fortunately Nanny Piggins was saved the trouble of having to bite Mr Green hard on the leg because, at that exact moment, a police detective kicked the door in and burst into the room.

'What on earth is going on? How dare you!' blustered Mr Green.

'Sorry, sir,' said the police detective. 'We would have used the doorknobs except they aren't any.' Turning to Nanny Alison, he continued. 'I am arresting you for Grand Theft Doorknobs.' Then, much to Nanny Piggins and the children's delight, he snapped a pair of handcuffs on Nanny Alison. (Which was not easy given that her hand was still superglued to the living room doorknob. But an oxyacetylene blowtorch soon fixed that.)

But even better than that was the sight of Nanny Alison screaming wildly as four policemen dragged her away. 'Nooooo! I haven't found it yet. Don't put me away without letting me see it. Please, please!' But she was no match for the burly young constables and they soon bundled her into the waiting van.

The police detective explained. Nanny Alison had been travelling about and posing as a nanny so she could steal doorknobs from all the finest houses in the country. As Nanny Piggins had correctly suspected, Nanny Alison had the mental illness 'doorknobitis'.

'But how did you know to find her here?' asked Samantha.

'She was bound to come here. Because all doorknobbers (this is what people who collect doorknobs are called) know this is the home of the most famous doorknob in the world.

'It is?' said Derrick, Samantha and Michael in perfect unison. Their three-part harmony lesson had still not entirely worn off.

'This is the home of the late Edith Green, the famous Professor of Antiquities, isn't it?' asked the detective.

'That was our mother,' said Derrick.

'I didn't know she was famous,' added Michael.

'Oh yes, because she discovered the legendary Fabergé doorknob. And attached it to a door in this very house,' said the police detective.

'No!' said the children, again in perfect unison.

'It's true,' sobbed Mr Green.

The children and Nanny Piggins had forgotten he was there. They preferred to think about him as little as possible.

'If you would be so kind as to show it to me, sir, just to confirm that it is unharmed?' asked the police detective.

Mr Green slowly lead the way into his study and over to the bookcase full of law books. He was weeping softly. 'I never wanted her to bring it into the house. Nineteenth-century Russian décor is so gaudy.'

'Just show us the knob please, sir,' said the policeman.

Then, to the surprise of all, Mr Green put his hand on a small marble bust of Ronald Trout (the inventor of the goods and service tax) and the entire bookcase slid to one side, revealing a small, ornately carved wooden door. But they barely noticed it because there, in the middle of the door, was the most spectacularly beautiful doorknob ever made. It was decorated with gold filigree, exquisite enamel work and studded with diamonds, emeralds and rubies.

'This was your mother's secret room,' explained Mr Green.

'That is the most amazing doorknob ever!' exclaimed Derrick.

'Which is why Nanny Alison wanted to steal it,' explained the police detective.

But Nanny Piggins' mind was working on a different track, 'Tell me,' she said. 'If this beautifully carved door, with the most beautiful doorknob ever, is so cleverly hidden, what I want to know is – what is behind the door?'

Mr Green started to sob louder. 'Your mother's great weakness.'

The children looked at each other.

'She was your mother. One of you had better open it,' said Nanny Piggins gently.

Derrick stepped forward because he was the eldest. And if his mother kept a live tiger behind the door, it was only right he should try to fight it first. He reached for the Fabergé doorknob and turned it carefully. The latch clicked back and the door swung out towards him. There, inside the room, was the most amazing sight. A huge pile of chocolate. There was white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, fruit-flavoured chocolate and chocolate-flavoured chocolate from all the different countries in the world.

'Your mother was a chocolate collector. She gained her PhD in chocolate. Her life's dream was to put together the most comprehensive chocolate collection in all the world,' explained Mr Green, deep in shame.

'What a wonderful woman!' marvelled Nanny Piggins as she looked up at the towering stacks of chocolate. 'Well, there's only one thing for it. As a tribute to your mother's memory, we owe it to her to eat as much chocolate as physically possible.'

'But won't that ruin her collection?' asked Samantha.

'Not at all,' declared Nanny Piggins. 'It will still be the world's most comprehensive collection of chocolate bar wrappers. And it would be morally wrong to let all this chocolate go to waste.'

The children were not going to argue with that. So Nanny Piggins, the children and the police detective all sat down to enjoy the chocolate and fondly remember Mrs Green, the great professor of antiquities and collector of chocolate. And as they sat in her hidden chocolate storage room, the children felt a little less sad about how much they missed hugging her.

Nanny Piggins
and the Great Voyage

Brilliant ideas often came to Nanny Piggins when she was asleep. To be strictly accurate, they came to her when she was awake, lying in bed with her eyes closed not wanting to get up yet. Either way, bed was a place of creative genius for her. And so it happened on this particular day, as she snuggled beneath her doona, that Nanny Piggins was struck with wonderful inspiration.

She shook Derrick, Samantha and Michael awake. All three of them were also asleep on Nanny Piggins' bed because they enjoyed a lie-in too. And they knew Nanny Piggins' room was the only place their father would not harass them about it. He was too embarrassed to go into a woman's bedroom. I know this barely makes sense to a sane person. But it is not uncommon for older men to be afraid of beautiful young women. Even if they are pigs.

'Wake up!' cried Nanny Piggins. 'We've got no time to waste.'

'What's going on?' asked Derrick.

'Is the house on fire again?' asked Samantha.

'I don't think so. That's not why we have to get up,' urged Nanny Piggins. 'We have to get up because I've had a brilliant idea.'

The children immediately perked up. Nanny Piggins' brilliant ideas were always much more brilliant than anybody else's.

'What is it?' asked Michael. 'Have you figured out how we can try space travel after all?'

'No, not that,' admitted Nanny Piggins. 'Although I have been thinking about it. No, I've had an idea about what we can do in the meantime.'

'What?' asked all three children.

With Nanny Piggins, anything was possible. She might suggest building a catapult, or entering a tango competition, or selling one of their father's law degrees so they could have some money to go to the arcade.

'Let's go to the beach!' declared Nanny Piggins.

This was a surprising suggestion. It was five years since the Green children had been to the beach. They assumed their father did not want to take them because it reminded him of their mother's tragic boating accident. In truth, he did not take them because he was too cheap to pay for three children's bus tickets, and he did not like the effect the sea breeze had upon his hair.

Even though, strictly speaking, the children would not classify going to the beach as a 'brilliant' idea, it was definitely a wonderful idea to them. And they also knew from experience that Nanny Piggins had a talent for turning even ordinary ideas into brilliant realities. So when she urged them to get dressed as quickly as possible or she would take them on the bus still wearing their pyjamas, they hastily did as they were told.

Nanny Piggins and the children looked quite a sight on the bus because they had so much luggage. Nanny Piggins did not believe in leaving things to chance. She insisted on bringing anything that could possibly be necessary to ensure a wonderful day at the beach, which, to her mind, involved a lot of equipment. They had two large suitcases full of gardening implements for building sandcastles, binoculars for invading the privacy of other beach goers, pea shooters for tormenting annoying people and plenty of cakes and lemonade to sustain them (just in case all the shops at the seaside were shut because everyone in the area had simultaneously caught a cold).

The Greens lived a long way from the coast. Mr Green did not like being close to nature. Seeing things bigger and more powerful than himself, like the ocean, made him feel that he was not quite in control. This was, of course, true, but he did not like to be reminded of it.

The bus journey was long and windy. The children were wedged between the suitcases, which jolted into them every time the bus turned a corner. But they did not notice the discomfort because they were enjoying looking out the window so much. Of course, looking out a window can be dull. But not when you have someone like Nanny Piggins giving you a running commentary.

'Look at that woman's head!' Nanny Piggins exclaimed. 'It's a wonder she has the courage to go out in public. I'd strap a cat to my head before I'd leave the house with hair that colour. And look at that man's trousers! There's nothing to hold them up. Do you think he had his bottom removed for medical reasons? Or that it got torn off in a terrible accident?'

Observations such as these made the time pass pleasantly until they came over the hill and saw, in front of them, the blue expanse of the ocean stretching out to the horizon.

'Great Balls of Fire!' exclaimed Nanny Piggins. She often said this when she felt very strongly about something but did not want to say a bad word in front of the children. 'We're all going to die!'

'We are?' said Samantha with genuine concern. She did not want to die in the middle of such a pleasant bus trip.

'Look! The edge of the land has broken off!' cried Nanny Piggins.

Derrick, with a flash of insight, realised Nanny Piggins was talking about the ocean. 'It's meant to be that way,' he reassured her. Being the oldest, it was his job to pretend to be responsible when adults fell apart.

'But the countryside has fallen away and there's nothing but all that blue stuff,' protested Nanny Piggins.

'It's all right. The blue stuff is the ocean,' Derrick explained. 'That's what you get at the edge of the land. Haven't you ever been to the beach before?'

Nanny Piggins never liked admitting she did not know something. But on this occasion she had to be truthful. 'No,' she conceded.

'You mean there's actually something you haven't done?' asked Michael in amazement. It seemed to him that his nanny was an expert on everything. She certainly knew a million times more than their father or any of the teachers at their school.

'Didn't your circus ever travel to the beach?' asked Samantha.

'No,' said Nanny Piggins sadly. 'You see, the Ringmaster had a morbid fear of octopuses, so we always avoided the beach and aquariums.'

The children nodded. They could see how a man would be afraid of octopuses.

'I've read about beaches in books, of course,' Nanny Piggins told them. 'So I know that beaches have sand. But I didn't realise a beach had an ocean as well.'

'They all do,' said Michael.

'And I didn't realise that an ocean would be quite so big,' said Nanny Piggins as she pressed her snout to the glass to get a closer look. 'Why, it's bigger than the cake factory in Slimbridge.' (The Slim-bridge cake factory was, to Nanny Piggins, the finest achievement in architecture ever in the world.)

Nanny Piggins and the children stared in wonder at the ocean as the bus wound closer towards it.

'I guess that explains why whales are so big,' mused Nanny Piggins. 'If you live in something as huge as the ocean, you wouldn't notice that you were big yourself. A whale would never have to worry about bumping his head on doorframes or finding trousers that fit.'

On arrival at the beach Nanny Piggins' enthusiasm for what she found there was divided. She was enormously in favour of hot chips with extra salt and vinegar but she was not entirely convinced about the charms of sand.

She opened up one of the suitcases and sat in the lid of it, eating ice-cream as the children built sandcastles. She could see the attraction of a sandcastle because you could run along the beach and jump on it. Destruction was always invigorating but she could not forgive sand for its uncomfortable ability to find its way into clothes and rub unpleasantly.

Then there was the water. Nanny Piggins was not a pig who scared easily but she was cautious in her approach to the ocean itself. It was so huge compared to her, for she was a petite little pig.

Fortunately, food always made Nanny Piggins feel brave. After some hot chips, ice-cream and four or five large cakes, she was feeling courageous so she and the children ventured towards the water. When the children started to wade in, she became alarmed. 'What are you doing?'

'Going for a swim,' explained Derrick.

'But what if you get eaten by a shark or a sea monster?' asked Nanny Piggins with genuine concern.

'Don't worry,' said Michael reassuringly as he took hold of Nanny Piggins' hand. 'Getting eaten by sharks and sea monsters is not nearly as common in real life as it is in books.'

So Nanny Piggins joined the children in going for a swim. And it was very pleasant. It was much more exciting than swimming in a pool because there were waves to knock you over if you were not paying attention. And unlike the public swimming pool, you could shriek and scream as loud as you liked because the sound was drowned out by the sea. Admittedly, the water did taste disgusting when Nanny Piggins tried drinking it. As a general rule Nanny Piggins tried eating and drinking most substances just on the off-chance that they were delicious. She thought it was very misleading that it was called 'water' when it tasted nothing like water from a tap. It was like calling sewerage 'ginger beer' just because they were both brown.

After the swim they all towelled off and sat on the beach, while Nanny Piggins came up with an idea for what to do next. The children expected her to suggest more sandcastles, or a game of soccer, or perhaps digging an enormous hole. That is what most normal people choose to do at the beach. But Nanny Piggins was not normal. A small sail boat caught her eye as it tacked its way across the bay.

'Since we've travelled all this way to get to the seaside,' mused Nanny Piggins, 'it would be very nice to go beyond the "side" and actually travel across the sea.'

The children looked at each other with mild concern.

'I wonder where we could get a boat?' said Nanny Piggins. 'Do you think we would have to commandeer one like pirates?'

'We could,' said Samantha, for she did not want to be discouraging. 'Or we could rent one.' Doing illegal things always worried Samantha, so she was usually the first to suggest a non-illegal alternative. 'There's a boat rental place over there on the pier.'

'What a brilliant idea!' said Nanny Piggins, because she was not an ungenerous pig and having so many brilliant ideas herself, she was always the first to recognise brilliance in others.

Nanny Piggins struck a happy deal with the boat rental man. In exchange for Mr Green's favourite wristwatch (which she just happened to have in her pocket), the rental man gave Nanny Piggins and the children his smallest sailing boat and a five-minute lesson on the principles of yachting. And so, despite having almost no idea what they were doing, they sailed off.

Nanny Piggins took to sailing instantly. Having lived her whole life in the circus, she was used to handling ropes and large sheets of canvas. In no time at all, she was happily guiding the boat across the water at a good speed.

The children were enchanted by the experience. The movement of the boat did make Derrick feel violently ill. But apart from that, they enjoyed the sense of freedom. It was like driving a car (which they had all tried because of Nanny Piggins' lack of respect for the concept of drivers' licences) except better because there were no roads you had to follow. It was amazing to stare down into the blue depths and think how there was nothing beneath them except water, fish and possibly the secret city of Atlantis.

'Where shall we go?' asked Nanny Piggins.

'Go?' questioned Derrick. It had not occurred to the children they had the option of going somewhere. They had assumed they would have to go out and come back to where they started. Like on pony rides, go-karts or any other children's amusement.

'All the seas and all the oceans in the entire world are connected together,' said Nanny Piggins, because she did know the important things about geography. 'So if we're here on the ocean, that means as long as we point the boat in the right direction we can go anywhere in the world.'

'Anywhere in the whole wide world?' gasped Michael. His mouth hung open as his mind overflowed with all the possibilities.

'Anywhere that has an ocean or a sea joining on to it,' confirmed Nanny Piggins, 'which is just about everywhere, except Luxembourg and Paraguay. We can go there another day.'

The children were too stunned too respond. There were so many options. Samantha had always liked penguins and would have loved to visit Antarctica. Derrick liked big stones and would have been fascinated by the giant heads of Easter Island. And Michael liked riding up and down in lifts so he would have loved the tall buildings of New York. But as they sat in the tiny boat, these things did not occur to them. Or rather, they occurred to them along with a thousand other ideas all at once so it was impossible for them to pick out just one idea of what to do. Luckily, at this point, Nanny Piggins had another brilliant idea. The third one of the day – which just shows what a good day it was!

'I've got it! Let's sail to China!' declared Nanny Piggins.

The children all thought this was a wonderful idea for a variety of reasons.

'So we can see the Great Wall of China?' asked Derrick.

'And visit the Chinese entombed warriors?' asked Samantha.

'And learn how to do kung-fu?' asked Michael.

'Oh yes, we'll definitely do all that,' agreed Nanny Piggins. 'But first of all, I want to go because I'm really hungry and I just love Chinese food.'

So it was agreed that they would set sail for China immediately. Nanny Piggins was not entirely sure which direction China was in but she knew the world was round and China was very big so she was confident that if they headed straight out to sea, they would bump into it eventually.

It was a windy day and they made quick progress. Within a few short hours they were a long way out to sea. The town they had set sail from shrank down to a tiny dot, then disappeared entirely behind them.

The children were not bored because Nanny Piggins had packed loads of novels and packets of biscuits into the suitcases. She had even packed fancy dress costumes. They had great fun for an hour or two dressing up as pirates and pretending to plunder imaginary ships. So even though it was getting to be late afternoon, they were not at all dispirited. They were all looking forward to finding out if the Chinese food in China was even better than the Chinese food everywhere else.

Unfortunately, at this point in the adventure, trouble began to arise. Mainly in the form of a big, nasty storm. Huge, black clouds gathered in the sky behind them. And a dark, grey curtain seemed to hang from the dense cloud mass. It was only when the clouds moved overhead that they realised the grey curtain was in fact very, very heavy rain.