Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster (10 page)

‘There will be
no
presents,’ declared Michael before his nanny could get carried away with that idea.

‘That’s a shame,’ said Nanny Piggins sulkily.

‘I am here to show you what you will do this Easter,’ intoned Michael.

‘Do I eat lots of chocolate?’ asked Nanny Piggins excitedly.

‘Oh yes,’ said Michael. ‘That is the problem.’

‘How can eating chocolate ever be a problem?’ puzzled Nanny Piggins.

‘Watch and learn,’ instructed Michael mysteriously.

Just then the doors of Nanny Piggins’ walk-in wardrobe magically swung open. (It wasn’t really
magic. Derrick did it with lengths of fishing line, but it looked magical.)

Inside the wardrobe, which had been lit up like a Broadway play, stood Mrs Hesselstein, the chocolatier from the finest chocolate shop in town. Nanny Piggins did not often visit this marvellous establishment, because she found her chocolate dollar went much further at the worst chocolate shop in town. But Nanny Piggins still held the Hesselstein Chocolatorium in the high regard it deserved. Which is why it was so distressing for Nanny Piggins to see such an important person as Mrs Hesselstein loudly weeping.

‘Mrs Hesselstein. What’s wrong?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘She can’t hear you,’ said Michael.

‘Why? Has she forgotten to turn her hearing aid on?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘She can’t hear you, because this hasn’t happened yet,’ explained Michael. ‘This is a vision of what will happen later on today.’

‘Oh,’ said Nanny Piggins, not quite understanding, and beginning to feel uncomfortable to be watching such a fine chocolate artist feeling so unhappy.

‘Whoa is me,’ cried Mrs Hesselstein. ‘Easter is usually my best time of the year. But all my customers
are angry with me, because someone bought all my chocolate, leaving none for anybody else.’

‘But who would do such a thing?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Alas, alack,’ wailed Mrs Hesselstein (who, while being a fine chocolatier, was quite a hammy actor), ‘I curse the day that the world’s most glamorous pig set trotter inside my store.’

‘A pig did it!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘Was it one of my evil identical fourteenuplet sisters?’

‘Oh Nanny Piggins,’ sobbed Mrs Hesselstein. ‘Why did you have to ruin my business?’

‘It was me!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘But where would I ever find that sort of money?’

‘You went on an internet auction site,’ explained Michael, in his Ghost of Easter Present voice, ‘and sold Father … I mean, Mr Green.’

‘What?’ queried Nanny Piggins. ‘Surely you mean I sold Mr Green’s car, or Mr Green’s stamp collection.’

‘No,’ said Michael firmly. ‘You sold Mr Green.’

‘But who would buy him?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Apparently a Bavarian business tycoon needed a particularly large paperweight,’ explained Michael solemnly. ‘And he thought Mr Green would be
perfect – being heavy enough to hold down a large amount of papers, but biddable enough to get up and sit down again on new papers when told to.’

‘So last year I ate all the chocolate before anyone else could eat any,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and this year I’m going to buy all the chocolate before anyone else can buy any?’

‘Exactly,’ said Michael.

‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s a good job I’m astonishingly beautiful, or I’d be very unpopular.’

Half an hour later Nanny Piggins was back in bed and drifting into a much less easy sleep. She was having dreams of weeping children and stubborn chocolate stains that would not come out no matter how hard she scrubbed. This was when Derrick entered.

Nanny Piggins awoke immediately, as soon as she heard the door hinges creak. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I am the Ghost of Easter Future,’ said Derrick, throwing in a ghostly, ‘Wuuuuuaaaah’ for good measure.

‘Oh,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Well if it’s all right with you, I’d rather go back to sleep. I don’t particularly
want to know what happens in my future.’ Nanny Piggins lay back in bed and pulled the covers up over her head.

‘You must come with me to see the damage you will do,’ moaned the Ghost of Easter Future (Derrick).

Nanny Piggins sighed. ‘I never realised ghosts could be such terrible nags.’ She got out of bed and put on her slippers. ‘If I have bags under my eyes tomorrow and look anything less than fabulous, I will know who to blame. You’re just lucky you aren’t a corporeal being or I’d give your shins a good sharp bite.’

Nanny Piggins followed the Ghost of Easter Future downstairs to the kitchen. When she pushed open the doors she saw Samantha, Michael and Boris slumped at the table wearing nothing but rags.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Why are they huddling? Why do they look so sad?’

‘Oh woe is me,’ said Samantha. ‘This must be the worst Easter ever.’

‘What happened?’ Nanny Piggins asked the Ghost of Easter Past. But Derrick did not respond, except to point at Boris, Samantha and Michael.

‘What are we to do now that our beloved nanny is in jail?’ wailed Michael.

‘I’m in jail!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘What for? Cake rustling? Tart-napping? Pudding pinching?’

‘There has been no-one to look after us ever since she was imprisoned for Easter egg embezzling,’ moaned Samantha.

‘What did I do?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘It must have been bad. The Police Sergeant is usually so kind about letting me off with warnings.’

‘What was she thinking,’ despaired Michael, ‘trying to divert the entire world supply of Easter eggs to our house?’

‘And now there is nothing to eat,’ wept Boris, ‘except … (he broke down to sob loudly a few times) vegetable stew!’

Boris picked up a ladle full of grey–green gloppy mess.

‘Nooooooooooooo,’ screamed Nanny Piggins at this horrible sight.

The children cried harder.

Nanny Piggins ran from the kitchen and back up the stairs to her bedroom, where she jumped into bed and pulled the covers up over her head. ‘I can’t let it happen. I can’t let it happen …’ she muttered
furtively as she finally collapsed into a troubled slumber.

The next morning Nanny Piggins’ alarm clock went off at 4.50 am sharp. (This was late for Nanny Piggins. She usually got up at 1.45 am on Easter morning. But her visitors of the night had caused her to oversleep.) Nanny Piggins leapt out of bed and hurried over to the window, where she threw up the sash and leaned outside. It was still half dark, so there was nobody about except an early morning jogger.

‘You there!’ called Nanny Piggins.

The jogger did not hear her because he was wearing earphones.

‘You there!’ she called again, this time throwing a hairbrush at the back of the jogger’s head to get his attention.

‘What?’ asked the jogger turning round, and rubbing his sore head.

‘What day is it?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Sunday,’ said the jogger.

‘Is it Easter Sunday?’ asked Nanny Piggins excitedly.

‘Yes,’ said the jogger.

‘Hurray!’ cried Nanny Piggins. ‘Then I haven’t missed it.’

‘Can I keep jogging now?’ asked the jogger.

‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Here, take Mr Green’s credit card,’ she said as she threw the card down to him, ‘and go down Hesselstein Chocolatorium and buy up all their stock.’

‘But I want to go home,’ complained the jogger.

‘Do I have to come down there?’ glowered Nanny Piggins, swinging her leg over the window frame, ready to do just that.

‘No,’ said the jogger, surprisingly intimidated by the diminutive pig.

‘Then do as I say,’ instructed Nanny Piggins.

The jogger turned and walked in the direction of the town centre.

‘You’re a jogger, aren’t you?’ called Nanny Piggins. ‘So jog. Come on, move it!’

Nanny Piggins ran downstairs to the living room. The children were still up. They had not bothered going to bed after their three-act ghost performance.
They thought it best to brace themselves for the onslaught.

‘What are you doing, Nanny Piggins?’ asked Samantha. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m buying up all the chocolate in town!’ declared Nanny Piggins proudly.

‘Oh no,’ said Michael.

‘But this is exactly the opposite of what our plan was supposed to achieve,’ said Derrick.

‘I blame Dickens,’ said Boris sadly. ‘Anyone who takes seven hundred pages to tell a story about an orphan, only to sit down and write another seven-hundred-page story about another orphan, obviously has a screw loose.’

‘Children, I have a secret to reveal,’ said Nanny Piggins excitedly (ignoring the strange conversation she did not understand).

‘Please say you’ve invented a time machine so we can go back to tomorrow,’ begged Michael.

‘No, better than that,’ beamed Nanny Piggins. ‘You know how I have been making your father park his Rolls-Royce in the street all month?’

‘Yes,’ said the children warily.

‘Well I was telling him a fib,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Rolls-Royces don’t really need fresh air to clean their catalytic converters.’

‘Then why did you make him move his car?’ asked Samantha.

‘I’ve been storing something in the garage,’ said Nanny Piggins with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Let me show you.’

She led them to the garage and threw open the door. But Boris and the children could not see inside the garage, because flush with the doorframe was a wall of Easter eggs of all different sizes and varieties. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, honeycomb-studded chocolate and chocolate filled with chocolate bits.

‘Please tell me you have simply built a wall of chocolate?’ begged Samantha.

‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Every inch of the garage is entirely filled with Easter eggs.’

‘Nanny Piggins,’ said Derrick sadly, shaking his head. ‘What have you done?’

‘I’ve been stockpiling them since Boxing Day when Easter eggs first appeared in the shops,’ explained Nanny Piggins, ‘which wasn’t easy. You know what I’m like with chocolate. I kept eating the stockpile, then had to start stockpiling again.’

‘But why did you do it?’ asked Michael. ‘Don’t you get enough chocolate in your day-to-day life?’

‘You do eat chocolate nine times a day. Before, after and instead of every meal,’ added Derrick.

‘You can never have enough chocolate,’ chided Nanny Piggins. ‘I need to keep up my energy for my active lifestyle.’

The children could not deny their nanny led an active lifestyle.

‘Well I suppose this Easter will be just like last year then,’ sighed Samantha. ‘We won’t see you until tonight when you come home chocolate-stained and delirious with overeating, only to collapse in the middle of the kitchen floor.’

‘Well that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Nanny Piggins proudly. ‘Last night I was visited by three ghosts.’

‘You were?’ asked the children, with mock innocence.

‘Yes, and these ghosts had obviously been reading Charles Dickens,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘because they came to teach me a lesson about Easter.’

‘Did it work?’ asked Derrick hopefully.

‘Absolutely,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I learnt that Easter is
not
about eating as much chocolate as you can until you are sick.’

‘It isn’t?’ asked Boris. (While he did not approve of how much chocolate his sister ate, he had always assumed that this was exactly the reason for the holiday.)