Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice Read online

  About the book

  Can Nanny Piggins handle jail-time? Can the criminal justice system handle Nanny Piggins? Can tightrope walking really be a crime?! In this scintillating sixth instalment of her adventures, the world’s greatest flying pig sinks her teeth into 5000 hours of community service, impersonating pirates, kidnapping the school bus and battling amnesia along the way.

  * * *

  Previously on Nanny Piggins . . .

  Here we are at the sixth book. If this is the first Nanny Piggins book you’ve picked up you’re probably wondering – What’s going on? Who are these characters? Why did Great Aunt Gertrude buy me the sixth book in a series? (Just be grateful she got you this and not hand-knitted underwear.)

  Anyway, let me assure you that it doesn’t matter if you haven’t read any of the previous books. They are all separate stories and you’ll easily pick up who the characters are. If you don’t believe me, here are a few handy pointers to get you started . . .

  In the beginning, Nanny Piggins (The World’s Greatest Flying Pig) came to live with the Green family after running away from the circus. Fortunately for the Green children – Derrick, Samantha and Michael – she was even better at nannying than she was at being blasted out of a cannon. Who could not love a nanny who thought attending school five days in a row was a danger to your health?

  But their father, Mr Green, did not think so highly of Nanny Piggins, because he found it embarrassing that she was a pig (even worse, she was a startlingly attractive pig who terrified him).

  Then Nanny Piggins’ brother, Boris (a ten-foot-tall dancing bear) also ran away from the circus and came to live in the garden shed. Mr Green still has not noticed this. He is not an observant man.

  There is also a lovely police sergeant, a highly acclaimed tap-dancing lawyer, a hygiene-obsessed rival nanny, identical fourteenuplet sisters, Hans the baker, Princess Annabelle (his royal wife), a retired army colonel and a whole swag of arch-nemeses.

  I know it sounds confusing but trust me, you’ll figure it out as you go along, because I always explain who people are as they appear (my publishers force me to). So just sit back, have a big bite of chocolate cake and start reading.

  Best wishes,

  R. A. Spratt, the author

  * * *

  Also by R.A. Spratt:

  The Adventures of Nanny Piggins

  Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan

  Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion

  Nanny Piggins and the Accidental Blast-off

  Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster

  Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Previously on Nanny Piggins …

  By the same author

  Title Page

  Chapter 1 Nanny Piggins gets in Trouble

  Chapter 2 Nanny Piggins and the Ridiculous Imposter

  Chapter 3 Nanny Piggins and the Angry Old People

  Chapter 4 Madame Piggins and the Psychic Gift

  Chapter 5 Nanny Piggins and the Bump on the Head

  Chapter 6 Nanny Piggins and the Bus

  Chapter 7 Legally Boris

  Chapter 8 Nanny Piggins and the Last Straw

  Chapter 9 Nanny Piggins and the Art of Advice

  Chapter 10 Nanny Piggins and the Bitter End

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  ‘You ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself!’ yelled Nanny Piggins.

  Nanny Piggins and the children were sitting outside the editor’s office at their local newspaper. They were waiting for him to turn up so that Nanny Piggins could tell him off for the terrible suggestions given in his paper’s advice column. And while they waited, Nanny Piggins was practising what she was going to say.

  ‘I wouldn’t use your newspaper to line the bottom of a budgerigar’s cage!’ hollered Nanny Piggins. (She enjoyed a good telling off once she got into full swing.) ‘You aren’t good enough to lie beneath budgie poop!’

  ‘Don’t you mean “your newspaper isn’t good enough to lie beneath budgie poop”?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘I mean exactly what I say,’ declared Nanny Piggins, before turning to Samantha. ‘Did you get that all down?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Samantha, looking up from her notepad, ‘but how do you spell budgerigar?’

  ‘If you’re not sure, just put “parrot”,’ suggested Nanny Piggins.

  The rest of the newspaper staff were enjoying Nanny Piggins’ visit tremendously. They were even chipping in with suggestions of mean things she could say. ‘Tell him he’s lazy,’ suggested the editor’s secretary.

  ‘No, tell him everybody knows he wears a toupee,’ suggested a girl cadet journalist.

  ‘But he doesn’t wear a toupee,’ argued the senior copy editor. (She knew this because she’d had occasion to pull the editor’s hair very hard during her last contract negotiation.)

  ‘I know,’ said the girl cadet journalist, ‘which is why telling him we know he wears a toupee will really freak him out.’

  ‘I won’t have time to talk to the editor about his hair, no matter how bad it may be,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I will be too busy denouncing him for the terrible advice your paper gives big-boned readers.’

  Boris wept loudly here, because he was one of those bigger-boned readers. (And that is not just a figure of speech. Being a ten-foot-tall dancing bear, his bones really were a lot larger.)

  ‘Telling people to “stop eating cake”!’ ranted Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve never heard such terrible advice! Everyone knows if you want to lose weight the best thing to do is exercise. And if you are going to take up exercise, obviously you need to eat more cake to give you the energy for all that running around.’

  The staff in the open-plan office nodded at the wisdom of this. Nanny Piggins had brought a large caramel cream cake with her to provide tangible evidence for her argument. And the office staff had to agree that since having several large slices each they all felt considerably perkier.

  ‘Now where was I?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  Samantha read back over her notes. ‘You had just finished telling him he had the intellectual capacity of a lump of lichen and had moved on to telling him he was unworthy of being covered in parrot droppings.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Nanny Piggins, regaining her train of thought. ‘Had I told him I had a good mind to bite his shins yet?’

  ‘Um . . . shins, no,’ said Samantha, scanning the notes.

  ‘Good,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t want to give him any forewarning.’

  At this moment the hapless editor returned from lunch. As it turns out he was actually a big-boned man himself, so eating lunch was the highlight of his day. And Friday lunch was the highlight of his week, because that’s when he would take an important advertiser with him to a fancy restaurant and charge the whole thing to the newspaper’s credit card. So at three o’clock on Friday afternoon, after a four-course lunch with three extra side dishes, he was looking forward to getting back to the office, closing his door and having a nice long nap.

  ‘That’s him,’ hissed the copy boy.

  Nanny Piggins watched the editor as he lumbered along the central aisle of the open-plan area. ‘Good gracious!’ she exclaimed. ‘His hair really is dreadful. I’m amazed any of you ever get any work done when you could spend all your time staring at it, or trying to poke it to see if it’s a well-trained rodent sitting on his head.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ asked the editor, mopping his brow. (The
combination of eating an enormous lunch and then walking all the way from the lift had made him work up a sweat.)

  ‘I am Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins,’ announced Nanny Piggins, puffing up to her full four feet of height, ‘and I have come here today to denounce you, sir! For –’

  Nanny Piggins suddenly stopped talking.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Shhh,’ said Nanny Piggins as she carefully sniffed the air.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ asked the editor. He was beginning to get upset because Nanny Piggins was blocking his path to the large comfy sofa in his office. ‘I demand to know – mmpfff!’

  The editor stopped talking here because Nanny Piggins had whipped a chocolate chip cookie out of her handbag and shoved it into his mouth to silence him.

  ‘Be quiet,’ she urged. ‘I can smell something.’

  Now everyone in the open-plan office was sniffing about.

  ‘What is it?’ whispered Derrick.

  Nanny Piggins sniffed some more. A few short exploratory sniffs, then one long deep sniff, sucking in so much air around her that papers rustled and the editor’s secretary had to grab the desktop photograph of her children to stop it being sucked into Nanny Piggins’ nose.

  ‘I smell cake,’ whispered Nanny Piggins. All thoughts of the editor and revenge were now totally forgotten.

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Samantha. ‘You brought in a lovely caramel cream cake when we arrived.’

  ‘And it was delicious, thank you,’ said the crime reporter.

  ‘Yes, but it’s gone now,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now I smell another cake. It’s got chocolate, cherries –’ she sniffed some more – ‘cream, sprinkles and –’ She sniffed again – ‘strawberry jam!’

  ‘That sounds tasty,’ said Boris. The prospect of cake had made him stop weeping for a moment.

  ‘We must have some,’ declared Nanny Piggins.

  ‘But where is it?’ asked Michael.

  Nanny Piggins was sniffing side to side in a tracking pattern as she slowly made her way in the direction of the cake. She climbed over desks and journalists as she tracked down the delicious smell, until her snout was pressed hard against a sheet glass window.

  ‘There it is!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins, pointing to the high-rise building opposite. ‘Quick! Someone bring me something to smash the glass.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just open the window?’ suggested Samantha.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘I suppose that would work too.’ She lifted the sash and leaned out into the fresh air, inhaling deeply. ‘I was right! Chocolate cream cherry cake with a strawberry jam centre. And . . .’ she inhaled deeply again, ‘the words Happy Birthday written in solid chocolate on the top.’

  ‘Come on,’ said one of the more cynical journalists. ‘How can she possibly sniff that?’

  ‘Nanny Piggins,’ Michael informed him seriously, ‘can do anything.’

  There was a crowd gathered around Nanny Piggins now as they stood looking out the window. In the building opposite they could see a lovely cake sitting on the table in the break room as a young woman put candles on the top.

  ‘Candles! Definitely a birthday cake!’ declared Nanny Piggins.

  ‘You see,’ said Michael proudly.

  ‘There’s no time to lose,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We must get over there or we’ll miss out.’

  ‘It’s just a cake,’ said the bloated editor.

  Nanny Piggins grabbed him by the lapels and shook him. ‘Get a grip of yourself, man,’ she said. ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the editor.

  ‘I need a rope and a grappling hook,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘Do any of you keep those things in your desks?’

  The newspaper employees all shook their heads.

  ‘No wonder you publish such a dreadful newspaper,’ said Nanny Piggins, turning to the editor once more. ‘You obviously haven’t trained your staff properly if they aren’t equipped to launch an assault on a neighbouring building without a moment’s notice.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the editor again.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll just have to improvise. Derrick, fetch me the fire hose from that wall over there. Michael, fetch me the largest hole punch you can find. And Samantha, fetch me the plate the caramel cream cake was on so I can lick it clean. If I’m going to get to that chocolate cake I’ll need all the energy I can muster.’

  A few moments later Nanny Piggins had entirely unravelled the fire hose, tied the hole punch to the end and was swinging it in large circles about her head as she leaned out the office window.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to go downstairs in our lift, walk across the road, then go upstairs in their lift to get to the cake,’ suggested the editor.

  ‘There’s no time for that!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They’ll start singing Happy Birthday soon, and once the candles are blown out, it’s all over. I know what office workers are like. They’re so bored out of their brains, they’ll fall on that cake like a swarm of locusts. Anything to break the monotony.’

  Nanny Piggins threw the hose-tethered hole punch and then watched as it sailed high through the air, smashed in through the window opposite and caught on the window frame.

  ‘Aaaagggghhh,’ screamed the young woman preparing the cake.

  ‘You there!’ Nanny Piggins called to her. ‘Tie my hose to the door handle of your refrigerator. I’m coming over.’

  The young woman did as she was told. Fortunately she had been a Girl Guide so she knew the knots for everything from rigging a sailing ship to detaining a terrorist with nothing but your shoelaces.

  ‘What do you mean you’re going over there?’ panicked Samantha. ‘This is a twelve-storey building.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but it’s only twenty metres from here to there. I’ll just tightrope walk over and back. It’ll take no time, and I’ll bring you back a slice of cake.’

  ‘But you can’t tightrope walk across that,’ protested Derrick.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘It’s a hose,’ said Derrick.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘and therefore it is wider than the tightropes we used at the circus. But hopefully the tightrope purists won’t hold it against me when I explain that it is for a good cause – eating cake.’

  ‘But it’s not like tightrope walking inside the Big Top,’ said Michael. ‘This is outside. And it’s a windy day.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t mind if my hair gets a little windswept.’

  ‘But what if you fall?’ wailed Samantha.

  ‘Oh, I’ll deal with that when it happens,’ said Nanny Piggins as she stepped out onto the hose.

  ‘I can’t look,’ said Samantha, hiding her face in Boris’ fur.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Boris. ‘There’s no way Nanny Piggins would fall on the way to getting a slice of cake.’

  ‘She wouldn’t?’ asked Samantha hopefully.

  ‘No,’ said Boris, ‘although she might fall on the way back if she was too busy licking her fingers.’

  ‘Quick, Nigel,’ called the editor. ‘Fetch the photographer. We’ll need pictures of this.’

  ‘For the newspaper?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘No, in case she falls,’ explained the editor. ‘For occupational health and safety.’

  But they need not have feared. Nanny Piggins progressed slowly but confidently across the hose. Despite the gale-force gusts of wind, screams of horror from pedestrians below and being hit in the head by a chocolate bar that Boris had thrown at her as encouragement, she soon made it to the other side.

  Everyone cheered.

  ‘Clear the front page!’ yelled th
e editor, finally snapping out of his calorie-induced stupor. ‘We’ve got a new lead story!’

  ‘What’s the headline?’ asked the senior copy editor. ‘High Wire Hog Heroics?’

  ‘No,’ said the editor. ‘Potty Pig Defies Death.’

  Meanwhile in the building opposite, Nanny Piggins was having a lovely time leading the office workers in the singing of Happy Birthday and cutting up the cake herself to make sure that everybody, especially Melanie from accounts (the birthday girl) got a really big slice.

  Unfortunately, at that moment Nanny Piggins’ luck turned. The wonderful adrenalin-induced hysteria of the impromptu party was ruined by a team of police officers bursting into the break room and telling Nanny Piggins she was under arrest.

  And so a few short hours later Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were sitting outside a courtroom waiting for Nanny Piggins’ case to come up before the local magistrate. Nanny Piggins was using the opportunity to practise.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ yelled Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s a miscarriage of justice!’

  ‘You’re not going to say that to the judge, are you?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘The Police Sergeant did warn you that he was going on a two-week holiday,’ Samantha reminded her, ‘and that you should try to stay out of trouble while he was away.’

  ‘But how was I to know that his replacement would be such a stickler for the rules?’ protested Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Police officers usually are,’ said Michael. ‘It’s kind of the whole point of their job.’

  ‘Please don’t let them send you to jail,’ sobbed Boris. ‘If you’re put away, who is going to brush all the knots out of my fur in those hard-to-reach places?’

  ‘Pish! They’re not going to send me to jail!’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘I rang Isabella Dunkhurst’s office. She’s the best courtroom lawyer in the country, plus she can tap dance (for further information, see Chapter 1 of Nanny Piggins and the Accidental Blast-off), so I’m sure she’ll have us home in time to watch The Young and the Irritable.’