Nanny Piggins and the Race to Power 8

  About the Book

  A VOTE FOR PIGGINS IS A VOTE FOR CAKE!

  In this riveting eighth instalment of Nanny Piggins’ adventures, she sets out to thwart Mr Green’s political ambitions by running for mayor herself. Her mission? To proudly fight for Liberty, Equality and Cake! Is democracy safe? Probably not. Nanny Piggins has a radically different campaign, which includes a diabolical fun run, being trapped in a sabotaged lift, faking seismic activity, safeguarding the local vacant lot and beating the world pole-vault record.

  Chapter 1

  Mr Green has a Terrible Idea

  Chapter 2

  Nanny Piggins and the Campaign Strategy

  Chapter 3

  Colonel Troubles

  Chapter 4

  Boris and the Big Snore

  Chapter 5

  Nanny Piggins and the Happy News

  Chapter 6

  Nanny Piggins and the Vacant Lot

  Chapter 7

  Nanny Piggins and the Last Cake of the Romanovs

  Chapter 8

  Nanny Piggins and the Great Debate

  Chapter 9

  Nanny Piggins and the Hidden Treasure

  Chapter 10

  Nanny Piggins and the Election Day

  Previously on Nanny Piggins . . .

  Congratulations on obtaining this book. It is shockingly brilliant. If, however, it is the first Nanny Piggins book you’ve read (perhaps because you’re a numerologist who pathologically avoids anything involving the numbers one through seven) or if you have read the first seven books but you can’t remember a thing about them because you read so much pig-based literature that it is all a blur, either way – do not fret.

  You will easily pick it all up as you go along. Each Nanny Piggins book is a stand-alone story. In fact, each chapter is a stand-alone story. So feel free to tear your book up into the ten separate chapters and share them with nine friends, or nine enemies. (This book is so good it may turn an enemy into a friend.)

  But if you are an anxious type who wants to be fully prepared for what lies ahead, here are a few pointers to get you started.

  Nanny Piggins is the world’s greatest flying pig. (She doesn’t have wings; she gets blasted out of cannons. Or, rather, she used to get blasted out of cannons before she ran away from the circus due to the lack of chocolate biscuits in the employee break room.) She became a nanny when she saw a sign on the Green’s front lawn, and as it was raining and she did not have an umbrella, she applied immediately.

  Mr Green, her employer, is a dreadful man. He is a tax lawyer. No more need be said. If you imagine a tax lawyer you will have a pretty good idea of everything you need to know about him. But in defiance of genetics his three children, Derrick, Samantha and Michael, are a delight. Nanny Piggins’ brother, Boris the ballet-dancing bear, also lives with them (although Mr Green doesn’t know this, because he is too unobservant to notice the ten-foot-tall, highly emotional Russian bear living in his garden shed).

  There are lots of other wonderful characters, including a very kind Police Sergeant, a hygiene-obsessed rival nanny, a petty school principal, a retired Army Colonel with romantic aspirations, several very exotic former circus colleagues and thirteen beautiful, glamorous and often evil identical twin sisters, just to name a few. But I won’t describe them all in detail, because it will be nice for you to have some lovely surprises as you read along.

  So find yourself a comfortable chair and a nice big chocolate bar, then sit back and enjoy this book.

  Yours sincerely,

  R. A. Spratt, the author

  Nanny Piggins and the children were just putting the finishing touches on the leaning tower of Pisa. Obviously, it was not the real leaning tower of Pisa. It was a ten-foot-tall replica they had made entirely out of profiteroles, which was no easy thing. As any architect will tell you, twelfth-century Romanesque columns and Corinthian capitals are hard enough to craft out of stone (hence the lean in the leaning tower), but to make them entirely out of cream, choux pastry and chocolate takes real artistry.

  ‘Finished!’ announced Nanny Piggins as she stood back and admired her work.

  ‘It is spectacular,’ said Samantha.

  ‘Really impressive,’ agreed Derrick.

  ‘Delicious looking,’ added Michael.

  ‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s a wonder the Italians didn’t have the good sense to build the Tower of Pisa out of chocolate and pastry in the first place. That way, when it started to lean they could have eaten it and built it again.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ said Michael, ‘can we eat it now? We’ve got to catch the school bus in twenty minutes and I’m getting hungry.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We just need to carry it through to the dining room.’

  ‘Can’t we eat it here in the kitchen?’ asked Samantha, looking at the precariously balanced pillar of food.

  ‘Samantha Green!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘How can you suggest such a thing?! We may be hungry but we are not animals.’

  ‘You are,’ Derrick pointed out.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘When you create a masterpiece of culinary delight such as this, it is too good to be scoffed on the kitchen floor. It needs to be consumed with the elegance and dignity of the dining room.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Besides,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘I thought if we ate it in the dining room, we could all lie on the dining-room floor and get Boris to push the tower on top of us. Then we could pretend we’re earthquake victims forced to bravely eat our way out of the rubble.’

  This sounded like a tremendous idea to the children. Apart from involving a delicious breakfast, they suspected that if a ten-foot-tall pillar of food fell on them, there was a very good chance that by the time they ate their way out, they would have missed the bus to school. And Nanny Piggins had very strict rules about not running to catch the school bus. She felt it only gave the bus driver an exaggerated sense of his own importance.

  Soon all four of them were carefully carrying the profiterole creation into the dining room. It wobbled with every step, but Nanny Piggins knew more about structural engineering than the twelfth-century Italians, so she’d had the good sense to build in solid chocolate reinforcements to ensure the integrity of the structure. Obviously it takes a great deal of concentration to carry a ten-foot-tall tower of profiteroles. You have to carefully avoid light fittings, doorframes and tripping over your own feet. So, just as they were about to heave the tower onto the table on the count of three, the absolute last thing they wanted to hear was someone loudly clearing their throat.

  ‘Achem,’ said the voice loudly.

  ‘Agh!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins as all four of them flinched and the tower wobbled precariously. ‘Someone’s broken in and is trying to eat our profiteroles! Don’t worry, children. I’ll distract them while you try to eat as much as you can!’

  ‘Piggins,’ said the voice.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Nanny Piggins, adjusting her grip on the tower so she could peer around and see the source of the noise. ‘Ugh, it’s just your father.’

  The children groaned. They carefully put down the tower.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.

  ‘It’s my house,’ said Mr Green. ‘I’ve every right to be here at breakfast time.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ conceded Nanny Piggins begrudgingly, ‘but usually you go to the office early so you can steal other people’s food out of the refrigerator and eat that for breakfast.’

  Mr Green blushed slightly at this because it was true and he had no idea how his nanny could possibly have found out. (In fact,
she had just guessed. When it came to food, Nanny Piggins had the instincts of a criminal profiler. Having worked in the circus for years, she could recognise the many hues of guilt written across a man’s face.)

  ‘Anyway, I wanted to speak to you all because I have wonderful news,’ said Mr Green.

  The children groaned again. Whenever their father had ‘wonderful news’, it nearly always involved him trying to send them to a workhouse, sell them into slavery or give them to a pack of wild wolves to raise.

  ‘What sort of wonderful news?’ said Nanny Piggins, squinting and getting ready to launch herself at his shins.

  ‘I have arranged a holiday for you all in South America,’ declared Mr Green.

  ‘Really?’ asked Samantha. She was surprised because that sounded rather nice and it was unlike her father to do anything nice.

  ‘Yes, you are all going to stay at a mountain homestead in Chile,’ said Mr Green.

  ‘What’s the catch?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘No catch,’ said Mr Green. ‘Just a delightful holiday for my children, a chance to soak up the local culture and enjoy the sunshine.’

  ‘Are you telling me you went to a travel agent and bought aeroplane tickets yourself, with cash money?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Green, ‘and frankly I resent the implication that you think otherwise.’

  ‘Your own cash money?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Well . . .’ said Mr Green. There was something about Nanny Piggins. When she glared into his eyes, he found it very difficult to lie (and he was normally very good at lying; after all, he was a tax lawyer).

  ‘Who paid for the tickets?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.

  ‘The mountain homestead,’ admitted Mr Green.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.

  ‘It’s a banana plantation. They paid for the tickets in exchange for six months hard labour,’ explained Mr Green.

  ‘You sold your children into slavery for the price of return air tickets?’ accused Nanny Piggins.

  ‘No,’ admitted Mr Green. ‘They are one-way air tickets. They’re going to have to work for another six months if they want to come back.’

  ‘Right, that’s it! I’m biting him!’ declared Nanny Piggins.

  The children grabbed hold of Nanny Piggins before she could lunge. They knew she would be cross with herself if she ruined her appetite on their father’s trouser leg when there was so much profiterole to look forward to.

  ‘What’s this all about, Father?’ asked Derrick. ‘It’s been months since you last tried to get rid of us. Why are you trying to get us out of the way now?’

  ‘Can’t a father give his children the gift of hard work, travel and all the bananas you can eat?’ asked Mr Green.

  Nanny Piggins lurched towards him.

  ‘You’d better tell the truth, Father,’ urged Samantha. ‘You know how talk of fruit enrages Nanny Piggins. We can’t hold her back for much longer.’

  ‘It’s none of your business!’ snapped Mr Green. ‘You’re not the boss of me! I don’t have to tell you anything!’ Mr Green desperately lunged for the door.

  ‘Not one of those three statements is correct!’ retorted Nanny Piggins as she athletically lunged for Mr Green.

  Unfortunately Mr Green misjudged the width of his own hips (something that often happens to people who eat too many stolen yoghurts from the office refrigerator). He banged the table and the whole profiterole leaning tower of Pisa collapsed on Nanny Piggins and the children before they had a chance to stop him. So Mr Green made good his escape. If lying under a collapsed tower of profiteroles had not been exactly how Nanny Piggins wanted to spend the morning, she would have been quite cross.

  Eating a ten-foot-tall profiterole tower is, of course, a process that cannot be rushed. And cleaning all the chocolate stains off your school uniform afterwards is even more time consuming. So, naturally, by the time the children set out for school, the bus was long gone and they had to walk.

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t like letting you go to school when your father is clearly up to something.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ urged Derrick. ‘Knowing Father, it is probably something trivial.’

  ‘Like he’s trying to change his identity to get out of paying a library fine,’ guessed Michael.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I don’t know. Your father always looks a little weaselish. But this morning he looked extra specially weaselish. I think he’s up to something.’

  As they were talking they had made slow progress down the road. They had not gone too far because feet seem heavier when you’re walking to school than when you’re walking home, particularly if you’ve got maths first up. Then your feet practically seem to stick to the pavement. Plus, they were all lost in thought as they tried to imagine what devilish tricks Mr Green was up to. So they did not immediately notice that many of the houses in their street had large colour placards in their front gardens, featuring a big photograph of a smiling man.

  ‘Hey, who is that?’ asked Michael. ‘He looks familiar.’

  Nanny Piggins, Derrick and Samantha looked about and noticed the placards as well.

  ‘He does look familiar,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘That ugly grey suit, the thinning greased-back hair and the unsightly untrimmed eyebrows are all strangely reminiscent of somebody . . .’

  They peered closer. Then suddenly Nanny Piggins leapt back, screaming, ‘Waaah!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘It’s your father!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Where?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘On the poster!’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘No!’ said all three Green children as they stared at the poster again.

  ‘He looks different because he’s smiling,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but if I cover his mouth –’ Nanny Piggins put her trotter over the mouth on the poster.

  ‘Aaaggghhh!’ screamed all three Green children.

  ‘It is him!’ exclaimed Derrick.

  ‘What’s he doing smiling in a photograph?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘I didn’t know he could smile,’ said Michael. ‘I always thought he had some sort of paralysis of the face.’

  ‘But this poster says he’s running for mayor!’ exclaimed Derrick.

  At this point all four of them sat down on the pavement and started eating profiteroles. Fortunately Nanny Piggins had the foresight to stuff her pockets full before they left the house. Nanny Piggins believed it was very important to consume sticky desserts if you had just received a nasty shock.

  ‘But it doesn’t make any sense,’ said Samantha. ‘Father doesn’t like doing things.’

  ‘Or drawing attention to himself,’ added Derrick.

  ‘Or talking to people,’ added Michael.

  ‘And smiling is so unlike him,’ said Samantha.

  ‘Does your father have an identical twin brother?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I often find that is the explanation if I see a horrifying, publicly displayed picture of myself.’

  ‘No,’ said Derrick. ‘At least I don’t think so.’

  ‘But until today I didn’t know that Father could smile,’ said Samantha, ‘so who knows what other dark secrets he has.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing for it,’ said Nanny Piggins as she got to her feet and dusted off her designer dress. ‘There’s no way you can go to school now.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Samantha. (Not that she wanted to go. She just liked to be briefed on whatever complicated excuse Nanny Piggins was going to tell the school secretary.)

  ‘Education may be important, although I’m not one hundred per cent convinced that’s true, no matter how much Headmaster Pimplestock yells at me,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But it is much more important to stamp out political disaster.’

  ‘It is?’ asked Michael.

  ‘If only Karl Marx’s nanny had the good sense to tell him off and make him get a proper job,’ said Nanny Piggins. �
�A good deal of trouble could have been avoided in the twentieth century.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘According to this poster there is a public meeting at lunchtime today where all the candidates will announce their plans,’ said Nanny Piggins.

  ‘So we’re going straight to that?’ asked Samantha.

  ‘Goodness no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We’ve got to go to the bakery first. If I’m going to wrestle your father to the ground, wrench a microphone out of his hands and give him a good telling off, I will need to have a little snack first to give me energy. I’m just glad I had the foresight to put my hot-pink wrestling leotard on under my dress when I got up this morning.’

  ‘Don’t you put that on most mornings?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Yes, it’s uncanny how I always know when I am going to have to wrestle someone that day,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

  So after a couple of dozen lemon tarts at Hans’ Bakery, Nanny Piggins and the children made their way to the public meeting.

  It was the usual dusty, poorly lit building you find in most municipalities. For some reason church halls and community halls always smell unhappy. Most adults have unhappy memories of being forced to participate in a nativity play, or ballet class, or karate lessons in such a hall. Even though the room usually has no furniture, they still somehow have the unpleasant faint aroma of mould, dust and cockroaches. For this occasion, there were a couple of hundred folding chairs set out, but only a few dozen people sitting among them. If you discounted the mayor’s staff, family members and vagrants who had come in for a nap and a free doughnut, there were very few people in the audience indeed.

  And who could blame the voters of Dulsford? It was an unimpressive line-up. The incumbent, Mayor Bloomsbridge, had been in the position for eight years so everyone knew full well he was a big windbag. Running against him was a shopkeeper who did not like that the council had put a parking meter outside her shop, and finally there was Mr Green. Luckily for Nanny Piggins and the children they did not have to sit through the other two speakers because Mr Green was scheduled to speak first.