Nanny Piggins and the Accidental Blast-off (12 page)

‘But it will be a fib, won’t it,’ asked Michael, ‘because you’re not really sorry?’

‘Yes, but that’s all right,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘because sometimes when you’re not really sorry, just saying you’re sorry actually makes you feel sorry. So technically it is only the idea of a fib, because once you’ve done it, it isn’t a fib anymore.’

And while the children tried to wrap their minds around the intricacies of this logic, Nanny Piggins wrote her apology letter, to which Boris replied immediately. (Once the honey cups were not clouding his brain he felt dreadful about his behaviour and he desperately wanted to make it up to his sister.)

So they arranged for Nanny Piggins and the children to pay a visit to the circus to witness his first performance.

When Nanny Piggins and the children arrived at the circus, Boris rushed to the car to greet them.

‘Thank you, thank you so much for coming,’ wept Boris. ‘I don’t know what came over me. When I’m in the presence of chocolate honey cups I lose my mind.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Nanny Piggins, patting her brother’s paw comfortingly. ‘I feel the same way about chocolate biscuits, doughnuts, lemon bonbons, chocolate éclairs, chocolate ice-cream, treacle tarts, jam tarts, peanut brittle, toffee and, of course, all types of cake.’

‘Thank you for coming to support me on my opening night,’ said Boris.

‘You’re welcome,’ said Samantha.

‘Although it doesn’t look like you need our help,’ said Derrick. ‘Look at all the crowds flooding in!’

There were thousands and thousands of people pouring into the Big Top.

‘There must be a lot of ballet fans in this area,’ said Michael.

‘I know, I’m so nervous,’ said Boris. ‘I’d hate to brisé when I meant to assemblé and embarrass myself in front of such a large audience.’

‘Hah!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If all you did was the chicken dance it would still be an honour for
them to see it performed by a ballet master such as yourself.’

Boris blushed (not that you could tell with all his brown fur).

‘I’d better get back to my dressing tent and get ready,’ said Boris. ‘I’m doing highlights from
Swan Lake
for my first act. Will you help me with my tutu and tiara?’

‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins.

Twenty minutes later Nanny Piggins had blow-dried Boris’ fur, pinned his tiara to his head and zipped him up in his best white tutu. Then, after he had used up a whole box of tissues weeping at how handsome he looked, Boris was ready to go on.

‘Break a leg,’ said Nanny Piggins (which is what people always say in the theatre). ‘Preferably not your own’ (which is what people always say at the circus).

When Boris entered the Big Top the spotlight immediately found him and the audience burst into howls, cheers, applause and whistles of delight. Boris’ chest swelled with pride to be greeted by such adulation. Up ahead he could see the stage and he was a little surprised to note that it was an unusual shape – square. But Boris was a professional bear, so he was not going to let a little thing like that
distract him from doing a truly beautiful ballet performance.

The Ringmaster’s voice boomed out over the public address system. ‘And now, weighing in at 700 kilograms! And ten feet tall! Let me introduce to you – BORIS – THE? BIG – BAD – BEAR!!!’

The crowd went wild.

Boris was a little perplexed – introductions for ballet dancers did not usually involve giving their weight. But still, he was not going to be put off. He owed it to Tchaikovsky to do the best
Swan Lake
ever. So Boris drew in a deep breath and made his entrance, skipping daintily to the stage.

At this point Boris did notice that the crowd were no longer cheering. It sounded more like jeering and some very hurtful name-calling, using words like ‘sissy’ and ‘princess’. But Boris dismissed this as an ugly argument that must have broken out between two audience members that had nothing to do with him.

Boris clambered up onto the stage, which was not so easy. Some silly-billy had put ropes all around the platform so he had squeeze between them. But once he was in position under the lights, Boris bowed gracefully to the crowd.

There was definitely more inappropriate
name-calling now, so Boris decided to silence these rude critics with the greatest display of ballet they had ever seen. The introductory overture swelled and Boris launched into his beautiful portrayal of a swan, when suddenly he felt a bump on the back of his neck. Boris ignored it for a while, continuing with his dance, but after a few seconds the bump seemed to be strangling him. So Boris looked over his shoulder and was surprised to discover a man dressed in a blue leotard, squeezing him in a head lock.

‘How rude!’ said Boris.

‘Do you give in?’ asked the leotard-wearing man.

‘I don’t approve of improvised dance. Would you please get off the stage, I’m doing my
Swan Lake
,’ said Boris, politely but firmly.

‘I’m tagging out!’ said the blue leotard-wearing man as he turned and slapped the hand of a man wearing a red leotard. Now the red man sprang into the ring, climbed up on the ropes and threw himself at Boris, knocking him over.

‘You’re supposed to throw roses, not yourself, when you enjoy a ballet,’ scolded Boris.

Fortunately Nanny Piggins was quicker on the uptake than her brother. From her position in
the entry way she had seen everything and she was outraged.

‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘The Ringmaster is not interested in ballet at all. He has tricked Boris into becoming a professional wrestler!’

‘No!’ gasped Derrick.

‘Cool!’ exclaimed Michael.

‘Surely that isn’t fair on the other wrestlers,’ worried Samantha. ‘Boris is a bear and a lot bigger than a human.’

‘Yes, but his heart is as soft as a marshmallow,’ said Nanny Piggins.

And the children had to concede that this was true. Many was the time they had seen Boris rescue a fly and release it outside, or usher a door-to-door salesman away before Nanny Piggins could come to the front door and bite him.

‘Fortunately I’m not such a soft touch,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Here, hold my handbag and my chocolate bars. No-one puts my brother in a stranglehold, crushing his best tutu, and gets away with it.’

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

‘Just watch,’ said Nanny Piggins. She then ran full tilt at the wrestling ring, screaming her most terrifying ‘HIIIIIIYYYYAAAAHHHHH!!!’ When
she got there Nanny Piggins bounded up onto the top of the corner post, turned and angrily shook her fist at the crowd (which only made them go wild with delight), then leapt off the post onto one of Boris’ opponents.

What followed was spectacular. You would never think that a four-foot-tall pig could lift a fully grown man above her head, spin him round three times and then throw him over the ropes onto a stack of folding chairs. But that is exactly what Nanny Piggins did.

Naturally this scared his wrestling partner and he tried to run away. Unfortunately when he turned to flee he ran smack bang into Boris. And lying flat on your back on the mat is not the best defensive position when you are under attack from an angry flying pig. Nanny Piggins launched herself onto him, twisted his arms and legs into positions in which the human anatomy is never meant to be twisted, pinning his shoulders against the canvas so that he was counted out by the referee.

In the wings, the Ringmaster was horrified to see his two best wrestlers so easily dispatched and just twenty seconds into the bout. The crowd would get angry if the show stopped now. So the Ringmaster sent in another four wrestlers to take on Nanny Piggins.

Unfortunately for the Ringmaster, Nanny Piggins dealt with them with the same ease. The first one she folded up in the elasticated ropes, got Boris to pull him back, then catapulted him into the thirtieth row of the crowd. The next wrestler was a big fellow. He was almost as tall and definitely as heavy as Boris, but he had never studied the ancient art of Hapkido, so Nanny Piggins soon had him in a wristlock so painful that he was on his knees, begging to be allowed to go home. The final two wrestlers were the easiest to finish off. Nanny Piggins simply taunted them until they were quivering with rage and then, when they both launched themselves at her, she stepped out of the way so that they banged their heads together and were knocked out cold. (It is amazing the self-defence techniques you can pick up watching early morning cartoons.)

The referee then grabbed Boris and Nanny Piggins’ hands, holding them high in the air.

‘We have a winner!’ cried the referee. ‘Boris the Big Bad Bear and Nanny Piggins the World’s Greatest Flying Pig!’

‘Now do I get to do my ballet?’ Boris asked his sister.

‘I’ll explain it to you when we get back to the
dressing room,’ said Nanny Piggins, giving her brother’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

‘I was just in a wrestling match?!’ asked Boris.

‘Yes, but don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I will punish the Ringmaster thoroughly when I get hold of him.’

‘I’ve never done anything tough before,’ said Boris proudly. ‘Wait til my friends back at the ballet company hear about this. There’ll be no more taking my lunch money now.’

‘Boris, you can’t be happy that the Ringmaster tricked you into becoming a professional wrestler,’ said Samantha.

‘Well, I’ll admit I’d never choose to wrestle,’ agreed Boris, ‘but having just been in a wrestling match without realising it, it wasn’t too bad.’

Just then the Ringmaster burst into the dressing tent. (Well, actually, it is hard to ‘burst’ into a tent because the doors don’t slam about the way they do in a proper building, but he definitely ‘flapped’ into the dressing tent.)

‘Sarah Piggins,’ denounced the Ringmaster, ‘I am very cross with you.’

‘How dare you!’ protested Nanny Piggins. ‘It is my turn to be cross with you. You’re the one who tricked my brother into inadvertently taking up a dangerous extreme sport.’

‘But that’s nothing,’ said the Ringmaster, waving the thought away. ‘That’s the type of thing I do all the time. You expect it when I turn up, whereas you have betrayed me by ruining my fledgling business empire.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘I have a 20,000 strong crowd out there who have all paid top dollar for tickets to see an evening of death-defying wrestling,’ said the Ringmaster.

‘So?’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘You have just broken all my best wrestlers!’ complained the Ringmaster. ‘The bearded lady has had to drive them to the hospital in a minibus. Half of them are too injured to ever wrestle again. And the other half are too scared of pigs to ever eat ham again.’

‘It’s not my fault they’re so delicate,’ pouted Nanny Piggins.

‘This is why I tricked Boris into coming back and not you,’ accused the Ringmaster. ‘I knew you could not be trusted to refrain from injuring everybody.’

‘It’s not my fault I’m so brilliant at wrestling,’ sulked Nanny Piggins.

‘Someone has to go on or there will be a riot,’ protested the Ringmaster.

‘Well you’d better take your hat off and roll up your sleeves,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘I can’t wrestle!’ said the Ringmaster. ‘I’m in management. It would be unseemly if I let a member of staff crush my diaphragm between his thighs. How would I be able to look my trapeze artists in the eye with dignity and tell them I had just sold their net to a Japanese fisherman?’

‘Yoohoo,’ interrupted Boris, waving his hand and bouncing up and down in his seat like a school child. ‘I don’t mind going on again. I managed to get in a few pirouettes and a grand jeté while Sarah was wrestling, but I never got to do
Swan Lake
properly.’

‘That crowd don’t want to see ballet,’ dismissed the Ringmaster. ‘They’re here to see violence.’

‘But there’s lots of violence in
Swan Lake
,’ protested Boris. ‘There’s gun play, wickedness and drownings.’

‘You might as well let Boris go on,’ said Samantha. ‘You don’t have any choice.’

‘Unless,’ said the Ringmaster, turning to smile
at Nanny Piggins, ‘my favourite flying pig wanted to resurrect her circus career. I have your cannon all ready.’