Nanny Piggins and the Accidental Blast-off (15 page)

Up on the giant replay screen behind them there suddenly appeared playback footage of Nanny Anne as she snuck over to her competitor’s kitchen area and put a dirty dish in a sink full of soapy water.’

‘I only put them in the sink to soak so they would be easier to wash later,’ protested Nanny Anne. ‘I can’t bear untidiness.’

‘You broke the rules, you are disqualified, leave the stage immediately!’ commanded the Steel Chef.

‘Noooooooo!!!’ cried Nanny Anne.

Two enormous sumo wrestlers came out to escort her offstage. It took them a while because Nanny Anne dodged and weaved to evade them, then hung onto the oven door with all her strength before they finally yanked her free and carried her off.

‘But please, this is all I have, showing people up and proving I’m better than everyone else is what I live for!’ wailed Nanny Anne. The last Nanny Piggins saw of her was her weeping face disappearing into the darkness.

‘What about me?’ Nanny Piggins asked the Steel Chef.

‘You may continue to compete but must do so alone,’ declared the Steel Chef.

‘The two men in the opposing team sniggered. Even the Steel Chef was not competing alone. He had an assistant, a master chef in his own right, who would do all the chopping and stirring for him.

Nanny Piggins began to feel a rare and unfamiliar emotion – she was daunted. She looked out at the food-loving crowd. She did not want to let them down. Could she really pull this off? Three dishes in thirty minutes. She only had four trotters.

‘And now it is time to reveal the special ingredient,’ announced the Steel Chef. ‘It is …’

The trolley was wheeled out.

‘Chocolate!’ screamed the Steel Chef.

The stagehand whipped off the cover to reveal a huge platter of delicious chocolate.

‘Yes!’ cried Derrick, Samantha and Michael from their seats in the audience. Boris just wept.

Up on stage, a huge smile spread across Nanny Piggins’ face. She had it in the bag. No-one knew chocolate like Nanny Piggins.

What followed was the most spectacular culinary demonstration ever performed. Nanny
Piggins did not just cook. She put on a show. She used the lighting grid above the stage to swing about like a trapeze artist while whipping her egg whites. She juggled a razor sharp meat cleaver and flaming blowtorch to slice her chocolate buttons and melt them in midair. And she tap danced while singing an aria from
Carmen
as she creamed her sugar and butter.

When the time elapsed, and Nanny Piggins shook the final dash of icing sugar onto her creations, the crowd rose as one to give her a standing ovation.

The judges sampled the fusion chefs’ food first. They had made impressively innovative choices and the judges were admiring of their presentation, but the kindest thing they had to say about the taste of the food was that it was ‘interesting’.

Next, it was the Steel Chef’s turn. The celebrity judges were not rude to him at all. They had seen Mr Kimuzukashii at work with his sashimi slicer and did not want to get on his bad side. But the Steel Chef was a specialist in subtle Asian flavours. The rich and creamy taste of chocolate was not really a strength of his.

Finally it was time to judge Nanny Piggins’ dishes.

‘What have you made?’ asked the ruder of the two celebrity judges.

‘For my entree, I made a chocolate cake. For the main course, I made a chocolate cake. And for dessert, I made a chocolate cake,’ announced Nanny Piggins.

The crowd gasped at her bold menu.

‘But you have made three desserts, not three separate courses,’ protested the less rude judge.

‘When you are as good at making chocolate cake as me, it would be a crime to make anything else,’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘Just try some.’

The judges each took a slice of the first cake, and tried it. Then they tried a slice of the second cake. Then the third. Then they picked up the cakes in their hands and ravenously gobbled them up, pushing and shoving each other as they tried to eat the most.

‘You’re right. These are the best cakes I have ever eaten,’ said the very rude judge, with cake crumbs and whipped creamed smeared all over his face.

‘There is one clear winner – Nanny Piggins is the new Steel Chef!!!’ declared the less rude judge, with which the two sumo wrestlers brought out the coveted Steel Chef’s solid steel hat and placed it on Nanny Piggins’ head.

Nanny Piggins started doing triumphant laps around the stage, only occasionally having to dodge the utensils and sharp knives the old Steel Chef was throwing at her.

Later that night Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children drove home in Mr Green’s Rolls Royce feeling very happy indeed.

‘Oh, Nanny Piggins, we’re so proud of you,’ said Samantha.

‘What are you going to do with your Steel Chef’s hat?’ asked Derrick.

‘I think I will give it to Nanny Anne,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It means more to her. And without her I would not have even bothered entering, let alone getting through all those elimination rounds.’

‘That’s awfully nice of you,’ said Michael, shocked by his nanny’s uncharacteristic generosity towards her arch nemesis.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I won’t do it nicely. I’ll go round and throw it through her bedroom window, then run away. I haven’t completely forgotten myself.

So they drove home to recreate Nanny Piggins’
winning dishes in the comfort of their own kitchen, where they could gobble the cakes themselves without having to share a single bite with any rude celebrity judges.

’Twas the night before Christmas, so naturally Nanny Piggins was up on the roof Santa-proofing the house by fastening chicken wire over the chimney.

‘Right, pass me the nail gun,’ instructed Nanny Piggins.

‘You know Santa Claus is not a bad person,’ said Michael, handing it to her.

‘I know that,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!’ went the nail gun.

‘No-one likes getting presents from strangers more than me,’ continued Nanny Piggins, ‘but that doesn’t mean that breaking and entering is all right. If he wants to give us gifts he should knock on the door, come in and have a slice of cake like a normal person.’

The children looked at each other. Their nanny was not accustomed to the finer points of Christmas. Because, you see, she had lived most of her life in the circus, and the Ringmaster never let them celebrate the yuletide holiday. (In fact, he never let them celebrate any holiday. He even discouraged them from knowing the day of the week. Anything that allowed them to measure time, and realise how long they had been working for him, was strictly forbidden.)

‘It amazes me that one overweight man, wearing a bright red fur-trimmed suit no less, manages to go on a worldwide crime spree on the same night every year and nobody has ever done anything about it!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You’d think at the very least the animal rights activists would have a go at him for wearing fur.’

‘Perhaps they don’t because they like getting presents,’ suggested Michael.

‘You’re probably right,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.
‘So few people have principles anymore. Especially when it comes to a stocking full of chocolate treats and toys. Now where’s my note?’

Derrick handed his nanny the note she had written earlier. It read:

‘There, that ought to do it,’ said Nanny Piggins as she used the nail gun to fix the note to the chimney stack.

Boris promptly burst into tears. Celebrating Christmas was new for him too, but unlike Nanny Piggins he was anxious not to miss out. ‘But what about me?’ blubbered Boris. ‘My shed doesn’t have a chimney. How am I going to get my presents?’

Samantha gave Boris’ leg a comforting hug. ‘I’m sure he’ll climb in through the window or dismantle
part of the roof. After all, he’s Santa, so he’s got lots of initiative.’

‘I hope so,’ said Boris, struggling to control his tears. ‘It’s just that I really do like getting presents.’

‘It’s bears like you who send mixed messages to burglars,’ said Nanny Piggins sternly. ‘Either it’s all right to break into people’s homes or it’s not.’

‘You break into people’s homes all the time,’ Derrick pointed out.

‘But that’s different,’ protested Nanny Piggins.

‘How?’ asked Michael.

Fortunately Nanny Piggins was saved from having to find logic in her argument because at this point they were interrupted by a noise from below.

‘There is someone on the street,’ whispered Derrick.

‘Is it the Police Sergeant?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I called him and reported that there was a large fat man, wearing red, breaking into houses tonight. True, he did laugh at me and hang up. But perhaps he has decided to do something about it after all.’

They all crept to the edge of the roof and looked over. And they were startled by what they saw. It was not the Police Sergeant. No, it was someone much more impressive. It was the greatest annual home intruder of them all.

‘It’s Santa Claus!’ gasped Nanny Piggins.

There was no mistaking the red clothes, the white beard, the sack full of toys and the ‘little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly’ (not that he laughed while they were watching him, but he did sneeze and it definitely wobbled then).

‘But where are his reindeer?’ asked Boris. It did seem strange to see Santa travelling on foot. He did not look like a man who exercised regularly.

‘Perhaps they’ve ditched him because they don’t want to do jail-time,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘He’s got a lot of toys in that sack,’ said Michael. ‘I hope he’s got something good for us.’

‘Pass me the nail gun again,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll give him a present if he tries getting down our chimney.’

‘You can’t shoot Santa with a nail gun!’ protested Samantha.

‘Not even a little bit?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘No!’ exclaimed the children.

‘I could just nail his boots to the roof until the police get here,’ suggested Nanny Piggins.

‘He’s got to deliver presents to all the boys and girls in the world,’ explained Derrick. ‘He hasn’t got time to be arrested.’

‘He’s only got to deliver them to all the
good
boys and girls,’ muttered Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s probably only seven or eight children on the entire planet. After all, 365 days in a row is an awfully long time to expect children to behave themselves. Most of them struggle to keep it up for five minutes. Delivering presents to
good
children will probably only take him an hour or two. Then he’ll go home to the North Pole and watch television.’

‘Well, I’ve been a good boy and I’m not letting him forget about me!’ declared Boris as he leapt up to his full height, waved his arms and called out, ‘Hey, Santa! I live in the shed around the back. I haven’t got a chimney but I’ll leave out a chainsaw and you can cut a hole in the roof if you like.’

Unfortunately Santa Claus was so shocked to suddenly be addressed by a ten-foot-tall bear standing on a rooftop, that he stumbled backwards, dropping his sack and falling into the gutter, where he hit his head hard on the edge of the pavement.

‘Oh my goodness!’ exclaimed Samantha. ‘You’ve killed Santa!!!’

Boris burst into tears. ‘I didn’t mean to!’ he sobbed.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll first-aid him,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He may be an international master criminal,
but if he needs an icepack I’m just the pig for the job!’ With that dramatic statement, Nanny Piggins leapt straight off the roof.

When the children rushed to look over the edge they were relieved to discover Nanny Piggins had caught the branch of a tree. (She had been watching
Robin Hood
and had seen Errol Flynn do something very similar, so she had been secretly practising leaping out of her second-storey bedroom window all week.) She then climbed down the tree and rushed over to Santa.

The children hurried back into the attic, ran down the stairs and out through the house to help her (which only took three seconds more, but was nowhere near as impressive).

‘Is he all right?’ asked Derrick.

‘Well, he’s breathing,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but just look at him! He’s wearing a red jacket with red trousers?! His dress sense is in serious trouble.’

‘Maybe that’s fashionable at the North Pole,’ suggested Boris.

‘Looking silly isn’t fashionable anywhere,’ said Nanny Piggins firmly, ‘unless you’re a clown and then it is an unfortunate occupational requirement.’

‘Check his pupils,’ suggested Samantha.

‘His what-whats?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘The black part of his eyes,’ explained Derrick.

‘Why?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘That’s what they always do on TV medical dramas,’ explained Samantha.

‘Then it must be right,’ decided Nanny Piggins. She pulled up each of Santa’s eyelids and had a look at his eyes. (This was easy to do because she had been eating toffee so her trotters were sticky and it was easy to get a good grip on his eyelashes.) ‘Mmm,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Yep, they definitely look like eyes.’

‘Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?’ asked Michael.

‘We could,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but they would only call the police. And you know the Police Sergeant made me promise I would not make any more citizens’ arrests this week.’

Nanny Piggins had tried arresting the Post Mistress at their local post office, arguing that the length of her queues were a cruel and unusual punishment, and that since torture had been outlawed under the Geneva Convention, the Post Mistress clearly should be thrown in jail.

‘You don’t want me to spend Christmas Day in jail, do you?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘You spent Easter in jail and you said you enjoyed it,’ Derrick reminded her.

Nanny Piggins had been arrested after hurling herself at an Easter bunny in the shopping centre and wrestling him to the ground. In the end she was let off because, as she told the judge, ‘The Easter bunny only had himself to blame. Dressing up in a full-sized bunny suit and handing out free chocolate is like dressing up as a zebra and standing in the lion enclosure at the zoo.’

‘Yes, but I got to eat all the Easter bunny’s chocolate before I was arrested,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I haven’t had my Christmas lunch yet. And you promised to make the most wonderful Christmas lunch ever, so I don’t want to miss that.’

‘We can’t leave Santa unconscious and lying on the footpath on Christmas Eve,’ said Derrick. ‘What are we going to do with him?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

‘No,’ said the children.

‘I may not know a lot about celebrating Christmas, but I have watched every Christmas movie and television special ever made,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So I know that when Santa falls ill, or sprains his ankle, or is kidnapped, it is the job of the first person who finds out to take over and do his job.’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Samantha. (Samantha actually knew exactly what Nanny
Piggins was saying, but she was desperately hoping she was wrong.)

‘I shall be Santa Claus and deliver presents to all the boys and girls of the world!’ declared Nanny Piggins.

‘All the
good
boys and girls,’ corrected Boris.

‘No, I’m going to give presents to the bad children as well. Unlike Santa I believe in positive reinforcement,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘If they’re behaving badly and you want them to improve, you have to use the carrot as well as the stick.’

‘But you always say you’d rather be hit by a stick than have to eat a carrot,’ argued Michael.

‘Just because the expression doesn’t make any sense doesn’t make it any less true,’ said Nanny Piggins sternly. ‘Now help me get Santa inside.’

‘Do you want me to carry him?’ asked Boris.

‘No, I think we’d better drag him,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He’s a heavy one and I’d hate for you to get a hernia on the night before Christmas. Especially when you promised to perform the entire
Nutcracker
ballet for us after lunch tomorrow.’

And so Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children dragged Santa inside (only banging his head three times on the edge of the garden path and once on the telephone table in the hallway).

‘What next?’ asked Samantha. ‘Are you going to put on Santa’s clothes?’

‘First of all,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘it would be highly impertinent to undress the man. He’s got a head injury, so I’d find it very hard to justify to the Police Sergeant why I took his trousers off. And, secondly, I would never wear such an unflattering outfit.’

The children looked at Santa. Nanny Piggins did have a point. Bright red was not very slimming.

‘It’s almost as if he’s proud to have a weight problem!’ continued Nanny Piggins. ‘In this day and age, when everyone is so concerned about childhood obesity, he is hardly a good role model. No, if I am going to be Santa Claus, I am sure I can find something much more glamorous to wear.’

And so Nanny Piggins dashed upstairs and disappeared into her bedroom. She reappeared five minutes later wearing a fabulous off-the-shoulder crimson ball gown, which was perfectly accessorised by two beautiful earrings that Nanny Piggins had made out of two chocolate Santas. (Chocolate Christmas tree decorations never actually made it to the tree in the Green house.)

‘Right, hand me Santa’s sack, I’m off to deliver presents,’ announced Nanny Piggins.

The children did not know what to say. They could have said ‘Are you out of your mind?’ or ‘How are you going to climb down a chimney dressed in that?’ But they realised it would be much more fun watching Nanny Piggins try to climb down a chimney dressed in a ball gown. So Derrick simply said, ‘Here you are,’ as he handed his nanny the sack. Then they dutifully followed behind her as she carried it out into the street.

‘Where shall we deliver presents first?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

There were not a lot of children living in the street (one of the chief reasons Mr Green chose to live in the neighbourhood).

‘Mrs Roncoli’s grandchildren are staying with her,’ suggested Samantha. ‘Julia is five and Raymond is two.’

‘Perfect,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And I know for a fact that Mrs Roncoli baked a Dundee cake this morning so perhaps we can have a slice of cake while we’re in there.’

‘Wouldn’t that be wrong?’ asked Derrick.

‘We’re breaking into her house!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If she catches us, she’s not going to quibble about a slice of cake.’

Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children crossed the street and let themselves in through Mrs Roncoli’s front gate. Then Boris and the children stood back and watched Nanny Piggins. They should have realised that their nanny was not going to let a little thing like an ankle-length satin ball gown hamper her athleticism. She just hitched the hem of her skirt up into her undies and scampered up the drainpipe like a monkey.

Next it was the children’s turn to get up on the roof, and since Derrick, Samantha and Michael had no circus training, this was not so simple. But the children found that if they climbed up Boris and stood on his head (which he did not mind), they were high enough to grasp Nanny Piggins’ trotter. Then she could pull them up, one at a time, to join her.

Pulling Boris up was going to be a little bit harder, what with him weighing 700 kilograms and not being able to stand on his own head. But the problem was solved when Nanny Piggins told him she thought she saw a bee by his left foot, and he simply leapt up onto the roof without any help from anyone.