Nanny Piggins and the Accidental Blast-off (6 page)

‘And Headmaster Pimplestock has seen us,’ added Derrick, ‘so it will be difficult to persuade him that we have come down with African Sleeping Sickness today.’

‘Yes, but you’re on the wrong side of the road,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘and it’s 9.01 so the lollipop lady has just finished work. You’ve got no way of getting there.’

‘But –’ began Samantha.

‘She’s got a point,’ argued Michael. ‘It’s against school rules to cross without the lollipop lady. And you wouldn’t want to break school rules, would you?’ He had Samantha there. She was terrified of rule breaking in all its forms.

‘But if we don’t go to school,’ said Derrick, ‘what are we going to do?’

‘When you’ve got such a wonderful, powerful sign like this one,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘it seems a waste to let it sit around doing nothing for six hours in the middle of the day.’

‘But your employment contract very specifically states that you are to direct traffic for one hour before and after the school day,’ protested Samantha.

‘That’s only because they are worried I might have been trying to skive off and do less than they wanted,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I only want to do more. Really they are going to be grateful when they find out how conscientious and dedicated to duty I am.’

And so they started walking towards the centre of town, on the lookout for things to stop with the stop sign. Before long they came to a building site where a crew of workers were demolishing an old house. Nanny Piggins loved heavy machinery, so she leapt out with her stop sign, bringing the entire demolition to a halt, and made the bulldozer driver let her have a go pulling the levers on his machine. She had a wonderful time. Nanny Piggins soon knocked the building down. Admittedly, it was the wrong building, but the bulldozer driver was very kind about it. He said he was impressed with her aptitude for wrecking things.

Next they saw a lawnmower man hard at work, so Nanny Piggins waved her sign at him, bringing him to a halt and asking if they could each have a go on his ride-on lawnmower. He happily agreed, and it was a lot of fun for everyone. It had never occurred to the lawnmower man that he could use his lawnmower to write messages into peoples’ lawns (and mowing ‘Don’t forget to water me!’ into the grass was a lot more exciting than just going up and down in straight lines). It soon became apparent that having a lollipop sign was like having free tickets to a fun park.

Finally they made it into town where there was a lot of traffic. Trucks and vans were dropping things off and picking things up from all the local businesses. At first Nanny Piggins did not know where to start. She was tempted to stop a bus and make all the office workers go home to watch daytime television. And she did think about stopping the pizza delivery boy and demanding he took all the anchovies off all his pizzas. But then she saw the most wonderful vehicle ever to roll along a road.

‘Look!’ cried Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s a truck from the Slimbridge Cake Factory!’

‘Wow!’ said Derrick in awe (he particularly loved their lemon cheesecake).

‘It’s so big!’ exclaimed Samantha (she particularly enjoyed their marble cake).

‘Just think how many jam rolls they could fit in there,’ marvelled Michael (who had a fondness for their jam rolls).

‘Wait here,’ said Nanny Piggins as she strode out into the road with all the authority of a power-mad lollipop lady who has only been in the job for an hour and a half. She stood in the path of the huge eighteen-wheeler full of cake and held her stop sign forward. The truck’s compression brakes hissed and shuddered loudly as the driver brought his vehicle to a halt. Then Nanny Piggins walked around to the cab window and rapped on it.

‘Oh, what’s she going to do?’ worried Samantha.

‘I bet she commandeers his vehicle,’ said Michael. He did not want his nanny to have to go on the run from the law, but if you are going to go on the run from the law, an eighteen-wheeler full of cake is the vehicle to do it in.

The driver rolled down his window. ‘What do you want?’ he asked morosely.

‘I’d like some cake please,’ said Nanny Piggins respectfully. (While she did not have respect for most forms of authority, she did have a great deal of respect for cake. And to her mind a man who drove
a cake truck was the highest form of authority there could possibly be. Much more important than headmasters, presidents, prime ministers or members of any royal family.)

The children held their breath waiting for the truck driver to rudely tell Nanny Piggins to go away, but instead he did the most surprising thing. He burst into tears. And watching a fully grown man, with big muscles and tattoos on those muscles, wracking with sobs, is a heartbreaking sight. Nanny Piggins soon had him out of the cab and sitting on the side of the road, while she patted him on the back and fed him reassuring pieces of cake.

‘There there, it’s all right,’ she told him. ‘We are great fans of your cake. Whatever your problem is, we promise to help you.’

‘It’s so dreadful,’ sobbed the truck driver. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘But how can anything be dreadful when you work for the most wonderful institution in the world?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Your cake factory brings joy to cake lovers everywhere.’

‘But that’s just it,’ explained the truck driver, wiping his nose. ‘Everything is changing at the factory …’ He choked up and couldn’t continue speaking.

‘You can tell us,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘There’s a new owner, and she stopped giving the employees free samples,’ said the truck driver, starting to sob again.

‘She’s done what?’ asked Nanny Piggins, utterly astounded.

‘We used to get free cakes every week as part of our salary,’ explained the truck driver, ‘and she’s put a stop to it.’

Now Nanny Piggins started to cry too, for it was such a desperately sad story.

‘And she’s changing what the factory makes. She’s converting all the machines so they manufacture health bars,’ he continued.

Nanny Piggins gasped. ‘But can’t you have her locked up? She must be criminally insane. Health bars are disgusting.’

‘I know.’ The truck driver was really blubbering now. ‘She made us all eat one.’

Nanny Piggins clutched the truck driver to her chest. ‘You poor, poor fellow. Man’s inhumanity to cake knows no bounds. Your species can be so cruel sometimes. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’

‘But what can you do?’ worried Samantha.

‘I’ve got a stop sign and an iridescent jacket – what can’t I do?’ said Nanny Piggins boldly. ‘As a
council-employed lollipop lady it is my job to stop wrongs wherever they are committed.’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s what superheroes do, not lollipop ladies,’ said Derrick.

‘Lollipop ladies are better than superheroes,’ said Nanny Piggins dismissively. ‘Every day lollipop ladies stop hundreds of children being run over by cars, whereas superheroes only save one or two grown adults at a time.’

And so Nanny Piggins and the children got in the truck with the truck driver and drove back to the factory. When they got there they left the truck driver to weep quietly in his cab while Nanny Piggins set out to fight for truth, justice and cake. She marched right onto the factory floor, went up to the first employee she saw and demanded, ‘Take me to your leader!’

She then had to repeat the demand, because the employee had earplugs in. But Nanny Piggins was soon taken to see the shop foreman. He was a burly, grouchy-looking man in his early fifties. But Nanny Piggins was not intimidated. (He did not have a lollipop sign.)

‘I demand that you immediately stop the production of health bars and return to making the delicious cakes, beloved by all who taste them,’ said Nanny Piggins.

The children braced themselves, waiting for the foreman to yell at her. But instead he gave Nanny Piggins a big hug. ‘Thank you, thank you so much!’ he gushed. ‘We’ve been waiting for someone to lead an uprising. Would you like us all to go out on strike? We’ve been wanting to ever since she unplugged the machine that makes jam rolls.’

‘Oh yes, I think you should immediately go on strike,’ urged Nanny Piggins. ‘I suggest you take all the cake you can carry over to the park across the street and have a big picnic while I go upstairs and find the managers responsible for these terrible decisions.’

‘But, Nanny Piggins, aren’t you going too far?’ protested Samantha. ‘Some people like health food bars. Isn’t it wrong to stop the factory from making them? They are healthy.’

‘Oh no, they’re not,’ disagreed the foreman. ‘They contain just as much sugar and fat as the cake. The only difference is they taste awful. Oh, and they’re good for your bowels.’

‘The human obsession with bowels never ceases to amaze me,’ said Nanny Piggins, shaking her head. ‘I’ve never understood the attraction of having a fast-acting intestinal system. Some things should not be hurried.’

‘That’s what I tried to tell management, but they wouldn’t listen,’ said the foreman.

So the foreman pressed the big bell, letting all the employees know the shift was ending early. Then he let Nanny Piggins press it again, because she was so impressed with the noise. The cheering employees took armfuls of cake off the assembly lines and went out into the sunlight to enjoy themselves, while the children followed Nanny Piggins as she went upstairs to take things in hand.

When the lift opened they stepped out into a big luxurious office suite, but there was no-one about. Except for one receptionist, sitting at her desk scoffing a chocolate mini-muffin.

‘Aha!’ cried Nanny Piggins.

‘It was a health food bar – I swear!’ fibbed the receptionist, the crumbs around her mouth giving her away.

‘It’s all right, we are here to fight for the rights of cake,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘Just tell me where the most senior person is and I’ll soon have this sorted out.’

‘There’s a meeting being held in the boardroom,’ said the receptionist, ‘but I’m not supposed to allow anybody to interrupt.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not just anybody,’ said Nanny
Piggins as she strode towards the boardroom. ‘I’m the lollipop lady.’

Nanny Piggins flung open the doors, stamped her sign down on the floor and yelled, ‘Stop!’

‘Who are you? How dare you interrupt our board meeting,’ said the angry woman at the head of the table.

‘I have come here to tell you to stop the changes you are making to this cake factory,’ announced Nanny Piggins.

‘It’s a “baked goods” factory now,’ said the woman.

‘Hah!’ scoffed Nanny Piggins. ‘Madam, there is nothing “good” about your baked products. The traditional cakes made at this factory have brought untold joy to every single person whose lips they pass. You cannot be allowed to stop making them.’

‘It’s my business!’ yelled the owner. ‘I paid for it. I’ll make what I like!’

‘But I’m holding a stop sign!’ retorted Nanny Piggins. ‘And I’m telling you to stop, or rather stop stop making cakes, which means you have to start making them again, because I say so!’

Fortunately at this point, just as Nanny Piggins was about to abandon reasoned argument and start
biting people, the most wonderful thing happened. The receptionist burst in.

‘I told you – no interruptions!’ screamed the owner. (She really did need a good piece of cake to cheer her up.)

‘But there is someone here from the United Nations,’ spluttered the receptionist.

‘What?’ demanded the owner.

‘There is an emissary from the United Nations,’ explained the receptionist. ‘They have brought a certificate for you.’

There was a knock at the door.

‘Can we come in, please?’ said a voice from the other side. ‘Hello, we are from the United Nations. I am delighted to inform you that your factory and the cakes it produces have been given World Heritage status.’

‘But we plan to stop baking cakes,’ protested the owner.

‘Oh no, you can’t do that,’ smiled the emissary. ‘Now that you have World Heritage status, this factory must be protected for future generations. You aren’t allowed to change anything, ever.’

‘But it’s my factory!’ whined the owner.

‘Yes, but it’s our world. And it is important to
protect the most beautiful and culturally significant things in it,’ he explained. ‘The Secretary-General himself made sure that the paperwork on this factory was pushed through quickly.’

‘Why?’ asked the owner, totally amazed.

‘Apparently,’ explained the emissary, ‘he got a very sternly worded letter from a former flying pig demanding that he did so.’

Nanny Piggins smiled. ‘You have to have a firm hand with these authority figures. But if you tell them what to do, they usually respond.’

‘Normally the Secretary-General would have crumpled up the letter and thrown it in the bin,’ continued the emissary. ‘But there was a piece of cake included in the envelope, and when he tasted it he realised the pig was right. So he rushed to fill out the paperwork.’

‘I put in a slice of your triple chocolate fudge cake,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘I knew any man who spent all day every day trying to achieve world peace could do with a slice of cake.’

The owner took the certificate declaring the World Heritage listing of her factory and slumped in defeat. ‘But I had such plans for the factory. The previous owners spent so much money buying quality ingredients, the profit margins were terrible.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said the emissary. ‘You’re going to make plenty of profit. For a start the Secretary-General wants to order one million of your chocolate fudge cakes to drop over international trouble spots. He thinks people will be less likely to fight all the time if they’ve got more sugar in their diets.’

‘What a brilliant man,’ admired Nanny Piggins. ‘I wish I’d voted for him.’

‘You don’t vote for a Secretary-General,’ explained Derrick. ‘He’s appointed.’

‘Ah, that makes sense,’ nodded Nanny Piggins. ‘Nobody democratically elected would ever be that sensible.’

And so the truck driver took Nanny Piggins and the children home. As they drove out the gates, the staff from the factory cheered and threw their cake in the air (then carefully caught it again so they could eat more).

When they got home, there was a message on the phone saying that Nanny Piggins was fired from her job as the lollipop lady because she had entirely missed her afternoon shift. Headmaster Pimplestock had had to go out and direct the traffic himself, and since there were no men’s uniforms, he had had to wear a white dress and lady’s hat, which only made the students laugh at him even more than usual.