It all began innocently enough. Samson Wallace approached Nanny Piggins after school and asked if he could come over for a play date.
‘Why? What’s going on? What’s Nanny Anne up to?’ asked Nanny Piggins suspiciously.
‘Perhaps Samson just wants to come over to play,’ suggested Boris.
‘Of course Samson wants to come over to play,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We’re a thousand times, if not a billion times, more fun to spend time with than their own nanny, Nanny Anne, which is precisely why I know she would never condone him coming over here and asking for a play date unless she had an ulterior motive.’ Nanny Piggins glared across the playground at Nanny Anne.
Nanny Anne smiled sweetly back.
‘Did you see that?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘She smiled at me. She’s clearly up to something.’
‘She always smiles at everyone,’ said Derrick.
‘I bet she even smiles at the dentist as he pulls her wisdom teeth out,’ said Michael.
‘Oh no,’ said Samson. ‘Nanny Anne doesn’t have wisdom teeth. She says they are unseemly so she won’t tolerate them growing in her mouth.’
‘Hmm,’ said Nanny Piggins as she considered the situation. ‘While my natural instinct is to say “yes” to this play date, to shelter this poor child from the overzealous hygiene of his own nanny for one short afternoon –’
‘Yes!’ exclaimed Samson excitedly.
‘I feel that it is also my civic duty to get to the bottom of whatever dastardly plan Nanny Anne is clearly up to,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘You could try asking her?’ suggested Derrick.
‘Hmm, interesting idea,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So you’re suggesting that I ask her what she is up to, then when she tells me a great big lie I count the number of times I see her accelerated pulse beat in her jugular vein to see if it spells out a message in morse code?’
‘No, I was just thinking you could ask her and see if she tells the truth,’ said Derrick.
‘That plan is so ridiculously crazy,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘it just might work.’
Nanny Piggins marched across the playground, the children following close behind, and confronted Nanny Anne. ‘What are you up to, you dreadful woman?’
‘You could try not being rude,’ suggested Samantha. ‘She might be more likely to tell you.’
‘Pish,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You have to take a firm hand with all amoral degenerates.’ She confronted Nanny Anne once more. ‘Why are you trying to palm this child off on me for the afternoon? What is it that you intend to do that can only be done in secret?’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ said Nanny Anne with a saccharine smile. ‘Since Margaret is away on an Outward Bound expedition, teaching homeless youths how to eat with table manners while surviving in the wilderness, I simply thought that Samson might enjoy spending the afternoon at your house. It is so important to expose children to the reality of how other people live, I thought it would do him good.’
‘You’re lying!’ accused Nanny Piggins.
‘Nanny Piggins,’ chided Michael, ‘you know Isabella Dunkhurst prefers it if you accuse people of obfuscating the truth, as it is much easier for her to defend you against the subsequent slander charges.’
‘Well, I call a spade a spade,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Or a shovel. Because I don’t really know the difference. I’ve always found that trotters are a superior tool for digging holes.’
‘If you don’t want to take Samson for the afternoon,’ said Nanny Anne sweetly, ‘that’s just fine. I can imagine it must be exhausting for you to constantly be on the run from the police and mental health professionals. I’ll just send Samson down to the coaching clinic instead and they can spend three hours drilling him in maths.’
‘Noooooooooo!’ cried Nanny Piggins and Samson in unison.
‘I’ll report you for child abuse!’ accused Nanny Piggins.
‘The Police Sergeant has explained this to you many times, Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha. ‘Maths homework is not considered in the eyes of the law to be child abuse.’
‘You humans are such a cruel species,’ said Nanny Piggins, dabbing a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘Most animals simply bite their children on the leg to punish them. But you think up the cruel and inhumane punishment of maths homework.’
‘Would you like a chocolate bar?’ Boris held a bar of dairy milk out to his sister, seeing she was getting genuinely upset.
‘No, I’m all right,’ said Nanny Piggins, although she took the chocolate bar and ate it anyway. ‘I’ll take Samson for the afternoon. But if you are cooking up some wicked plan to take over the country or make the world turn the other way on its axis, I will find out and put a stop to it.’
‘That’s lovely,’ said Nanny Anne with her sweet smile. ‘Have fun, Samson. Make sure you don’t eat any high GI foods. I’ll be taking a blood sample later, so don’t think you can get anything past me.’
‘Samantha,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘make a note. We will have to give Samson a blood transfusion after afternoon tea.’
And so Nanny Piggins, Boris, Samson Wallace and the Green children set out walking for home.
‘So what are we going to play first?’ asked Derrick.
‘And, more importantly, what are we having for afternoon tea?’ asked Michael.
‘There’s no time for that,’ declared Nanny Piggins.
The children and Boris gasped.
‘No time for afternoon tea?’ asked Samantha. ‘What are you talking about? You always say that afternoon tea is the seventh most important meal of the day. After breakfast, second breakfast, third breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snacksies.’
‘I’m not saying we won’t eat afternoon tea,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Phew,’ said the children.
‘I just said there was no time for afternoon tea,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We will have to eat on the run, as we follow Nanny Anne.’
‘We’re going to follow Nanny Anne?’ asked Samantha.
‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She is clearly up to something and we need to find out what, so we can report her to the Police Sergeant or citizen’s arrest her.’
‘You just want to tie her up with cooking twine, don’t you?’ guessed Derrick.
‘Of course,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘I always carry a spool of it about my person, just in case I get the opportunity. Quick, everybody into this bush.’
Derrick, Samantha and Michael jumped straight in. They had been looked after by Nanny Piggins for so long now that hiding in bushes on command had become a reflex for them. Samson, having had a more traditional upbringing, hesitated, so Nanny Piggins had to pick him up and throw him into the bush, then dive in behind him, just as Nanny Anne’s elegant footwear could be heard clipping around the corner.
‘She’s coming this way,’ whispered Nanny Piggins.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Michael. ‘Pull her into the bush and torture her until she reveals her secret?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She is such a strange woman, she would probably enjoy being tortured and call it “character building”. We will simply follow her, catch her in the act of whatever she is up to, leap out and wrestle her to the ground, tie her to a tree and call the Police Sergeant. If it all goes well, we should still get home in plenty of time for second afternoon tea. Now, shush, we don’t want her to hear us.’
Nanny Anne’s thin legs walked right by the bush in which they were all hiding. Derrick had to clap his hand over Samson’s mouth, because just being near his nanny gave Samson an instinctive urge to blurt out a confession for whatever it was he had done.
It was hard to keep up with Nanny Anne because she walked so quickly, which really was a tribute to her sense of balance because it is hard to walk in three-inch heels while holding your nose in the air. Nanny Anne also kept looking furtively over her shoulder to (wisely) check if anyone was following her.
So Nanny Piggins and the children kept having to dive into bushes and garbage bins. Fortunately, Nanny Piggins enjoyed diving into bushes and garbage bins. When you have to outrun authorities as much as she does, it is a necessary skill.
They followed Nanny Anne down the road, past Hans’ bakery (Nanny Anne glanced behind her at this point so they had an excuse to dive into the shop and buy three dozen sticky buns before resuming their mission), and eventually followed her to a church where she turned off the footpath.
‘She’s going to church!’ exclaimed Derrick. ‘On a Tuesday?!’
‘Probably to ask forgiveness,’ guessed Nanny Piggins.
‘What for?’ asked Michael.
‘Just a blanket forgiveness to cover all the wicked things she will inevitably do during the course of the week.’
‘Now we know where she she is, can we go home?’ asked Samantha.
‘Of course not! Obviously we have to follow her inside,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘in case she’s vandalising the building with spray paint or stealing property.’
‘What would she steal from a church?’ asked Michael.
‘Who knows?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Some thieves rip the wiring out of walls so they can strip it for copper. Samson, did you see Nanny Anne secreting a pair of pliers about her person at any stage during the day?’
‘I try not to look at her person,’ said Samson. ‘I get a “time out” if I do.’
So they continued their tail into the church grounds, down a winding path, past the locked church doors to a small hall around the back.
‘She must be in there,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘no doubt subjecting someone less fortunate than herself to a low fat snack food.’
They were just approaching the building when a great noise burst forth. But it was not just any great noise. This noise was a stunningly beautiful five-part harmony.
‘Leaping lamington!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s a choir of angels!’
‘Should we run away and hide?’ asked Boris. This was his go-to plan for most unexpected situations.
‘Goodness, no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If it is a choir of angels it would be rude not to say hello and invite them over for a slice of cake. Besides, I want to ask them if they have real butter in heaven. I’ve always assumed they must or it wouldn’t be heaven. But you never know, God might be a stickler for low cholesterol.’
So they snuck over to the window and sticky-beaked inside. But Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were astonished to discover that the noise was not coming from a group of gossamer-clad heavenly angels but a group of ordinary looking, dowdy women, led by Nanny Anne herself.
‘Crikey!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘Nanny Anne has kidnapped a team of angels and is forcing them to wear drab clothes and bend to her will.’
‘I don’t think they are angels,’ said Derrick. ‘Look, there’s Claudio’s mother. He’s in my class at school.’
‘And there’s Eden’s mum,’ said Samantha.
‘I think Nanny Anne has secretly been training them for months, with a strict disciplined regimen of endless rehearsals,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Well, it’s worked,’ said Boris. ‘They sound amazing.’
‘But at what cost?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Michael, get the suede door-kicking-in slingbacks out of my handbag.’
‘It’s a church hall. I’m sure you could just turn the handle,’ said Derrick.
‘I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction,’ glowered Nanny Piggins, and with that she swapped her shoes and with a hefty reverse side kick, walloped her trotter into the door. But for the first time since the children had known her, Nanny Piggins kicked a door and it did not fall down.
‘Ow, ow, ow,’ said Nanny Piggins, clutching her trotter.
‘What happened?’ asked Boris. ‘Why is the door still standing?’
‘Someone has reinforced it,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘What, with steel?’ asked Derrick.
‘Goodness no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I could easily kick down a steel door. If the pain in my trotter is correct, that ordinary wooden door has been lined with airforce-grade titanium, the doorframe has been strengthened by geological mining bolts and the lock is a Smith & Bentley three-cylinder tumbler!’
‘You have a very knowledgeable trotter,’ observed Michael.
‘When you have been kidnapped as often as I have,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘your trotter learns a thing or two about kicking down doors.’
‘But why on earth would the church have a door that is as strong as the door on a bank vault?’ asked Derrick.
‘Stronger,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I once left a slice of Jamaican rum cake in a security deposit box by mistake and had to kick open the bank vault door to get it back in time to see the 2.30 session at the movies. And that door was a cinch compared to this. No church would authorise the construction of such wildly overzealous security. This is the work of Nanny Anne.’
Nanny Piggins hopped back towards the church hall and rapped loudly on the window. (Fortunately, the choir had reached the end of their song.) ‘What are you up to, you awful woman?’ Nanny Piggins yelled.
On the inside the mothers looked nervous. But Nanny Anne acted as though she could not hear a thing.
‘You let me in right now!’ demanded Nanny Piggins. ‘I demand to know what you’re up to. I know what you’re like. There is no way you would teach a group of women to sing so beautifully without a devious motive.’
Nanny Anne continued to ignore Nanny Piggins.
‘Fine,’ snapped Nanny Piggins. ‘If you want to ignore me, then I shall give Samson chocolate cake for afternoon tea.’
‘Um, Nanny Piggins,’ said Samson. ‘I think she knows you always give me chocolate and cake. That’s why she always makes me eat a kilo of carrots and brush my teeth seven times as soon as I get back from your house.’
Nanny Piggins wracked her mind trying to think of what else she could do. ‘If you don’t tell me what you’re up to . . . I’ll put a raspberry stain on Samson’s school shirt.’
Nanny Anne shuddered. She turned and glared at Nanny Piggins. There was no saccharine smile now. Nanny Anne said . . . Well, Nanny Piggins couldn’t hear what she said, because as well as reinforcing the door, she had double-glazed the windows and Nanny Anne did not believe in yelling.
Instead, Nanny Anne walked over to the window and picked up what looked like a telephone receiver, just like someone on TV when they go to visit a prisoner in jail.
‘Go away and leave us alone,’ Nanny Anne said into the receiver.
They could hear her words clearly now because they were broadcast outside by a tiny speaker above their heads.
‘Why have you trained this superb choir?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘And more importantly, why did you not ask me to join it?’
‘I have trained this choir for the annual Carols by Candlelight concert in Cuthbert Park,’ said Nanny Anne proudly. ‘I did not ask you to join because this is a choir and we sing Christmas carols, we don’t oink them.’
The children gasped. They realised now why Nanny Anne had installed such extensive security to the church hall. They had never seen their nanny so angry. (And she was pretty angry the time that Mr Green recorded the Treasurer’s address to the National Press Club over the top of the season finale of The Young and the Irritable – the one where Bridge discovered that he was his own twin brother.)
‘How dare you!’ accused Nanny Piggins, slamming her slingback into what they now realised was the highest calibre of bulletproof glass. ‘You know I am an internationally renowned circus performer and my show business pizazz would be an asset to any informal singing group.’
‘That’s precisely why I don’t want you involved,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘Pizazz is undignified.’
‘Humpff,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘In my opinion dignity is highly overrated, along with accuracy, honesty, gravity and good spelling. Everyone says they are important, but in reality none of them is.’
‘Go away,’ said Nanny Anne curtly. ‘We have eight more hours of practice to do.’
They could hear the mothers groan behind her. But Nanny Anne glared at them and they fell silent.
‘How are you getting these poor women to follow along with your deluded plans?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘I bet you’re withholding food, aren’t you?’
None of the mothers moved a muscle although Derrick would have sworn that he saw Carlos’ mother nod ever so slightly before Nanny Anne’s head whipped round to stare at them all.
‘Well, I shall go away,’ declared Nanny Piggins, ‘to set up my own, better singing group.’
‘With whom?’ scoffed Nanny Anne. ‘I’ve already snapped up all the best singers in town.’
‘The choir shall consist of me, Boris and the children,’ announced Nanny Piggins proudly.
‘What?’ wailed Samantha. She did not like performing publicly, especially when she had no idea what she was doing.
‘So that I can trounce you all at the Carols by Candlelight concert,’ warned Nanny Piggins.
‘You do realise that a Carols by Candlelight concert is not considered a competitive event?’ asked Derrick.
‘Pish,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You’ve clearly had very little to do with professionals in the performing arts. They are all cutthroat competitors. But unlike athletes, they don’t eat properly, so they are much, much more immoral. Just look at Nanny Anne and you will see how a deficiency of sugar in your diet can corrupt your very soul.’
So they all went home to prepare. This involved eating lots of cake while Nanny Piggins flicked through the pages of a book of Christmas carols, tut-tutting and muttering things like ‘Abysmal, utterly abysmal’, ‘the things these people do to force a rhyme’, and ‘Santa is a rotter!’
Nanny Piggins eventually slammed the book of carols down on the table. ‘Well, from my extensive reading of these carols over the last five minutes, I have determined that they are all awful. There is way too much focus on evergreen trees and holly bushes. There is a shocking portrayal of Santa failing to stamp out bullying among his reindeer, as well as the lamentable untruth that a baby which was laid in a trough full of cattle feed wouldn’t cry.’
‘Does that mean we don’t have to sing at the Carols by Candlelight concert?’ asked Derrick hopefully.
‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It just means I shall have to rewrite all the lyrics first.’
‘But the concert is tomorrow,’ worried Samantha. ‘How are we going to have time to rewrite all the lyrics and practise the songs?’
‘There won’t be time,’ said Nanny Piggins honestly. ‘It will take me a full 23 hours to fix up this deplorable poetry. Another forty-five minutes to prepare myself by eating cake, and fifteen minutes to walk to the park.’
‘But that leaves no time for practice,’ wailed Samantha.
‘Pish,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You won’t need to practise. I’ll give you song sheets to read off. The words will be so good, no-one will notice if you are singing them in tune.’
With that, Nanny Piggins went and locked herself in their father’s study to write. Then she let herself out, complaining that the room smelt of dead cockroaches and dirty socks, and went up to lock herself in her own bedroom to write.
Over the next 23 hours the children could hear snatches of songs coming from their nanny’s room. Rewritten carols that included lyrics such as:
(To the tune of ‘As Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night’)
As shepherds ate their cake by night
All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down
And handed ice-cream round . . .
As well as:
(To the tune of ‘The First Noel’)
The first chocolate cake, the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
No cake, no cake, no cake, no cake,
No cake tastes good lest with butter thee bake.
And:
(To the tune of ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas’)
We wish you a merry chocolate
We wish you a merry chocolate
We wish you a merry chocolate and a lovely big cake
Good toffee we bring
To you and your kin
We wish you a merry chocolate and a lovely big cake.
And occasionally her carols took a more adventure story turn:
(To the tune of ‘Good King Wenceslas’)
Bad King Wenceslas laughed a lot
As he roasted Stephen
Baste the boy with sticky sauce
Deep and crisp and even
Through the window Santa smashed
With some Navy Seals
Biff Boff Bang and also Bash
‘That boy is not a meal.’
An hour before the performance the children shoved an extra-large chocolate mud cake under Nanny Piggins’ door. (She’d had a cake flap installed especially for this purpose. It was kind of like a doggie door, except that dogs were not allowed through, only cakes.) Then fifteen minutes before the performance, Nanny Piggins burst out of her room saying, ‘Let’s go!’
‘What about our song sheets?’ asked Samantha.
‘Oh yes, I forgot about those,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘Forgot about them?!’ cried Samantha. If she put on her pyjamas, this evening would soon come to resemble her very worst nightmare.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘I’ll jot it all down on the way in the car.’
‘Do you even have a pen?’ asked Derrick, knowing his nanny might carry a chocolate cake, a jar of cockroaches and a boltcutter in her handbag but rarely something as mundane as a pen.
‘Piffle sticks,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve got a mascara brush and a napkin – that will do.’
And so they set off. They arrived at the Carols by Candlelight concert twenty minutes late because Nanny Piggins insisted they do extra preparation, by which she meant swinging by to see Hans at the bakery and eating a dozen cherry danishes to lighten their voices. So they arrived just as Nanny Anne’s choir took the stage.
‘You’re up next,’ a stagehand hissed in Nanny Piggins’ ear.
Nanny Anne’s group was a sight to behold. They actually looked like angels because they had dressed up in costumes made of white silk, silver tinsel and an astonishing amount of glitter. They even had halos that were electric and voice-operated so that they flashed on and off as they sang. Not that anyone noticed, because as soon as Nanny Anne’s group started, their singing was so sublime that the audience was entranced . . . for about three minutes.
Nanny Anne’s group did not, however, stop after three minutes; they went on and on. People started to shift in their seats and fidget. For the singing was beautiful, but that was it. The audience could not make out the words because their voices were so high and Nanny Anne insisted on singing many of the well-known songs in Italian or, worse still, Latin, to make them more sophisticated. Inaudible lyrics combined with a lovely sound just started to put the audience to sleep, or put their bottoms to sleep, hence the fidgeting.
‘I suspected as much,’ said Nanny Piggins with a wry smile.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Samantha.
‘Entertaining an audience is not about beauty,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Well . . . partly it is. But it is also about astonishing, delighting, surprising and, most importantly, scaring the hoo-hah out of them. Sunsets are beautiful. But they happen every day and how often do we even bother to step outside to look at them. Whereas traffic accidents are horrific, yet we always crane our necks for a stickybeak.’
‘So is that why you are so confident that everyone will enjoy our singing?’ asked Michael. ‘Because it is going to be like a traffic accident?’
‘Not at all,’ Nanny Piggins assured him. ‘Our performance will be spectacular because we have a secret weapon.’
At this point Nanny Anne’s group stopped singing and received rapturous applause, because they had been going on for over an hour and everyone was relieved that they had finally stopped. They filed past Nanny Piggins as they left the stage.
‘I’m surprised you have the courage to follow us,’ said Nanny Anne with a smile.
‘I’m delighted to,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The audience will now be pathetically grateful to see a real performance.’
What the children did not realise, however, was that when Nanny Piggins said she had a secret weapon, she literally meant a weapon. As they stepped up on stage, they could hear the sound of heavy machinery being moved on behind them.
‘Are we going to start?’ asked Derrick, as they stared out at the expectant and bored crowd. Many people in the audience were openly checking their watches and muttering, ‘When will all this be over?’
Suddenly a huge 16-inch Howitzer (giant cannon) rolled out of the bushes behind the stage, with its barrel pointed at the crowd.
‘Ah, excellent,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The Colonel has arrived and right on time. I do enjoy working with a military man.’
‘The pleasure is all mine,’ the Colonel called out from his gunnery position (he had been deeply in love with Nanny Piggins for a long time now; he would launch a coup d’état on the government if she asked him to).
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Derrick. ‘Shell Nanny Anne?’
‘Goodness no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The Colonel has the coordinates to fire at the audience.’
Fortunately the audience could not hear her, or they did not believe her. Either way, no-one started running away as Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children launched into their first song. And the audience loved it. Largely because as they reached the end of the first line of their first song the cannon fired, blasting a giant chocolate mud cake over the entire crowd.
Cake, icing, cream and strawberry jam splattered down on everyone. Their first reaction was to be horrified. Then they began tasting the sugary goo and soon everyone became delighted to be covered in so much of it. But the performance did not end there. Nanny Piggins’ group kept singing, and at the end of every line another shell full of cake exploded over the crowd; but each time it was a different, yet equally sublime cake, pie, pudding, tart or gateau. There was sticky toffee pudding, key lime pie, banoffee pudding, treacle tart and many, many more. It was like having an edible fireworks display blasted in your face. In short, the audience loved it.
If Christmas is about getting together with friends and family and sharing your good fortune, what better way to do that than to be hit in the face repeatedly with the finest baked goods imaginable?
And the people who enjoyed it most were Nanny Anne’s singing group. She’d had them on a strict zero calorie diet for weeks now. The air was so thick with sugar and fat that they were practically gaining weight by osmosis. But best of all, their white angel dresses were irrevocably stained, which pleased the mothers because very few people look good in white.
When they reached the end of their set (the five carols Nanny Piggins had learnt), the audience yelled so many cries of bravo and encore that they repeated the whole performance twice before walking off stage to thunderous applause and foot stamping.
In her moment of triumph Nanny Piggins looked across to Nanny Anne at the back of the audience. She looked thwarted and stained in her now ruined angel dress. A wave of Christmas compassion filled Nanny Piggins’ heart. She walked over to her arch-nemesis to make a peace offering.
‘Nanny Anne,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘What do you want?’ asked Nanny Anne sulkily.
‘It is Christmas and we are meant to be good to each other at Christmas,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘so as a gesture of goodwill I would like to invite you to join my choir for next years’ Carols by Candlelight concert.’
‘Why on earth would I do that?’ asked Nanny Anne.
‘I know you would derive no pleasure singing alongside me, a far superior performer,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘but if you were standing alongside me, instead of in the audience, your outfit would not get covered in cake shrapnel.’
Nanny Anne looked down at her own hopelessly stained angel outfit, then across at Nanny Piggins’ impeccable pale blue cocktail dress, and reluctantly said, ‘All right.’ Then Nanny Anne shocked Nanny Piggins by doing something entirely unexpected – she held open her arms and gave Nanny Piggins a big tight hug.
Boris gasped he was so impressed. ‘I didn’t know she had it in her. Such technique! Good squeeze, arm extension and duration.’ (Being a bear, he was an expert on bear hugging.)
As Nanny Anne walked away, the children stepped forward to join Nanny Piggins.
‘What an unexpectedly harmonious result,’ said Nanny Piggins.
‘You do realise that Nanny Anne only hugged you,’ said Derrick, ‘so she would spread the stains from her outfit onto yours, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘After all, she is still a dreadful woman. But she doesn’t realise how much I enjoy having cake stains all over my dress, which I can suck out later, so I am prepared to accept her gesture in the spirit that it was not intended.’
Obviously, bribing a police officer is wrong. But if your local Police Sergeant loves freshly baked shortbread cookies as much as mine does, I advise you to have a batch of these ready at all times. It’s not so much a bribe as a mood enhancer. Experience has taught me that nothing makes the Police Sergeant forget what he is cross about as quickly as a mouthful of shortbread.
175 grams butter
110 grams caster sugar
200 grams plain flour
25 grams semolina flour
a little caster sugar for dusting
1. Preheat the oven to 150°C.
2. Lay a sheet of baking paper on a cookie tray.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon.
4. Add the flour and semolina flour and keep beating.
5. Then abandon the spoon and knead with your hands until you have a dough. (Don’t be afraid to get messy. It will be fun to lick off later.)
6. Sprinkle some caster sugar on the bench, then roll out the dough.
7. Cut out shapes using festive cookie cutters (or you can use letter shapes if you need to send someone a rude message). Then lay your shapes out on the cookie tray.
8. Use a fork to prick the shortbread shapes in the middle or they will rise up while baking.
9. Bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until they start to go brown around the edges.
10. Remove your cookies from the oven, lay them out on a cooling rack and dust them with caster sugar for extra crunchiness.
11. Eat, enjoy and share with any law enforcement officer who is cross with you.
PS. If you get into trouble as much as I do then it is wise to make up a double batch of dough, and keep half in the fridge as a standby. (Roll the spare dough into a log and wrap it up in cling wrap.) Then, if you find out the police are about to swoop, you can quickly get a batch in the oven before they kick in your door. With luck, the smell will be so divine the Police Sergeant will entirely forget to serve the arrest warrant.
