Free Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster by R. A. Spratt

so, the next day Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were back in their front yard filling in the trench (the special agents had flown them back as quickly as possible before there could be any more international incidents).
    ‘Aren’t you worried about your sister?’ asked Samantha.
    ‘Not at all,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She has a PhD in weaponising nuclear technology. If she can’t blast her way out of a prison cell then she really is a silly-billy.’
    ‘Don’t you feel guilty about taking her Nobel Prize?’ asked Michael.
    ‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The Nobel Committee said they would give her another one when she resurfaces. ‘Until then she’d hardly have much opportunity to wear it, being a hostage in a secret foreign location, would she? And really, if she wanted to improve her appearance she should do something about her hair before she starts trying to wear ostentatious gold jewellery.’
    ‘Are you going to ask the agents from SSBI to help you restore your toilet paper orange and poppy-seed cake recipe?’ asked Samantha.
    ‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘On the flight back I had an even better idea about how to improve it.’
    ‘You did?’ asked Michael.
    ‘Yes, in the toilet paper recipe I took out the poppy seeds and replaced them with chocolate chips,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But just think, if I took out the orange as well, and replaced it with melted chocolate, why, that would be the best orange and poppy-seed cake ever.’
    And it was brilliant lateral thinking like this that made the children realise their nanny truly did deserve her Nobel Prize.

‘Aaa-aa-aaa-aa-aaaah!’ screamed Nanny Piggins as she swung across Mr Green’s front yard, wearing nothing but a faux fur jungle dress.
    Nanny Piggins and the children were playing Tarzan. They had been unable to decide who was going to be Tarzan and who would be Jane, because none of them wanted to be Jane. It was boring to be constantly spraining your ankle and falling in quicksand so, as a compromise, they decided they would all be Tarzan.
    At first their game was inhibited by the fact that there was no jungle and, therefore, no jungle vines in Mr Green’s front yard. But Nanny Piggins soon fixed that by borrowing all Mr Green’s silk ties (again), stringing them together and hanging them from the trees. The silk was a little slippery, but Nanny Piggins found that dipping them in some good gritty mud and letting it dry solved that.
    Obviously there were no evil oil magnates or chimpanzee poachers on their street, but Nanny Piggins and the children still found plenty to do. They terrified a salesman from the telephone company and they caught the Avon lady in their elephant trap (a large pit Nanny Piggins dug on the nature strip, then covered in palm leaves). So they were having a tremendous afternoon.
    Nanny Piggins was just swinging across the garden screaming ‘Wooo-hooooo!’ (she felt Tarzan’s dialogue needed broadening) in search of ne’er-do-wellers to wrestle when she suddenly and unexpectedly slammed into a brick wall.
    ‘Ooomph!’ said Nanny Piggins, then ‘Ow!’ when she slid down the brick wall and hit the ground. ‘I don’t remember there being a brick wall in the middle of the garden,’ she complained, rubbing her head.
    ‘Um … Nanny Piggins,’ said Derrick nervously. ‘It’s not a brick wall.’
    Nanny Piggins looked up to see a fully grown African elephant standing over her. Now, when she was standing up Nanny Piggins was only four foot tall, but at this moment Nanny Piggins was sitting on her rather sore bottom, so the ten-foot-tall 4500-kilogram elephant towered over her in a most intimidating way. But of course Nanny Piggins was never intimidated by a 100-times difference in size.
    ‘Esmeralda!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘How wonderful to see you.’
    ‘Sarah?’ said the African elephant. ‘Is that you? I didn’t recognise you in your faux fur. Although it’s very becoming, you