Free Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan by R. A. Spratt Page A

inundated with replies. Every day the letterbox was filled withperfume-drenched letters. Many with pink or lilac stationery, and some even sealed with a lipstick kiss.
    On the bright side, however, Mr Green was too stupid to think of monitoring his mail. So Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children were able to have a lovely time every afternoon, steaming open the envelopes and reading all the letters. Of course they were not able to read all the letters. Some were not written in English. Some were written in English but did not make any sense. And one was entirely written in marmalade, so it soon became illegible because Boris could not resist licking it.
    ‘These letters are disgusting,’ said Nanny Piggins after reading the fiftieth putrid love poem admiring Mr Green’s wealth and Rolls Royce. ‘We had better destroy them all.’
    ‘Isn’t that a little unfair to Father?’ suggested Samantha. ‘Maybe he is lonely and it would be nice for him to get remarried.’
    Nanny Piggins, Derrick, Michael and Boris stared at Samantha for a moment. No-one knew quite what to say. ‘You have met your father, haven’t you?’ asked Nanny Piggins kindly. ‘Do you honestly think getting married would make him happy? Unless they change the law and make it legal to marry a tax legislation book.’
    ‘I suppose,’ said Samantha.
    The problem was that Samantha read a lot of romance novels. So on some level she secretly hoped that her father had just been pretending to be mean and uncaring for the last nine years and that secretly he was nice and normal.
    ‘Just because these women are clearly desperate, deranged and criminally sociopathic,’ continued Nanny Piggins, ‘does not mean they deserve to be exposed to your father. I suggest we burn all the letters and bury the ashes in a deep hole down the far end of the garden.’
    And that is exactly what they did. The letters made quite a merry fire once Nanny Piggins poured some petrol on them. And the children were able to toast marshmallows over the embers of their father’s romantic aspirations.
    Unfortunately Nanny Piggins had underestimated just how much some single women want to get married. It never occurred to her that one of them would have the audacity to actually come to the house. And so, the next day when the doorbell rang, Nanny Piggins wishfully assumed it was a lost pizza delivery boy who was going to give them free pre-paid pizzas. She flung the door open, only to be confronted by a woman standing right there on their doorstep.
     
    The words, ‘Yummy! Give me the pizzas …’ died on Nanny Piggins’ lips.
    One look at the beautiful petite brunette with her peaches and cream complexion and sparkling brown eyes (magnified alluringly by horn-rimmed glasses), and Nanny Piggins knew she was in trouble.
    ‘Hello, I’m here about Mr Green’s personal advertisement,’ said the Mrs Green-want-to-be.
    ‘Go away!’ screamed Nanny Piggins as she immediately tried to slam the door.
    But this woman, like Nanny Piggins, had surprising strength for her diminutive stature. As soon as Nanny Piggins moved to slam the door, she jammed her shoulder into it, and a pushing match ensued. Nanny Piggins and the Mrs Green-want-to-be both pushed as hard as they could. But the door never wavered more than a millimetre in either direction.
    ‘Go away,’ grunted Nanny Piggins.
    ‘Let me in,’ wheezed the Mrs Green-want-to-be.
    The children rushed out into the hallway to see what their nanny was doing.
    ‘Can we help?’ asked Derrick.
    ‘Whatever you do, don’t let your father see her,’ panted Nanny Piggins.
    Mr Green was practically never at home. He spent as much time as he possibly could at work, preferably on business trips, so he could avoid his children as much as possible. To find Mr Green at home was actually incredibly difficult. You would have to watch the house like a hawk to know that he was there. So either the Mrs Green-want-to-be was incredibly lucky or she had