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

been hiding in the bushes across the street with a pair of field binoculars for four days.
    When Mr Green was at home he had one rule. ‘Children must be neither seen, nor heard, nor smelled, and definitely not touched.’ He had this laminated onto palm cards and given to each of the children. If Derrick, Samantha or Michael was ever caught breaking this rule he got very cross. (You could tell because his neck turned red. He never actually told the children he was cross, because that would involve making eye contact, and he tried to avoid that.)
    So when Mr Green burst into the corridor and said with a slightly raised voice, ‘What is all this ruckus!?’, they knew he was really mad.
    The children instinctively tried to hide – Derrick behind the umbrella stand, Samantha under a pile of raincoats and Michael in the hall closet. Whichleft Nanny Piggins momentarily distracted, because Derrick had accidentally jabbed her in the eye with an umbrella. The Mrs Green-want-to-be used this opportunity to give one enormous shove, pushing Nanny Piggins and the front door aside, and making her entrance into the Green home.
    ‘Mr Green?’ said the Mrs Green-want-to-be. ‘My name is Jane Doeadear. I have come about your personal advertisement.’
    Mr Green did not so much respond as slobber, much like a hungry dog looking at a T-bone steak. When he placed the advertisement, Mr Green had simply wanted a free housekeeper/nanny/domestic slave so he could rid himself of the shame of having a pig for a nanny. He had very low standards. He was prepared to marry any woman willing to scrub the baked-on scum off his oven. It never occurred to him (or to be fair, anybody else) that he could find a wife who was also dazzlingly attractive. And Jane Doeadear definitely was that. She was just the type of woman Mr Green liked – small, shiny-haired, and with glasses.
    Even Nanny Piggins had to admit that this stranger was good-looking. She had a sort of jaunty athleticism that Nanny Piggins found oddly familiar. It was almost as if they had met before but Nanny Piggins could not remember where.
    ‘Hello,’ said Mr Green in such a way that he clearly thought he was being dazzlingly attractive himself. He sort of smirked, winked and tried to look thin all at once. Fortunately the children could not see because they were trying to hide. But Nanny Piggins saw and it almost made her violently ill (which would have been a terrible tragedy because she had eaten the most delicious blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Nanny Piggins’ secret for making really good blueberry pancakes was to use chocolate chips instead of blueberries).
    ‘Do come in,’ simpered Mr Green, even more sickeningly.
    And that is how Jane Doeadear invaded the Green family home. Mr Green immediately invited her to stay. He thought it would be cheaper than dating. And it would give him an opportunity to observe Jane’s cleaning abilities up close.

    The next week was a horrible one for Nanny Piggins and the children. Mr Green started coming home from work at a normal time, just so he could watch Jane doing housework and sigh blissfully.
    ‘Do you think Father is suffering from some sort of brain damage?’ asked Michael.
    ‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins, as they watched him watching Jane. ‘But it’s no more severe than usual. Attractive women always have this effect on men.’
    ‘It’s almost as if he’s been hit on the head with a cricket bat,’ observed Samantha.
    ‘It’s worse than that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘When you hit someone on the head with a cricket bat, the sharp pain and the flowing blood let them know something is wrong. But when a man is dazzled by a beautiful woman, he doesn’t realise he has gone temporarily insane. The opposite happens. He suddenly thinks he is the funniest, cleverest man ever to walk the earth. Really, when single men start dating they should all be locked up in lunatic asylums.’
    ‘How are we going to get rid of her?’ asked