Free Nanny Piggins and the Daring Rescue 7 by R. A. Spratt Page A

table. It shows considerable dedication to her principles that she risked passing out from hunger, by wasting energy yelling at the refreshment provider for a full twenty minutes.
    When she got to the table it did not cheer her up to see just how ugly her competitor was. He was a man in his late fifties with a beard. But to call it a beard was not strictly accurate. It was more that he had let all his facial hair (from his head, face, ears and nose) grow unchecked and uncombed for three decades. He did not look like he shampooed it very often either.
    Nanny Piggins was beginning to regret eating so many stale doughnuts earlier in a show of defiance to the refreshment provider.
    Nanny Piggins was playing the black pieces so she had to wait for her hairy competitor to move first. He picked up a pawn, slammed it down two spaces forward on the board and slapped the button on the chess clock alongside the board. This was the first time Nanny Piggins had noticed the clock.
    â€˜What’s that?’ she asked.
    â€˜I don’t have to talk to you, you stupid pig,’ said the man rudely in Ukrainian.
    â€˜Yes, you do, you smelly ignoramus,’ replied Nanny Piggins in flawless Ukrainian. (She had learnt Ukrainian one summer when the Ringmaster had tricked her into taking a nap inside a shipping container, which he then nailed shut and shipped to the Ukrainian circus he sold her to.)
    â€˜We each have forty-five minutes to make our moves,’ explained the hairy man. ‘I take two seconds to make my first move. You are taking two minutes and have not yet made yours.’
    â€˜Pish!’ said Nanny Piggins. (Her tone of contempt was universal so the Ukrainian understood her perfectly.) She looked at the board and concentrated hard. She knew how all the pieces moved. She understood about trickier moves like castling and turning a pawn into a queen. But now that she focused all that knowledge on the decision of what to do next, one answer clearly emerged in Nanny Piggins’ mind. Her brain told her loudly and clearly that there was just one thing to do. And she did it.
    Nanny Piggins stood up suddenly, slapping the underside of the table with her trotters and flipping the table, board and all, over entirely. The pieces flew up and got stuck in the Ukrainian’s beard. The chess clock spiralled through the air and landed in the pile of stale Danishes that had built up in a nearby pot plant.
    â€˜This game is ridiculous!’ yelled Nanny Piggins. ‘I refuse to play anymore.’
    â€˜Hah!’ scoffed the Ukrainian. ‘I win. You default. You lose, pig.’
    â€˜You may win the game of chess,’ said Nanny Piggins proudly, ‘but when it comes to the game of life, a man with such a sorry grasp of the principles of hygiene will lose every time.’
    The Ukrainian did not care. He was too busy pumping the air with his fists and saying rude things in Ukrainian.
    â€˜But what about the cheesecake?’ asked Michael.
    â€˜Some sacrifices are not worth making,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Much as I like cheesecake, it was not worth sitting opposite that yucky man and playing this tedious game a moment longer.’
    â€˜Are you sure?’ asked Samantha, knowing how much her nanny really did care about cake.
    Nanny Piggins looked defiant for three seconds longer and then she burst into tears. ‘No,’ she wept. ‘I think I’ve just made a terrible mistake. But I just couldn’t concentrate on the chess pieces. It was like doing a maths exam.’
    â€˜You’ve never done a maths exam,’ pointed out Michael.
    â€˜Thank goodness,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘From what I’ve heard they really should be listed under the Geneva Conventions as a form of torture.’
    â€˜Come on, let’s go home,’ said Derrick. ‘We can always make some cheesecake.’
    â€˜It won’t be the same,’ sniffed Nanny Piggins. ‘Cake