‘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.