True it did have fruit in it, which was a little disappointing. But when the soldier broke off a leaf and tasted it, there was so much butter and cinnamon and sugar inside that it still tasted good. There was no time to stop and eat more – the pigcesses were hurrying through the forest – so he shoved a big handful of banana cake into his hat, put it back on his head and kept following them.

  Next they came to a mountain of sticky caramel lollies. The pigcesses hurriedly climbed it without pausing. But the caramels looked delicious, so the soldier grabbed two handfuls and shoved them into each of his socks.

  Finally, they came to a lake of chocolate. There were twelve little row boats on the bank, which the pigcesses hurried into. The chocolate looked delicious, but the soldier didn’t have time to drink any, so he took off his shoes, scooped up as much chocolate as they would hold and put them in his pockets for later. Then got into a boat alongside one of the pigcesses.

  The pigcesses rowed across the lake to the far bank, on which stood a disco with pumping dance beats. The pigcesses rushed inside and began to boogie. They were really splendid at it. They bopped away happily all night long. The soldier even joined in, although no one could see him because he was still wearing the invisible pink cloak.

  As the first light of dawn began to glow above the horizon, the pigcesses hurried back across the chocolate lake, over the caramel mountain, through the forest of banana cake and up the staircase back to their room, where they kicked off their ruined shoes and went back to bed.

  At 8 am sharp, the door burst open and the King strode in.

  ‘Show me your shoes!’ he ordered. ‘They had better not be ruined.’

  The pigcesses lay under their covers, pretending that they had been asleep this whole time. But at the foot of each bed was a torn and tattered pair of footwear.

  ‘You,’ said the King, turning on the soldier. ‘You were supposed to watch over them and find out how this is happening. What do you have to say for yourself?’

  The soldier stepped out of his wardrobe. ‘I shall tell you the truth! Your daughters have travelled through a wood of banana cake, over a mountain of caramel lollies and rowed across a lake of chocolate to go to a fabulous disco where they have danced all night long.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ exclaimed the King.

  ‘I can prove it,’ said the soldier.

  He took off his hat and there was cake on his head.

  He reached into his socks and pulled out sticky caramels.

  And he put his hand in his pocket and withdrew his shoes full of chocolate.

  ‘And your daughters tricked the contenders by feeding them this!’ The soldier reached into his shirt and pulled out a slimy gross brown lump.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the King.

  ‘Well, it was a slice of mud cake,’ said the soldier. ‘Poisoned mud cake.’

  The king turned to his daughters. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘No,’ said the eldest daughter.

  ‘Really?’ asked the King.

  ‘Are you going to believe us, or a man who stuffs banana cake under his hat, mud cake down his shirt, sticky caramels in his pockets and chocolate in his shoes?’

  ‘What’s wrong with keeping cake under your hat?’ asked the King, as he lifted the crown on his head to reveal he had half a sticky caramel cake sitting on top of his head.

  The King thanked the soldier, declared him a hero for solving the mystery and offered him his reward.

  ‘You may choose your pigcess and make her your bride,’ declared the King.

  The pigcesses preened. They all wanted to be the one who was chosen.

  ‘Um, no, thank you,’ said the solider, ‘I think I’m going to go back to the woods and propose to the crone. She was much easier to get along with. Any twelve girls who think it’s reasonable to let men get decapitated so they can go off dancing every night are too high-maintenance for me.’

  And that’s what he did. So he and the crone lived happily ever after, because now he knew how to get to the forest of cake, the mountain of caramels and lake of chocolate they never went hungry again.

  The end.

  Fun Fact

  Shoes feature heavily in folktales. In the olden days, shoes were all handmade, so they were really expensive. Imagine if it cost everything your parents earned in an entire week to buy one pair of shoes! It’s no wonder adults told horror stories about children who didn’t look after their shoes properly.

  Mum and Tammy were walking home from school. It was a warm day. And warm days always felt extra hot for Tammy because she enjoyed running around like an idiot at lunchtime. By the time Mum met her at the school gate, she was always red in the face and sweaty. So, as they walked away from the school gate, Tammy didn’t have much to say for herself. She was too busy sucking dry the cold Milo milk box Mum had brought for her.

  Mum understood there was no point striking up a conversation straight away. Especially not while they were still in earshot of someone who might overhear them. Tammy found Mum intensely embarrassing. To be fair, Mum was intensely embarrassing. Mum knew this and didn’t object. Tammy would only grunt in reply if any of her friends were nearby. So Mum waited until they were a hundred metres from the school before she started talking.

  ‘Did you have a good day at school?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Eugh,’ grunted Tammy, not even taking the straw out of her mouth while she squeezed the box in her fist to get every last drop out.

  Mum knew that Tammy did not like being questioned. Any direct question would always be met with a monosyllabic answer, or sometimes just a noise of disgust. Tammy knew lots of noises of disgust. There was ergh, groan, hmmph, blagh and many more. So she could actually express quite a complex range of responses in this way. Mum knew if she wanted to have a three-dimensional conversation she would have to take a lateral tangent.

  ‘Did you learn anything?’ asked Mum.

  ‘No,’ said Tammy, still sucking on the box even though there was definitely nothing in there anymore.

  ‘Good, good,’ said Mum. ‘It’s such a hot day. I’d hate for the teachers to try to cram anything into your head when your skull was so elastic.’

  ‘Skulls aren’t elastic,’ said Tammy.

  ‘At normal temperature no,’ agreed Mum. ‘But as soon as they go above thirty-seven degrees, they become rubbery and you can jam more into the brain cavity. Which is good for learning, but terrible for practical purposes because your head expands, and you have to buy all-new hats.’

  ‘Baseball caps are adjustable,’ said Tammy.

  ‘I know,’ said Mum. ‘The adjustable baseball cap was specifically invented because of over-enthusiastic teachers excessively educating children in hot regions.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Tammy.

  ‘You believe whatever you choose to believe,’ encouraged Mum. ‘It’s a warm afternoon and I would hate to shove an extra piece of knowledge into your brain while your skull is so malleable.’

  Tammy just ignored Mum, although it took some willpower not to poke herself in the head and see if her skull felt soft.

  ‘Did Mr Stuart behave himself today?’ asked Mum. Mr Stuart was Tammy’s teacher.

  ‘He wasn’t there,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Really?’ said Mum. ‘Where was he?’

  ‘Away,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Afghanistan?’ asked Mum.

  ‘What?’ said Tammy.

  ‘Was he in Afghanistan?’ asked Mum. ‘Perhaps fighting separatists. Or perhaps fighting for the separatists. We shouldn’t judge. Obviously, he’s entitled to his own political beliefs.’

  ‘No, he was at school,’ said Tammy. ‘Just not with us.’

  ‘But you’re his class,’ said Mum. ‘Was he seeing other classes behind your back?’

  ‘No, it’s Thursday,’ said Tammy. ‘He always has RFF on Thursdays.’

  ‘He always has Radioactive Fire Fights on Thursday?’ asked Mum.

  ‘No, RFF stands for Relief from Face-to-Face,’ said Tammy.

  ‘He gets relieved from face-to-face once a week for a whole day?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Ahuh,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Why?’ asked Mum. ‘What is it about your faces that is so arduous that he needs to be relieved from them?’

  ‘All the teachers do it,’ said Tammy. ‘Most of them get half a day, but Mr Stuart gets a whole one.’

  ‘In my day, teachers didn’t have that,’ said Mum. ‘They had to endure our faces for six hours a day, five days a week. We were all just locked in a room together with no escape. Of course, teachers were allowed to behave badly back then, so they could let their emotions out. They got relief that way.’

  ‘Back in the olden days,’ said Tammy. ‘When you wrote with feathers and ink?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘It was very different then. We didn’t have whiteboards. We had to carve the answers to our questions on the wall of the cave.’

  ‘Because you’re so old,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Positively ancient,’ agreed Mum. ‘So what does Mr Stuart do on these days of facial relief? Lie on a couch with a damp flannel over his eyes while listening to recordings of whale song?’

  ‘No,’ said Tammy. ‘He’s busy.’

  ‘Doing what?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Things about the school,’ said Tammy. ‘He’s the only teacher who knows about computers.’

  ‘Ahh,’ said Mum. ‘So he’s on the internet doing online grocery shopping for all the other teachers?’

  ‘No, he’s busy fixing things and stuff like that,’ said Tammy.

  ‘But how do you know that’s really what he’s doing?’ asked Mum. ‘If he’s the only one who understands about computers, he could be fixing them in five minutes, then doing anything with the remaining five hours and fifty-five minutes of his day.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Robbing banks,’ said Mum.

  ‘He’s not robbing banks every Thursday,’ said Tammy.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Mum. ‘You don’t see him on that day.’

  ‘Sometimes we see him hurrying about,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t take long to rob a bank,’ said Mum. ‘You just walk in, yell “give me all your money”, take the money and leave. He’d have plenty of time to pop back to school and walk around, looking busy, to establish his alibi.’

  ‘Why would Mr Stuart want to rob a bank?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘To be like Robin Hood,’ said Mum.

  ‘What?’ said Tammy.

  ‘He’d rob from the rich and give to the poor,’ said Mum.

  ‘But why?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Perhaps because he likes wearing green tights and leaping out of trees while shooting arrows at ne’er-do-wells,’ said Mum. ‘Robin Hood always wears green tights and leaps out of trees.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Tammy. ‘Why does Robin Hood wear tights?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mum. ‘Perhaps for the compression. Perhaps he has varicose veins. Or perhaps he just likes tights. We shouldn’t judge.’

  ‘I’ve never seen Mr Stuart wear green tights,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mum. ‘He hides them. That’s his secret disguise.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense. If he wanted money,’ said Tammy, ‘he wouldn’t have become a teacher in the first place.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Mum. ‘Very true. So what is it that teachers really want? Aside from relief from face-to-face.’

  Tammy and Mum thought about this as they walked for a moment.

  ‘I know!’ said Tammy. ‘Whiteboard markers.’

  ‘That’s right!’ exclaimed Mum. ‘I’ve never been to a school that had working whiteboard markers.’

  ‘Mrs Babbage hides her whiteboard markers from Mr Trent,’ said Tammy, ‘because he never returns them.’

  ‘This is serious stuff,’ said Mum. ‘So much animosity and anger amongst colleagues.’

  ‘Teachers are always angry about something,’ said Tammy.

  ‘And the whiteboard-marker shortage is putting a strain on their already frayed nerves,’ said Mum. ‘They already have to have relief from the faces of their students. The whiteboard markers are a bridge too far. They can’t take it anymore. It’s a powder keg of tension waiting to explode.’

  ‘Pretty much,’ agreed Tammy.

  ‘Ah-hah!’ said Mum. ‘So that must be what Mr Stuart is doing on Thursdays. He’s stealing whiteboard markers.’

  ‘What?’ said Tammy.

  ‘And the whole school is in on it,’ said Mum. ‘The principal probably asked him to take on this vitally important role. The whole RFF day thing is just an elaborate cover story while he goes out and gets whiteboard markers for the entire teaching staff.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Tammy.

  ‘No, it’s just like Robin Hood,’ said Mum. ‘He’s stealing from the whiteboard marker rich and giving to the whiteboard marker poor.’

  ‘Who is whiteboard marker rich?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Officeworks,’ said Mum.

  Tammy nodded begrudgingly. They did have an excellent selection of whiteboard markers at Officeworks. ‘But if he did that, he’d get arrested.’

  ‘Not if he was dressed up as Robin Hood!’ said Mum.

  ‘Why would he dress up as Robin Hood?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘Imagine it,’ said Mum. ‘It’s Officeworks on a Thursday afternoon. The staff are going about their business, stocking shelves, pretending to work at the register. When the automatic door opens – whoosh. And Mr Stuart leaps into the store – perhaps swinging out of a tree on a rope he tied there earlier. He’s carrying a bow and arrow, he has a jaunty feathered little cap on his head and he’s wearing bright green tights.’

  ‘Ha,’ said Tammy. She was imagining what this would look like and it was very silly indeed.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mum. ‘The staff at Officeworks aren’t going to notice his face. They’ll be too busy laughing at his legs.’

  ‘Mr Stuart’s legs would not look good in tights,’ Tammy agreed.

  ‘And the staff in Officeworks have all got those earpieces that they use to have those creepy conversations with each other like they’re members of the secret service or something. So, as Mr Stuart strides through the store dressed as Robin Hood, they’re all going to go straight on their earpieces saying, “Get a load of the ninny in aisle three, he’s wearing bright green tights” and giggling. No one would notice his face. He’d be in and out, with two-dozen markers stuffed in his quiver, no questions asked.’

  ‘He doesn’t do that,’ said Tammy.

  ‘There’s one way to find out for sure,’ said Mum.

  ‘What?’ asked Tammy.

  ‘You know how if you’re wearing trousers when you walk up a staircase, the leg of the trousers rides up as your knee bends?’ said Mum.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Next time you see Mr Stuart walking up steps,’ said Mum, ‘check to see if he’s got green tights on underneath.’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ said Tammy.

  ‘You say “idiot”. I say “brilliant deductive mind”,’ said Mum.

  ‘“Idiot” is the truth,’ said Tammy.

  ‘But what is the truth?’ said Mum.

  ‘Anything you don’t say,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Fair enough,’ conceded Mum. ‘But truth and reality are tremendously overrated.’

  Tammy went back to crushing her drink box with her fist. Talking about what hadn’t happened at school was better than talking about what had happened at school. There was always lots more to say.

  The end.

  Fun Fact

  Robin Hood is fictional. I know, it’s disappointing. Fictional people are always so much more awesome. But Sherwood Forest is real. You can go there and visit the Major Oak – an oak tree that is somewhere between eight hundred and a thousand years old (you’d have to cut it down and count the rings to know for sure, and no one wants to do that). In the stories of Robin Hood, it was said that he and his merry men hid out under the Major Oak, although it wouldn’t have been quite so major then. It would have only been either a sapling or one hundred and eighty years old, so that bit isn’t just fictional, it doesn’t make any sense.

  ‘Derrick, come quickly!’ cried Nanny Piggins. ‘There is an emergency.’

  Derrick leapt up from his desk and ran to the corridor.

  ‘What is it?’ he cried.

  When Nanny Piggins is your nanny, you need to react to this type of cry for help. Her idea of an emergency could be very serious indeed. It could be that . . .

  . . . A fully grown African elephant has just walked through the front wall of the house, causing irreparable structural damage that could lead to the second storey of the building collapsing at any moment . . .

  . . . Or that the Ringmaster from the circus is short-staffed and is at that moment climbing in through the upstairs bathroom window, looking for people to kidnap and train to be trapeze artists . . .

  . . . Or that police are converging on the house, because Nanny Piggins’ behaviour at the sweet shop on ten-per-cent-off day was so disgraceful, she is about to be arrested for causing a one-woman (or rather one-pig) riot.

  But on this occasion, none of these things had happened.

  ‘I’ve got a tea cake in the oven and it’s only fifteen minutes until it will be ready!’ cried Nanny Piggins. ‘You must come now. If you’re not there the moment it comes out of the oven, Samantha, Michael and I may not be able to resist eating it without you. And if Boris emerges from his shed you’ve got no chance.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Derrick. ‘I can’t come. I’ve got too much homework. I’ve got an essay on Greek mythology to write by tomorrow morning. I’ve have to keep working on it.’

  ‘Greek mythology!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘Greek mythology?! Your teachers want you to learn about Greek mythology when you could be eating cake?!’