‘Yes,’ said Derrick. His teachers expected him to learn about a great many things when he could be eating cake. This was pretty much what teachers were trained to do – deprive children of cake while forcing information into their heads. It is a more complicated process than you might imagine, which is why teachers have to go to university for so many years to study how to do it.

  ‘Which bit of Greek mythology?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.

  ‘The story of King Midas,’ said Derrick.

  ‘Oh, I know that one,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Come downstairs, I’ll tell you the whole story while we watch the cake bake.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Derrick. Hearing a story from Nanny Piggins was a much better way to learn about it. Her details did not always match with the versions written down in books – in fact, they very rarely did – but they were much easier to remember, because Nanny Piggins’ versions were always spectacular. Besides, Derrick could smell the tea cake now and it did smell really good, so he followed his nanny down to the kitchen.

  Samantha and Michael were already there, sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the oven. They often did this when Nanny Piggins was baking. The only cleaning Nanny Piggins insisted on doing meticulously was the cleaning of the oven door, because she loved watching cakes bake.

  To her mind, watching a cake transform from wet glutinous liquid into a light fluffy delicious dessert was magical. And no matter how many thousands of times she observed the process, it still made her ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ in delight, then weep soft tears of joy throughout the heartbreakingly beautiful finale – the eating of the cake. Then weep more tears – this time tears of sadness at the ultimate conclusion when the cake was gone.

  ‘Look at it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  Derrick looked in through the oven door. All he could see was a cake tin with brown cake batter sitting at the bottom. He knew from experience not to say this out loud, so instead he said, ‘Gorgeous, Nanny Piggins. Stunning.’

  Nanny Piggins sighed with contentment, inhaling a deep breath.

  ‘And it smells as good as it looks,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If it tastes as good as it looks and smells, we are going to have a wonderful afternoon. You know, some nannies make their children go to art galleries and theatres to experience art – but you don’t have to endure that. I create art right here in our very own stove.’

  The children were used to Nanny Piggins’ idea that cake was a high art form, so they didn’t question this statement.

  ‘In fact, you are much luckier,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Because so many of the greatest paintings are in Italy and France and great theatre is in New York and London. Whereas the greatest cake in the world is right here in your kitchen.’

  ‘I thought you said Hans the baker made the greatest cake in the world,’ said Michael.

  ‘That’s just what I say to his face to encourage him,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The greatest cake in the world is always the one that is closest to you at that moment. And that tea cake is only fifty centimetres from my snout – so it is a very fine cake indeed.

  ‘Nanny Piggins,’ said Derrick. ‘You said if I came downstairs with you that you’d tell me the story of King Midas.’

  ‘I did?’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Oh yes, I did. I always make such rash promises when the scent of cake is in the air.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose, being a responsible adult, I will have to carry through on my promise.’

  ‘That is what responsible adults are supposed to do,’ agreed Samantha.

  ‘Being a responsible adult is just so awful,’ complained Nanny Piggins. ‘When I was at the circus, no one ever expected it of us – we were all irresponsible adults. It was a job requirement. Reckless, self-involved behaviour was a career necessity.’

  ‘But you weren’t happy at the circus,’ Michael reminded her. ‘You ran away.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘The Ringmaster was shockingly remiss when it came to restocking the chocolate biscuits in the break room. I couldn’t stand it anymore.’

  ‘Father never buys chocolate biscuits,’ Samantha observed. ‘And you’ve never run away from here.’

  ‘Yes, failure to supply chocolate biscuits is perhaps your father’s most serious character flaw – and there are quite a few to choose between,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But he makes up for it by leaving his credit card in a place I can easily find, like the wallet in his back pocket, so I can purchase my own.’

  ‘Anyway, back to my homework, what is the story of King Midas?’ prompted Derrick.

  ‘King Midas was a bit like your father actually,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Dreadful man. Totally misguided sense of self-importance.’

  ‘But surely if he was a king, he was important,’ said Samantha.

  ‘Oh no, not at all,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Royalty are never as important as they like to believe. All they do is wear really expensive clothes, live in really fancy houses and have really excessive lifestyles while bossing lots of people about. Anyone could do that. No, the really important people in life are the people who make great breakthroughs.’

  ‘In medicine?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Yes, like the first pig to discover that vitamin C boosted the immune system, and therefore it was a medical necessity to eat lots of lemon cake,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now that was a vital breakthrough by a very important person.’

  ‘I thought you said they were a pig?’ said Samantha.

  ‘Oh yes, all the most important people are pigs,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.

  ‘So what did Midas do?’ asked Derrick.

  ‘Well, he was very rich,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘He lived in Turkey. Although, not turkey the bird. He lived in Turkey the place. Although it wasn’t called Turkey back then. Probably because they had the good sense not to name their homeland after a delicious bird. Anyway, he had a great big palace and spent all his time bossing people around, beating people in wars, stealing all their things and then buying ridiculous ostentatious things so he could rub everyone’s noses in it.’

  ‘Like Michelle Brampton,’ muttered Samantha. ‘She won’t shut up about her pencil case with the built-in stapler and pencil sharpener.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That was what he was like. He had to have the most beautiful rose garden in all of Turkey – not because he liked looking at roses, or smelling roses or dancing the tango with a rose between his teeth. But because he liked making other people come and look at his roses and realise how much nicer his garden was than theirs.’

  One day, Midas was walking in this lovely rose garden. He was gloating about how rich he was, to be able to afford such fancy flowers and the horde of gardeners needed to look after them, when he came across someone collapsed face-down in his rose bed, snoring loudly. Midas’s first thought was that this was a disgusting oaf. Who else would think it was okay to fall asleep in the most beautiful rose garden in the whole world, then snore in such a disgusting manner?

  But then Midas noticed this person’s legs. Specifically, he noticed that they weren’t a person’s legs. They were the legs of a goat! So the snorer had the top half of a person and the bottom half of a goat.

  ‘Huh?’ said Michael.

  ‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘There was a lot of this sort of thing in ancient story times. Half-bull people, half-goat people. It sounds crazy – and it was. But really, it’s no sillier than talking wolves or running gingerbread or witches making their homes out of candy, and we all accept those stories without question. So with these ancient Greek stories, when you get a weird crazy bit, it’s best just to breeze straight through, without thinking about it too much or you’ll never get on with the story.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Michael. It was hurting his head to think about it, so he was very happy not to.

  Now, a half-goat person is called a satyr, and when he took a closer look, Midas recognised this old satyr. He was the tutor of Dionysus.

  ‘Who was Dionysus?’ asked Michael.

  ‘Basically, the god of partying,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘Revelry, over-eating, dancing – all the fun stuff – he was the god in charge of that.’

  Now, obviously, it is a smart idea to be on the good side of a god. Particularly the god of partying. So Midas treated the half-goat oaf in his rose garden with the utmost respect and returned him safely to Dionysus’s palace. Dionysus was so grateful.

  ‘Really?’ asked Michael. ‘He was grateful to get his teacher back?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Think about it – if you had a teacher who thought it was a good idea to wander off and nap in the middle of the school day, would you love that teacher?’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘There you go.’

  To reward Midas, Dionysus said he would give Midas anything he wanted. Midas’s eyes lit up with delight. A free wish from a god. Someone with the power to give him absolutely anything he could think of. This was his dream come true. He knew instantly what he wanted.

  ‘Give me the power to turn anything I touch into gold,’ said Midas.

  ‘Really?’ asked Dionysus. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Midas.

  ‘One hundred per cent certain?’ asked Dionysus.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Midas.

  ‘Okay,’ said Dionysus. ‘You asked for it.’

  And KAPOW! Midas was given the power.

  Midas rushed home to try it out at once. The first thing he tried it on was a twig. Instantly, it was transformed into solid gold.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Midas squealed with delight.

  He rushed out into his rose garden and touched a flower, and it transformed to a solid gold rose. He was ecstatic. ‘Yippee!’ cried Midas.

  Just then, Midas’s daughter came out into the rose garden. ‘Daughter! Look at this,’ cried Midas. ‘I’m going to be so rich.’

  ‘You’re already rich,’ said the daughter. ‘You’re the King. You’ve got more money than anyone. And when you want more, you just go to war and take more.’

  ‘I know, but this is even better. Look,’ said Midas. ‘Everything I touch turns to gold.’

  He demonstrated by touching another rose. It instantly transformed.

  ‘Oh,’ said the daughter.

  ‘You aren’t impressed?’ asked Midas.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’ll be handy for solving any budgetary problems you may have,’ said the daughter. ‘But I’ve always preferred red roses.’ She leaned in and sniffed the gold rose. ‘And roses that are made of – you know – rose petals smell nicer. They smell of roses – which is literally an expression because people like the smell so much. This gold one smells of nothing.

  ‘But it’s gold!’ exclaimed Midas. ‘It’s worth a fortune.’

  ‘I’m just giving you constructive feedback. There’s no need to get snarky,’ said the daughter. She handed back the gold rose. But as he reached out to take it, Midas’s finger brushed his daughter’s hand and instantly it turned to gold.

  ‘Dad, what have you done?’ asked the daughter.

  Midas looked on in horror, as the gold had spread up her arm to her body and her head. In seconds, his daughter was a five-foot-six solid gold statue.

  At first, Midas did some mental calculations and worked out that his daughter was now worth millions. But then his mind went further and realised that he would no longer be able to talk to his daughter or hug her. She was also going to find it hard to get married and settle down and give him grandchildren. For the first time, Midas began to suspect that he may have made a terrible mistake.

  To cheer himself up, Midas ordered for a slice of cake to be brought to him. A nice slice of chocolate cake always made him feel better. But as he reached out to pick up the delicious baked treat, his fingers touched the crust and the slice turned to solid gold. He grabbed for the rest of the cake, but every last crumb was now tasteless, inedible gold.

  ‘What did he do?’ asked Samantha.

  Midas rushed back to Dionysus.

  ‘What do you want now?’ asked the god.

  ‘Please, I beg of you,’ asked Midas. He wasn’t all puffed up anymore. He had been humbled by his terrible life decision. ‘Please return my daughter to how she was.’

  ‘Done,’ said Dionysus, instantly restoring the daughter.

  ‘And,’ continued Midas, ‘remove from me this cursed power of the golden touch.’

  ‘Not as much fun as you had imagined, is it?’ said Dionysus.

  ‘No,’ agreed Midas. ‘It was foolish of me to ask for such a thing. What I should have asked for is the cake touch.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Dionysus.

  ‘The power to turn everything I touch into chocolate cake!’ declared Midas. ‘Could I have that instead?’

  ‘Um . . . I suppose so,’ said Dionysus.

  And KAPOW! It was so.

  ‘From that moment on, everything Midas touched turned into the most delicious light, fluffy chocolate cake, garnished with chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles. He was very careful not to touch any people or beloved household pets. And his kingdom became the happiest in the world as every citizen got as much chocolate cake as they could eat all day, every day. And so they all lived happily ever after. The end.

  ‘I’m pretty sure that’s not the version my teacher knows,’ said Derrick.

  ‘Yes, if only your teacher spent more time napping in rose gardens,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Perhaps they wouldn’t pester you so much with pedantic details.’

  Just then, the oven timer pinged.

  ‘It’s ready!’ cried Nanny Piggins.

  The end.

  Fun Fact

  At the time of writing this book, gold was valued at $63,000 per kilo (that’s in US dollars). The average weight of an adult Greek woman is 74 kg. That means when Midas turned his daughter to gold she would have been worth $4,662,000! That is a lot of money. He could have bought a lot of cake.

  However, the math purists amongst you are probably scratching your heads and thinking . . . but gold weighs more per cubic centimetre than a person weighs per cubic centimetre. So to work out the true value of King Midas’s solid gold daughter, we really need to use her volume. That is trickier, but doable.

  The human body is mainly made up of water or things that have the same weight-to-volume as water. A kg of water is equal to 1000 cubic centimetres (measure a litre of milk when you get home if you don’t believe me). So, a 74kg human would have the volume of 74,000 cubic centimetres. 1 cubic centimetre of gold weights 19.3 grams. So when Midas’s daughter turned to gold she would have weighed 1428kg! Now, if we multiple 1428 by $63,000 we discover that Midas’s solid gold daughter would have been worth $US89,964,000. That’s nearly 90 million dollars!

  ‘Did I ever tell you the story about the time my no-good brother Bramwell was accidentally hired as a giant slayer?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

  ‘Bramwell was a giant slayer?!’ exclaimed Samantha. This was a deeply shocking concept because the children all knew that Bramwell Piggins was by far the least talented, laziest, most dishonest of all Nanny Piggins’ morally bankrupt siblings. And she had thirteen sisters who were evil geniuses, so to be the most wicked of the lot was quite an achievement. Arguably his only achievement.

  ‘In the last story you told us about Bramwell, he was a tailor,’ said Derrick.

  ‘A terrible tailor who made non-existent clothes for an emperor,’ said Michael.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘Bramwell has always excelled at not doing things. But it was actually his career as a tailor that led to him being hired as a hit man to take down a massive fictitious monster.’

  ‘You’re going to have to start at the beginning,’ said Samantha.

  ‘All right,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s actually a very good place to start because it all began with a jam tart.’

  ‘Oh goodie,’ said Boris. ‘Will we get to eat jam tarts too?’

  ‘Yes, if you like,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll make them while I tell the story . . .’

  It all began one day when Bramwell was sitting in the workroom of the tailor’s shop. A proper tailor had hired him just that morning, and this head tailor hadn’t figured out that Bramwell was the most worthless, good-for-nothing employee to have ever lived yet. So, Bramwell was still very pleased with himself for landing a job where he got to sit indoors, in a heated room and had access to a break room with free tea and a biscuit jar. It usually took him about half a day to get fired for incompetence, so he was going to enjoy that half day as much as possible by shoving as many of those biscuits in his face as he could before the head tailor noticed.

  As our story begins, Bramwell had already eaten two thirds of the biscuits. He’d been shoving ten in his mouth every time the head tailor dealt with a customer or went to the bathroom. Bramwell was sitting at his workbench chewing and pretending to be industrious, when he noticed something shiny on the floor. It was a coin!

  Bramwell so rarely had money. Never being able to hold to a job for more than half a day meant he never got paid. So he was delighted to find some actual money. It was a bit of an ordeal for him to have to bend over and pick it up. He really did hate exercise in all forms. But he bravely lifted the coin from the ground and discovered that it was a real genuine ten cent piece!

  Bramwell was very pleased with himself indeed. A jar of free biscuits and ten cents! This was turning out to be the best job he’d ever had. Certainly the best since he’d been fired for tricking the emperor into walking across the public square in the nudey-rudey.

  Bramwell was sitting there, blissfully looking at the shiny coin, when he heard a voice call out from the street.

  ‘Jam tarts! Jam tarts for sale! Get them now! Fresh and sticky and sweet! Jam tarts for sale!’

  Bramwell’s mouth immediately started watering. He dearly loved a jam tart. He loved tart in all its forms. But a tart filled with fruit-flavoured sugar was a very fine delight indeed.

  ‘I thought you didn’t approve of fruit,’ Michael reminded his Nanny.

  ‘It’s all a matter of ratios,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘If you get the ratio of sugar to fat to fruit right, even fruit can be transformed into something delicious. And when you make jam, you combine every kilo of fruit with an entire kilo of sugar. Anything can be redeemed by adding an entire kilo of sugar. Then when you also add pastry, which is full of fatty butter, it totally reforms fruit into a divine culinary sensation.