Nanny Piggins and the Race to Power 8 (6 page)

‘Ew, I can’t go through with it!’ proclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘I can’t run!’

‘What’s wrong now?’ sighed Tyler.

‘The smell!’ complained Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s dreadful. I’ve never smelt so much menthol rub in the air.’

Even the children had to admit the other runners were a bit pongy. You did not need a super sensitive pig snout to be able to sniff them a mile away.

‘Come on, Sarah,’ urged Boris as he tried dragging her towards the marshalling area. ‘You’ve got to do it. We all got up at 5.30 this morning to get you here on time. And there’s nowhere else to go because the sweet shop doesn’t open for another three hours.’

‘I won’t do it!’ screamed Nanny Piggins, opening her mouth wide to chomp on her brother’s shin.

‘Good morning, Nanny Piggins,’ said Nanny Anne. ‘Are you being attacked by that bear? Would you like me to call Animal Control?’

‘I’ll call Human Control and have you taken away in a van if you don’t watch out,’ cried Nanny Piggins.

‘There’s no such thing as Human Control,’ whispered Michael.

‘Well, there should be,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Some people shouldn’t be allowed to roam the streets without wearing a leash.’

‘Good morning, Piggins,’ said Mr Green.

‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Nanny Piggins. ‘Is this what all unpleasant people do? Get up first thing in the morning and go jogging?’

‘I’ve come to watch,’ said Mr Green smugly. ‘As the future mayor I must be seen to participate in community events.’

‘By participate you mean sit on the sidelines doing nothing, don’t you,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘I believe in small government,’ said Mr Green. ‘Doing nothing is my policy platform.’

‘Come on, Nanny Piggins,’ urged Derrick. ‘You’d better make your way over to the starting line. They’re about to begin.’

So Nanny Piggins went and lined up with all the health and fitness fanatics of Dulsford, as well as the people taking part in the race ‘just for a laugh’. They made Nanny Piggins feel saddest of all. Anyone who finds running ten kilometres funny clearly is a troubled soul. Nanny Piggins made a mental note to send cake to all these people as soon as she became mayor.

BANG!

The race began and everyone took off. Nanny Anne started at a brisk pace at the front of the pack. But Nanny Piggins sprinted away at lightning speed.

‘She’ll never be able to keep up that pace,’ said Derrick.

‘Why not?’ asked Boris. ‘It’s not like she didn’t do enough carbo-loading.’

‘But it’s ten kilometres,’ said Michael. ‘That’s a long way.’

‘Pish!’ said Boris (quoting his sister). ‘Once, during a twenty-minute interval at the circus, Nanny Piggins decided she fancied a cupcake, so she ran sixteen kilometres to the nearest supermarket for a bag of flour, ran back, whipped up a batch of cupcakes and ate them.’

‘In under twenty minutes?!’ marvelled Michael.

‘Well it did take her a little longer,’ admitted Boris, ‘but the Ringmaster was very understanding about it. He held up the show to wait for her.’

The children and Boris were able to follow the race on a huge jumbotron TV screen that had been set up in the town square.

‘She’s coming up to the cake factory,’ worried Samantha.

They watched Nanny Piggins start rifling in the pockets of her hot-pink wrestling leotard (she had pockets sewn into it so that she would never be without a chocolate bar when wrestling).

‘What’s she doing?’ wondered Derrick.

They soon found out. Nanny Piggins produced two marshmallows and snuffed them up her nose.

‘Brilliant!’ exclaimed Boris. ‘She’s blocking the smell of the cake.’

Nanny Piggins ran on, widening the gap between her and the rest of the field. She made it to the tip in record time before turning around and heading back to town. From there on, the only thing that slowed her down was stopping to blow a raspberry at Nanny Anne as she passed her going the other way, and telling off the volunteers at the drinks station for only providing water and no chocolate milk.

In a few short minutes Nanny Piggins was running back into central Dulsford.

‘Here she comes!’ cried Samantha as they spotted Nanny Piggins at the far end of the High Street on the last straight stretch into town.

The crowd burst into cheers and applause.

‘She’s going to win!’ exclaimed Boris delightedly.

‘She’s going to win by a mile!’ said Derrick.

Indeed, it was only as Nanny Piggins sprinted down the last hundred metres that they saw Nanny Anne appear in the distance at the far end of the street.

‘You can do it, Nanny Piggins!’ cried Samantha.

The official announcer’s voice crackled over the public address system: ‘And here comes Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins in the lead.’

The crowd roared their approval.

‘It is the first time we’ve had a woman, and a pig, come in first place,’ continued the announcer. ‘What a wonderful tribute to the power of exercise and healthy living.’

At that exact moment Nanny Piggins’ legs stopped and she skidded to a halt just five metres short of the line.

‘Did he just say I was a tribute to the power of exercise and healthy living?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes,’ said Derrick.

‘That’s the whole point,’ urged Tyler. ‘To win over the healthy vote.’

‘I can’t do it,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes you can!’ yelled Tyler. ‘You just need to take a few more steps.’

‘Nanny Anne is getting closer,’ cried Samantha.

‘I can’t win this race,’ said Nanny Piggins as though awaking from a stupor. ‘To do so would betray everything I believe in. I don’t believe in unnecessary sweating, jogging or organised sport in any of its forms. I certainly don’t believe in role models, health messages or setting a good example.’

‘But you’ll never become mayor on that platform,’ wailed Tyler.

‘I don’t care. Some things are more important than politics,’ declared Nanny Piggins. ‘Like principles and beliefs. And I believe in cake, fun and more cake!’

The crowd roared their approval, then swept forward and lifted Nanny Piggins onto their shoulders, chanting ‘We want Piggins! We want Piggins!’

Nanny Piggins was carried over to the winner’s podium where she took the microphone and broke into an impromptu loser’s acceptance speech.

‘I am Nanny Piggins and I am running for mayor,’ declared Nanny Piggins, ‘but I will not go against my principles by jogging to do so.’

‘She did run 9.995 kilometres of the 10 km run,’ whispered Derrick.

‘A slight technicality,’ dismissed Boris.

‘In fact,’ continued Nanny Piggins, ‘the only reason I am here today is because I was tricked by my campaign advisor.’ Nanny Piggins pointed dramatically at Tyler.

‘I didn’t trick you,’ said Tyler. ‘I persuaded you using reasoned argument and polling data.’

‘The most dangerous type of political trick of all,’ condemned Nanny Piggins, ‘which leads me to wonder, why would a self-proclaimed “professional campaign strategist” try to lure me into a life of deceit and lies?’

‘You’re talking about jogging, innocent jogging,’ protested Tyler.

‘There is nothing innocent about that much sweating and bouncing up and down,’ condemned Nanny Piggins. ‘You have systematically made me turn my back on everything I believe in. And I know of only one political mastermind morally bankrupt enough to do that – my identical twin sister, Abigail!’

Everyone in the crowd gasped.

Tyler (aka Abigail) tried to make a run for it but unfortunately she slammed into Nanny Anne just as she crossed the line. So Abigail fell over and her wig and glasses fell off, revealing herself to be an exact replica of Nanny Piggins (except that she had long red hair and green eyes).

The crowd gasped again.

‘This is as good as
The Young and the Irritable
,’ whispered Boris. ‘I wish I’d brought a bowl of popcorn.’

‘Yes, it’s me,’ admitted Abigail (formerly known as Tyler), ‘but you had it coming. Remember when we were children and you borrowed my pink cardigan without asking, then got a toffee stain all down the front. I told you I’d get you back and now I have.’

‘But that cardigan didn’t suit you at all,’ argued Nanny Piggins. ‘It clashed with your hair.’

‘That’s not the point!’ yelled Abigail. ‘It’s the principle of the matter.’

‘You see, everyone,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘This is how dangerous principles are. It allows one impossibly beautiful pig to carry a grudge against another impossibly beautiful pig for all these years. Which is why, if you elect me mayor, I promise to be unprincipled at all times.’

The crowd cheered again.

‘What about my medal?’ panted Nanny Anne.

‘You can have it,’ said Nanny Piggins, handing the large winner’s gold medal to her, ‘although I don’t see how you can enjoy it. It’s not made of chocolate at all. I know because I bit it to be sure.’

Nanny Anne took the medal, then collapsed under the weight of it due to inadequate carbo-loading.

‘Only one question remains,’ continued Nanny Piggins. ‘Why? Abigail is usually in far flung, not terribly democratic countries influencing national elections one way or another. Why would she come to a small town like Dulsford and get involved with a mayoral election?’

‘I told you,’ sulked Abigail. ‘The pink cardigan.’

‘That might have been part of it, but there had to be more,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘How did you find out? Who got in touch with you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ lied Abigail.

‘Then perhaps you do – Mr Green!’ accused Nanny Piggins, dramatically pointing at him.

Mr Green flinched, then looked scared as the whole crowd turned and glared at him.

‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything. You can’t prove it,’ he babbled.

‘Do I have to come down there and stomp on your foot?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

Mr Green’s shoulders slumped. ‘All right, everything she says is true.’

‘I knew it!’ declared Nanny Piggins.

Nanny Piggins spent the rest of the afternoon shaking hands, signing autographs and refusing to kiss babies (they are terribly unhygienic) for the crowd.

When they finally made it home she certainly needed the tall glass of chocolate milk that Boris poured for her.

‘What a day,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Are you hurt that your sister turned up and tried to ruin your fledging political career?’ asked Derrick.

‘Of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’d be hurt if she hadn’t. It’s always nice to know that family cares. Even if they only care about thwarting you.’

‘Are you cross with Father?’ asked Samantha.

‘A little,’ admitted Nanny Piggins, ‘but I’ll forgive him as soon as I shake a bag of itching powder into his underpants drawer. Then it will be like this whole incident never happened.’

‘So, no jogging for you?’ asked Michael.

‘Goodness no!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ve promised the organisers I’ll enter again next year.’

‘You have?!’ exclaimed the children.

‘Yes, but only if they adopt my brilliant suggestion,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I told them to run the race from the town to the cake factory. If the cake factory is the finish line, everyone will run much faster. They’re going to call it “The Cake Run”.’

Nanny Piggins was standing in the living room, posing for her mayoral statue. I know this seems a little presumptuous (the election was still a month away) and extremely egotistical (she was way behind in the polls). But it was traditional for the newly elected mayor of Dulsford to commission a portrait of himself or, in this case, herself. And if Nanny Piggins got elected she had no intention of doing anything dull. She wanted to have an enormous statue of herself made entirely out of marzipan. That way it would be a piece of art the people of Dulsford could actually enjoy, by licking the sugary almondy goodness every time they walked past it.

Fortunately Nanny Piggins was dear friends with the world’s leading marzipan artist, Piers Flom of Belgium. And he was delighted to fly in and craft a masterpiece for her, in exchange for six tea chests full of her chocolate fudge brownies. (Like Nanny Piggins, he preferred to make financial transactions in cake. Cash can lose its value but cake has an inherent undisputable worth.) Piers only had a brief window of availability before he had to fly to South America and craft a 60-metre-high statue of an up-and-coming dictator, so this was why Nanny Piggins was forced to pose for this pre-emptive statue. She reasoned it was worth doing because even if she lost, she could always put it in the front garden and invite local children to come over and lick it instead.

Nanny Piggins was just entering the third hour of holding her pose (she had chosen to pose holding a cake in the air in triumph) when there was a knock at the door.

‘Who could that be?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘
Je ne sais pas
,’ said Piers, which is Belgian for ‘I haven’t the foggiest’.

‘There’s no way Mirabella could have discovered you’re here, is there?’ asked Nanny Piggins, growing alarmed.

Mirabella Coeur was the world’s second greatest marzipan artist. She and Piers had a fierce rivalry. They would often turn up at each other’s events and denounce each other, partly because Mirabella believed in a modern expressionist style of marzipan art whereas Piers was a conservative practitioner of traditional marzipan values. But mainly because, of course, they were secretly in love with each other but had not realised it yet.