Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

fact had given Nanny Piggins her own key so she would not disturb the security guard’s nap schedule.)
    Nanny Piggins then had a brief but thorough training workout, eating 50 pounds of chocolate-covered caramels to increase her density and therefore velocity through the air.
    At nine o’clock the next morning she arrived at the bookshop in her favourite suede lemon-coloured body suit (with black and red stripes), as Boris pulled her 25-tonne cannon into position. There was a huge crowd already gathered to watch the display.
    ‘We’re here!’ announced Nanny Piggins. ‘Now where is that good-for-nothing Bramwell so we can get started?’
    ‘He’s right here,’ said the publicist, turning round to point at . . . an empty space.
    ‘Where?’ asked Samantha.
    ‘But he was right here a second ago,’ protested the publicist.
    Nanny Piggins looked at Derrick’s watch. It ticked over from 9.00 to 9.01. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘he’s not coming back.’
    ‘But surely not,’ panicked the publicist. ‘Look at the crowd. He can’t let them down. Some ofthem have pre-bought books, expecting him to sign them.’
    ‘Well, I must confess I have underestimated my brother,’ admitted Nanny Piggins. ‘In my haste to condemn him for stealing credit for the talents of his sisters, I had forgotten his one great talent.’
    ‘He has a great talent?’ asked Derrick.
    ‘He is a Piggins,’ Nanny Piggins reminded them. ‘So yes, he does have one extraordinary ability.’
    ‘What is it?’ asked the publicist optimistically. ‘I hope it sells books.’
    ‘He has a unique and unparalleled talent for running away from angry people,’ said Nanny Piggins.
    ‘Is that a talent?’ asked Samantha.
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Think about it. If you were so inadequate and your sisters were so brilliant and you had a tendency to claim credit for their accomplishments, you’d learn to be good at running away too.’
    ‘But Nanny Piggins, how can he run when he’s so . . .’ Derrick did not like to say the word.
    ‘Fat?’ supplied Nanny Piggins. ‘Yes, I know. But he is still a pig and therefore a gifted athlete compared to a mere human. Plus he somehow manages to use his greater weight to his advantage by doing lots ofplunging, plummeting and sinking when he is on the run.’
    ‘So that’s it?’ asked Samantha. ‘It’s all over?’
    ‘Not at all,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Now we have to find him and punish him.’
    ‘But how?’ asked Derrick.
    ‘Luckily I had the foresight to bake a GPS tracking device into a shortbread cookie that I slipped into my brother’s pocket yesterday while I was giving him a noogie,’ said Nanny Piggins.
    ‘Could you bake me a whole batch of those cookies so I can keep track of all my authors?’ asked the publicist.
    Nanny Piggins retrieved a handheld radar device from the pocket of her dress. (She had broken the heart of many a European designer by insisting they include pockets in their couture frocks.) She switched it on and a green blip appeared on the screen. ‘That’s him!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘Bramwell is the green blip. Follow me.’
    And so Nanny Piggins followed the blip, the children and the publicist followed Nanny Piggins and the crowd of Bramwell fans followed them all, determined to get their books signed.
    They tracked Bramwell down the road, over a fence (or more accurately through a fence, which hadcollapsed when Bramwell tried to climb it), along a wall, under shrubbery, out onto another road, into a cake shop (with particularly delicious lamingtons) and down an alley, where they reached a dead end.
    ‘Do you think he climbed one of these buildings?’ asked Samantha, looking up at the six-storey walls surrounding them on three sides.
    Nanny Piggins looked at her monitor and the blip clearly moving away from them. ‘No,’ she said. ‘When you have the physique of my brother you never go up when you could go down.’
    They all looked at