Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice by R. A. Spratt

Author:R. A. Spratt [Spratt, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742744445
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2011-04-10T07:00:00+00:00

So that afternoon Nanny Piggins went home and wrote out her job application. It was a note written in lipstick saying:

Dear School,

Please give me the job of bus driver. I know I will be better than anyone else, because I usually am at most things.

Fond Regards,

Nanny Piggins F.P. (Flying Pig)

Luckily for Nanny Piggins, Headmaster Pimplestock was not in charge of hiring the new bus driver. There was a P&C hiring committee whose job it was to draw up a shortlist of candidates. Headmaster Pimplestock used to have full responsibility for hiring staff, but that was taken away from him when, over a 17-year period, he had only hired men (and very boring men who did not use enough deodorant).

Headmaster Pimplestock did go to the committee and beg them not to put Nanny Piggins on their shortlist, on the grounds that she was a raving psychopath who had burnt the school canteen down, blasted a hole in the library roof and bitten him on the shins several times.

But Nanny Piggins was a woman, and there were too few of them on staff. (Also, she annoyed Headmaster Pimplestock, which secretly delighted the committee.) So they overruled Headmaster Pimplestock and put Nanny Piggins on the list.

It was decided that the best way to choose a school bus driver was to hold a bus driving test. The three shortlisted candidates were summoned to the school parking lot, where they would have to navigate an obstacle course designed to test their reflexes, concentration and driving skill.

Aside from Nanny Piggins, the candidates were Mrs Thompson, the library assistant (after twenty years of waiting for the senior librarian to die so she could get a promotion, Mrs Thompson had decided the only way to further her career was to get away from books) and a neat, efficient middle-aged lady called Miss George, who actually had experience, having once been on a bus when the driver had been stung by a bee and gone into anaphylactic shock, so she’d had to commandeer the bus to drive him to the hospital.

‘What do you think your chances are?’ Derrick asked Nanny Piggins.

‘Well I’m pretty sure I can beat Mrs Thompson, because I know for a fact she forgot her glasses, but being so timid and shy she won’t have the courage to tell anyone,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘But surely she won’t drive the bus if she can’t see,’ protested Samantha.

‘I think she will,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That is the extraordinary thing about shy people. They will often perform acts of supreme bravery and confidence just to get out of doing something that requires bravery and confidence.’

‘What about Miss George?’ asked Michael. ‘She seems nice.’

‘I know,’ agreed Nanny Piggins, ‘and having actually driven a bus before could give her an advantage.’

‘All right, ladies,’ called Headmaster Pimplestock. ‘You will each take it in turn to drive around this obstacle course. You get 100 points if you make it around the course in less than 60 seconds. But you lose points for hitting orange cones or life-sized cardboard cut-outs of teaching staff or students.

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