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

outside the tent and found the seventeenth person in the queue. And indeed there was a lonely young woman with a secret desire to wear a frilly gypsy dress and rhythmically stamp her feet, standing right there.
    She told Hans the Baker that he would find his television remote control if he looked in his freezer. And it was true. (His wife, Princess Annabelle, had put it there to punish him for leaving a very dirty ring around the bathtub. Now you have to understand, Hans and Annabelle had a very loving, happy marriage. And she was a broad-minded princess who did not mind a bit of dirt. But in this instance the dirt was in fact a caramel stain, where Hans had secretly been eating the leftover caramel éclairs from the shop without her. This was a sin that could not go unpunished.)
    And she told Headmaster Pimplestock he would have a very boring life punctuated only by encounters with a glamorous and beautiful pig (which, admittedly, any one of the children could have predicted).
    In just five days she had raked in $20,001.09.
    ‘Look at all this lovely money,’ said Nanny Piggins, heroically resisting the urge to roll in it.
    ‘Now you can repay the museum,’ said Samantha happily. She hated trouble in all its forms. It weighed heavily on her that Nanny Piggins was banned for life from the Transport Museum, even though Nanny Piggins was not bothered at all. (She actually cheered and threw her hat in the air when she found out.)
    ‘Yes, I suppose I have to,’ conceded Nanny Piggins reluctantly. The curator at the Transport Museum seemed particularly unworthy of large amounts of cash money. But when she thought of the poor broken cake stand, Nanny Piggins got a lump in her throat. ‘We’ll take it straight there this afternoon. But the fortune-telling business is going so well. There’s nothing to stop us making our own $20,000 next week.’
    ‘I suppose not,’ admitted Samantha. ‘It would be nice to have such a large amount of pocket money.
    ‘You could even tell fortunes for two weeks and make $40,000,’ said Derrick.
    ‘Or three weeks and earn $60,000,’ saidMichael.
    ‘What a good idea,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘We could have a lot of fun with $60,000. We could travel the world trying exotic foreign cakes and learning new and exciting ice-cream recipes.’
    ‘And build a monster robot that crushes cars,’ said Michael.
    ‘Oh yes, obviously that too,’ agreed Nanny Piggins.
    But their planning session was, at that very moment, interrupted when the lights in the tent flickered on and off, smoke billowed in under the entry flap, strange eastern music filled the air and a doorbell rang.
    ‘What’s going on?’ asked Derrick.
    ‘And why is there smoke in here?’ asked Samantha.
    ‘And who installed a doorbell in the tent?’ asked Michael.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I know of only one woman who uses such elaborate special effects before making her entrance. I think I am in trouble.’
    ‘Not again,’ sighed Samantha.
    ‘Derrick, you had better open the front flap of the tent, and if you find a beautiful and exoticAfrican sorceress there, do let her in,’ said Nanny Piggins as she picked up a plate of chocolate, ready to welcome her guest. ‘Children, prepare yourselves. You are about to meet a real fortune teller, the one from the circus.’
    A moment later a beautiful and exotic sorceress glided into the tent. (Nanny Piggins’ predicting ability extended to knowing who was at the door.)
    ‘Hello Madame Zandra, so good to see you,’ said Nanny Piggins politely.
    ‘Sarah Piggins,’ boomed Madame Zandra in her beautiful resonant voice. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’
    ‘Oh, I am,’ Nanny Piggins assured her.
    ‘Those with the gift of fortune telling have a responsibility to uphold the rules of mystical power,’ said Madame Zandra sternly. ‘When I taught you my secrets you promised to abide by these rules.’
    ‘Sorry, I forgot. I must have had too little chocolate that