The Adventures of Nanny Piggins by R. A. Spratt Page A

round of Murder in the Dark that Nanny Piggins and the children were playing had been going on for some time. About forty minutes. It is not that they were particularly good at the game. They had simply forgotten to elect a murderer before they started. An easy mistake to make when you are excited to start a new round and it's two o'clock in the morning. Nevertheless, they were all enormously enjoying sneaking around the pitch-black house not getting murdered. The silence occasionally punctuated by someone crying out 'ow' when they bumped into something, or 'oops' when they knocked something over.
    Finally, at about the forty-minute mark, it did occur to Nanny Piggins that she could not remember drawing cards to see who would be the murderer before they started the game. And when all was said and done, she was the nanny, which meant she had the leadership role. Much as she naturally disliked doing anything selfless, she took it upon herself to become the murderer. So instead of sneaking around the house from one hiding spot to another, she started to sneak around the house looking for one of the children so she could scare the living daylights out of them.
    The problem was that the children were very good at this game. They played it whenever Mr Green went away or if he had eaten turkey for dinner and fallen into a really deep sleep. So Derrick, Samantha and Michael were all very good at avoiding being murdered. Nanny Piggins considered this to be one of the most important life skills. The only downside was the children were very difficult to find when Nanny Piggins wanted to murder them herself.
    She crept around the house listening for breathing, chocolate eating, breaking porcelain or any of the other peculiar little noises children make. But the children must have been breathing exceptionally quietly because Nanny Piggins could hear nothing above the tick of the clock and the whirr of the VCR. (Which had been set to record a gory horror film, in case the children got tired and thought they wanted to go to bed. It was the type of film that was guaranteed to make them incapable of sleep for days.)
    This is when the jiggling started. At first it was very quiet and tentative. But then the jiggling became louder and continuous. One of the children was being noisy. Nanny Piggins could not imagine what they were doing. Perhaps disassembling the toaster or trying to slide coins out of a moneybox with a knife. Nanny Piggins kept moving towards the noise. It was coming from somewhere near the front door. Nanny Piggins crept closer, staying near the wall because the floorboards were less likely to creak there. (It is important in Murder in the Dark that your victim does not know you are coming. That way they scream a lot louder and it impresses the other players.)
    As she got near the front door, the jiggling gave one last final jiggle then stopped. Nanny Piggins stopped too and listened to hear what her victim would do next. She heard the doorknob turn and the door open. None of the children had ever dared go outside before in a game of Murder in the Dark. She had to give them bonus points for initiative. But, in this instance, because she was the murderer, she was not about to let them get away with it. Nanny Piggins hurled herself forward, leaping high into the air in the general direction of the doorway. She met with instant success. Nanny Piggins soon found herself slamming into someone's chest, head and shoulders, then falling with them to the floor.
    'You're murdered!' she whispered conspiratorially in her victim's ear.
    'Aaaaaagh!!' screamed her victim. Just as a good victim should when playing Murder in the Dark.
    Nanny Piggins immediately sprang back to pretend that the murderer was not necessarily her, although she was not able to hide the smug grin on her face.
    The lights flicked on throughout the house as Derrick, Samantha and Michael emerged from their various hiding places in different rooms and raced towards the