‘Rapunzel Bacon-Hair’ as told by Nanny Piggins

Nanny Piggins was a great believer in literacy. It was important to be good at reading, so you could be good at reading recipes, so you could be good at making cake. Because there was no more important skill than making cake . . . except perhaps eating cake. That was quite an art in its own right.

Nanny Piggins believed so firmly in these principles she read to the Green children – Derrick, Samantha and Michael – every night. Sometimes she read fairy tales, sometimes adventure novels, sometimes recipe books and sometimes, when they wanted a really shockingly good story, she read to them from her own journal. But on this particular occasion, Nanny Piggins could not read to the children at all.

You see, during the course of the day she had suffered a terrible baking accident. She had made a chocolate souffle so good – it was irresistible! The second it came out of the oven she lunged face first at it, trying to gobble it up as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the oven had been set to 180 degrees Centigrade, which meant that the cake was 180 degrees Centigrade, which meant that the cake crumbs she got in her eyes were 180 degrees Centigrade. Which meant that she had had to spend the afternoon at the ophthalmic surgeon’s having them cleaned and bandaged.

The children were naturally alarmed to have their beloved Nanny blinded by her own cake, but Nanny Piggins wasn’t worried at all. Consuming an entire chocolate souffle does give the eater such a sugar rush that a devil-may-care attitude is sure to follow. The only problem was, now she couldn’t read the children a bedtime story.

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