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times it no longer needed mowing.)
    On this particular morning their mission was to protect The Lost Treasure of Brown Gold (a large supply of chocolate Nanny Piggins had brought along for their mid-morning snack) from the rampaging attack of General Cowardy Custard (who was, for the purposes of the exercise, being played by a particularly savage-looking begonia bush).
    As such, they were so engrossed in their military planning that they did not notice when three black SUVs pulled up and a team of men in grey suits got out. If Nanny Piggins had noticed them she certainly would have found them intriguing, because they seemed to be talking to each other via their sleeve cuffs, usually something only super-spies in movies did.
    When one of the men stepped forward and yelled into a bullhorn, ‘Sarah Matahari Lorelai Piggins, come out and give yourself up!’ Nanny Piggins assumed it was just one of the parents getting involved in the fun. So naturally she threw a bucket of dirt at him and said, ‘If you take one step nearer I’ll scalp you!’
    The men were not sure what to do. They had been trained to take threats of terrorism seriously, but it was hard to take them seriously when they came from a petite pig wearing a lovely pink dress and matching bolero jacket. However, like Nanny Piggins, they enjoyed a little bit of violence, so on balance they decided to charge the play equipment, much to the delight of the children who had a wonderful time keeping them at bay by throwing water balloons and fending them off with sticks. (Nanny Piggins had taught the children the ancientart of Kendo only the previous weekend, so they were all very handy with a stick.)
    After half an hour of struggle the men eventually retreated to the safety of the park’s gazebo, to treat their wounds and revise their strategy. This gave Nanny Piggins and the children a wonderful opportunity to hide The Lost Treasure of Brown Gold – in their stomachs.
    The men in the gazebo had a long and animated discussion (with much finger pointing and some weeping), then one of them went back to his SUV, opened the door and pulled out a timid-looking man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a white lab coat. The suited man handed him the bullhorn and marched him over to the play equipment.
    ‘Er, um, Sarah Piggins?’ said the timid man into the bullhorn.
    ‘Are you ready to surrender?’ demanded Nanny Piggins.
    ‘No, um, I think there’s been a little misunderstanding,’ said the timid man. ‘We’re not here to play.’
    ‘Well then, you’re a fool,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘because we’re having a jolly good game.’
    ‘It’s me, Peter, from the circus,’ said the timid man.
    ‘Peter?’ said Nanny Piggins, whipping out her binoculars for a closer look. ‘My cannon assistant! How wonderful to see you. Who do you fire out of cannons these days?’
    ‘I don’t do that anymore,’ admitted Peter. ‘I got a proper job.’
    ‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘What a shame! You had such a talent for gunpowder.’
    ‘I got a job at NASA,’ explained Peter.
    ‘The Naughty Association for Sneaky Acrobats?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
    ‘No,’ said Peter.
    ‘Good,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You don’t want to fall in with them. They never pick up their share of a restaurant bill.’
    ‘I work on the space program,’ continued Peter. ‘I help launch the space shuttle. At least I would if I could. For some reason we can’t get it to take-off. We’ve tried everything – recalibrating the computers, dismantling the engines, rewiring the electrical system …’
    ‘Did you try kicking it and pressing the “go” button lots of times?’ asked Nanny Piggins.
    ‘Yes, that too,’ said Peter. ‘The greatest aeronautical engineers in the world have been working on it, but with no luck. That’s why I’m here. I told myboss, “No-one knows more about being blasted than Sarah Piggins, the world’s greatest flying pig.”’
    ‘It’s true,’ agreed