Nigel Smith - Nathalia Buttface and the Embarrassing Camp Catastrophe

“Nah,” said Darius, “better than that. I put this picture on it.”

He showed Penny a picture. She shrieked.

“And I can make that bit wiggle,” cackled Darius, chewing a toffee.

Penny peeped. “OK, now that’s funny,” she said.

“How about a singsong?” said Dad, standing up in the middle of the coach, holding his ukulele.

Nat threw Darius’s toffees at him. “Go away, sit down, shush. No one wants to sing,” she said.

“It is a bit early,” said Miss Hunny from the front seat. “At least wait until we get there.”

“Where we can hide in our tents,” sniggered Miss Austen.

“With earplugs in,” sniggered Miss Eyre.

Nat didn’t know why Misses Austen and Eyre had volunteered to come, as they were the laziest teachers in the school and she couldn’t imagine either of them rock climbing.

She grinned. She suddenly DID imagine them rock climbing. They were dangling in mid-air just as she pushed a massive boulder over the cliff …

PLINKY PLINK PLINK , went Dad on his stupid useless instrument.

“ Oh, we’re off on a coach and it isn’t very quick, but two of the class are already travel-sick … ” he sang.

“Join in on the chorus, kids,” he said.

“Dad, we haven’t got out of the one-way system yet and you’re already showing me up,” said Nat, jumping up and snatching his ukulele. “And you promised you wouldn’t.”

“I just want to make a good impression, for my certificate,” whispered Dad, sitting down on the back seat. “Budge up.”

He pointed to a man Nat didn’t recognise, sitting up by the coach driver. “That’s the organiser, Mr Dewdrop, from the Nice ’N’ Neat Countryside Alliance. It’s their essay competition that Darius won—”

“That I won.”

“Oh yes, whatever. But anyway, Mr Dewdrop is going to do a report on me this week. He’ll judge me to see if I can get my Approved for Kids certificate. Should be easy. Kids love me; I’m totally down with them. I watch all the soaps they like and I can rap and everything.”

“Please stop talking,” said Nat.

“It’ll be me getting top marks, obvs.”

Dad plunked a few notes on his tiny little guitar.

“Although, just to be on the totally safe side, it would be great if you and your friends could tell Mr Dewdrop just how utterly brilliant you all think I am. All the time, every day, as often and as loudly as possible.”

Nat groaned. It was so unfair. Not only was she expected to put up with her mega-embarrassing dad all week, but she was also supposed to say he was great! She wouldn’t do it.

BUT another thought struck her. If Dad did well on this trip and then got his certificate, he could finally get a proper job and be out of her hair …

Dad pottered back to his seat at the front, trying to high-five the children as he went past. No one high-fived him back, so he pretended he was waving to passers-by outside. Someone outside waved back. Not nicely.

Nat cringed. It was going to be SO hard …

After a few hours, they were driving through yet another small soggy village, glistening and grey in the rain. Nat and Penny were sharing headphones, listening to Princess Boo’s new album, and Darius was working on verse 768 of his epic poo poem, “Diarrhoea”.

He kept pulling out Nat’s earpiece, asking her to suggest rhymes for words like “squelchy” or “explode”.

She was grateful for the interruption when Mr Dewdrop came and sat nervously by Darius.

Mr Dewdrop was a young man, very thin and pale, with ash-brown frizzy hair. He reminded Nat of a sickly reed, struggling for life in a marsh. He had encouraged a straggly moustache to cover up some of his red spots.

“Mr Bagley?” he said.

Darius looked around.

“He means you, idiot,” said Nat.

“What?” Darius said dangerously. He didn’t like strangers. He started shaking a can of fizzy pop and flicking at the ring pull as if to open it. It made Nat think of a rattlesnake shaking its tail, just as a casual warning.

“He doesn’t like people sitting too close,” said Nat, trying to be helpful, “although he probably won’t bite.”

Mr Dewdrop backed away and nervously checked a form he was carrying.

“Are you the Darius Bagley who wrote the prize-winning essay?” the young man said. “Or is there perhaps another Darius Bagley?” He sounded hopeful.

“That’s him,” said Penny, who was drawing fairies on a big sketch pad. “Have fun. And actually, Nathalia, he DOES bite.”

“We’re all very impressed with your hilarious essay,” said Mr Dewdrop quickly. His voice was sometimes high and trembly, sometimes deep and croaky, like a frog playing a flute. Darius just stared. Mr Dewdrop ploughed on.“We’d like to give you free tickets to our new garden centre, in Lower Totley Village. You can get a half-price cream tea too. Yum.”

Nat sniggered. She wasn’t jealous of THAT rubbish prize. Darius looked at Mr Dewdrop blankly.

The young man coughed. “Right. And I hear you’re team leader. So that means you get to stay in one of our luxury log cabins, with outdoor plunge pool and indoor table football.”

“Get in!” yelled Darius, jumping up.

“Where do WE stay?” said Nat, who was suddenly jealous. Darius was making a big loser ‘L’ on his forehead at her.

“The rest of you will be in our cosy eco-yurts, made from natural – well, let’s just say it’s very natural. Don’t worry about the goaty smell – you soon get used to it.”

Darius burst out laughing, which lasted all the way to the next village, when Nat pinched him into silence.

“I looked up ‘yurt’,” said Penny. “I think it’s like a tent, but not quite as good.”

Flipping luxury log cabins for the flipping team leader , thought Nat, as the coach wound its tedious way through the wet roads. Table football? Plunge pool? So not fair.

She stewed for a while, and then finally snapped at Darius, “How come you get a luxury log cabin and we have to live in rubbish tents made of recycled goat bum?”

“Stop moaning. You get to bring your dad.”

Nat always forgot that Darius actually thought Dad was great. She had NO IDEA why.

“We’re here,” shouted Miss Hunny, before Nat could carry on her row.

The coach stopped dead with a squeal of old brakes.

Nat looked out of the window and just saw trees, dripping with rain. In the distance she thought she could see a sliver of grey sea.

“You might wanna put your macs on. There’s a very light drizzle,” shouted Dad, “or possibly only a sea mist.”

The rain thrashed down harder. No one wanted to get out.

“It’s a good job I’M here to keep everyone’s spirits up,” said Dad.

He was met with a stony silence.

Mr Dewdrop made a note in a little black notebook he had stuck to a clipboard.

Their depressed geography teacher, Mr Keane, stood up. “The even better news is that there’s hail mixed in with the rain. That’s unusual for this time of year. Perhaps it’s global warming. We could go out and study it. Won’t that be fun?”

If silence could get even stonier, that’s what it got.

“No, I don’t blame you. Geography’s terrible. I wanted to be a vet when I was your age, but I didn’t pass the exams,” said Mr Keane, sitting down and putting his head in his hands. “Why didn’t I work harder at school?” he cried.

No one quite knew what to say.

Finally, Miss Austen took charge. “Come on, children,” she said bossily. “Last one off the coach is a Bagley.”

“Hey,” said Darius, as the stampede for the exit started.

They all ran helter-skelter from the coach towards the shelter of a large wooden hut in the middle of a clearing in the forest. Through the rain, from under her plastic hood, Nat could make out a sign reading: