Nigel Smith - Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Five Minutes of Fame Ever

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015

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Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Five Minutes of Fame Ever

Text copyright © Nigel Smith, 2015

Illustrations copyright © Sarah Horne, 2015

Cover art © Sarah Horne, 2015

Nigel Smith and Sarah Horne assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007545254

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007545261

Version: 2015-06-05

To Carole, because without her I’d just be an embarrassing dad without a book.

And thank you to Nicola, because without her I wouldn’t have a title for this book. Which would be embarrassing.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication To Carole, because without her I’d just be an embarrassing dad without a book. And thank you to Nicola, because without her I wouldn’t have a title for this book. Which would be embarrassing.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

RE YOU SURE NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO see this video?” asked Penny Posnitch doubtfully.

“I’m not an idiot,” said Nat. “I’m not my dad.”

“Will you hurry up? My arms are getting tired,” complained Darius.

“Just hold the camera straight and press the record button when I tell you,” snapped Nat.

The three of them were in Nat’s back garden. It was a lovely warm afternoon at the end of the school holidays. The sun was shining, the flowers were out, Dad was upstairs trying to write Christmas cracker jokes and shouting rude words at his laptop, and the three friends were making a dance video.

The dance video was going very badly.

And so was Dad’s joke writing; every so often they would hear him yell: “Oh heck, that’s not funny. I’m doomed …”

“I wonder if he needs a hand,” said Darius, putting the camera down. “I’ve got a great joke about a monkey who needs to go to the toilet.”

“The ‘monkey who needs to go to the toilet’ joke is not a joke anyone wants in their cracker while they’re eating their Christmas pudding,” said Nat. “Can we please do our dance video?”

“I want to hear the monkey joke,” said Penny.

Nat started hopping up and down. “I’ve been trying to make this video all morning,” she shouted. “Will you both CONCENTRATE.”

“I only came round to show Nathalia the new Dinky Blue, Girl Guru episode online,” grumbled Penny. “And now I’ve been roped into this.”

“She’s rubbish,” said Darius, making sick noises. “You should watch Doom Ninja Pete instead. He blew up a pig last week.”

“That’s disgusting,” said Penny, who was an animal lover.

Darius started doing his impression of a pig blowing up in slow motion, until Nat ran over and started throttling him.

“Pick-up-the-camera-and-film-us-doing-the-dance …”

“OK,” he squawked.

“Play the song on the phone, Penny.”

“I can’t remember the dance move after the song goes: ‘Baby baby oooh baby’,” said Penny.

“Which ‘Baby baby oooh baby’?” asked Nat. “She sings ‘Baby baby oooh baby’ about a ZILLION times. The song is CALLED ‘Baby baby oooh baby’.”

“Er – the first time,” said Penny.

“That’s the START of the song,” shouted Nat in frustration. “I’ve shown you the moves about a thousand million billion times at least and I’m not even exaggerating. What is the matter with you? It’s step left, arms cross, turn, arms up, bend, slide and wiggle. Got it?”

“You’re not a very good dance teacher,” said Penny sulkily. “You’re always shouting.”

“That’s how good dance teachers teach dance,” shouted Nat.

“Do you want me to film this bit?” asked Darius, filming that bit.

“Of course I don’t want you to film this bit; stop filming this bit,” said Nat.

“When I saw Flora Marling’s dance video there was no one shouting,” grumbled Penny.

“That’s because Flora Marling is flipping perfect, we all know that,” said Nat. “So this dance video has to be better than perfect.”

“You can’t be better than perfect,” corrected Darius, who was filming with one hand while picking his nose with the other.

“I’m not doing anything while he’s doing THAT,” said Penny, pulling a face.

Eventually Nat got Penny to concentrate and Darius to wash his hands and after a few more shouty rehearsals, she and Penny were doing the dance.