Nathalia Buttface and the Embarrassing Camp Catastrophe. Nigel Smith
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look.”
On a shelf by the cookbooks stood a little plastic figure of a man holding his nose.
“You won a Stinker.”
“A prize is a prize,” said Dad proudly. “It makes me a prize-winning joke writer. At least that’s what I tell everyone.”
Nat stamped her foot. “But I still don’t understand why you want to come on our school camping trip.”
“Because the people who lock up the young criminals said that I need to have an Approved for Kids certificate to get the job.”
“Find some other kids,” said Nat. “There are loads of us – every town has them.”
“No time,” said Dad. “Plus the Head at your school knows me because I’ve done plenty of things there before. You know, until you banned me from doing them.”
“Can you blame me, Dad?” said Nat, as the beans pinged in the microwave.
Smoke poured out of the door.
“Everything you do ends in total disaster. You took my class to a boring cathedral and got us chucked out, and that was even before Darius went up on the roof and mooned the whole town. You put on a school quiz night that ended in a riot. You’ve sunk priceless sailing boats. You’ve got me arrested by real police. You’ve blown up houses—”
“Just one house,” corrected Dad. “One tiny house.”
“You’ve electrocuted the world’s most precious ducks, you’ve ruined weddings, you’ve made me a laughing stock all over the Internet, AND you projected massive naked baby pictures of me on a wall at the school disco.”
“I was hoping you might have forgotten that one.”
“How can I forget my bare baby bum, ten feet high on the gym wall at school? I can’t forget it, and neither can the five hundred other people who saw it.”
Dad made that noise which Nat recognised as his ‘trying not to laugh because my daughter will get even crosser’ noise. Which just made her crosser.
“AND you stuck me with the world’s most embarrassing surname,” she said.
“It’s pronounced Bew-mow-lay.”
“It’s spelled B-U-M-O-L-E though, isn’t it? I’m getting married at sixteen just to change it.”
Before Dad could reply, Mum came bustling through the kitchen door, still in her coat and, as ever, texting on her mobile.
“Mum, Dad’s trying to ruin my life again,” said Nat, “and he’s had loads of practice so he’s got ever so good at it.”
“I didn’t know you were home for dinner tonight,” said Dad, trying to hide his rubbish meal.
“Obviously,” Mum said, kissing him fondly on the cheek. She hugged Nat, still texting, and sniffed the beany smoke.
“Bin it. I’m taking you out for Chinese,” she said. “Tell me all about it over crispy duck. I think you’ll find it makes everything better. Even your daft dad.”
“I think we all owe Darius a big thank-you,” said soppy Miss Hunny in class the following week. “The camping trip sounds super brilliant.”
Nat didn’t care how super brilliant it sounded because it still looked like they were going WITH HER DAD, AAAGH.
She looked at Darius sitting next to her. He had bits of stringy snot dangling from each crusty nostril and she really hoped it wasn’t just the one piece of string.
Miss Hunny burbled happily on. She was wearing a sun-yellow cardigan, and the long sleeves dangling over her hands spun round in excited little circles as she waved her arms around enthusiastically.
“We’re going to make camp, and try rock climbing and pony-trekking, go exploring, practise map-reading and do other cool geography stuff.”
“There isn’t any cool geography stuff, Miss,” said Nat, “because geography isn’t cool. It’s the least cool subject there is.”
“Who said that?” said Miss Hunny.
“Mr Keane, the new geography teacher,” giggled Nat. “It was when we asked him why he was crying at his desk last week.”
“He made my homework all soggy,” explained Penny, “and I’d spent hours drawing that unicorn.”
“You really must stop drawing unicorns in every class, Penny,” Miss Hunny scolded gently.
“Even in geography?” said Penny.
Miss Hunny looked at 8H with a mixture of affection and despair. Nat recognised the look: it was the look she often gave Dad.
“We’re also trying to find super-rare fossils,” said Miss Hunny, “and fossils are definitely cool.”
Darius pulled a string from his nose and flicked it at the back of Julia Pryde’s hair. “Nah,” he said, “dinosaurs are cool. Fossils are rocks. And rocks suck.”
“Language, Darius,” said Miss Hunny.
“Do you want this language instead then?” said Darius, unleashing a stream of gibberish.
Except it wasn’t gibberish. Parveen Patel shrieked and turned around in her chair. “Who taught you words like that?” she said angrily.
Darius then entertained the class with even more rude words in even more languages until he was told to sit outside the classroom. His excuse that he’d learned them as geography homework didn’t work.
Miss Hunny kept Nat behind after class.
Uh-oh, thought Nat, I’m in trouble.
“Now, Nathalia, I don’t think Darius wrote that essay on his own, did he?” said Miss Hunny, pulling up her sleeves. Nat shuffled her feet. “For a start, I could read it.”
“I might have helped him a teeny-tiny bit, Miss,” she admitted. She was pleased to FINALLY get the credit, but she was a bit worried she’d been caught cheating.
“I thought so,” said Miss Hunny, “which makes you …”
Here we go, thought Nat, that’s me picking up litter all week.
“… a kind and rather wonderful girl.”
“Not fair, why do I have to pick up litter? I’m fed up of – oh.” She paused. “Come again, Miss?”
“Like me, you see the good and the beautiful in Darius, where others only see naughtiness. Naughtiness, rudeness, untidiness, laziness, lateness, and a worrying fondness for farts, burps, bums, poos and – oh, do stop sniggering, Nathalia.”
“Sorry, Miss. Don’t mean to, Miss.”
“Anyway, I’ve been asked to nominate a team leader for our camping trip. And I was wondering if you—”
“Would be the team leader?” interrupted Nat, eyes shining. “Oh, flipping heck, yes. That’s brilliant, thanks very much. Winner, woo.”
“No, I’m going to ask Darius to be team leader.”
“What?” Nat felt like a spanner.
Miss Hunny smiled gently. “I think the responsibility will help him grow up.”
I think you’re