by Nigel Smith
“Nope,” said Darius, grabbing a bottle of ketchup and squirting it into his mouth. Some dribbled out of his nose. He reached it with his tongue.
“I feel sick too,” said another St Scrofula’s girl, “truly bilious.”
“Truly bilious?” said Nat. “Is that your name?”
The girl burst into tears and left. Now there was no one sitting opposite them.
“Stop fanning the pan, you’ll make it worse,” said Miss Austen to Dad. “Don’t you know anything?”
“Let me tell you how I slept,” said Nat. “First, I had a hundred rocks digging into my bum all night. Then the yurt was so draughty I got a chill down my side, which is now nearly paralysed and I’m not even joking. Penny snores like a big fat goat. And when it rained in the night, the rain dripped straight on to my face and I had to make Penny hold a bucket up to catch it.”
“For an hour,” grumbled Penny quietly.
“I said we’d take turns,” snapped Nat, thinking, If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.
“And it sounds so weird out here,” continued Nat. “There’s no traffic, or car alarms, or people shouting rude things at each other as they come out of the Red Lion. I don’t like it.”
Darius just shrugged.
“AAAAHHHHH. No one panic, it’s only a small fire,” yelled Dad in panic, running around in circles, holding a flaming frying pan.
A few sensible kids – and Penny – ran off.
Nat was used to Dad’s cookery accidents so stayed put. Darius stayed put because he liked fires. And he also liked finishing other people’s breakfasts.
“So I’m giving you one last, final, ultimate chance to clear out of that chalet and let me have it,” said Nat. “You know I deserve it.”
“Nope.”
Nat jabbed him furiously with a beany fork.
“I’ll get you, Bagley,” she said.
“Try it, Buttface.”
“Jab him harder,” said Rufus, who was watching their argument from a distance.
Darius frowned at him and Rufus scuttled off.
Behind them, there was smoky cooking chaos. Dad was still running around like a headless chicken, while Miss Austen and Miss Hunny were arguing about how to put the fire out.
“Water makes oil fires worse,” yelled Miss Hunny. “Throw a damp towel over it!”
Miss Austen hit Dad full in the face with a wet tea towel.
“I meant the pan,” said Miss Hunny.
“I know, I just couldn’t resist hitting him,” said Miss Austen.
“Don’t tell Mr Dewdrop,” shouted Dad, running outside. “He takes a dim view of helpers who set fire to things, even ones who are down with the kids like me.”
Darius and Nat started laughing and, as she stood up, something fell out of her pocket. It glittered temptingly on the table.
“What’s that?” said Darius, as Nat snatched it up.
“It’s gold,” she said craftily, “and you can have it if you give me your cabin.”
Darius examined it. “Pyrite,” he said. “It’s rubbish.”
“How do you KNOW this stuff?” shouted Nat in frustration. “It’s flipping impossible. First off, you’re a massive chimp at the bottom of the class. And anyway, you spend all your time sitting OUTSIDE the class or hanging upside down in cupboards. And I’ve been to your house and I know your brother Oswald doesn’t have a secret collection of books. Or even a book.”
“You gonna finish your egg?” said Darius.
Nat swiftly grabbed the egg and put it neatly down the back of his shirt. Then squished it in, for good measure.
Outside, she saw Rufus hanging around, as if he was waiting for her.
She was about to tell him to get lost, and exactly where he could put his snooty school, but he just smiled shyly at her and said, “I don’t know why you’re friends with IT.”
Before she could think of what to say, Darius shuffled out behind her, licking bits of squished egg off his fingers.
Rufus scarpered.
Darius burped the alphabet in her ear as they headed for the eco classrooms.
Gross, thought Nat. I bet Rufus doesn’t do that.
The children were led to a big classroom and told how the week would go.
Mornings would be spent working on geography topics intended to “inspire the project leaders to come up with their project”.
That’s me, thought Nat glumly, feeling less than inspired. Pretty uninspired, to be honest.
In the afternoons they would do “fun, exciting and ‘bonding’ camp activities”.
And somewhere in all this excitement, Nat was supposed to put together a big project to show the whole flipping town just how brilliant her school was.
So this week is rank, thought Nat.
Mr Keane was giving the first lesson. He looked even more miserable than usual. He was dark-eyed and unshaven, his tie was stained with bean juice and was hanging off his neck like a limp rag, and he’d put his suit jacket on inside out. He shook a little as he faced his large class.
Outside, a crow squawked and Mr Keane jumped like he’d been shot.
“The great outdoors makes me nervous,” said the geography teacher, taking a swig from a flask. “Plus I’m allergic to grass, nettles, bees, feathers, horses, wheat, flowers, soil and the common toad.”
“I hope that’s only tea in there, Mr Keane,” said Miss Austen sternly, “and nothing stronger.”
Mr Keane then had a sneezing fit, spraying the first two rows of kids.
“Can you spell ‘unprofessional’?” sniggered Dr Nobel to Miss Slippy, standing at the side of the class.
“You can, but he can’t!” said Miss Austen, which Nat thought was pretty disloyal.
Mr Bungee wandered in and asked if he could watch.
“Looking forward to learning something,” he said.
Nat was suspicious that he’d just come for a good laugh.
Eventually Mr Keane recovered himself and began his talk.
“Do you know that things that are long buried beneath our feet are really interesting?” he said, trying to sound positive. “So who can name something super cool you find underground?”
“Goblins,” shouted Darius.
“No. Something real.”
“Corpses,” said Darius.
“No. Well, yes, but no—”
“The London Underground.”
“Shut up, Darius,” said Mr Keane. “Nathalia.”
“I can’t think of anything. Especially and definitely not gold,” said Nat, still irritated she hadn’t been able to fool Darius.
Mr Keane shook his head. “Somebody sensible. Penny?”
“Sensible?” joked Nat.
Penny looked hurt. “Atlantis?” she said eventually.
“Give me strength,” said Mr Keane. “You, Marcus Milligan.”
“Er, bananas?” said Marcus.
“Where do you FIND these children?” said Dr Nobel, not very quietly.
“I blame the teachers,” said Miss Slippy.
“Well said,” said Dad.
Miss Hunny shot him a dark look.
“Not you, Dolores,” said Dad. “But the rest of them are pretty hopeless.”
Everyone laughed.
Except Nat, who cringed.
And Misses Eyre and Austen, who shot Dad a look of pure hatred.
“FOSSILS!” shouted Mr Keane. “The most exciting thing in the ground ever is fossils.”
With effort, he drew himself up to his full height. He was taller than he usually looked.
“AND I HAVE ONE! Who wants to see?” he said.
There was a ripple of excitement.
“Is it a T. rex skull?” said Nat.
“Or a stegosaurus plate?” said Julia Pryde, who liked using big words.
“Or even an archaeopteryx feather?” said Plum, who knew bigger ones.
Mr Keane looked faintly embarrassed. He placed something on the desk in front of him. It was a grey stone with some
thing lumpy in it.
“It’s an ammonite. A sort of seashell.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then everyone started laughing at him.
“You’re all so mean,” Mr Keane said. “Stop laughing at my tiny fossil.”
“A seashell?” sneered Mr Bungee, leaning against a back wall and picking his teeth with what looked like a miniature dagger. “I hate to tell you this, mate, but there’s bucketloads of shells on the beach!”
“He’s SO funny,” simpered Miss Austen to Miss Eyre, “and most men with muscles that big aren’t.”
“Is that the best fossil you’ve got?” said Mr Bungee.
Dr Nobel puffed himself up. “At St Scrofula’s we’ve got the head of a velociraptor.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got the head of a baboon’s bum. Your face,” said Darius.
Five seconds later, Darius was awarded his first detention of the week.
Mr Keane was looking even more unhappy as he played with his rubbish little fossil. Nat felt embarrassed for him.
“I found this myself,” muttered Mr Keane. “I thought you’d like it.”
“It’s not very inspiring,” said Miss Slippy, sounding irritated. “How can you get the children interested in learning if you don’t inspire them?”
“She’s got a point,” said Dad, who was talking to Mr Dewdrop. “That’s why I put ‘inspiring kids’ first on the big long list of my great qualities.”
“Whose side are you on, Ivor?” snapped Miss Hunny.
Nat put her head in her hands.
“It took me a week to find it,” Mr Keane continued pathetically. “I was only twelve. I was on holiday with my mum and she thought it was brilliant. She wrote to the local paper and everything.”
More howls of laughter.
Nat wanted to shout, “SHUT UP, YOU UTTER SPANNER. YOU’RE MAKING IT WORSE.”
“He makes our school look even more rubbish than it is,” Nat said to Penny, who was too busy drawing a picture of Atlantis on the desk to even notice.
After a while, the children stopped making fun of Mr Keane long enough for him to carry on.
“I’m actually glad you think this is a useless fossil,” he said in a not very convincing tone, “because I thought this week you might try to dig up a better one, right here. Lower Snotley – I mean, Lower Totley – is TEEMING with fossils. Anyone fancy that?”
No one fancied that.
He droned on for ages about Precambrian Age this and post-Jurassic Period that, and no one paid any attention. The kids started talking amongst themselves, louder and louder, until Mr Bungee pushed Mr Keane out of the way and slammed a meaty fist on the desk.
The noise shut everyone up.
“Listen up, kids!” he said. “Lemme tell you about fossils.”
The children stopped chatting and listened up.
Mr Bungee held up the thing that looked like a dagger that he’d had hanging round his neck. “This,” he said, “is a fossilised tooth. It’s seventy million years old but it could still rip your face off.”
Now the kids were very interested indeed.
“I found this tooth five years ago, high up on the cliffs by the beach. I had to hang upside down while a mate held my toes. I chipped it out of the rock face with an axe I made myself from the bones of another fossil. They reckon it’s from a brand-new dinosaur. They’re calling it the Bungee-saurus.”
He paused. Everyone hung off his every word.
“Anyone finding a new dinosaur fossil gets to name the dinosaur,” he explained. “How great is that?”
“Can we look for a fossil this week?” said Marcus Milligan.
“Sure you can,” said Mr Bungee smugly.
A ripple of excitement went through the children as they huddled together.
“There you go, mate,” said Mr Bungee to Mr Keane. “They’re all yours.”
“That’s what I was trying to say,” complained Mr Keane, “but no one was listening to me.”
“THAT’s how you inspire kids,” said Dad, “and that’s how I do it too.”
He took Mr Keane to one side. “It’s OK,” Dad said kindly, but rather too loudly for Nat’s liking, “you just need more stage presence.”
Nat shuddered.
“I could teach you if you like,” continued Dad. “I’m a bit of an entertainer. Kids love me.”
A paper aeroplane whizzed through the air and got stuck in his ear.
“Ow, that’s right in my eardrum,” said Dad, hopping about and making a total spectacle of himself.
Nat started sliding under the desk.
“I’m interacting with the kids,” Dad added to Mr Dewdrop. “I’m totally down with them. I like their banging tunes too.”
“Your dad always makes me laugh. You’re so lucky to have him around to cheer you up all the time,” said a gentle voice in Nat’s ear.
It had the musical quality of silver bells tinkling or water bubbling over rocks. Flora Marling was SITTING NEXT TO HER!
“Blurble,” said Nat.
“You’re so right.” Flora smiled. “Gosh, I bet one of those St Scrofula’s kids finds a new fossil. They’ll be on the TV news and everything. Can you imagine how HIDEOUS they’ll be afterwards?”
“Flurble,” said Nat.
“Yes, I agree,” said Flora, “it would be nice if we found one first. We just need to work together and focus.”
“I’ve drawn Atlantis,” said Penny.
“Wanna hear me burp the national anthem?” said Darius, popping up from under the desk.
“Wurble,” said Nat.
“Always nice talking to you,” said Flora, floating off.
Nat looked around the classroom. The St Scrofula’s teachers and kids were already drawing up ideas for their project, as if it was a military campaign. She saw Mr Bungee take a look at their notes and whisper something in their ears. Was he HELPING THEM?
He saw her looking and moved away.
Ooh, caught you, she thought.
Everyone from her school – including the teachers – was wandering about, chatting and looking utterly gormless.
She saw Dad hovering, torn between the two schools. She knew what he was thinking. He was thinking his little girl should be sitting with the super-shiny, super-keen kids, not the ORDINARY kids.
But if I ended up at St Scrofula’s it would be ACTUALLY PROPERLY IMPOSSIBLE to make friends, thought Nat. Unless I do something, I’m in BIG trouble.
The two schools spent the rest of the morning working on their projects.
Both schools started with the fossil idea. From what Nat could see, the swotty St Scrofula’s project would include aerial photos, writing a computer program, gathering soil samples and online research. It was all on PowerPoint.
After three hours, the 8H Let’s Find a Fossil Project was a big bit of paper with three words on it:
We need a better project, Nat realised. And soooon.
“What have you lot done?” Nat asked Plum, as they left the classroom.
Plum looked at her as if she was an insect making an unscheduled appearance in her bowl of breakfast cereal.
“I’d love to share, but we are in a competition,” Plum said, “and I’m not asking what you’ve done.”
“Thanks,” said Nat.
“You’re welcome,” said Plum, smirking.
After a ghastly lunch of fish-paste sandwiches and healthy snack bars that tasted of dust, both classes were herded into minibuses and driven deep into a nearby forest for today’s outdoor activity: Mr Bungee’s Survival Skills Class.
In the forest, iron-grey clouds hung above them, heavy with rain. A light drizzle fell.
Everyone assembled around Mr Bungee, but Nat saw Mr Keane, still sitting in their minibus, miserable and alone. He was writing something in the grime on the windows. It read:
It took her a minute to work out it was written backwards.
“Team leaders, gather round, let’s do-o-oooh it!” yelled Mr B.
“Th
at’s you, team leader moron,” hissed Nat to Darius, as Rufus walked over to the big New Zealander.
Darius wasn’t paying attention; he was too busy inscribing a picture in the grass with a sharp stick.
“Finish it off for me,” he said, handing Nat the stick and walking off.
Nat squinted at the picture. She couldn’t work out what it was at first.
Then she realised.
Ew.
“NATHALIA BUMOLÉ, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” screeched Miss Austen, grabbing the stick off her and pointing at the drawing. “You revolting child. Scrub it out, and you can be on washing-up duty for the next two nights. Perhaps all that soapy water will wash out your dirty little mind.”
I’m SO gonna get you, thought Nat, watching Darius trot over to join the other leaders.
“What are YOU doing?” said Mr Bungee, as Dad joined them.
“I’m a natural-born leader,” said Dad cheerfully, “so I assumed you’d want me.” Dad smiled at Mr Dewdrop, who was writing on the clipboard.
“Go away,” said shiny-headed Dr Nobel. “You’ll give your school an unfair advantage.”
“I think he’s more of a handicap,” sniggered Miss Eyre.
Nat flushed red.
“Why is everything a competition?” said Dad. “Isn’t it better if we work together?”
“NO!” yelled Mr Bungee. “What’s the matter? Don’t like a bit of competition, eh?”
“Do your best,” said Dad to Darius. “You’ll probably lose, but remember: it’s only a bit of fun.”
“Yeah, said the losers,” mocked Mr Bungee.
Nat’s heart sank. Dad had already written her school off. This was terrible.
Well, she thought, we’ll see about that. We’ve got to start winning.
“Right,” said the big man, “let’s see if any of you could survive in the wilderness.”
“It’s not really the wilderness though, it it?” said Dad, who was still a bit annoyed at not being recognised as a born leader. “It’s more like a big park. I mean, there’s a nice pub half a mile away. Actually, I’ve heard they do nice steak and kidney pudding.”
“Shut up about steak and kidney pudding,” shouted Mr Bungee, which was pretty much what Nat was about to say. “I’m gonna teach you how to survive when the nearest pub is a thousand kilometres away.”