Nathalia Buttface and the Embarrassing Camp Catastrophe

by Nigel Smith

“Well, more or less,” said Dad confidently.

  “Add the prefix so that’s SQ. 26–5, 45–8. And we need to get to …?”

  There was a horrible pause.

  Nat died a little inside. Dad saw her expression and a determined look spread on his face.

  He made a decision, shoved the map in his backpack and strode off into the woods.

  “Follow me,” he said. “It’s all in my brain now.”

  But you haven’t got a brain, thought Nat, trudging behind. We’re doooomed.

  But they weren’t doooomed immediately. It took hours.

  “We’ll just stay on the path,” declared Dad, striding ahead confidently. “It’s going upwards, which is good.”

  “Don’t you want to take the shortcut by the farm at grid reference 25–5, 35–8?” said Mr Bungee.

  “Terrible idea,” said Dad, loud enough for Mr Dewdrop to hear. “There’s all sorts of hidden dangers that I can see, being the experienced guide that I am. No point risking it with kids, is what I say. Let’s stick to the nice safe path.”

  Nat still wasn’t talking to Darius, and Penny was being a bit off with her for some stupid reason, so she found herself walking in step with Rufus.

  “Does your dad actually know what he’s doing?” he asked.

  “That’s not really how my dad works,” she said, with a sigh.

  They walked in silence for a while. The forest thinned out and the ground became steeper and rockier.

  “Sorry about your weather balloon,” said Nat eventually. “Have you got another project for Saturday?”

  “Dunno if I should tell you,” Rufus said.

  Nat’s heart lurched. Has he guessed I’m a double agent?

  “Why’s that?” she squeaked, trying to sound innocent but actually sounding GUILTY AS CHARGED.

  “Because I’ve got a horrible feeling we’re cheating and I’m a bit embarrassed about it.”

  OMG, thought Nat, I’ve got away with it. Tee-hee.

  “If I tell you, you mustn’t tell anyone,” he said. “Promise?”

  Nat was stuck. She needed to know, but she HAD NEVER EVER BROKEN A PROMISE.

  She could admit that sometimes she was cheaty, grumpy, sneaky, pinchy, fibby, and probably a couple more too (I sound like the evil seven dwarves, she thought to herself), but she’d never broken a promise. And she wasn’t going to start now.

  “Promise,” she said.

  But before he could tell her, they had reached the top of a ridge and come to the foothills of the peak. The view took their breath away.

  The hillside was, as the name suggested, bleak. It felt like they were miles from anywhere. All around them lay purple heather, grey rocks, and dark-green scrub. It was wild and, Nat had to admit, quite lovely. In front of them skittered a wide, fast-flowing stream.

  For the first time in a week, she felt a kind of peace.

  It lasted one-and-a-half seconds.

  Not bad going for me, she reckoned.

  “This is all wrong,” shouted Mr Bungee, stomping to the front of the group. “I reckon we’re a mile from the old mine.”

  “We just need to follow that stream upwards,” said Dad, who had just sneaked a peek at the map and could at least recognise a stream.

  “It’s DOWNSTREAM, dummy,” said Mr Bungee. “You’re a bit of a menace with maps, mate.”

  He grabbed the map from Dad’s rucksack.

  “Bit rude,” said Dad.

  Nat got worried. Dad was ever so mild-mannered, but he hated rudeness. And the only things he hated more than rudeness were PEOPLE IN AUTHORITY.

  “I’m in charge,” yelled Mr Bungee, “and don’t you forget it.”

  Uh-oh, thought Nat.

  Dad’s normally happy face darkened.

  “HE’s been helping us cheat,” whispered Rufus, indicating Mr Bungee. “He’s sucking up cos he wants a job teaching PE at our school. How awful would that be?”

  Nat’s suspicions were correct! He was helping St rotten cheaty Scrofula’s. She felt a bit better about her cheating now.

  She had to tell Darius! But how?

  “I heard everything, ha!” said ninja Darius, appearing behind them like a ragged ghost.

  “EEEK! Stop doing that!” yelled Nat.

  “You mustn’t tell anyone,” said Rufus, panicking.

  “Nat might have promised, but I didn’t,” said Darius, dashing into the scrub and hiding. “Well done, Buttface,” he yelled.

  Rufus turned to her angrily. “Oh, I see your game,” he said. “Very clever, I must say.”

  Desperately, Nat called to Penny, “Tell Rufus I’m not a horrible spanner.”

  “Sometimes you’re a horrible spanner,” shouted Penny.

  “She doesn’t mean it,” said Nat. “It’s lack of oxygen in her brain with all the walking.”

  Rufus stomped off.

  Plum looked at Nat and treated her to a sickly smile. “Still making friends, I see,” she said.

  “You’re going in that stream,” said Nat, seeing the red mist again and running at her.

  “AAAAH!” shouted Plum, dashing into trees for cover.

  Over by the stream, Mr Bungee and Dad were now wrestling with the map. Penny had thrown herself on the ground in misery. Rufus was swishing a big stick in the heather, trying to poke out Darius, who was telling him he couldn’t catch him in a properly rude way. And Plum was shrieking that she was going to be streamed to death. It was chaos.

  Mr Dewdrop dropped his clipboard in dismay. “Oh my,” he said, “this competition was the worst idea ever. The countryside is for nice people, not YOU LOT!”

  “Gimme that map, Bumolé,” said Mr Bungee.

  “Ask me nicely,” said Dad. “I’m not very good at taking orders. I have to warn you, I can get very cross.”

  “You?” said Mr Bungee, snatching the map. “You couldn’t get cross if your life depended on it. You’re a puny Pom who’s never had to do a proper day’s work in his life.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Dad. “Comedy-writing is flipping hard work. It’s like being down a coal mine, only I’m digging pure comedy, not lumps of coal, and I haven’t even got a drill. Or a canary.”

  “Canary?”

  “Yeah, to see if there’s gas,” said Dad. “But we’re getting off the point.”

  “Look at my muscles,” said Mr Bungee. “This is what a man looks like.” He took off his shirt and chucked it on the ground.

  Nat had to admit, he did have muscles.

  Dad started to take off his shirt too.

  “NOOOOO!” shouted Nat, hiding her face in her hands.

  Dad took a good look at Mr Bungee’s rippling chest and thick bulging arms and hard stomach, and quickly buttoned his shirt back up.

  He took a step towards Mr Bungee. “I’m an imaginative person. My muscles are all in my imagination,” he said.

  Nat groaned. She didn’t think Dad meant it like that.

  Mr Bungee roared sarcastically. He waved the map in Dad’s face.

  “Don’t do that,” said Dad.

  “What you gonna do about it, Green Bogey Man?” said Mr Bungee. “Write a song? Make a funny joke?” He jabbed Dad with the map again.

  “I’m warning you,” said Dad.

  “This is usually when you run away,” shouted Nat, which was true but not very helpful.

  But Dad wasn’t running. He was CROSS.

  Then Nat saw Mr Bungee draw a big, meaty fist back. With utter horror, she realised he was going to HIT DAD.

  Everything went in slow motion.

  Dad also realised he was going to be thumped and started to dodge.

  Mr Bungee dropped the map, but the wind blew it into his face, blocking his vision.

  Darius somehow appeared right in front of Mr Bungee, making rude faces at Rufus, who was CHARGING AT HIM WITH A BIG STICK.

  “Aaaagh!” shouted Dad, about to be walloped.

  “AAAAGH!” shouted Rufus, charging like a wild beast.

  “TOO RUDE TO PR
INT,” shouted Darius at the boy.

  DODGE, went Darius, at the crucial moment.

  WHOMP! went the stick in Mr Bungee’s tenders.

  “HHHHHHNNNNNGGGGG,” went Mr B, and folded up like one of Dad’s DIY projects.

  SPLASH! went the big man, right into the stream.

  “You saw that!” he screamed at Mr Dewdrop, who hadn’t been looking because he was too busy writing on his clipboard. “You saw what he … glub, glub … did!”

  Darius grabbed the stick off Rufus and quickly chucked it out of sight.

  Mr Bungee went skidding off downstream, shouting threats and all sorts of other things.

  There was a horrid silence.

  Dad looked around him.

  “That’s settled then,” he said cheerfully. “Upstream it is.”

  As they walked on, following the stream, Nat had a horrible feeling that somewhere, somehow, she’d been the cause of all the trouble.

  She watched Mr Dewdrop glaring at Dad as they trudged up the peak and wondered if he’d ever get his certificate now.

  She looked at Rufus and Plum. If she DID get sent to that school, she’d already made two enemies. Before she’d even started.

  Then she looked at Penny’s sulky face and thought she wasn’t doing brilliantly with her friends at her own school, either.

  At least I’ve still got my pet goblin, she thought, as Darius burped the new Adele single behind her.

  Then she remembered the weather-balloon/bunny-onesie humiliation and thought he wasn’t a very TAME pet goblin.

  Then, within five minutes, they were walking in mist. And then cloud. And soon they were wet with water droplets and shrouded in fog.

  “It’s a bit dangerous up here. We need to make for the rangers’ hut and wait until the fog lifts,” said Mr Dewdrop. “Mr Bumolé, it’s all in your head, eh? Let’s hope so.”

  “No worries,” said Dad, sounding INCREDIBLY WORRIED.

  Darius darted forward, out of Nat’s sight.

  “Where are you off to?” she called, but there was no answer.

  “This fog is shocking,” said Rufus. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “I’m scared,” said super-confident Plum.

  “All stay together,” said Dad, noticing the sound of fear in the children and taking charge. “Single file now, and make sure there’s someone in front of you at all times. Mr Dewdrop, you stay at the rear.”

  “I know we’re not actually far away from the town,” said Nat, after they had trudged for what seemed like ages, “but it feels like a million miles.”

  “My divining stick tells me we’re on the crossroads of two ley lines,” said Penny. The fog muffled her voice. It was spooky.

  Nat shivered, although she didn’t believe in such rubbish.

  “Stop going on about ley lines,” snapped Nat. “You sound like a spanner.”

  “If you get cross on a ley line, terrible things happen,” said Penny. “You can believe it or not, but it’s true.”

  “Terrible things happen to me all the time,” said Nat.

  The fog was really thick now.

  “Everyone stay together,” yelled Dad. “Someone sing!”

  Darius started singing …

  He started singing verse 657 of his endless, epic poem “Diarrhoea”.

  “There’s a squelching in your shoe and it’s something very new; dia—”

  “Do not sing that!” yelled Mr Dewdrop, who felt sick.

  Darius tried again …

  “My love is like a red red rose,

  She’s deeply in my heart …”

  “Aah, that’s better,” said Mr Dewdrop. Nat just giggled.

  “But even deeper in my tum

  “I’ve brewed a massive—”

  “No, it’s worse,” yelled Dad.

  “Sing a nice song,” said Mr Dewdrop. “Something by Coldplay maybe.”

  “No,” said Dad, “we need to cheer them up. What’s that new song that everyone likes? You know, that girl who won the singing competition. Annie Pleasant.”

  Dad didn’t know that Annie Pleasant had recently had a makeover. She was now called Crazy Annie.

  So Darius treated them to the latest hit single from DJ Naughty versus Crazy Annie, “What Makes My Booty Bounce”.

  It wasn’t rude until the second verse.

  Then it was SO, SO RUDE. It appeared that rather a large number of things made her booty bounce.

  “Stop it at once,” said Mr Dewdrop, sounding shocked. “There’s a law against that sort of thing here.”

  But all the kids knew the song and now they all joined in on the chorus.

  Darius was well ahead, and everyone jogged to keep up with his ‘PG-rated’ voice.

  “Mr Bumolé, is this your idea of an appropriate song?” said Mr Dewdrop angrily

  “I think that’s as rude as it gets,” said Dad hopefully.

  He’d forgotten about the rap in the middle. Darius had not.

  Dad started coughing to cover up the loud, rude words. But there were so many.

  “I wanna COUGH and COUGH with a COUGH, COUGH, COUGH, and then I’m gonna COUGH, COUGH bounce my COUGH and then COUGH hot COUGH, COUGH stiggity COUGH.”

  Dad was running out of breath. Unlike Darius, who could happily go on for days.

  “WHEEEZE, you’re my swag bag, WHEEZE, SPLUTTER, lime Jell-O, SHUT UP, DARIUS … you say ‘yo’ baby I say ‘whut?’ YES! talk to my hand or … HUT! I FOUND THE HUT! STOP SINGING – WE’RE SAFE!” yelled Dad with the last of his breath.

  He had made a grab for Darius but somehow, miraculously, found the rangers’ hut instead! He grasped the handle, yanked it open – and fell in.

  Everyone else piled in, trampling over him as they went.

  “That’s fine,” said trampled Dad, “don’t worry about me, glad to help. Mr Dewdrop, please put that in your notebook rather than the song.”

  He struggled to his feet and looked around the hut. “Night will be coming on soon,” he said decisively. “I think we should stay here until the morning. I don’t want to take any risks.”

  Nat looked at her father. Every once in a while she wondered if he was really as useless and hopeless as he always appeared. Then he tripped over a bit of rope and fell into a cupboard full of tins of soup.

  They investigated the hut. It was filled with bunk beds and warm woollen blankets. There was a stove and a cupboard full of supplies, including dented soup tins. They could last a month in a zombie apocalypse, never mind a foggy night.

  “Are we all here?” said Mr Dewdrop, doing a quick head count. “Well done, Mr Bumolé, for finding this hut in the fog,” he said, rubbing out the X he’d just put in his notebook.

  “Actually, I think Darius found it,” whispered Nat to Penny.

  She remembered Darius at the riverbank, studying the map. Of course! Everyone at school thought Darius was one step removed from a dunce, but Nat knew he was just different.

  An unexpected but annoying wave of affection for him washed over her.

  Darius took his muddy boots off and gnawed his toenails, like a baboon. He spat out the bits into the back of Plum’s hair.

  Nat smiled.

  Yes, he was VERY different.

  Dad quickly got the stove alight, only burning his eyebrows once, and started happily frying things out of tins.

  Soon the little hut was warm and cheerful. And after they had eaten, everyone felt better.

  Penny started telling spooky ghost stories. She was brilliant at it. Nat suspected that, as far as Penny was concerned, these weren’t stories – this was NEWS.

  Nat was starting to feel a bit less furious with Darius and slid up to him on a bunk.

  “Listen, chimpy,” she said. “I know I told you to come up with an evil plan, but you went too far with the whole tying-me-to-a-weather-balloon thing.”

  Nat didn’t expect an apology, because Darius never apologised. And she didn’t really mind too much, because she knew he was never sorry.

&nb
sp; But what happened next totally threw her.

  There was a very, very long silence.

  Eventually, he spoke.

  “It wasn’t me,” said Darius simply.

  Nat could not speak. She was actually shocked. Darius hadn’t shocked her since about week two at school; she was totally used to him. BUT HE’D NEVER EVER LIED TO HER BEFORE.

  She was genuinely hurt. She was too hurt to pinch him or make him eat grass or do Chinese burns or carry out any of the other thousand things she did to him on a daily basis.

  She was more hurt by this lie than the balloon trick itself.

  She looked around the hut. Everyone seemed to be getting on – even Mr Dewdrop was laughing – and she suddenly felt homesick and friendless and alone and miserable.

  “I’m going out,” she said, taking her backpack. “I may be some time.”

  She left the hut, but no one had noticed.

  Typical, she thought, sitting on a big rock and looking up at the stars. Nobody cares.

  Her backpack lay at her feet. She opened the top. There were the emergency flares.

  I feel like letting one off, she thought, then everyone would be sorry.

  She picked up a flare.

  “What are you doing out here?” said Penny, who’d followed her into the night.

  “Penny, everything’s terrible,” said Nat, “but you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me,” said Penny coldly.

  “Haven’t you been here this week?” said Nat. “Haven’t you seen what I’ve gone through?”

  “Actually,” said Penny, “I’ve heard a lot of people say they’ve had a nice time.”

  “They’re not me,” grumbled Nat. “And now the ONE person I can rely on has LIED TO ME.”

  “The one person?” shouted Penny. “You think Darius is the only person you can rely on? That’s two stupid things you’ve said right there. One is that he’s the ONLY person. And the other is that you can’t rely on Darius – are you mad?”

  “He’s never lied to me before,” said Nat, “but now he’s telling me he didn’t tie me to the balloon.”

  “He didn’t, you moron,” said Penny. “BECAUSE I DID!”

  Nat was so shocked she jumped.

  AND PULLED THE CORD.

  AND SET OFF THE FLARE!

  The flare burst out of the tube like a rocket – because it was a rocket. Blazing red smoke poured out as it arced high into the night sky. It exploded, becoming a dazzling cloud. It lit up a massive area.