by Nigel Smith
should have known, she thought miserably, as she stared at the horrible boat. I should have flipping well known.
The barge looked nothing like the photograph. It was older and more battered than the pyramids, and frankly, thought Nat, the pyramids looked more likely to stay afloat.
It was huge and boxy, like those great big metal containers you see on cargo ships. It was like a caravan that had been pushed in a canal. One end was a bit pointier than the other and Nat guessed that was the front, but it was hard to tell. There was a little wooden wheelhouse towards the back end, with the steering wheel in.
There was no getting away from it – La Poubelle, sitting in a pool of its own grime, was ugly. Eyesight-manglingly ugly. Nat tried to find its good side. There wasn’t one. Blue and white paint was peeling off every surface, it was covered in oil streaks and dents, the portholes were cracked and there were thick black tyres tied on the sides with fraying rope.
“Ze photo was taken a few years ago,” admitted the mechanic.
“It doesn’t look too bad with your eyes closed,” joked Dad. Nat scowled at him.
They all clambered aboard, the mechanic heading for the wheelhouse to start her up.
Some people emerged from clean, shiny boats nearby and started laughing and pointing at them. Nat didn’t know what they were saying but she thought she heard the words idiot and Anglais.
“What do you think they mean by idiot?” asked Dad.
“I want to ring Mum,” said Nat, thoroughly fed up with being laughed at YET AGAIN. “I want to call her right now.”
Dad shuffled about sheepishly as the mechanic unlocked the cabin doors. He fished out his mobile. “Probably best you just tell her all the nice things about the trip,” he said. “We don’t want to worry her.”
Just gimme the phone, Baldy, thought Nat as she held out her hand.
Dad looked at his phone. “I’ve got a text from the phone company.” He squinted at it. “Read that for me, love, would you?” he said. “I’ve put my glasses down somewhere.”
Nat snatched the phone and read the message. “‘Dear valued customer,’” she said, “‘you have exceeded your roaming charges and—’”
“What are roaming charges?” asked Dad.
“It’s the massive amounts of money they charge idiots who forget to turn off the internet on their phone when they go abroad!” shouted Darius.
Dad looked worried. “Carry on reading,” he said.
Nat groaned, guessing he was one of those idiots. “It says ‘We have cut off your phone until the bill is paid in full.’ Then there’s a massive number.” Dad grabbed the phone off her. He stared at it in a sickly way for a few minutes then put it in his pocket.
“Have you got yours?” he asked hopefully, although he knew the answer.
Nat scowled at him. “No, Dad,” she said, “you made me keep it at home because I couldn’t be trusted not to run up MASSIVE BILLS, remember?”
“Oswald sold mine,” said Darius. “He did say he’d steal me another one for Christmas though.”
“Oh, well, this’ll be nice,” Dad said, with a weak smile, as he loaded the barge with their things. “No phones, no emails. Be like an old-fashioned proper family holiday.”
Then the air was ripped apart by a massive farty roar as the barge’s engine coughed into life.
“Pardon me,” joked Dad, rubbing his stomach. “French food.” Darius laughed hysterically; Nat just sighed. Boys.
Thick black smoke was now pouring from a chimney sticking out of the wheelhouse. The whole boat shook and the Dog, who till now had been dozing in the car, began to howl. “It sounds like an air raid!” shouted Nat.
“Do not worry,” the mechanic called out from the wheelhouse, “it just needs to warm up.”
“Warm up what?” said Nat, watching the smoke swirl around the canal bank. “The polar ice caps? That thing is putting out so much pollution we’re gonna melt them off the planet in a week.”
“It’s not so bad,” said Dad. “In fact, it reminds me of the Atomic Dustbin. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, Dad, it does, which is the worry. When our van breaks down we just get stuck at traffic lights, or block a roundabout for a couple of hours. If we break down in this, we get shipwrecked. Shipwrecked is worse, Dad, everyone knows that.”
“Aaarrrrr!” said Darius in his best pirate voice. “Tonight we’ll be dinin’ in Davy Jones’s Locker!”
A beautiful wooden barge, decorated with yards of pretty ribbons, streamers and flowers glided gently by. On deck, a man and a woman in very smart clothes and with very snooty faces stared at the smoking barge.
“Oh, I say,” said the man, who was English and wore a blue blazer with a crest on the pocket, “I do hope you’re not thinking of going anywhere in that thing.”
“No,” said Nat.
“Yes,” said Dad.
“Aaarrrr!” said Darius. “Get lost, you scurvy dogs.”
“They must be those river gypsies we were warned about,” said the woman, alarmed. “I’ve read about them in the papers. They’re probably stealing that boat.”
The man looked at Nat and Darius and pulled a face. “It’s the children I feel sorry for,” he shouted, over the noise of La Poubelle’s engine.
So do I, thought Nat, so do I.
It was almost time to cast off. The mechanic was just going over with Dad one last time how to start the engine and steer the boat. Dad was nodding and making “uh-huh” noises but Nat saw that he wasn’t really listening. He had that look on his face that said: “I’m pretending to listen but really I’m thinking about pork pies or ukuleles or Christmas cracker jokes or how to get the highest score on my new phone app game.”
Nat paid attention because she knew someone had to know how to drive the barge. Then she heard a flushing sound from inside the boat. The mechanic heard it too. He grabbed Dad urgently and took him inside the barge. “Now I must show you ze most important thing before I go,” he said, rushing through the living room and opening a little wooden door to the loo.
“Oi,” said Darius, who had only just finished doing what he was doing, “wait your turn.”
The mechanic pulled him out and quickly lifted up the big red lever that flushed the loo.
“After you make ze poo-poo, zis must always be UP,” he said sternly. “Else the river water comes into ze boat and …” he made a downwards motion. “You have seen ze fillum Titanic, no?”
“Yeah,” said Darius with relish, “only it won’t be a floating iceberg that will sink us, it’ll be a floating—”
“Yes, we get it,” snapped Nat. She felt a creeping sense of doom. They were one flush away from disaster. She looked at Dad and Darius, who both had memories like old-age-pensioner goldfish, and knew she would spend the entire time panicking about the flipping loo. This was NOT the relaxing break she had been promised.
Now she was inside, and her eyes had got used to the gloom, Nat looked around the barge. It was almost as ugly on the inside as out. The portholes were grimy with green mould so it looked a bit like they were underwater already. There was a large but dingy living room with a table and a tatty sofa. The TV had a big crack in the glass.
“I’ve seen French telly,” said Dad, looking at the screen. “It’s so bad someone probably threw a brick at it.”
“Shotgun this cabin,” shouted Darius, who had chosen the biggest one, at the back. He was spread out on the bed, muddy shoes and all.
“You can’t let him have that one, Dad,” said Nat, who wanted it for herself.
“I don’t mind,” said soft Dad. “Go on, love, you choose next.”
Nat looked around. She found a cabin that was dim and wooden-panelled. The light in here was greenish and the room smelt of mud. A pair of sad yellow curtains hung limply in front of a porthole, adding another unpleasant tinge to the colour scheme.
Nat thought the room looked like the inside of a stomach. But it was big and she tried to tell herself the bed looked c
omfortable.
Anyway, it was the least worst room, so she nabbed it.
Dad opened the door to his cabin, which was as big and bright and inviting as a coffin. “Oh,” he said, “well, I’ll only be using it for sleeping.”
The Dog ran in and lay full length on it. There was hardly any room at all now.
“Are we ready to go now, Dad?” said Nat.
“No,” he said. “I have to go through all the stuff about the engine and steering and such.” Nat buried her head in the pillow.
“We have done zat already,” said the mechanic, who was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing.
“Oh yeah, silly me!” said Dad. “Slipped my mind.”
What mind? thought Nat.
“Can I untie these ropes?” shouted Darius, who had gone back on deck.
“Nooooo!” shouted the mechanic, dashing up the stairs, with Dad and Nat behind him.
The boat was drifting away from the bank. “Turn ze wheel!” shouted the mechanic to Dad, trying to hop off. But now he had one foot on the bank, the other still on the barge.
“Righto,” shouted Dad from the wheelhouse. The gap between the barge and the bank suddenly yawned wider.
“NO! Turn it ze ozzer way,” yelled the mechanic, doing the splits.
But the gap was just too wide …
There was a loud splash.
“CENSORED – NOT FOR PUBLICATION. FOR ADULTS ONLY!” shouted the mechanic. He shouted more things but Nat missed them due to the laughter of the other boaters on the marina. She saw one man videoing everything. Oh great, I’ll be an internet star in about half an hour, she thought. Thanks again, Dad.
“Sorry,” shouted Dad, “see you in a week, bye!”
eanwhile, back home in England, something Terrible was happening. Something that, like a sneeze on top of a snowy mountain, seems harmless at first.
Unless you’re at the bottom of the mountain watching the big avalanche that the sneeze has caused hurtle towards you and you wished some people would not climb mountains with a cold.
Bad News Nan was planning a surprise visit to France. AAAAA- CHOOOOHH!
Mum was the first to hear of this plan. She came home at lunchtime with a splitting headache, only to find Bad News Nan in the kitchen, both hands in the biscuit tin.
“Mmmf,” said Nan, mouth full of Hobnobs. “Youm blmmmf lmfff.”
Mum knew her well enough to realise what she saying, even with biscuits IN and teeth OUT.
What she was saying was: “Have you heard the bad news about Mister Bartelski who runs the mini market?”
Mum opened the fridge, and stared unhappily at its white, empty interior. She nodded her head. She wasn’t feeling very well and did NOT want to hear the bad news. “Yes, I heard,” she fibbed. “I’ve heard all about it. Every little tiny detail. So you don’t need to tell me.”
But that didn’t stop Nan. She liked this story and was going to tell it anyway. “Wfff Mishhtrr lumff blasgh …” she began, which meant:
“Well, Mister Bartelski was up a ladder and had a row with Mrs Perkins from the estate about the price of his doughnuts. You know Mrs Perkins, she’s the one with the plastic hip and dirty kitchen surfaces. He got so angry, he fell off his ladder into the freezer compartment. Now he’s in Accident and Emergency having a bag of sprouts and a hot dog sausage removed.”
Mum didn’t want to know where they were getting removed from. She was supposed to be at work, there was nothing to eat and she was missing Dad and Nat. Worse, for some reason she hadn’t been able to get through to Dad’s phone. She noticed a red letter from the mobile phone company, ripped it open and saw Dad’s massive unpaid bill. He’d been cut off.
Great, she thought. A perfect day. The only thing that could make it worse would be if Bad News Nan sits in the kitchen for the next hour, talking at me.
Which is exactly what happened.
So Mum heard about:
Mrs Waddington’s weeping warts,
Mr Dhaliwal’s drooping dog,
Mrs Nimrod’s nasty niece.
Bad News Nan loved an audience who weren’t able to run away. She liked it so much she once volunteered to chat to those people in hospital who haven’t got visitors. It saved the hospital thousands of pounds’ worth of medicine because after she’d been, all those patients said they were better, and could they go home now, please, Doctor, quick, before she comes again?
Finally Mum made toast and scarpered into the living room. She turned the news channel on. But there was still no escape because Bad News Nan followed her and carried on talking over the TV. Mum started to get confused as to what was actually happening in the world and what was going on down the road. All the stories got jumbled up.
There was an earthquake in Japan that scratched Phyllis Glomm’s new mobility scooter.
There were riots in the Middle East because of Mrs Barter’s dirty net curtains.
And England won a very important football game because of a last-minute goal from next door’s missing cat.
So it wasn’t really Mum’s fault that she wasn’t listening when Bad News Nan said something that was actually quite important.
See, Bad News Nan liked a bargain. And she had found a nice cheap flight online. So she thought she might as well come and join them all in France.
So, she said, burbling on, could Mum let Dad and Nat know so they could pick her up from the airport?
“Yes,” said Mum, who’d been saying “yes” nonstop all afternoon, though she had absolutely no idea what she was saying yes to any more.
hiver me timbers!” shouted Dad, gripping the big wooden steering wheel and giving it a few trial turns. “Avast behind. Splice the mainsail and run up the, er, whatever it is you run up, Aaaarrr!”
“Aaaarrr!” said Darius, on deck, jabbing Nat with a stick like a sword. “I’ll pickle your giblets and fly them like a flag!”
The next hour, floating serenely under a beautiful blue sky, dotted with feathery white clouds, should have been relaxing and lovely.
It wasn’t.
Dad was rubbish at steering. He had no patience. It took the boat a long time to respond to the wheel, by which point Dad had panicked and tried to turn the other way. So they zigzagged drunkenly down the wide canal, narrowly missing boats, canoes and fishermen.
But NOT missing a heron’s nest, which exploded in twigs as Dad ploughed straight through it. The heron flapped up from the destroyed nest and squawked angrily at Dad.
Then it flew over and pecked Nat on the back of the neck.
“Ah, ah geroff!” she screamed. “It’s not my fault. Peck Dad!”
But the bird wasn’t going anywhere. Nat ran in little circles, waving her arms frantically, getting nipped by the large fowl’s sharp beak. The laughter from passers-by on the riverbank got louder.
“It won’t eat you, it only likes fish!” yelled Darius unhelpfully.
“That’s what you think!” shouted the flailing Nat. “I think it wants a change of diet. Ow ow ow that hurts. Will you get it off me?”
“I probably shouldn’t leave the wheelhouse,” shouted Dad, leaving the wheelhouse. “I’m trying to avoid a sailing boat.”
“Well get back in and avoid it!” replied Nat, still fighting off the bird. Over the flapping of wings and the squawking and the laughter, she heard the unmistakable sounds of panic from downriver and guessed it was the person on the other boat, seeing the barge heading steadily towards them.
“AAAAARRR!” yelled Darius, and charged at the heron, waving his stick over his head. “It’s a fight you want, is it?” The heron took one look at Darius and decided it didn’t want to peck him in case it caught something nasty, so settled for one last big peck of Nat’s head and flapped off to start rebuilding its nest.
“Get back to the wheelhouse, Dad!” said Nat. “Hurry!”
The shouting from the other boat grew louder. Dad rushed back and grabbed the wheel. He spun it round and slowly, very slowly, the barge began to
turn. But it looked like it might be too little, too late. Darius stood on top of the wheelhouse. “Prepare to be boarded!” he shouted in his best pirate voice.
“Watch out for my boat! It’s really expensive and it’s better than your boat!” yelled a voice Nat thought sounded familiar.
She watched as they drew even nearer.
There was a man on the little white boat and he was hopping about in fury and helplessness as La Poubelle bore down on him.
Nat felt hot and cold. She did recognise the man.
He wasn’t looking at her, he was holding a long pole to try and push the boats apart but even Nat could see that would be hopeless. Their dirty old steel barge was just too big and heavy.
Closer, closer …
Nat turned away to avoid seeing the accident. Surely any second there would be a horrible smash and then the sounds of sinking?
But nothing happened. Finally she plucked up the courage to look. They were past the little boat. They must have missed by a centimetre.
“Missed by a mile!” fibbed Dad.
Nat turned to look at the little boat they had just avoided colliding with.
The man was shaking his fist. Their eyes met.
It was Suspicious Mick.
“Look at me!” shouted Darius, waving something above his head. “We got so close I snatched their flag! This is great.”
Wrong, thought Nat, as she watched Suspicious Mick’s eyes almost disappear in a deep frown. He took in Nat, Dad, Darius and the Dog. He stopped waving his fist and started stroking his chin.
This was not great. This was awful.
“You know, this really is ever so relaxing,” shouted Dad from the wheelhouse a little while later. They were chugging along in the middle of the wide canal, watching fields and trees and little red-brick houses slip by. “I think we should have all our holidays on a boat from now on.”
Dad was sitting on deck in a little canvas chair he’d found, and to Nat’s alarm, DARIUS seemed to be steering. Dad was wearing a string vest because he’d read a magazine article which said string vests were very NOW, and it was so hot he’d put a little knotted hanky on his Bald Spot Which Must Not Be Named.