by Nigel Smith
“What in the name of heaven are you doing?” boomed Rocky, from his jousting platform. La Poubelle was less than twenty metres away now, and closing in fast. The noise from the crowd was tremendous but Rocky’s powerful voice sliced through the cheering.
Dad rushed to the back of the barge, where there was a big rudder for steering. “It’s all under control,” he said. La Poubelle lurched hard to the right, heading straight for Rocky’s wooden boat.
“Pretend we’re part of the show,” shouted Dad. “No one will know.”
“Zere is an out of control boat on ze canal zat is NOT part of ze show,” shouted the Tannoy man VERY loudly through huge speakers.
“Ooops,” said Dad.
The Tannoy boomed again. “Get ready for ze crash. Ze crash is definitely coming, ze crash is defi— oh, it missed.”
Missed, but only by centimetres. Nat was desperately tying on a grubby lifejacket to the Dog when out of the corner of her eye she saw Darius grab his jabbing stick. He was well within jabbing range of Rocky’s backside. She wondered if he could resist it.
“Aaaaaghh, I’ve been stabbed amidships!” shouted Rocky, dropping his pole and toppling over. He hit the water with a huge splash and the crowd roared approval.
Nope, he couldn’t resist it, thought Nat.
It’s hard to swim when you’re rubbing your bottom, and so it proved for Rocky, who thrashed about in the water, bobbing up and down.
“I’ll save you!” shouted Dad, and ran about looking for a lifebelt. He grabbed something and threw it at Rocky. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a lifebelt, it was the heavy wooden steering wheel Dad had pulled off earlier. The wheel hit Rocky squarely on the head. He went under like a stone.
“Brilliant, Dad,” shouted Nat. “He was annoying, but you didn’t have to kill him.”
Rocky came up, spitting water. “Why are you doing this to me?” he spluttered.
“I win, I win!” shouted Jean-Jacques, the rotund pastry chef, who was the only jouster still standing. Unfortunately he was now in range of Darius’s jabbing stick.
“Aaaarrgh!” yelled the Knight of the Cream Puff, following Rocky into the water.
“Serves you right,” blubbled Rocky.
“I WIN!” shouted Darius, hopping about in delight. “I am King Pirate – everyone bow down and give me chocolate!”
With no one on the tiller, La Poubelle zigzagged wildly across the marina. Then the inevitable happened – the smoking and clanging barge crashed heavily into the side of the prettiest, oldest and most delicate-est jousting boat, shivering all the timbers and making a big gash in the wooden hull, which water immediately began pouring in through.
“Sorry!” shouted Captain Dad, running back to the wheelhouse. “I think it’s just dented.” The painted boat began to sink. “You might want to plug that leak,” he added helpfully.
“We’re really ever so sorry,” shouted Nat, trying to hide her face from the gaze of the onlookers, whizzing by in a horrible torchlit blur.
“I think I’ve got the hang of it now,” said Dad, just as La Poubelle reversed into the second jousting barge, breaking it almost in two.
“Aaaaaarr! Time to board!” yelled Darius, and before Nat could stop him, he jumped from La Poubelle on to the newly bashed-in barge.
The mood of the crowd was changing; Nat could hear cheers turning to jeers. This stupid ugly barge was funny at first, but now it was spoiling things. The lovely boats were being smashed to pieces. This was too much.
The rowers on the boarded boat thought Darius was too much too. All but one dropped their oars and dived overboard. One decided to stand and fight.
“Come on, you scurvy dog,” said Darius, waving his stick.
“You ’ave ruined everyzink!” shouted the Frenchman, feet swimming in cold water. He grabbed a spare jousting pole from the deck and ran full-tilt at the mini pirate. It caught Darius in the stomach and he went up in the air.
“Pffft,” went the tiny buccaneer, making a noise like a leaky tyre. He grabbed on to the pole and dangled there like a ripe fruit. The pole man tried to shake him off, but Darius clung on – and then started clambering down the pole like a starving monkey hunting a banana.
Through the swirling smoke, his enemy saw the boy heading towards him, screamed and tossed the pole as high as he could, out of the boat. Darius plopped into the water.
By now, the marina looked like a rubbish re-enactment of a great naval battle.
“Not since Ze Battle of Trafalgar has ze French navy fought so bravely and so well,” declared the man on the Tannoy. The mayor grabbed him angrily.
“We LOST zat battle, you imbecile,” he said.
“Well, we are losing zis one too,” said the announcer. Their words echoed across the battlefield because they still had the microphone on.
He was right. The French were on the losing side. Both the jousting boats were slowly sinking. The shipwrecked seamen shook their fists at Dad. A few of them swam towards the barge with what Nat reckoned was murder in their hearts.
“I wonder where Rocky is?” asked Dad. “Oh, give Darius a hand to get back on board, will you?”
Nat hauled Darius up. He lay on the deck like a wet rat.
But he wasn’t the only one coming on board. A large strong hairy hand came over the rail of the barge. Then another. Nat screamed.
A head came up. It was Rocky! Nat watched as the sodden sailor emerged from the water to lie, gasping, next to Darius. He coughed up a small fish, belched wetly, and said: “That’s better.”
He’s come for revenge! thought Nat, running to the back of the boat, where Dad was still trying to figure out the rudder. “Dad – Rocky is …” she gabbled, trying to tell him Rocky was on board and probably coming to murder him AT LEAST, but Dad wasn’t listening.
Dad wasn’t listening because he was too busy avoiding ALL THE ROTTEN FRUIT.
The shower of fruit came from the crowd. All the friends of the shipwrecked boaters had gone through the bins to show their support and friendship. And what says friendship more than a rotten tomato?
Dad somehow avoided the worst of the veg. Nat didn’t.
SPLAT!
“Not fair,” she whined, as one squidgy vegetable after another smashed into her head.
“Ignore it,” said Dad, as a tomato caught her full in the face. “It’s probably a hilarious French tradition.”
“They hate us, Dad.”
“Don’t be silly. We have as much right to be here as anyone else. If I’ve learned one thing from Rocky, it’s that. We should be more like him.”
“I don’t want you to be like Rocky, you’re even more embarrassing when you try to be like Rocky,” said Nat, bits of red tomato dripping from her hair and down her nose, as if to prove her point.
“Head wound, emergency!” shouted Rocky, dashing forward and grabbing her.
“Eeeek,” went Nat as she was tipped horizontally. Rocky barked out orders for bandages and compresses and a needle and thread. Dad, suddenly worried, immediately left the rudder to find the first-aid box.
Rocky steered the barge with his foot, still holding the tomato-covered Nat. “Get off me,” she said angrily, trying to wriggle free, but her voice was muffled. Rocky had his huge hands round her head, trying to find the nonexistent wound.
“Get off her,” said Darius, who jumped on Rocky’s back and grabbed him round the head, trying to prise him off.
“Get off him,” said Dad, trying to pull Darius off Rocky.
“Get off ze boat NOW,” came a very loud voice through a megaphone. In all the chaos, no one had noticed a blue flashing light. It was the river police, who had pulled up alongside the barge in a little motor boat.
Nat was the first to react. She was so slippywith rotten fruit she slithered out of Rocky’s arms, jumped up and shouted: “I don’t know who any of these people are.”
“Nor me,” said Darius.
“Shut up, Darius,” she said. “And don’t say anything either, Dad,
you’ll only make it worse.”
Then she realised she’d said ‘Dad’ and ‘Darius’, and threw herself to the deck in despair.
Around her was utter carnage. One wooden jousting barge was underwater, the other was sinking fast. The crowd were booing, the mayor was being led away in tears and the barge looked like a fruit and veg stall run by a drunk orangutan.
A soaked Darius and Rocky were grappling on deck, and Nathalia was lying in a miserable, smelly, sodden heap.
“I suppose it’s like this every year?” asked Dad, hoping the answer was ‘yes’.
“Non,” said a policeman, taking them all away.
They weren’t locked up for very long – the Chief of Police owed Rocky a favour.
“It wasn’t getting locked up that bothered me the most, Dad,” hissed Nat as they all trooped out of the police station the next morning, “it was getting locked up with YOU.”
She noted with satisfaction that at least Rocky didn’t seem very friendly towards Dad any more. So it wasn’t all bad news.
The walk back to the marina was AWFUL. Nat knew the whole town was staring at her. The front cover of the local paper had HER tomato-covered face on it. She knew because Darius bought six copies.
She was too embarrassed to look properly at the newspaper picture, else she might have seen, there in the crowd, a nasty face of someone she knew. A very suspicious face …
Back at the barge, under the stares of the angry townspeople, Dad agreed with Nat that it was time they were moving on. Rocky said, stiffly, that was probably for the best. Emily smiled and kissed Nat. Then patted Darius on the head, before wiping her hands.
What Nat didn’t see was the note that Rocky slipped into her rucksack as they were saying goodbye. He put the envelope into one of her school books that she insisted on bringing with her. He probably thought she opened it regularly. Which proved he wasn’t right about everything. Nat never opened her school books on holiday. She just liked to carry them around, hoping the information would somehow seep into her.
The note lay undisturbed in her bag for some time.
at reckoned mornings were the best. Birds sang, ducks quacked, mist rose lazily from the still water. Shafts of pale early light sliced through tall trees. Nat would watch from her cabin as the sun’s rays burned off the mist and revealed a sparkling, untouched new day.
Before Dad had a chance to ruin it.
Nat had got used to the fact that they would be a laughing stock wherever they went. And worse, a menace. Dad still hadn’t got the hang of driving the barge and Nat lost count of the number of times he drove over canoeists, or dragged fishermen into the water by running over their fishing lines. Or just simply fell in himself.
She made a mental note never to look on YouTube for anything with the words:
British. Idiot. Canal. France. Epic Fail.
In the end, she took over most of the steering, although she wasn’t really old enough. So between worrying about steering and worrying about not being seen steering, she was a nervous wreck by the end of a day.
Darius was another trial. He didn’t like confined spaces so every time the boat stopped he would jump off and ‘explore’.
Which meant, ‘disappear for a couple of worrying hours’. Then, just as they were about to call for search and rescue, he would turn up with a ‘souvenir’.
These included: three road signs, a paddling pool, a mobility scooter and a tortoise.
They made him take everything back except one road sign, which pointed the way to a town called:
La Butte ès Gros.
Which they all agreed was too hilarious not to keep.
In one town they passed through, Nat made Dad buy a pay-as-you-go mobile so she could call Mum.
It was hard to get reception though, and Mum was also travelling a lot, so it was IMPOSSIBLE to get hold of her. One night Nat left a message in which she said:
“Mum, we’re having what is literally the opposite of a really nice time. Dad thinks he’s a brilliant sailor. Darius never behaves himself. Even the Dog is unhappy. I want to come home; it feels like I’m doomed to stay here forever.”
But they were in the middle of nowhere and reception was terrible so what Mum heard was:
“Mum, we’re having … a really nice time. Dad … ’s a brilliant sailor. Darius … behaves himself. The Dog is … happy. I want to … stay here forever.” But all good things come to an end, as do really horrible things, fortunately. And finally, in glorious sunshine, the great day came. Dad parked for the last time. Dad fell in, for the last time.
They were here. Nat half expected everyone on the canal to throw a party to celebrate their leaving.
There waiting for them, as planned, was Dad’s pride and joy – the Atomic Dustbin. When the mechanic asked if they’d “’ad any trubble” Dad just said, in his best French:
“I do nurt zink zo. Burt now I ’ave ze big howse to fix and so I sink zat ze trouble is only just starting!”
Despite the warm sun, Nat suddenly felt very cold indeed.
Posh Barry’s house was about a mile from the nearest village, down a white, windy-windy road that snaked in between tall, slim trees.
The nearer they got to the house, the smaller the road got and the closer together were the trees. Their branches met, just above the Atomic Dustbin. It was as if they were in a dark green tunnel. The van brushed branches on both sides with a ‘shushing’ sound.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” asked Nat.
“Satnav says so,” said Dad. He was very proud of his second-hand satnav, which he had bought off the internet. It was propped up on the windscreen, and the arrow was green, which meant they were going the right way.
“Blinky blonky hurdy gurdey,” said the satnav. In Norwegian.
“I told you to let Darius set it up,” said Nat. “Haven’t you changed the language yet?”
“Not really. The instructions to change the language are in Norwegian too.”
“Manky blanket smurf,” said the satnav.
“I think that means turn next left, Dad,” said Nat. “That’s the way the arrow’s pointing.”
“See?” said Dad happily, turning down an even smaller road. “You’ll come back speaking French AND Norwegian. I call that a result.”
Behind them, a horn blared, making Nat jump. She looked out of the back window and saw a little moped, very close behind, weaving across the road, trying to overtake. But there was no room.
“What shall I throw at him?” asked Darius, as the horn blared again.
“Just throw him a happy smile and a wave,” said Dad. “Not THAT kind of wave,” said Dad, seeing what Darius was doing with his fingers. The moped’s horn blared again.
“You’d think he owned the blinking road,” said Dad, pulling over into a driveway to let the annoying moped go by. As it buzzed by them, Nat realised that the rider was no older than her. And worse, he was returning Darius’s rude wave in the same rude fashion. With extra rudeness on top.
Before they could react, the Norwegian satnav sprang into life: “Flem snotbag curdle fruitbat.”
“Looks like we’re here!” said Dad. “This is the drive. Pop out and open the gate, would you?”
Nat looked at an old wooden gate, hanging forlornly off rusty hinges. As she watched, the vibrations from the engine shook the gate clean off.
“It’s open,” she said flatly.
She hopped back in the van and they drove on. The long drive was overgrown by thick hedges. Branches bashed and scratched at the windscreen.
“It’s like they’re trying to get in,” said Darius. “I saw this film once about trees that liked to munch people.”
“I saw that,” said Dad. “Scary, wasn’t it? They said it was based on a true story.”
“Shut up, you two,” said Nat. “You’re not making this any better.”
Just then the trees parted to reveal a large, untidy clearing. And there, finally, they got their first view of the house
.
o one spoke for a full minute. Dad turned the engine off. Even HE couldn’t think of anything to say.
Once she’d recovered from the shock, Nat could.
“What a dump.”
“It’s not THAT bad,” fibbed Dad. “It needs a bit of a tidy-up. I, er, I can definitely probably do this.”
They stared at it a while longer. But the more they looked, the worse it got. And the more worried Nat became. This was a BIG JOB.
It was a big house; big and ugly and uncared-for. It was squat and square, with walls of crumbly yellow stone. Straggly green ivy crawled up one side, clawing at the walls.
“It’s like the earth is trying to hide it,” said Nat.
There were lots of large, rectangular windows, shut up with weathered green shutters, squeaking and creaking on rusty hinges. There was an orange tiled roof, and even from a distance it was obvious that many of the tiles were loose and cracked. In the middle of the roof stood a crooked chimney, leaning like a drunken sailor in a gale. It looked like a gnat’s cough could blow it over.
There was a large, peeling red front door, which reminded Nat of a nasty open mouth.
In front of the house lurked a pond, green with old slime. A rusty metal fountain in the shape of a mermaid on a big shell sat dry and forlorn and mouldy in the middle.
“Where’s the pool?” said Nat, fearing she already knew the answer.
“Perhaps he only said he wanted a pool …” said Dad cheerfully. “Once we finish the house we can dig one.”
Nat groaned.
The three of them and the Dog got out of the van and walked slowly up to the house. Gravel crunched under their feet, as did bits of broken glass. It was a hot day and Nat felt a warmth coming from the old stone. The sweet smell of flowers and herbs mingled with the musty pong of the pond.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Darius, eventually.
This will be good, thought Nat. Darius knows some fantastic swear words.