Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Dad in the World

by Nigel Smith

  HY IS THIS FUNNY? WONDERED NATHALIA, as she vacuumed the kitchen. Why am I giggling? It’s only Darius doing a rubbish impression of a ghost. It’s not even a good impression, as ghosts tend not to do robot dancing. She giggled again.

  I suppose he did make an effort with the costume, she thought. Darius was very white, thanks less to the magic of the supernatural and more to the magic of self-raising flour. Flour which was now all over the kitchen. But even though Darius was funny, Dad should be telling him off. Nathalia sighed and hoovered the Dog, who quite enjoyed licking flour from a kitchen floor. A proper dad would not join in with the dancing, either. He’d be shouting and stuff.

  Nathalia was a bit uncertain what proper dad ‘stuff’ was, because she’d never seen it. But it wasn’t this. Dad turned up the radio and did a poor quality moonwalk. Nat winced. It was only funny when Darius did it.

  It was not long after Dad whipped out his bongos that Nat suddenly stopped tidying. It happened just like that – one second she was a blur of mop and flour and the next she was frozen in mid-clean. A strange calm came over her. She could no longer hear Dad’s terrible hip-hop bongo beat, or Darius’s alarming Bongo Rap. She smiled to herself as she realised something lovely and she chucked the mop on the floor where it lay with the rest of the stuff Dad and Darius had left lying about.

  With a chuckle she walked upstairs to her room, threw herself on her bed with a magazine and waited. This is perfect, she thought. There’s no way that stupid, drippy Miss Hunny will stay five minutes in this madhouse. She stretched out on her bed. She probably won’t even make it through the front door. Nat started flicking through the brightly coloured pages of the magazine. Dunno why I got Dad to buy me this, she thought. Utter rubbish. Look at it – dog, girl pop star smiling, kittens, boy pop star not smiling, dolphin, quiz: Are you a dog, cat, dolphin or pop star? Nat yawned.

  And all these rubbish problems. Problems about hair, teeth, boys, school bullies. Hah. Nothing about dads. I’ll write in, she thought. I’ll tell them something. She closed her eyes in the late afternoon sunlight. She dreamt of kittens playing the bongos. And dolphins squeaking surprisingly rude words.

  The doorbell woke her with a start. For a second she couldn’t recognise the feeling she’d woken up with. Then – ah yes, happiness. She ungummed her eyes and thought, That’ll be Miss Hunny. This’ll be good. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. Better hurry, she thought, I don’t want to miss seeing her run off screaming. Coming down the stairs, Nat was disappointed not to hear either bad bongos or revolting rhymes. And the smell coming from the recently destroyed kitchen was actually … rather nice.

  Oh, I get it – it’s still a dream, she thought, and tried to fly down the last two steps. I wonder where the dolphins have gone?

  Five minutes later she was lying flat on the sofa with a family-sized bag of frozen peas on her ankle and a family-sized scowl on her face.

  “Ice, ice, ice,” trilled Miss Hunny, applying the frozen veg to the tender area. She’d done a first-aid course and was now something of an expert. “I – C – E. The ‘I’ stands for ice, obviously, the ‘C’ for compression …” Here she squeezed the bag of peas tight, causing Nat to yelp. “And the ‘E’ stands for, let me think … ‘E’ for …”

  “Electricity?” suggested Darius hopefully, eyeing up a socket.

  “I’ve got some jump leads in the van,” added Dad doubtfully.

  “‘E’ for elevation, you morons,” shouted Nat, lifting her leg above her head so high that all her change fell out of her pockets. Her bad mood wasn’t because of the pain in her ankle. It was because she felt MASSIVELY CHEATED. Dad and Darius had sneakily hidden the bongos and tidied up everything. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why Darius was being so nice.

  Darius sat on the sofa and put her foot on his shoulder. “What are you doing?” she asked, suspicious. “Helping,” he replied simply, casting a quick glance at Miss Hunny, who was now disappearing into the kitchen. He tore his eyes away and started picking his nose and playing with the TV remote. I’m having that remote control sterilised tomorrow, thought Nat. She would have said something out loud but a programme came on that she liked and she forgot what she was about to say.

  “Your daughter does like being the centre of attention,” murmured Miss Hunny to Dad as they all sat down to eat. She said it quietly but Nat had bat ears when she wanted to and she glowered at her teacher. She was going to say something rude or ‘accidentally’ jab her with a fork but then she realised that this would make her the centre of attention again and Miss Hunny would be proved right! You’re clever, she thought darkly. You are a worthy opponent.

  She expected Dad to defend her but Dad wasn’t really listening. He was struggling to unscrew the cap on a bottle of wine Miss Hunny had just brought. “Remember when we were students?” he laughed, finally pouring them a glass. “You always used to bring round that horrible wine from Uzbekistan or somewhere that cost about four pence a gallon and we couldn’t let it spill on the kitchen table in case it took all the Formica off and—oh.”

  Dad had finally clocked the bottle’s familiar Uzbekistan label. And the look on Miss Hunny’s face.

  “Well I’ve missed it!” He took a sip. His eyes started to water. “Yum. Wait, let me get you a coaster for your glass.”

  “Dad doesn’t even like wine, he likes beer,” grumbled Nat to Darius.

  “My brother Oswald’s not picky,” replied Darius. “He just likes getting drunk.”

  Nat looked at Darius, wondering if he was joking. She’d never seen Dad drunk. No, actually, there was that time on holiday when he fell into the hotel pool one night, but he’d said that was something he ate.

  Anyway, Mum and Nat always took Dad’s beer away long before he had the chance to really make a fool of himself. Thing is, after a couple of bottles of Olde Crotchpyce or whatever, Dad would tend to get very silly. He’d cuddle them both and say things like they were the best girls in the world, and that he wanted to hug them and NEVER LET GO.

  At which point Mum would put the kettle on and make him drink coffee until he apologised. But, Nat realised with a shudder, Mum wasn’t there tonight. Icy fingers grabbed at her throat, crawling down her back and … actually, it was only Darius chucking peas at her so she kicked him off.

  “Where is Emma? I’m sorry not to see her,” said Miss Hunny.

  “She sends her love. She’s away all week doing this big new job,” said Dad proudly.

  “She was always going to do well,” said Miss Hunny. “She even made money when we were students. What is it she’s doing now?”

  Dad’s eyes glazed over. “We-ell,” he bluffed, “it’s a bit complicated.”

  Miss Hunny gave a sort of laugh. “I know I’m just an ordinary English teacher at a VERY ordinary school – no offence, children – but I’ll probably understand.”

  But Nat knew very well that Dad had no idea what Mum did for a living because business just confused him.

  “She does things with stuff,” he said eventually.

  “Go on …”

  “Oooh, we had some fun at college, the three of us, didn’t we?” said Dad, changing the subject rapidly. “The stories we could tell you, Nat …”

  Please don’t, thought Nat dryly. The very worst thing about Dad after he’d had even ONE drink was that he loved telling stories. And generally he liked telling stories about … she could hardly bring herself to think it … he liked telling stories about … HER.

  Dad took a big swig of wine, coughed and said, “But better than that, I’ve got some really funny stories about Nathalia.”

  Noooooo …

  Now, according to Dad, the top five ‘really funny’ Nat stories (so far) are:

  The one where she gets that rash shaped like a Pokemon.

  The one where she gets stuck in a ball pit.

  The one where she’s filmed singing, aged four, on her new karaoke machine. Singing, and taking her clothes off.

&n
bsp; The one where she’s car sick down the back of Dad’s head.

  The one where Dad’s car sick down the back of her head.

  Nat looked to Darius to do something evil, dangerous, weird, smelly, and/or insane to distract Dad. She knew he could do it; he could be all those things for eight school hours, without a lunch break. But oh no. Today here he was, sitting still and trying to smooth his hair down. What WAS the matter with him?

  “Did I ever tell you the story about Nathalia and the dog biscuits?”

  That doesn’t even make the top five, thought Nat, helplessly. Dad’s going for the whole top twenty. This is terrible. It cannot get worse.

  And then the doorbell rang.

  OOOEE, ONLY ME,” SAID BAD NEWS NAN, WALKING straight past Dad with two shopping bags. “Oooh, is it dinner time? Lovely. You’ll never guess who’s just been hit by a bus.” She paused for a microsecond, sitting down and noticing Miss Hunny. “Ivor, introduce me. He’s terrible, my son. You’d think he’d been dragged up. I blame the bang on the back of his head when he got dropped as a baby. Well, he was born bright yellow, it’s no wonder the nurse dropped him.”

  Saved,thought Nat, and dived on her nan’s large lap.

  “What’s for dinner? I could eat a morsel – my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. I’ve brought some biscuits for afters. They were only a pound at Everything’s a Pound. Not that I should shop there after what happened to Mr Hanoomansingh in the dry goods section. It’s his wife I feel sorry for. And the people who had to clean it up.”

  “Hello, Mum,” said Dad, as Bad News Nan paused for breath. “This is a surprise.”

  “You’d think he’d say nice surprise, wouldn’t you, dear?” she continued, adding to Nat’s joy, “but that’s him all over. He’s never been grateful. He won a scooter in a beautiful baby competition when he was three but would he play with it? He would not. Just because it was pink.”

  “No, it was because you entered me in the girls’ section.”

  “Well, you were a pretty child. You’d never have won in the boys’, have some sense. Oh, but he’s never had much sense. I could tell you some stories, missy.”

  Miss Hunny smiled politely. “Please don’t,” she said.

  “Please do,” said Nat.

  “I wouldn’t embarrass him,” said Bad News Nan. “Not that he didn’t embarrass me. Like the time he threw a tantrum in the toy shop because they’d sold out of mutant turtles.”

  “It was my birthday, and you’d promised,” muttered Dad.

  “I said this is no way for a fourteen-year-old to behave. I dragged him out by his ear, I admit it. I know these days parents can be locked up for less, but that’s why you can’t go out at night any more. Teenagers running riot, with hoods on; s’awful. I want to know who sells them these hoods, that’s what I want to know. You’re not safe in your own street. I blame the schools. Teaching’s gone right down the pan. Let me tell you …”

  Miss Hunny’s lips tightened as Bad News Nan told her. “I’ll get you a plate,” said Nat happily. She skipped into the kitchen, pain in her ankle a distant memory. This was going to be the greatest night of her life.

  Even before the meal was finished, Dad was looking decidedly green round the edges. They’d already been treated to some choice nuggets from his childhood, from his fear of iceberg lettuce to how he once superglued Nan to a caravan toilet in Rhyl (Darius’s personal favourite).

  Nat wasn’t bothered that Dad had played it safe with the cooking and bought a big frozen lasagne. She had an hour of joy at the dinner table as Bad News Nan went on and on and on. She never ran out of anything to say for two very good reasons. Firstly, she repeated everything about six times, just to make sure everyone had heard it. And secondly, if she couldn’t remember the end to a story, she JUST MADE IT UP. If she got really stuck she’d nick ideas from soaps or daytime telly or films. Miss Hunny might well have been surprised that Dad had foiled a bank robbery, hitched round the world and had an evil twin called Colin, but she didn’t show it. She was still too annoyed at Bad News Nan’s opinions of teachers.

  And even Darius isn’t safe tonight, Nat thought gleefully, as Bad News Nan got him in a headlock, spat on her hanky and wiped tomato sauce off his face. He struggled helplessly in her mighty bosom, but THERE WAS NO ESCAPE.

  Bad News Nan was actually called Glenys, but she seemed to collect terrible hard-luck stories the way other people collect stamps, or the way Darius collected detentions. People just told her this stuff. They couldn’t help themselves; she was a bad-news magnet and just sucked it out of them. If you wanted to know who was in trouble, or had lost their job, or had been eaten by an escaped bear, Bad News Nan would tell you. In fact, she’d tell you even when you didn’t want to know.

  And now she was telling them about Mr Karahan, from down at the kebab shop. Apparently he was suffering from pustules, the description of which had put them all off their trifle. Except Darius, who thought Nan was awesome, even if he was due another faceful of spitty Nan-hankie.

  Hundreds of years ago, people believed in a thing called the wheel of fortune. It’s really not complicated, so pay attention. Basically it says that when you are at the bottom, when your dog’s been run over and you’ve come last in maths and you’ve been given a jumper for your birthday rather than an iPad, well, there’s good news. One day the wheel will lift you up. You’ll have more dogs and maths GCSEs and iPads than you’ll know what to do with. You’ll be on top!

  Which is very nice.

  However, remember this is a wheel, not a lift. If you are at the top, the only way is down, loser.

  This belief – that no matter how happy you are, you’ll soon be doomed – is one of the reasons why people in the Middle Ages were really miserable. Well, that and the Black Death. Oh and the constant wars, poverty, filth, lack of due legal process and a really long wait for the TV to come on. Bad News Nan was born 500 years too late. She’d have loved it.

  Anyway, Nat, currently sat at the top of the wheel, felt a slight waver. Bad News Nan had got a fruit pip under her top plate and had taken it out to scrape it with her hanky. A scrubbed Darius watched with horror as he realised SHE ONLY HAD ONE HANKY.

  Worse than this, Miss Hunny finally got an opportunity to speak.

  “There’savacancyforsomeonetochairthe POGSschoolcommitteeandyou’dbeperfect,” she gabbled, trying to fit as many words in as possible before Nan put her teeth back in.

  “Sorry, didn’tcatchthat,” gabbled Dad.

  Nat felt the wheel tilt downwards sharply.

  “She said there’s a vacancy for some idiot to chair the stupid POGS school committee, whatever that is, and you’re the idiot,” said Darius automatically, without thinking, or taking his eyes of Nan, scrubbing, scrubbing.

  “Oh, I’d love to get more involved in Nathalia’s school,” said Dad.

  Nat’s wheel was picking up speed. Downwards.

  “I’ve split me plate,” said Nan.

  “POGS stands for our new Parents Organising Group Scheme. They run all sorts of fun events. You know – school outings, discos, oh, and we’d like to get in one of those really cool theatre companies that do Shakespeare in rap, really connect with the kids.”

  Nan toyed with her top set. “I thought it was weakened when I caught the Dog chewing it,” she said, tutting.

  Miss Hunny finished the Uzbek red in one gulp and soldiered on. “With your energy, and the way you connect with children, and all your contacts in the media, you’d be perfect. What do you say? Can I put your name forward?”

  Nat knew her wheel had hit rock bottom before she even heard Dad say yes.

  As it turned out, Nat was wrong. Much later, when the bouncing Darius had finally been forcibly detained in the spare room, and Bad News Nan was snoring in the armchair in the living room, Nat did something sneaky. She crept downstairs in her PJs to ‘get a glass of water’, which actually meant ‘to listen to Dad and Miss Hunny without them knowing’.

  She heard M
iss Hunny saying quietly,

  “ … yes, I think he’s charming, and I think he’s hiding a very good brain in there, but most of the teachers disagree with me. They want Darius moved. He’s a bad influence on Nathalia’s class.”

  “But won’t he be a bad influence on the other class?” asked Dad.

  Miss Hunny frowned. Nat couldn’t actually see her face, as she was peeking through a crack in the door, but her voice sounded frowny. “The school have made a new class. For kids who are ALL bad influences.”

  Nat knew the one she meant. It was the class that all the other kids hurried past.

  “The school’s not so worried about them,” her teacher continued. “I think most teachers just want them to get to Year Eleven without burning the place down.”

  Miss Hunny sighed unhappily.

  Nathalia found herself wishing Miss Hunny wasn’t Dad’s friend because, in that moment, looking at her kind face, she rather liked her.

  “It doesn’t seem very fair to Darius,” said Dad.

  Miss Hunny didn’t reply.

  It doesn’t seem very fair to ME either, thought Nat, stomping back upstairs, her fake glass of water forgotten. I’ve only got one friend, even if he is a bad influence. And calls me Buttface. And eats his own bogeys. And farts the first three bars of ‘Frére Jacques’ in French – OK, that one’s actually funny.

  Hang on, said the little Evil Villain inside Nat, without Darius you could have proper friends like Penny and Abi and Frankeee with three e’s. Nat was tempted but then peeked in on the terror of 7H. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, cuddling the Dog.

  T WAS ONLY DAYS AFTER THE DREADED DINNER and Nat already hated POGS more than double games. Which she was now doing. It was drizzling, of course.

  “All I hear is POGS POGS POGS,” she gasped to Darius as they jogged round the playing field. They were both being punished for something or other that was probably Darius’s fault.

  “What?” said Darius. “Hold on, I’ve got to stop running. I think my breakfast is coming back.” There was a horrible noise. Nat looked away. “I don’t remember eating that,” said Darius, wiping his face with a torn sleeve. “In fact, I don’t remember eating breakfast.” They jogged on. “Right, what stupid things were you saying?” continued Darius. “Ow, stop pinching.”