Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Dad in the World

by Nigel Smith

  “But I can’t cancel the disco, I’ve already printed up all the tickets,” said Dad, who very much planned to dance about on stage rapping and waving a glow-stick. “I can’t let everyone down.” Dad rubbed his head and made the first discovery of what was to become The Bald Spot That Must Never Be Mentioned.

  “It’ll be a disaster, Dad.” Surprisingly, this stopped him.

  “Oh,” he said, suddenly unsure. “That’s actually a good point. They said one more disaster and I’ll be chucked off the committee for life. We don’t want that, do we?”

  This stopped Nat. She DID want this. She wanted it a lot. Evil Nat started twirling her evil moustache. So Dad was only one more disaster away, was he? Right. Perhaps it was worth one final burst of utter humiliation and shame. No pain, no gain.

  “No, you should definitely do the disco,” she said craftily. “You can’t let people down. You’re right. Bring all your favourite records.” This was it. Goodbye, Dad. Three hours of the Electric Meerkats and the Exploding Bongo Band and he’d be out of school for good. Like Darius. Darius …

  “GENIUS IDEA ALERT!” shouted Dad so loudly that Nat almost jumped out of her seat and a nearby cyclist fell off his bike. “Darius isn’t suspended from the disco, is he? No, he’s not. He can help me set it up, show that silly school he can behave. Yeah, he can help me download all the modern hits. I might even do some mixing and … whatever it is they do. And he can do some visuals and just generally help me out, and maybe your teachers will see there’s more to him than – you know …”

  “Burping and farting and twitching and running out of class and terrorising the girls and giving teachers nervous breakdowns?”

  “Work with me on this, love.”

  Nat sighed in agreement. She wanted Darius back and was out of sensible ideas.

  Dad arranged for Darius to stay with them until the disco. He said it was so they could work on their show but Nat thought it was really just to get him away from Oswald for a while. Oswald seemed keen to get rid of him when they went to collect him.

  Darius was his usual hyper-scratching-twitching-running-jumping-cartwheeling-head-standing-picking-farting-joking self. He made them laugh all the way home, especially when he used the Dog as a ventriloquist dummy and told a rude story about bumsniffs. The Dog didn’t care what Darius did, he just liked licking him. He always found something tasty.

  As it turned out, Darius was even better at the computer than Dad had hoped. By the end of the first night at their house, and with the help of Dad’s credit card, Darius had set up a virtual DJ booth, complete with ‘banging’ tunes, ‘rad’ beats and a ‘some other word Dad didn’t recognise’ lightshow. He’d also set up a bank account under the name of IP FREELY but Dad made him close it down in case he got a dawn raid from the authorities.

  The next day even Nat found herself, with Dad and his little helper, in an electronics store hiring a big projector for the night. The idea was to hook this up to his laptop and show videos and animations, to go along with the music. Who needed Kerri, Bonehead and flipping Cabbage? Not Dad and Darius, that was for sure.

  This was definitely going to be a school disco that no one would ever forget.

  Whether that was going to be a good thing or not, only time would tell. But Nat realised, either way, whether she liked it or not, there was no way she could miss it.

  HE DISCO WAS DUE TO KICK OFF A COUPLE OF HOURS after school on Friday, the last day of term. Mr MacAnuff had been told to decorate the gym, and he’d tried his best, bearing in mind he hadn’t been in a disco for ten years. There was a big disco ball, a few coloured lights and lots of bright streamers. Class 7H had made a poster as an art project. It read:

  When Nat pointed out politely that ‘Party’ is traditionally spelled differently, the art teacher Miss Glossop had told her, rather defensively, Nat thought, that it was an art project not an English project and to mind her own business.

  Mr MacAnuff was looking forward to the disco so much that he’d bought a new vest especially. It was even tighter than his usual one. Tonight, he’d decided to ask Miss Hunny out. Her saying yes would take away some of the pain he still felt over his ruined lawn. He reckoned the rest of the pain would be taken away by the fact that he was never going to see Darius Bagley ever again.

  In fact he did see Darius again, and a lot sooner than he’d have liked, when the boy came trotting in with Nat and Dad and Mr Kitkat the bearded drama and media teacher. They were all hauling the big projector. Mr MacAnuff glimpsed them through a gym window. He was outside putting up the DISCO PRATY banner and was so angry he almost fell off his ladder.

  In the gym, Darius was kept so busy setting up the electronic gear that he didn’t have a chance to be naughty. Mr Kitkat the bearded drama and media teacher looked at Dad in amazement. “Is this the real Darius Bagley?” he asked Dad, after an hour of eyeball fartless eleven-year-old. “I saw a science-fiction film last night about aliens who take over children. They behave really nicely until your back’s turned and then they morph into space spiders and eat your face off.”

  Dad laughed nervously. “That’s silly,” he said. But neither he nor Mr Kitkat took their eyes off Darius for quite a while after that. Right until a massive, shockingly loud explosion made them both jump. “The invasion’s started!” shouted Mr Kitkat, who was a very artistic, imaginative and cowardly sort of chap. He was halfway to hiding under the gym mats before he realised it was just Darius turning up the bass and hitting ‘play’ on a top-ten tune.

  “It works then,” shouted Dad, as the tune banged on relentlessly.

  “You what?” shouted Darius. “Can’t hear you …”

  Now they’d sorted the music, Darius went on to sort out the visuals. He fiddled about with the laptop for a while but all that came up on the projector was Dad’s screensaver – a nice family photo of him and Mum and Nat and The Dog on a beach. Dad smiled at it. Nat scowled.

  “Better take that down,” Dad shouted over the music, seeing Nat’s face. “She’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

  A few minutes later, Darius managed to get some lovely swirly patterns up, dancing in time to the music. It looked great. Mr Kitkat clapped.

  Dad gave Darius the thumbs up. “Now please turn that horrible noise off,” he shouted.

  Darius cut the power. “Great,” said Dad, relieved. “Let’s get a can of pop, and some glow-sticks. I’m on soon.”

  ‘Soon’ came ‘too soon’ for Nat. The gym was packed. It seemed like most of the school had turned up for the disco. This was probably because Dad had forgotten to tell anyone that Kerri, Bonehead and Cabbage weren’t coming. So there were quite a few groans and boos when he made the announcement that HE was doing the disco-ing. Most of the boos – and all of the bad language – came from the teachers. A lot of them had come hoping to get a photo with the stars.

  “It’s like a funky tidal wave!” blared Dad, who’d found a microphone and was now hopping about on stage.

  Nat cringed. If only Mum could have come, she might have kept Dad from embarrassing her like this, but she was working late AGAIN. Nat was jealous of her mum at times. This was one of those times. However, with a bit of luck Dad would be chucked off the committee before he had a chance to make too big a fool of himself.

  “Is that Darius up there with your dad?” asked Penny, walking over to Nat. It was a bit hard to see because the lights were so dim. At the far end of the gym there was a raised platform like a little stage, where Dad was going to DJ. A smaller, twitchy figure was up there, tapping on a laptop.

  “Yup,” said Nat, resigned. “Dad and Darius together. We’ll be lucky if the school’s still standing in an hour.”

  Penny brightened at the thought. “We can but hope,” she said, before walking off again.

  “Ride the funky wave, c’mon!” shouted Dad again, waving his arms about like he was drowning and had spotted a passing lifeboat. He was holding a glow-stick.

  Nat wished she hadn’t had to com
e.

  No one seemed inclined to ride the wave, no matter how funky. As soon as the music started, all the girls immediately scattered to one side of the gym, all the boys to the other. It was like an invisible snowplough had driven between them. But then the video light show suddenly blazed into life and swirly patterns flared up on the huge screen. People stopped boo-ing. Even Nat had to admit it was rather good. On stage, Dad high-fived Darius.

  A few of the older girls edged into the middle of the floor, and with set faces, started dancing. They had come to have a good time and were grimly determined to have one, no matter what sort of idiot was playing the songs.

  Darius had chosen the music cleverly, starting with the sort of songs no schoolgirl could resist. Dad had decided to leave the playlist entirely to him and really concentrate on his MCing, and encouraging the crowd to dance.

  “I’m going to milk the groove and make some tasty shakes!” boomed Dad the MC, rocking the mic. Nat died a little bit inside.

  Some of the teachers laughed. Nat realised they thought that Dad was only pretending to be a complete idiot. She wanted to shake them and say, “No! This is what he’s really like! He thinks it’s good! Make him STOP.” A few more girls began dancing and Nat had a horrible feeling that Dad was getting away with it.

  “Just what is that awful boy doing in here?” asked Miss Eyre, who hadn’t got anyone to bring to the disco except Miss Austen and was feeling grumpy about it. She was shouting so loudly Nat overheard every word.

  “It’s an outrage – he’s suspended during our investigations,” shouted Miss Austen, just as grumpily.

  “He doesn’t need investigating, he needs incarcerating,” replied Miss Eyre, pleased with her use of big words.

  Nat was crushed. She was fooling herself that the school might take Darius back. So she was putting herself through this humiliation FOR NOTHING. The world was a cold, bleak and unforgiving place of misery and pain. Then she realised she was turning into Bad News Nan. Which only made her MORE miserable.

  “I like this one,” said Penny, who came dancing up to Nat. “Do you want to dance?”

  Nat looked at her in horror. “Are you MAD?” she said, then, losing it a bit, “Can’t you see – we’re all doomed.”

  “Tear the roof off! Come for your funky fill, now you’re funking ill!” yelled Dad.

  “He’s so funny!” said Penny. “Come on, now we’re here …”

  Nat edged away. “I’ve … I’ve gotta go to the loo,” she said, and ran out. On the way she saw Mr MacAnuff laughing with Miss Hunny. She didn’t like the look on the caretaker’s face. He was like a cat who’d cornered a mouse wearing a cream-flavoured hat.

  Back on stage, Dad was growing in confidence as the dance floor filled up. He turned to Darius, who was fiddling with something shiny and silvery.

  “What’s that?” Dad asked.

  “A camera,” said Darius, who’d stopped fiddling and was looking straight at Dad.

  “Brilliant,” said Dad. “Great idea. Take my picture waving a glo-stick.”

  “No,” said Darius. “I want to tell you something.”

  “Is it about riding the funky train?” said Dad, who had boarded it ages ago.

  “It’s not about riding the funky train.”

  “Then it’ll have to wait until the funky train gets into the station and we all get off and, um …”

  Unlike the funky train, Dad was running out of funky steam. “ … And we mustn’t forget to take all our belongings with us.”

  Darius had no idea what Dad was going on about. Neither had Dad, but that had never stopped him before. “Then we have to get our funky tickets out at the barriers and er … then you can tell me. Look, just play another song, they love us.”

  Nat waited in the loo for twenty minutes until there was a reasonable chance Dad had finally done something terrible and was being carted out by an angry mob. She popped her head back round the gym doors just in time to hear him shout the two most frightening words in human history.

  “Bongo solo!”

  Darius cut the music. Dad whipped out his bongos.

  “AAAAARRRGH!!!!” screamed Nat. She ran back to the loo, bright red in the face. Even if they do let Darius back into school and make him head boy, she thought, it STILL ISN’T WORTH IT.

  A little while later she heard a knock at the cubicle door.

  Nat stayed silent, hoping they’d just go away.

  “It’s Penny. I know you’re in there.” Nat relented and opened the door.

  “Come back,” said Penny. “Everyone’s having a nice time. Your dad’s OK. Really. He’s funny.”

  “He’s really not,” said Nat miserably, letting herself get marched back to the thundering noise of the disco.

  “He just likes making people happy,” said Penny.

  What about ME, though? thought Nat, who had made up her mind to sulk until she was eighteen or adopted, whichever came first.

  The disco was now in full swing. And what a swing. The music was good, the light show was great; against all sane predictions it was heading for success. Both Dad and Darius were rocking. Even the teachers, who had been irritated not to see the three semi-famous DJs, were having fun. And they’d stopped looking at Darius the way people look at their shoes after a walk around a sick donkey refuge.

  Nat was beginning to think about hoping things might possibly turn out OK after all.

  AND Penny was still talking to her …

  Just then, Nat saw Flora Marling effortlessly dancing. Nat felt like a lump. And then Flora smiled at her. From the depths of despair, Nat had wings on her feet. Darius might be saved, Penny might think she’s at least OK and Flora Marling SMILED at her.

  Nat took a chance and edged slowly on to the dance floor, over towards the smiling, dancing Flora Marling.

  “My boring dad wouldn’t even dance at his own wedding,” Flora shouted. “You’re soooo lucky.”

  Nat looked at her father on stage, hopping about like a baboon on a hot car roof. And she almost smiled.

  And then Dad did something that wiped the almost-smile right off her face.

  “Is that a video camera?” said Dad, noticing the shiny thing Darius was fiddling with. Darius tried to drop it into his bag but Dad grabbed it. “I know why you’ve got this,” said Dad.

  Darius looked miserable. “I’ve tried to tell you …” he began.

  “No need,” said Dad. “You think we should film the crowd, and show it on the screen, all blown up.”

  “No, I …” began Darius, but Dad wasn’t listening. “Great idea. All the trendy clubs do it. I’ve seen a lead somewhere – I’ll plug the camera into the laptop. Do I press this?”

  He jabbed a bunch of buttons, almost at random. OK, entirely at random.

  “Welcome to Christmas!” said Dad, incredibly loudly. But it wasn’t Dad the Disco King of tonight. It was Dad on screen. A huge Dad. A younger Dad. A Dad with hair.

  “What did you press?” shouted Darius. “You’re playing a video from the hard drive.”

  “Am I? I don’t know. What’s happening?” said Dad, immediately panicking when faced with technology out of control.

  But Nat knew. She knew what was happening without asking. She recognised the video. She stopped dead in mid-boogie and went stone cold. No, colder than stone. Stone was hot compared to Nat. Nat was colder than an ice cube dropped in a bucket of liquid nitrogen that had been left in a very cold freezer in deep space.

  She knew this video. She had seen this video. And worse, far, far worse …

  She was IN this video.

  OR NAT TO GET TO THE DISCO THAT NIGHT, NICE NAT and Evil Villain Nat had had to declare a truce in her little blonde head. They had both agreed to put up with SOME Dad-related embarrassment to get what they wanted. Maybe Darius would be rescued (pleasing Nice Nat) and maybe Dad would get publicly sacked (pleasing Evil Villain Nat).

  Some embarrassment, yes. But neither of them, in their worst, their deepest, darkest, most
terrifying nightmares, had ever thought this might happen.

  The huge on-screen younger Dad was chatting happily. He was filming a living room in the chaos of Christmas. Nat’s living room. Under a sparkling tree, presents lay unwrapped. The real Nat couldn’t take her eyes off a younger Mum, smiling in a dressing gown.

  “We should probably turn this off,” said real Dad, heading back to the stage.

  But Mr MacAnuff stood in his way. “Let’s see that camera,” he said.

  “In a minute,” said Dad. “I have to sort this out.”

  But Mr MacAnuff was quicker than Dad. He hopped up on stage and grabbed Darius. “I’ve got you now!” he said nastily. “A vandal AND a thief.”

  Meanwhile, the video footage was still running. The crowd of teachers and classmates all watched as a six-metre high baby came on to the screen. A six-metre high, totally NAKED baby.

  “It’s your first Christmas, isn’t it?” the younger, on-screen, hairy Dad said. “Yes, it is. Say hello to the world.” The baby gurgled and rolled over, showing a big round, bare baby’s bum.

  Nat’s mind was racing. If he doesn’t mention my name I might get away with it, she thought desperately.

  “Don’t be shy,” said younger Dad, turning over the baby. “It’s only Dad. Say hello, NATHALIA BEW-MOLE-AY.”

  “AAAAARGH!” yelled baby Nat.

  “AAAARGH!” yelled eleven-year-old Nat.

  “HAHAHAHA!” laughed almost everyone.

  “Ow!” yelled Darius.

  “He bit me!” yelled Mr MacAnuff.

  “Take your hands off him!” yelled Dad.

  “DAD, I HATE YOU!”

  The words cut through the laughter and the shouting. They were hot words. They were serious. They were meant. Darius broke free and paused the music and the video bum.

  The gym went deathly quiet.

  Mr MacAnuff sucked at his bitten hand. Nat stared at her dad, cold with fury.

  “Every day,” shouted Nat. “Every day you show me up.” Dad looked around for something to distract her with. He was ideally hoping for a puppy to trot past. Nat liked puppies. Or a fluffy kitten. Maybe a puppy riding a kitten. Or better yet, a unicorn … But Nat was only standing a few metres away and the look on her face brought him back to reality. He gave her a weak smile.