Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Dad in the World

by Nigel Smith

  “I thought you would grow out of it, but no. You’ve got worse.”

  Dad now had two thoughts float across his mind as he faced his furious daughter. One – the disco wasn’t going quite according to plan and two – how much she looked like her mum, who he missed, rather a lot. He smiled, which was entirely the wrong thing to do.

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me!”

  Dad immediately stopped smiling.

  Behind Nat, the ageing laptop now seemed to be going through all Dad’s digital photos. First up on the big projector screen was an old photo of Dad cuddling a five-year-old girl, a little girl with long blonde hair and brown eyes and a button nose who looked nervous on her way to school. The crowd went, “Aaaaah.” Nat looked at the picture and something caught in her throat. She stumbled over her words, but then steeled herself as she remembered all of Dad’s many crimes.

  “Even when I started at this school and asked you REALLY NICELY not to show me up, what did you do? First day, you chased me up a tree dressed as a clown.”

  “Well, no, it was a goose that chased you— ”

  “But it was YOUR FAULT. Like it was your fault we have to drive round in a horrible old van; your fault we got chucked out of the cathedral and Darius almost got arrested; your fault I had to draw that stupid old ugly man at open evening while everyone watched me; your fault that I’m called Bumhole – yes, it’s BUMHOLE Dad; your fault I had to sit on a stage and do a stupid quiz that I didn’t know any of the answers to and your fault the school’s had a good laugh at me WITH NO CLOTHES ON!”

  The crowd all agreed it had been an eventful term.

  “Will you ever learn that I don’t like being the centre of attention,” yelled Nat, very much the centre of attention. Behind her, the photos on the screen kept changing. Most were of Nat and Dad. Birthdays, holidays, funfairs, bike rides, ice creams and picnics. The cake he made in the shape of a pork pie, which she refused to eat because she’d turned veggie that week; Dad looking ill after going on a roller-coaster; Dad chasing after her balloon; Dad getting strangled in her kite strings.

  Nat knew that the pictures were there but was trying to ignore them. She had that look of someone who was absolutely sure they were right, and Dad had the guilty look of someone caught with their hand in the biscuit jar. He knew she was right too.

  “It was your fault my party became more dangerous than the Battle of Hastings and it’s your fault I’ve come here tonight and THIS happens and now everyone’s going to laugh at me for the rest of my life …” There was so much more she could say, but she was exhausted now, and the photos had taken the heat out of her anger.

  Miss Eyre turned to Miss Austen. “When she puts it like that, I actually feel sorry for the girl.”

  “All your fault, Dad.” Nat was drained. Her eyes were red, her lips, once firm, were trembling. Even Dad realised he was in trouble. Proper trouble.

  Dad walked over to Nat. He put his hand on her shoulder. She pushed it off. He knelt.

  “I’m sorry, love,” he said.

  “Not good enough,” she sniffed.

  “I try to do what’s best for you. I try to cheer you up when you’re upset. Admittedly that often makes you more upset, but you know … I tried to help you make friends at your new school and I try to let everyone see who I see. That you’re beautiful and talented and kind and deserve to be happy.”

  “Stoppit, Dad, you’re making it worse,” she sniffled.

  “I’m leaving the school committee. I don’t want to upset you any more. I thought I could make school a bit better for you. I think I made it worse.” He looked thoroughly miserable.

  “Yeah, you have,” said Nat.

  A slim, pale hand was placed on her shoulder. She turned. It was Flora Marling, who had been entranced by the happy family photos. “Give him a break,” said Flora. Dad looked at her gratefully. “We’ve ALL got rubbish dads.” Dad looked at her a bit less gratefully.

  “Look at the screen!” shouted Penny Posnitch suddenly.

  All the time Nat had been shouting, Darius had been fiddling. No one had taken any notice of him because Darius was always fiddling with something.

  But now the pictures of Nat and Dad had disappeared. They’d been replaced by a different video. It was a video taken on the night of the school quiz; random footage filmed by someone who was clearly just walking around the school, filming down corridors, into empty classrooms, and then – out of a window and on to Mr MacAnuff’s precious lawn, in all its pre-vandalised green and pleasant glory. The video was shot from a window, high up. It was obviously after school because no one was about.

  But now what was this? Caught on the video, two figures ran on to the lawn, looking around furtively. They had spades. They started digging up the turf. The crowd gave an intake of collective breath. The camera zoomed in. It was two of the big lads from Darius’s new class. They were caught red-handed, digging out the letters D A R –

  “And where do you think you’re going?” said Mr Frantz, grabbing the same two lads – Wayne Garvey and one of his nasty little friends – as they tried to sneak out of the gym.

  Nat’s heart leapt, her misery almost forgotten. Darius was safe!

  “He’s not out of the woods yet,” yelled Mr MacAnuff. “He might have filmed those boys – who will of course be dealt with most severely – but he still stole the school’s camera.”

  It was sort of true.

  What Darius explained was this. Before the quiz started, he was helping Mr Kitkat set up the camera so they could film the quiz and put it all up on the website the next day. But he’d ‘borrowed’ it quickly to film a bit of extra footage. (Darius often did this, as the Chairman of the Governors knew only too well, having seen the video of the infamous dancing bare bottom on the school’s website.) Darius had pootled around school videoing stuff until he got bored (which took about forty-five seconds) when he accidentally dropped the camera.

  Worried it might be broken, in the confusion following the quiz, Darius pocketed the camera to take home and repair. Darius was good with his hands, and found they got him into less trouble if they were kept busy. It was only then he saw what he’d filmed.

  “I couldn’t bring it back because you suspended me,” he said to the Head, who looked back at him stony-faced.

  Darius might have been a bit daft, but he was smart enough to know that literally NO ONE – apart from someone equally daft, like Nat’s dad – would believe this story. Even if he showed teachers that he’d actually filmed the vandals, he’d be in EVEN DEEPER TROUBLE for stealing.

  He was right. Mr MacAnuff was now looking like a cat who’d given up trying to eat the creamy-hatted mouse because he’d seen a fat rat in a cream bun with catnip on top.

  “Never mind suspended,” he said, “you stole this and I’m calling the police.”

  Nat felt sick. Darius was in SERIOUS trouble. The sort of trouble that only something truly amazing, unlikely and incredible could get him out of.

  And then Dad did something truly amazing, unlikely and incredible.

  He walked up to the stage, looked the caretaker square in the eye and said, “No. Darius is fibbing. I borrowed the camera for the disco. I meant to ask but I forgot. I’m very forgetful.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” snarled Mr MacAnuff. “Don’t get yourself into trouble for him.”

  Suddenly Nat found herself standing next to Dad. She said, “I can vouch for that too. Dad borrowed it. Darius wouldn’t steal.” Then, taking a deep breath, she added, “He’s my best friend. I should know.”

  As Nat stood there, she felt someone small slipping their arm through hers. It was Penny Posnitch. She whispered in Nat’s ear, “You stuck by your best friend. That’s ever so nice. And I’m going to stick by you.”

  Nat felt a warm glow of pride spreading through her.

  “Even if it means I get Darius as well,” Penny added with a sigh.

  Miss Hunny was looking at the caretaker like she’d suddenly realised
he really wasn’t very nice after all. Nat tutted – she could have told her that ages ago.

  “I don’t think I’m in trouble,” said Dad, who had seen something everyone else seemed to have missed. “Let’s just play this video again, shall we?” He rewound and then played the video a few seconds. There was the lawn, the boys, then … a blurry figure could just be seen launching itself across the lawn and starting to chase the boys off just before Darius had swung the camera back round. “I wonder who THAT is?” said Dad.

  “Oooh,” said the crowd, as the plot thickened.

  “It’s not me,” said Mr MacAnuff too quickly.

  “No,” said Dad. “It can’t have been you, otherwise you’d have known all along that Darius didn’t do it. And that would make you really mean.” Mr MacAnuff shuffled about awkwardly. “Oh well,” continued Dad, “you said you were calling the police – I’m sure they can get to the bottom of it.”

  “Oh, no need for them,” said the caretaker hastily. “You say you borrowed the camera – I’m sure you had your reasons. No harm done, eh? Best forgotten about. Least said, soonest mended.” He held out his bitten hand to Darius. “I suppose it’s welcome back,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Darius looked at the hand, shrugged and bared his own teeth. “Shake it, don’t chew it,” said Dad.

  A few people clapped. Most groaned. Darius was never going to be THAT popular, after all.

  Dad felt two little arms wrap round him. It was Nat. He kissed the top of her head and for once she didn’t mind who was watching.

  “Put the music back on, Darius,” said Dad, walking over to him. “I feel like dancing!”

  As the thundering bass shook the floor, Mr MacAnuff slunk off back to his potting shed. He couldn’t look Miss Hunny in the eye.

  Just then a familiar arm slid round Nat’s neck. She turned. Her mum stood there, all dressed up in her posh frock. She looked beautiful and glamorous. “I thought you were working!” squealed Nat happily, hugging her.

  “I juggled stuff around,” said Mum. “You get good at that when you’re a girl. It’s called multi-tasking.”

  Tell us about it, thought Nice Nat and Evil Villain Nat – who had somehow BOTH got what they wanted. We’re pooped.

  “Well, I told my new bosses that I’m just going to have to travel a bit less and they’ll have to lump it. I wasn’t going to miss the fun this time,” said Mum.

  “Fun? FUN??”

  “Yeah, you and your big daft dad get to do all the cool stuff. I just get boring work. I’m quite jealous.” Nat had never thought of it like that. She hugged Mum tight.

  Dad came off the podium. He hugged both of them and they let him. Around them the disco was in full swing. Even the teachers had decided to get, like, down. Mr Frantz was dancing like only a German maths teacher who hadn’t danced for twenty years can dance. Miss Hunny was in Boogie Wonderland with the new Spanish supply teacher. The Head was tapping her feet and wondering what half the words in this song were and just exactly how rude it was. Miss Glossop the art teacher was doing some kind of free-form mad jazz limbo and Misses Eyre and Austen both had sour faces and their fingers in their ears.

  Nat looked up at Darius, who was dropping beats with one hand and doing something disgusting with the other.

  “Nice one, Buttface,” said Darius.

  “Nice one, chimpy,” said Nat.

  Penny beckoned her to dance. “I like this one,” she shouted. “No one’s realised how rude it is yet.” Abi and Frankeee smiled at her too. Not laughed at, smiled at.

  “Off you go,” said Dad, finally releasing her. He looked Nat straight in the eye. “I’ll never embarrass you again,” he fibbed. She grinned up at the big idiot.

  “I believe you, Dad,” she fibbed back.

  And with that, she went off to join her friends.

  It was the Saturday after school finished and Nat and Dad were outside the house, packing the Atomic Dustbin ready for their holiday. This involved first unpacking the Atomic Dustbin, as it was always full of junk. It was crammed with the stuff Dad liked that Mum wouldn’t let in the house. So anyone walking past their drive that morning would have seen a rubbish van parked next to a rubbish tip. Nat had a baseball cap pulled down as far over her face as possible, in case anyone who knew her walked by.

  Dad wasn’t wearing a baseball cap; he thought baseball caps looked stupid. He was wearing an old T-shirt with the words ‘Little Monkeys’ emblazoned on it. Underneath this title was a printed-on photo of Nat, aged four, holding a monkey in a safari park. Nat was pulling a face because the chimp had just poked her in the eye. Dad thought the picture was cute. Nat had thrown the T-shirt in the bin fourteen times. Next time, she thought darkly, I’m setting fire to it. Even if Dad’s wearing it.

  But even worse than the T-shirt were Dad’s shorts. Dad wore shorts from June 1st to August 31st. Every year. Because, he said, “that is summer.” He didn’t wear them at any other time, no matter how hot, and he never wore anything else in the summer, no matter how cold or rainy. Dad was very proud of his shorts because he’d had them since he was AT SCHOOL and could still get into them. They were red and shiny and very, very short. Way too short. From a distance it looked like he’d just forgotten to put his trousers on. Old ladies walked past the drive, tutting and shielding their eyes.

  Dad had extremely white, hairy, thin legs and in these shorts you could see almost ALL of those white, hairy, thin legs, from the ankles to the unmentionable. And when he was bending over in the van you could see a heck of a lot more and Nat could hear shrieks from the other side of the street.

  To top it all, Dad had the radio on. Nat and Dad fighting over which radio station to listen to was becoming what writers of modern classics would call ‘an issue’. In the old days, Nat didn’t care what awful music Dad inflicted on her, because she was still finding out what music she liked. But now she was older and had found out what she liked – it was the music they played on RADIO ZINGG! It was happy bouncy music you could dance to. Dad liked RADIO DAD. The songs on RADIO DAD went on for hours and if you tried to dance to them you’d break your legs. They were boring and miserable and now they were playing at full blast and all the neighbours would think she liked Dave Spong and his Incredible Flaming Earwigs, or whoever it was.

  So Nat was very keen to get the van cleared and packed so she could hide indoors for a day or two and recover. But the more Dad chucked out onto the drive, the more stuff was still inside. It was like some evil van curse. Worse, Dad couldn’t decide if the stuff he was supposed to be getting rid of would actually be useful on the trip. He kept trying to repack it.

  Oh yes, the trip. Normal families fly abroad for their holidays, thought Nat, sourly. But Dad thought it would be ‘more fun’ – i.e. cheaper – to drive there instead.

  “We’ll need a car when we get there anyway,” he’d argued with Mum. “And this saves us the expense of hiring one. Plus, we’ll make a holiday of the journey. There’s a big old tent in the van. You like camping.”

  This was not true. Mum hated camping. Mum liked hotels and hot water and fluffy towels and chocolates on the pillow and room service. She did not like: tents, campsites, bugs, sleeping bags, burnt sausages, shared showers, smelly loos, rain, fetching water from a pipe in a field, cows, hippies, damp socks; or any of the four great smells of camping: plastic, burnt wood, damp dirt and wee.

  After a bit of shouting, Mum and Dad had come to an agreement. Or rather, Mum had made Dad agree to do what she wanted. First, Dad, Nat and Darius would take the van over to France and drive to the holiday house. Mum would then join them for a couple of weeks when Dad had found a nice hotel nearby.

  “But you’ll be able to stay in the house when I’ve done it up,” argued Dad.

  “I don’t mean to be critical, love, but you’re not a builder,” Mum had pointed out. “You write jokes for Christmas crackers. I have no idea why you agreed to do this. The last time you tried to put up a bookshelf you nailed your head to a
copy of Great Expectations.”

  Dad muttered something about it being a bit quiet on the Christmas cracker joke-writing job front at the moment and that it might be good for him to have another skill or two. Mum just kissed him and reminded him to take out extra health insurance and make sure the first-aid tin was full. Nat wasn’t quite sure how she ended up on the bit of the trip that involved hours of van driving and staying in a falling-down house while her mum got to live it up in a hotel, but what could she do?

  “Do you think we’ll need this?” asked Dad, emerging backwards from the depths of the van, waving an electric pencil sharpener.

  “No idea, Dad, I’ve got my eyes closed,” shouted Nat. “Please change your shorts.”

  Whatever Dad said next was drowned out by the roar of a huge motorcycle engine. Oswald had arrived with Darius, who was sitting on the back of the bike. Darius hopped off and spat some flies out of his teeth. He was carrying a small tatty rucksack. It didn’t look big enough to carry a decent packed lunch, let alone anything else.

  “Is that all you’re bringing?” asked Nat.

  “It’s all I’ve got,” Darius replied lightly, before getting bowled over by the excited Dog. The two of them rolled around in the garden.

  Oswald nodded to Dad, revved his motorbike and sped off without saying goodbye to his little brother.

  Dad watched him go for a moment then turned back to Darius. “Best say goodbye,” he said, nodding at the Dog. “We’re taking him to the kennels later.”

  Nat was shocked. “Dad—” she began.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” he said, cutting her off, “but he’s not allowed to come with us and Mum’s too busy to look after him. He’ll be better off in a kennel, trust me. I’ve picked a nice one.”