Читать книгу Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Five Minutes of Fame Ever - Nigel Smith - Страница 12

AT WAS ABOUT TO PANIC OVER HER HAIR WHEN the door opened and an ancient man with a face covered in plasters appeared.

He wore a shredded cardigan, slashed brown trousers, chewed slippers and one lens of his glasses had been smashed.

“Are you from the council?” he said, peering through his broken specs. “Sorry about the noise. And the smell. And all the escaped things. Have you come to put me in prison? It’s fine, you know, I don’t mind. I could do with a rest from all of this.”

Nat wasn’t listening; she was trying to pull the crisp packet off her head. This wasn’t how she wanted to show off to Darius. As she tugged at the packet, she realised just how glue-like the BOGWASH hair stuff was. Her hand was in danger of getting stuck as well and she yanked it away with difficulty.

“I don’t even mind sharing a cell with Sid the Sidcup Strangler,” said the old man desperately. “That’s nothing to the horrors I’ve seen in this house. Nothing, I tell you.”

“Oi, Buttface, awesome hair,” said Darius from the hallway. He was wrestling something fierce in a sack. Nat grew an inch with pride. She stopped trying to unstick the crisp packet.

As long as I don’t turn my back on him … she thought. Which is just as well when it comes to Darius Bagley anyway, to be honest.

The man at the door – who presumably was Porter Ogden – eventually let Nat and Dad inside.

The place was chaos, a total mess. Nat had never seen anything like it. Every room in the big, dingy, smelly old house was taken up with cages and tanks and boxes of animals. And not just ANY animals.

There were creatures of all types and all sizes, with only one thing in common: they were all incredibly ugly.

There were three-legged cats and birds with squashed beaks. There were terrible toads, nasty-looking newts and hideous humpbacked snakes. There were dogs with drooling faces so unpleasant, Nat thought they’d have put even Bad News Nan off her Hobnobs.

Even the goldfish were vile enough to give a shark nightmares.

And the animals were EVERYWHERE – some running wild, others pacing or flapping or slithering about in their cages and tanks.

The place ponged.

“I can’t open a window since the last great escape,” explained Mr Ogden. “I’m used to the smell, but visitors might find it’s a bit rich.”

Nat’s eyes were watering. “Can we go into the garden?” she gasped.