Читать книгу Nathalia Buttface and the Embarrassing Camp Catastrophe - Nigel Smith - Страница 9

Nat was wrong. It was a long day.

After a brown lunch of brown rice and brown lentils and brown bread, all the children were treated to a welcome talk by the owner and the team who ran the campsite.

The woman who owned Lower Snotley Eco Camp was called Mrs Ferret and she looked like a weasel. She had brown hair, sticky-out sharp teeth and little round glasses. She spoke so quickly and quietly that Nat had no idea what she was saying.

“I thought she said something about pooing in a hole in the ground,” Nat whispered to Penny, who was looking deeply unhappy.

“I think she did,” said Penny, “and then she said something about recycling everything.”

“Everything?” said Nat, alarmed.

“I love it here.” Darius grinned.

Mrs Ferret the weasel then introduced the man who ran all the outward-bound activities, a huge, leathery kind of fellow called Mr Bungee. Nat couldn’t tell how old he was; she thought he’d just grown out of the ground like a tree. He was hard and bulgy, like a sock tightly stuffed with walnuts. Mr Bungee had a broad-brimmed leather hat decorated with sharks’ teeth and a voice like a man on a mobile phone going through a long train tunnel.

“G’day, you little creatures,” he shouted in a nasal twang. “I’m here to toughen you lot up. Get you used to the outdoor life. I’m gonna make men of the lot of you, eh?”

“Men? How about the girls?” said Nat, offended.

“ESPECIALLY the girls,” said Mr Bungee.

“I bet you’re brilliant at banter,” said Dad, stepping forward.

Next to Mr Bungee, Dad didn’t look like a sock filled with walnuts; he looked like a glove puppet filled with custard.

“Less banter, more action, that’s what your blooming country needs,” said Mr Bungee.

“Oooh, I think he’s lovely,” said Miss Austen, drooling a little.

“So do I, and I saw him first,” said Miss Eyre.

“I can see you’re a fair dinkum ocker, mate. G’day, Blue. How’d you do there, wallaby, to be sure,” said Dad in a bizarre, strangulated accent. He sounded like a cross between a cowboy, a Jamaican, and someone involved in a road traffic accident.

“You feelin’ all right?” said Mr Bungee.

“Yeah, kangaroo woologoroo koala,” said Dad. “I’m just saying, I can tell you’re an Australian. I’m dead good with accents. I’m a bit theatrical.”

“You’re a bit SOMETHIN’ all right,” said Mr B, “and I’ll have you know I’m from NEW FLIPPING ZEALAND.”

“Same thing, isn’t it?” said Dad.

Mr Bungee went red. “Bit of a drongo, are you?” he said angrily. “Australians speak funny for a start, and they can’t play rugby. Not that you’d know – you lot speak REALLY funny, and you’re even WORSE at rugby.”

Everyone laughed at his joke, and Misses Eyre and Austen even gave him a round of applause.

Ew, thought Nat, total suck-up alert.

Mr Bungee picked up a list of names and read down it. “Ah, I know who you are,” he said. “You must be Mr Bu—”

“Bew-mow-lay,” shouted Nat, who knew how EVERYONE pronounced their hated surname.

“It says on my list that you’ve specially asked to be in charge of the entertainment, eh?” said Mr Bungee.

“I’m a born entertainer,” said Dad.

“Well, you make me laugh all right,” said Mr Bungee.

The St Scrofula’s kids sniggered.

“Glad to help,” said Dad, smiling.

Nat sighed.

“Now, I usually do the entertaining round here,” said Mr Bungee, putting a thick arm around Dad, “but you know what they say at the urinals: there’s always room for a little one!”

Dad smiled.

Nat DID NOT.

Her day didn’t improve. Soon, Class 8H were shown to their “super” yurts.

So not super, thought Nat miserably, as she looked at the little round huts made of brown and yellow canvas and animal skin, propped up on bricks. Little coloured flags and ribbons fluttered from their ropes.

The rain had stopped but the campsite fields were still damp and muddy.

“All the stars have these yurt things when they go to festivals,” said Penny brightly. “This is dead glamorous.”

“They look like inflatable garden sheds,” said Nat, “and there’s nothing glamorous about a garden shed. Our local nutter, Plant Pot Pete, lives in a garden shed.”

“You can imagine you’re Princess Boo,” said Penny, “just before a big concert.”

“No, I can imagine I’m some mad old man in a string vest with a plant pot stuck on his head,” grumbled Nat.

The biggest and best yurts were at the top of the slope, where the ground was less soggy and there was a lovely view over rolling green fields and out to sea. Annoyingly, those yurts had already been taken by the St Scrofula’s kids.

The yurts at the bottom of the hill were near woods, were in permanent damp gloom, and the view was mostly of a pigsty. The smell was mostly of a pigsty too, but at least that covered up the smell of goat from the tents.

“Two to a yurt,” said Miss Hunny. “Except Darius – you get a leader cabin with Rufus from St Scrofula’s. Follow me.”

“See you, Buttface,” said Darius, leaving Nat behind.

She was more cross about him getting the nice cabin than she was about him dropping in her horrid nickname. (And it had taken her AGES to get him to use THAT name and not something far, far worse.)

Sulkily, Nat watched the leaders start up the hill. She stomped off and chucked her things into the dark yurt she’d be sharing with Penny.

“Which half of the floor do you want?” asked Penny kindly. “You can have the muddy, soggy half or the lumpy, rocky half.”

“This isn’t fair! I’m gonna see what the cheaty chimp Darius has got,” said Nat, leaving.

She jogged jealously up the hill to watch as Darius and Rufus were shown to their smart log cabin nearby. It turned out that Rufus was the blue-eyed boy from St Scrofula’s.

The two boys stood outside their cabin, eyeing each other.

Casually, Darius picked his nose and flicked it at Rufus. Rufus grabbed him and tried to bring him down, and the two of them went flying into the cabin. Miss Hunny closed the door on their bashing noises.

“Nothing to see here,” she said, walking quickly past Nat. “Back to your yurt, please.”

“I thought I was supposed to be looking after Darius,” complained Nat.

A howl of pain floated towards them. It was Rufus.

“Oh, I’d say he’s looking after himself right now,” said Miss Hunny.

“Can’t I have one of the nice cabins?” pleaded Nat.

“No special treatment, Nat. It wouldn’t be fair,” said Miss Hunny gently. “You’re already super lucky because your dad’s here. We don’t want everyone getting jealous.”

“No one who’s met my dad is jealous of me,” said Nat. “They either feel sorry for me or have a right good laugh.”

Miss Hunny had a right good laugh.

“Your father always tells me how funny you are,” she said, “and he’s so right.”

They walked past St Scrofula’s nice yurts. Queen Bee of Year Eight, the amazing Flora Marling, was talking to Plum, the girl from St Scrofula’s who had ruined Dad’s joke.

This’ll be interesting, thought Nat. The best six days of her school life so far had all involved Flora actually talking to her. Even if it had just been to ask Nat why on Earth she was friends with Darius Bagley.

Nat watched as Plum and Flora examined each other. Plum tossed her hair back; it was yellow in the pale sun. Then Flora flicked her hair and the sun broke through the clouds. All around Flora the air was golden. Plum gasped and Flora, victorious, smiled gracefully.

“Have my yurt,” said the awestruck Plum, “please.”

Flora smiled graciously then floated into the yurt, like a passing dream.

Nat trudged down the slope to the grotty yurts.

“You know, it could be really cosy in here,” said Penny inside. “It just needs some brightening up.”

“Brightening up?” Nat groaned, looking around her.

It was dark, damp and dismal.

“I wouldn’t even mind, but we have actually invented hotels,” grumbled Nat, unrolling her sleeping bag.

“You should be less grumbly and more proud of yourself,” said Penny, whose favourite Princess Boo song was “Be More Proud of Yourself”. She added, “Look on the bright side: if you hadn’t written such a great essay, we wouldn’t be getting a week off school.”

“You’re right,” said Nat, cheering up. She squished a bug with her foot. “No school is good, you’re right. I am pretty awesome, I suppose.”

“And so modest,” said Penny quietly.

“I just wish people would listen to me when I try and tell them I wrote that essay,” said Nat. “It would be nice to get some credit for something once in a while.”

“OK, I promise that next time anyone mentions it, I’ll definitely tell them it was you,” said Penny.

Nat smiled. “Ta,” she said. She looked around. “I would help you with the brightening-up, but I’m plotting how to get Bagley out of his cabin, and I need to concentrate.”

She lay back on her sleeping bag and closed her eyes.

She was woken from her nap by Dad, who pottered in a little later. “Not too bad, is it?” he said.

Nat had already forgotten she had been cheered up. She wasn’t going to miss a chance to complain at Dad. Somewhere, somehow, it was always his fault.

“Dad, the other school is horrible. The kids are rotten and spoiled and they’ve nicked all the best yurts. They ate all the pizza at lunch too, so we had to have slop. I think it was worms, and I’m not even joking.”

“Mmm. Cracking good school though. Those children are just used to getting what they want. Nothing wrong with that.” He looked at Nat in a rather odd, thoughtful way. (It was odd because it was thoughtful.) “I’ve been chatting to the St Scrofula’s teachers,” he continued, “and they’re all amazing. They’re at school two hours early every day to organise extra lessons and activities.”

“Yuk,” said Nat.

“And next term they’re going to extend school hours to seven o’clock at night.”

“I’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t so horrible,” said Nat.

“Their last school play went to the West End, the head boy’s going to be an astronaut, last year’s sixth form are all doctors, and their football team are in the third round of the FA Cup.”

“I’m not impressed,” fibbed Nat, who was impressed.

“The head of media studies used to work on Star Wars, the head of art has a picture in the Tate Gallery, and guess who did their prize-giving? The flipping prime minister.”

“Blimey,” said Nat, “remember who did our prize-giving? Brian Futtock from Futtocks Coach Hire and Pest Control.”

“Urgh, and all those rats got out,” shuddered Penny, remembering the screams.

“Yeah, that was Darius,” chuckled Nat. “He got a three-year detention – even broke his brother Oswald’s school detention record.”

“Maybe your mum’s right,” said Dad. “Maybe YOU should go to that school.”

There was a horrible pause when Nat realised Dad wasn’t joking.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, going all hot and cold. “It’s taken me ages to get to know THIS bunch of idiots. No offence, Penny.” She turned to her friend.

“What was that?” said Penny, who was drawing a picture of Princess Boo, dressed as a fairy and riding on a unicorn, on the yurt wall.

“You writing that essay for Darius has done us a great favour,” said Dad. “It’s given us a chance to compare both schools, side by side.”

Nat felt sick. She didn’t want him to compare schools. Dad comparing the schools could be a DISASTER.

Dad left the yurt with a big smile on his face.

Behind him, Nat felt the familiar footsteps of doom approaching. “I need some fresh air,” she said, following him. “At least it smells nice out here.”

“Time to dig the dunny!” yelled Mr Bungee, who was right outside.