Nathalia Buttface and the Most Epically Embarrassing Trip Ever
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“So, according to Oswald,” Dad said, “you’ve never even HAD a passport. Oswald said something about not believing in them. He thinks people should be able to go where and do whatever they want and everyone else can go and get, er –” Dad paused – “get lost, was the general idea. At least I think that’s what he said, because there was some kind of explosion taking place nearby.”
“That’ll be the Grannies,” said Darius.
“Why, do their songs sound like explosions?” asked Nat.
“No,” said Darius, “they just like blowing things up.”
“Right,” said Dad. “Anyway, I asked how you’d have got into Norway with them without a passport. He said you just fitted nicely inside a big amplifier.”
“Yeah, I do,” said Darius.
“Interesting.” Dad paused for a few seconds, sucking on a mint. “So I suppose you could fit inside a …” Dad looked around for something to hide Darius in.
“Dad, you can’t!” shouted Nat, realising with horror what Dad was thinking of doing. “We have to go back NOW. Smuggling a dog is one thing, but smuggling people is really bad. I saw a documentary on it. On Blue Peter.”
“Smuggling a dog?” said Dad. “What dog?”
Nat put her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Then the Dog, who’d been quiet long enough, gave a short bark as if to say, “THIS dog, stupid.”
“Blooming heck, love, you’ll get us shot,” said Dad mildly. “There’s all sorts of laws about taking dogs out of the country.”
“Dogs AND PEOPLE!” shouted Nat, attracting the attention of one of the men in the yellow jackets, who glanced over at the van. She lowered her voice. “We’ll all go to prison and I don’t care what Nan says, I don’t think prisons are very nice.”
Bad News Nan always said that when she got REALLY old, instead of going into a cheapo old people’s home, she was going to rob a post office and with a bit of luck she’d get sent to prison. She said the food was better in the nick, there were bigger TVs and the people inside were more interesting. She also said she couldn’t lose because if she got away with the post office hold-up then she’d be rich enough to afford a nice old people’s home with huge TVs and endless Hobnobs.
This made Nat very nervous every time she went to the post office with her. She’d always try and sneak a look inside Nan’s handbag just in case she was hiding a black balaclava and some kind of offensive weapon. Luckily, up till now, the only offensive thing Nat had found in Nan’s handbag were her teeth.
“Well, let’s be sensible,” said Dad. These words always terrified Nat. Dad’s version of sensible was NOT anyone else’s. “It takes weeks to get a passport, and it would involve loads of important paperwork that we’d need to find at Darius’s house, and I don’t think Oswald is a paperwork kind of person.”
“That’s true,” said Darius. “He’s more of a setting-fire-to-paperwork kind of person.”
Nat knew this to be true. Oswald liked setting fire to Darius’s school books, for instance.
“So,” said Dad, “given I’ve paid for these ferry tickets now, the sensible thing to do is carry on.”
“That’s not sensible, Dad,” she yelled, “that’s ILLEGAL AND WRONG!”
But Dad had already disappeared into the back of the van and was rummaging through the junk. He eventually reappeared with a great big picnic basket.
“Oh right,” said Nat, “let’s all have a ham sandwich and a pork pie. That’ll make it better.” Dad ignored her and started chucking out all the crockery. When it was empty, he eyed up Darius. “In you get, lad,” he said. “It’s literally the only option.”
“It literally is not the only option, Dad,” argued Nat, as Darius clambered in. “It’s literally the most terrible of all the options you could choose.”
“Except swimming across the channel,” said Darius from inside the hamper. “That’s a more terrible option.”
“Don’t give him ideas,” said Nat, watching Dad’s face as he thought about it.
“Can you squeeze the Dog in with you?” asked Dad, chucking it at Darius regardless.
“Just about,” said Darius.
And with that, Dad got back in the driver’s seat. The ferry had begun to load and cars were moving. “Just don’t make a noise,” Dad shouted over the noise of the engine.
“OK, but the Dog’s breath really smells,” said Darius.
Nat broke into a proper cold sweat when they drove up to the customs window and Dad handed over their two passports. You’ve really done it this time, Dad, she thought. Visiting your dad in prison was embarrassing, but being in prison WITH him was something else.
It seemed to take forever for the bored border guard to flick through the passports.
“Bum hole?” he said eventually, with the first smile he’d cracked all year. “Is this a wind-up?”
Nat went red. It didn’t matter how many times she heard it …
“It’s pronounced bew-mow-lay, actually,” said Dad. “It’s old and French. There are the Paris Bumolés, the Lille Bumolés, and I think there are some Nice Bumolés down south.”
“France is full of Bumolés, is it?” sniggered the border guard. “I thought so.”
Finally, after he’d finished laughing, their van was waved on to the ferry.
“That’s another big fat stress wrinkle in my forehead you’ve given me, Dad,” complained Nat when they were safely parked inside the hold of the massive ship. “By the time I’m eighteen I’ll look like a bulldog chewing a hot chip.”
There was a snort of laughter from the picnic basket and Nat nearly had a heart attack. “SHUT UP, DARIUS!” she shouted. Really really loudly.
“Shush!” said Dad.
There was a gargling, choking sound from the basket. “Stop messing,” said Nat, who was getting more and more nervous.
“I can’t help it, the Dog’s dropped one,” said Darius in a voice that sounded like he was being strangled by a sweaty sock. This was terrible news. The Dog’s guffs were legendary. He could clear a large room in seconds. Nat could only imagine what it must have been like in a tiny space. She started to giggle.
“Well, don’t let it out,” she said. “It’s bound to smell horrible.”
“It does!” said Darius, gasping for breath. “It’s doing something weird to me. I’m starting to see things. Lemme out the basket.”
“Soon,” said Dad, watching all the passengers getting out of their cars. “We have to wait until the coast is clear.” He sniffed. “Oh no, that is bad,” he added. “We’re even getting it out here.”
“I’m going to be sick!” said Darius.
“Put your head between your knees,” spluttered Nat, who couldn’t stop giggling.
“It IS between my knees; how do you think I fit in the picnic basket?”
“Is everything all right?” said a voice suddenly. It was a member of the ship’s crew, poking his nose in at the van window. “Everyone else has gone upstairs. You’ll have missed the fish and chips at the cafeteria by now. Very popular is the fish and chips. Everything else is French muck.”
The man peered into the van. He sniffed the air. “I dunno what’s on your picnic menu tonight,” he said, pulling a face, “but if I were you, I’d stick to crisps.”
Dad laughed a pretend laugh. Even Nat could tell it was the kind of laugh that massively guilty people do when they’re hiding something. The man looked at them both.
“You have to get out, we’re locking this cargo dock in five minutes.”
“No problem,” said Dad, not moving. “Bye.”
But the man wasn’t going anywhere. “And why do you keep shouting about a picnic basket?”
“Er – because we’re very proud of it,” said Dad. “We got it at a pound shop.”
“How much was it?” said the crafty man, who was called Mick and had been trained to be suspicious. It had earned him his nickname.
“A tenner,” said Dad without thinking, falling into the trap.
Nat put her head in her hands. A tenner? she thought. From a POUND SHOP? Oh, Dad, we’re doomed …
“Ha! Oh really?” said Suspicious Mick happily. “I’m not sure about that. Not sure one little bit. Something’s not right about this story. I think I want a look at this famous picnic basket.”
There was nothing they could do. Their epic journey was over before it had even begun. Dad opened the slidy van door and Suspicious Mick took hold of the basket lid. He wafted the air, which was still smelling grim. “If you’ve got egg sandwiches in there, they’re off,” he said.
This is it, thought Nat. I wonder if they have a prison cell on the ship or if they still make you walk the plank. Oh well, as long as I get to see Dad go overboard first. Hope there’re sharks …
Suspicious Mick lifted the lid.
“I can explain …” began Dad.
The basket was empty.
“Oh. No, I can’t,” said Dad.
“There’s no bright side if he’s escaped right off this ferry and we never see him again,” said Nat angrily, peeking under a lifeboat cover. “And that’s not really a proper job anyway. You told me that joining a circus is NOT a proper job.”
Dad thought for a moment. Nat watched as the bright lights on the deck showed up all the wrinkles in his forehead. “I remember that conversation,” he said. “You said you wanted to be a lion tamer.” A few passengers who had come outside to look at the sea began listening to their conversation.
Dad carried on. “You practised lion taming on next door’s guinea pigs.” An elderly couple in matching pink and blue anoraks looked at Nat and went “Aaaah” in that way old people in anoraks do.
“That’s so sweet, isn’t it, Ernie?” shouted the old lady to her husband, who was a bit deaf. “She started on guinea pigs.” Dad turned to the couple, glad of a chance to talk about his wonderful little girl.
“Oh, but you don’t know the best bit,” Dad smiled.
“He said you don’t know the best bit,” shouted the old lady to her husband, loudly enough for him to hear, which meant loudly enough for everyone within fifty metres to hear as well.
Nat looked quickly around for somewhere to hide and made a note in her head to get Darius to teach HER how to disappear.
“She tried to lion-tame some cows in a field when we were having a picnic,” Dad went on. “She spent an hour trying to get them to jump through a hula hoop.”
Nat saw a little metal door with a sign on which read KEEP OUT – CREW ONLY. She tried the handle and found it wasn’t locked. Nat hated breaking rules, but it was this or suffer yet another one of Dad’s embarrassing tales about her, so … she opened the door and slipped quietly inside.
Out on deck, Dad was just getting to the best bit:
“Then the farmer came and shouted at her to stop bothering his cows as it would put them off milking. But when the cows saw him they thought it was time to get milked, so they started running towards him.
“Problem was, Nathalia was right in their way. She realised they weren’t going to stop. The farmer was shouting, she was screaming and running as fast as her tiny little skinny legs would carry her.
“Which wasn’t that fast because she slipped in one cow pat and went face-first in another. It was soooooo funny!”
“He said then the little girl went face-first in cow poo!” shouted the old lady.
“Oh that IS funny, he’s quite right,” said the old man. “Is he part of the entertainment? Should we give him a tip?”
“It put her off lion-taming for life,” said Dad, chuckling. He looked around for the star of his story. “Hmmm,” he said. “Where’s she gone?”
The room Nat was hiding in was small and dark. It was a kind of store room, full of stuff some people tell other people will be useful one day. Nat hadn’t put the light on but she felt safe in the gloom – right until the moment someone tapped her on the shoulder and said:
“Boo.”
She gave a shriek of fright and jumped about two feet in the air, landing with a crash on some boxes of Styrofoam cups. The box burst and the squeaky cups scattered on to the floor.
“Shush,” said Darius, coming out of his hiding place, “you’ll attract attention. If we were escaping from a prisoner of war camp, you’d have been shot by now.”
Nat grabbed him by the hair. “It’s not a machine-gun tower you need to worry about,” she said. “It’s being strangled by me.”
They rolled around on the squeaky cups for a while, Nat getting in some good pinches and a fair amount of strangling, until the Dog jumped between them, licking them both into submission. Finally Nat let go and sat there, panting. “Do not creep up on me again,” she said, chucking a pack of dishcloths at his head. “Anyway, how did you escape without being seen?”
“It was easy,” he replied, rubbing his bruises. “I’m pretty good at getting out of small dark places. I’ve had tons of practice.” Not for the first time, Nat suddenly felt sorry for her friend, and went from wanting to murder him to wanting to hug him. She HATED the way he did that to her, so she bashed him with a mop.
Before she could say anything more, Dad popped his head round the door. “You in here, love?” he said. “There are loads of people outside who want to meet the famous cow-tamer.”
The Dog bounded out to him, and then Dad noticed Darius. “Oh, we wondered where you’d got to,” he said cheerfully. “Come on, the canteen’s open. Last chance for pork pies and pickled eggs before Paris.” He looked the boy up and down briefly, making sure he was in one piece, then they all trundled off for something to eat and that was that.
One of the few things Nat ever admitted she liked about her idiot dad was that he wasn’t one of those ‘asking-loads-of-difficult-questions’ dads. He just got on with it. And went to buy a pork pie and a pickled egg.
“They don’t sell these in Europe!” said Dad defensively, as Nat told him off for coming back with his THIRD pork pie slice from the ferry canteen. The Dog was now safely hidden in their van, giving them all a chance to relax and enjoy the ‘delicious and delightful’ canteen food.
There is a rule everyone should know which says that the nicer the words in a menu are, the more horrid the food will be. For example, if you read something which says:
‘Delicious tender fish gently coaxed from the sea and enrobed in mouth-tingling crispy crumb batter, served sizzling on an enticing bed of fluffy petits pois, encircled by gorgeously ruffled hand-carved wedges of majestic potato …’
… it’ll be rank.
“These fish and chips are rank, Dad,” moaned Nat, “and it said on the menu they would be delicious.” There was a huge burp. “Oh, I see you’ve finished,” she said to Darius primly.
“Don’t you want the rest of yours?” said Darius, wiping tomato ketchup from his chin with his sleeve. Nat pushed her plate over to him.
“OK, so here’s the plan,” said Dad. Nat looked at him, puzzled. Dad never planned anything. But now he unfolded a huge map across the table, along with lots of bits of paper. And pens. And bits of string, receipts, bus tickets, packets of sugar, some lego bricks, pocket fluff and paper clips.
Some French kids on the next table started pointing. Nat tried to ignore them.
“We should get back to our cabin and get some sleep now,” said Dad, as Darius scraped tomato sauce off the map with a knife and sucked it clean. “Tomorrow we get into France …”
“Unless we get caught smuggli—ah ha hoo ha nothing,” burbled Nat, who out of the corner of her eye had spotted Suspicious Mick, walking past with a tray of rank fish and chips. Nat grabbed the map and held it over her face.
“I’ve worked out a route to the farmhouse,” Dad continued, putting the map down on to the table and into a splodge of tomato ketchup. Nat looked at the map and saw that he had just taken a red felt tip and drawn a straight line from the ferry terminal all the way to where Posh Barry’s rubbish damp haunted house was.
“The quickest distance between two points is a straight line,” Dad explained. “So we’ll just go on the roads that are nearest the line. It’ll save time.”
“Stupid idea,” said a voice over his shoulder. Nat froze.
It was Suspicious Mick. “Why’s that then?” asked Dad. Mick pulled up a chair and sat down without being asked. Darius slid under the table. Nat watched as a grubby hand came up, grabbed the rest of her freshly battered fish and disappeared under the table again.
Dad did not like people in uniform. He often told Nat that they made him feel like he had something to hide, even when he didn’t. Obviously this time he DID have something to hide. But did that mean that Dad would keep a low profile? Oh no, nothing that sensible. Nat guessed what was coming: an argument. She was right.
“It’s not ridiculous, it’s genius,” argued Dad.
Suspicious Mick snorted. “I can tell you’re not a REAL driver. A REAL driver would take the road from …”
Nat listened to the man drone on endlessly about roads and roundabouts and routes and, not for the first time, wished she could press a ‘fast-forward’ button on bits of her life.
Dad obviously felt the same. He had a very short attention span at the best of times. Finally he’d had enough. He stood up. “Right,” said Dad. “I’ll show you who’s the better driver. Come to the video arcade. If you’re not too scared.” Nat put her head on the table and tried not to cry.
Suspicious Mick realised he was being watched by a bunch of bored French kids so now he could not back down.
When they reached the arcade, trailed by the now not-bored French kids (and with Darius following at a safe distance), they found two big racing car machines, side by side.
“This won’t prove anything,” said Suspicious Mick. “It’s childish.”
That’s my Dad! thought Nat. Took you long enough.
“Bwark bwark bwark,” said Dad, making chicken noises, and doing that thing with his head and elbows. The French kids laughed.
Nat tugged at Dad’s sleeve. “Don’t upset him,” she whispered. “He might get us into trouble.”
But Dad was enjoying himself now. “Come on, Mick, get in,” he said. “Or should I call you MICK NUGGET?”
“McNUGGET!” laughed the French kids. One nudged Nat. “Eet’s funny becawse ’is name is Mick and ’e’s ze chicken,” he explained.
“Yes, I know,” she said crossly. “I get le joke. It’s just a bad one. Like all Dad’s jokes. Stop encouraging him.”
Now the two men were in their cars. They put their money in and the race clock counted down. FIVE … FOUR …
“Last one to finish has to run through the ship with their pants on their head!” shouted Dad.
Nat froze. Dad was a REALLY SLOW driver. And he always got lost. He was bound to lose.
THREE …
Worse, he was wearing his ‘Little Monkeys’ T-shirt again. So the whole boat would know the pants-head man was her dad.
TWO …
“You’re on!” shouted Suspicious Mick over the noise of the electronic engines and the chanting children.
“Pants pants pants!” they shouted. “Head head head!”
Nat noticed that Darius was leading the chanting.
ONE.
And they were off.
“Put your foot down, Dad!” yelled Nat. “You’re going to be Pants Head if you don’t catch him soon.”
Suspicious Mick was concentrating hard. He had EVERYTHING clenched: teeth, fingers, buttocks. Truth is, he was a clenched kind of person to begin with. He had played this game loads over the years. He often chucked children off the machine to get a free go.
He knew all the bits to speed on and where to brake. He even knew the cheaty short cuts. Nat watched in despair as Suspicious Mick slid sideways round a nasty bend and went through a wall of tyres on to another bit of track, saving a good ten seconds. Meanwhile, Dad carefully changed down into second gear to avoid running into a pigeon. He was DOOMED.
Suspicious Mick hit the throttle on a long straight. The car roared and surged forward. The stupid animated fans on the machine cheered as the real audience booed. But wait … Something weird was happening. Mick was heading for a hairpin bend at a ridiculous speed. He was going TOO FAST. Surely he couldn’t take that bend this fast, thought Nat.
No, he couldn’t. He was jabbing his foot on the brake pedal but nothing was happening. With a yell he tried to turn the wheel, but it was too late. His car ploughed into a bank of spectators in the biggest crash anyone had ever seen. The screen erupted in cartoon flame.
The French kids cheered. Mick frantically reversed. Dad was starting to gain on him. Mick roared off, Dad now only two cars behind. The same crazy thing happened again; Mick got faster and faster, crashing into barrier after barrier, metal shrieking and sparks flying.
But he was still just in front as the finish line came in sight. But it was close – Dad was right behind him. “Come on, Dad,” shouted Nat, “put your blinking foot down!”
The chequered flag went up, signalling the end of the race was nigh. It went down on …
Mick’s car! He had won.
Mick jumped up. “Beat you, beat you, ha ha ha,” he shouted nastily. The kids booed like he was a panto villain. “Pants on your head, get them on!” crowed Mick heartlessly.
Nat felt sick. Dad was going to break all previous embarrassment records. But no. What was this? A computerised referee appeared on the screen, wagging a finger at Mick’s car.
Stern text appeared.
“Due to dangerous driving, this car has been given a ten-second time penalty. The winner of the race is now – car number two.”
Dad had won!
The French kids went wild. Dad did a victory lap of the arcade as Nat cringed and Mick slunk off saying he had to get back to work and the machine was broken and it wasn’t fair and he never wanted to see any of them ever again and no he WASN’T going to wear his pants on his head for anyone, thank you, so there.
“Bad loser, bad loser,” sang the chorus of kids behind him. He shook his fist at them and went off to shout at the smallest people he could find.
Nat breathed a sigh of relief. She knew Dad would DEFINITELY have worn his pants on his head if he’d
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