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“Can pupils please stop shouting out,” demanded the Head. “I’ve got a coffee going cold in the staffroom and I’d like to get back to it.”
By now everyone was a bit bored and restless so the Head raced through the next part as quickly as possible.
“Anyway, thanks to clever little Darius, his whole class, 8H, has won a super week at a special ‘back to nature’ campsite thing next month.”
“Is HE coming?” shouted Julia Pryde, a girl from 8H, pointing to Darius and making a “yuk” face.
“Of course he is,” said the Head, who was looking forward to a Bagley-free week. “After all, you wouldn’t even be going if it wasn’t for him. Now get to class – our exam results have been so bad recently I’m surprised we haven’t been turned into a shopping centre.”
Nat wondered how a campsite could be super. Super uncomfortable, maybe. Super damp, super bug-ridden, super grotty, yes.
But she was too busy getting swept up in the sea of kids heading back to class to worry about it too much.
Anyway, a school trip, even if it was rubbish, meant no schoolwork so that was good news, woo!
“That is the worst news I’ve ever heard,” yelled Nat that night.
She was in the kitchen with Dad, who was preparing his favourite meal, pork pie and chips.
“You don’t mean that,” said Dad, smiling. “Now, do you want any veg? I’m thinking baked beans.”
“I’m thinking you can’t come with us to the campsite for the week,” said Nat. “I’m thinking it’ll be rubbish anyway, but it’ll be extra, super, luxury rubbish if you come too.”
“Don’t be daft. It’s almost as if you think I’ll embarrass you or something!”
“I do think that. I totally think that.”
“You make me laugh when you get cross,” said Dad, ruffling her hair. Which made Nat even crosser.
“When Dolores – Miss Hunny to you …” began Dad.
Nat groaned.
Her form teacher Miss Hunny and Dad were old mates and that often led to mega-embarrassing times, like when she’d come home to find her teacher IN HER HOUSE, drinking red wine in her kitchen. Fortunately Dad was such a rotten cook that Miss Hunny didn’t visit much. Nat started thinking about how terrible her life was …
“Pay attention,” said Dad. “When Miss Hunny rang and told me Darius had won you that camping trip, I said that’s great news because I need to get my Approved for Kids certificate.”
Dad put on his patient face. “You know I’ve applied for a job – I told you, remember?”
“Oh yeah, Mum told me. She said she was fed up with going out to work all hours while you sat around in your pants writing Christmas-cracker jokes and eating pork pies all day.”
“I don’t think she put it quite like that,” said Dad with a mouthful of pork pie.
“No, when Mum said it there were loads more rude words.”
“Anyway,” continued Dad, putting beans in the microwave, “I’ve got a job offer.”
“A job? Like normal people? You? Doing what?”
“Teaching comedy skills to young criminals who want to turn over a new leaf.”
“What comedy skills? Your jokes were voted the worst Christmas-cracker jokes of all time by that website last year. You even got a prize – look.”
On a shelf by the cookbooks stood a little plastic figure of a man holding his nose.
“You won a Stinker.”
“A prize is a prize,” said Dad proudly. “It makes me a prize-winning joke writer. At least that’s what I tell everyone.”
Nat stamped her foot. “But I still don’t understand why you want to come on our school camping trip.”
“Because the people who lock up the young criminals said that I need to have an Approved for Kids certificate to get the job.”
“Find some other kids,” said Nat. “There are loads of us – every town has them.”
“No time,” said Dad. “Plus the Head at your school knows me because I’ve done plenty of things there before. You know, until you banned me from doing them.”
“Can you blame me, Dad?” said Nat, as the beans pinged in the microwave.
Smoke poured out of the door.
“Everything you do ends in total disaster. You took my class to a boring cathedral and got us chucked out, and that was even before Darius went up on the roof and mooned the whole town. You put on a school quiz night that ended in a riot. You’ve sunk priceless sailing boats. You’ve got me arrested by real police. You’ve blown up houses—”
“Just one house,” corrected Dad. “One tiny house.”
“You’ve electrocuted the world’s most precious ducks, you’ve ruined weddings, you’ve made me a laughing stock all over the Internet, AND you projected massive naked baby pictures of me on a wall at the school disco.”
“I was hoping you might have forgotten that one.”
“How can I forget my bare baby bum, ten feet high on the gym wall at school? I can’t forget it, and neither can the five hundred other people who saw it.”
Dad made that noise which Nat recognised as his ‘trying not to laugh because my daughter will get even crosser’ noise. Which just made her crosser.
“AND you stuck me with the world’s most embarrassing surname,” she said.
“It’s pronounced Bew-mow-lay.”
“It’s spelled B-U-M-O-L-E though, isn’t it? I’m getting married at sixteen just to change it.”
Before Dad could reply, Mum came bustling through the kitchen door, still in her coat and, as ever, texting on her mobile.
“Mum, Dad’s trying to ruin my life again,” said Nat, “and he’s had loads of practice so he’s got ever so good at it.”
“I didn’t know you were home for dinner tonight,” said Dad, trying to hide his rubbish meal.
“Obviously,” Mum said, kissing him fondly on the cheek. She hugged Nat, still texting, and sniffed the beany smoke.
“Bin it. I’m taking you out for Chinese,” she said. “Tell me all about it over crispy duck. I think you’ll find it makes everything better. Even your daft dad.”
(#ulink_63602b7c-5a8f-5084-b710-9b4a9efaf32f)
“I think we all owe Darius a big thank-you,” said soppy Miss Hunny in class the following week. “The camping trip sounds super brilliant.”
Nat didn’t care how super brilliant it sounded because it still looked like they were going WITH HER DAD, AAAGH.
She looked at Darius sitting next to her. He had bits of stringy snot dangling from each crusty nostril and she really hoped it wasn’t just the one piece of string.
Miss Hunny burbled happily on. She was wearing a sun-yellow cardigan, and the long sleeves dangling over her hands spun round in excited little circles as she waved her arms around enthusiastically.
“We’re going to make camp, and try rock climbing and pony-trekking, go exploring, practise map-reading and do other cool geography stuff.”
“There isn’t any cool geography stuff, Miss,” said Nat, “because geography isn’t cool. It’s the least cool subject there is.”
“Who said that?” said Miss Hunny.
“Mr Keane, the new geography teacher,” giggled Nat. “It was when we asked him why he was crying at his desk last week.”
“He made my homework all soggy,” explained Penny, “and I’d spent hours drawing that unicorn.”
“You really must stop drawing unicorns in every class, Penny,” Miss Hunny scolded gently.
“Even in geography?” said Penny.
Miss Hunny looked at 8H with a mixture of affection and despair. Nat recognised the look: it was the look she often gave Dad.
“We’re also trying to find super-rare fossils,” said Miss Hunny, “and fossils are definitely cool.”
Darius pulled a string from his nose and flicked it at the back of Julia Pryde’s hair. “Nah,” he said, “dinosaurs are cool. Fossils are rocks. And rocks suck.”
“Language, Darius,” said Miss Hunny.
“Do you want this language instead then?” said Darius, unleashing a stream of gibberish.
Except it wasn’t gibberish. Parveen Patel shrieked and turned around in her chair. “Who taught you words like that?” she said angrily.
Darius then entertained the class with even more rude words in even more languages until he was told to sit outside the classroom. His excuse that he’d learned them as geography homework didn’t work.
Miss Hunny kept Nat behind after class.
Uh-oh, thought Nat, I’m in trouble.
“Now, Nathalia, I don’t think Darius wrote that essay on his own, did he?” said Miss Hunny, pulling up her sleeves. Nat shuffled her feet. “For a start, I could read it.”
“I might have helped him a teeny-tiny bit, Miss,” she admitted. She was pleased to FINALLY get the credit, but she was a bit worried she’d been caught cheating.
“I thought so,” said Miss Hunny, “which makes you …”
Here we go, thought Nat, that’s me picking up litter all week.
“… a kind and rather wonderful girl.”
“Not fair, why do I have to pick up litter? I’m fed up of – oh.” She paused. “Come again, Miss?”
“Like me, you see the good and the beautiful in Darius, where others only see naughtiness. Naughtiness, rudeness, untidiness, laziness, lateness, and a worrying fondness for farts, burps, bums, poos and – oh, do stop sniggering, Nathalia.”
“Sorry, Miss. Don’t mean to, Miss.”
“Anyway, I’ve been asked to nominate a team leader for our camping trip. And I was wondering if you—”
“Would be the team leader?” interrupted Nat, eyes shining. “Oh, flipping heck, yes. That’s brilliant, thanks very much. Winner, woo.”
“No, I’m going to ask Darius to be team leader.”
“What?” Nat felt like a spanner.
Miss Hunny smiled gently. “I think the responsibility will help him grow up.”
I think you’re barmy, thought Nat.
“I was going to ask if you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on him. Help look after him.”
“Look after HIM?”
“Underneath that chimp-like exterior is a vulnerable little boy, Nathalia.”
“No there isn’t. Underneath the chimp is a gorilla, trust me.”
“Very funny. Just keep an eye on him. Would you do that for me?”
“Oh yeah. Well, of course. I mean, I don’t want to be a stupid team leader anyway,” fibbed Nat.
“You look a bit fed up,” said Miss Hunny kindly. “Sorry, Nathalia, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. I was actually going to make you team leader but your father said I shouldn’t put too much pressure on you because you’re so delicate.”
I’ll show him how delicate I am when I get home, thought Nat.
Miss Hunny broke into a wide smile. “Oh cheer up. The REALLY exciting news is that we’ll be sharing the campsite.”
“Who with?” asked Nat.
“A lovely class from St Scrofula’s School. They were the other local school to win the essay competition.”
Miss Hunny said that as if it was a big deal.
“Big deal,” said Nat.
“Actually, that IS a big deal,” said Dad that night, as they drove home in his horrible, noisy, cluttered camper van, the Atomic Dustbin. “St Scrofula’s is a top school.”
“Don’t care, Dad,” said Nat, playing with the Dog in the back of the van. Her head was resting against a tent and some sleeping bags. They smelled of damp and mildew. Urgh, she thought, camping. Yuk.
