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Lower Totley Eco Camp
Parked next to the large hut was a gleaming-new white coach, with cool tinted windows and sleek curved lines. On it were emblazoned the golden words:
SAINT SCROFULA’S COLLEGE
And in smaller words underneath:
Gosh, what a great school!
Inside the smart coach, Nat caught a glimpse of a square-jawed driver in a uniform and peaked cap, watching a big TV screen. Then she heard a hacking cough behind her. It was their coach driver, Eric Scabb, sucking down on his first ciggy for two hours. He spat on a bush.
“Better out than in,” he said.
Nat’s coach had SCABB’S BUDGET COACHES FOR HIRE painted in flaking letters on the side.
“Their coach probably cost more than our entire school,” Nat muttered to Penny, as they squished through the mud and into the wooden building.
Inside, the teachers went into a small reception area to fill out forms while Dad led the damp, hungry children into a large dining hall. It was full of long wooden tables and benches. And it was also full of other children, who stopped their chattering and stared at the newcomers.
The kids from the other school were those “sit-up-straight” kind of children. They were scrubbed clean and shiny and had smart blazers and even smarter haircuts. All the girls were blonde, Nat noticed, and not even slightly murky blonde like her, but almost white, dazzling blonde.
AND NOT ONE OF THEM ATE THEIR PEAS OFF THEIR KNIVES.
Nat looked at her wet, bedraggled, muddy classmates. We look like survivors from a shipwreck, she thought.
The other children continued to stare at Nat’s class.
“You know in those cowboy films when they walk into the wrong saloon and it goes dead quiet?” Nat said to Darius. Then she thought for a minute. “Oh, I suppose you get that all the time, tee-hee,” she said.
He glared at her.
There was a long, makeshift kitchen counter at one end of the hall, where two large ladies were splodging food on to wooden plates. Behind them bubbled cauldrons of something or other. From a distance it looked like brown porridge.
Rank brown porridge.
Nat’s plan was to grab some food and sit somewhere away from the other kids as quietly and with as little fuss as possible. Which was pretty much the plan of everyone else in 8H too.
Except Dad.
Dad walked right slap bang into the middle of the dining hall and said, loudly, in his best ‘down with the kids’ kind of voice:
“Hey, dudes, how’s it going down?”
Nat felt that familiar burning sensation trickle down the back of her neck.
“I’m Ivor,” the big idiot continued, “but you can call me Mr Fun.”
“Dad, stoppit,” hissed Nat.
“Best to break the ice as soon as possible,” said Dad cheerfully, while Nat tried to find a deep dark shadow to hide in.
Mr Fun turned to the perfect St Scrofula’s children. “Anyone want to see a magic trick?”
“Yes, I think we’d all like to see you disappear,” said a large boy with very short blond hair and startling blue eyes.
“We have a comedian,” said Dad. “Ha ha, I love a bit of banter.”
“Banter off, there’s a good fellow,” said Blue Eyes.
“As long as no one ever finds out he’s my dad, I might be OK,” Nat whispered to Penny.
“What’s brown and sticky?” said Dad, trying out his favourite joke.
“A stick,” said a bored blonde girl, who Nat reckoned was almost certainly called Jemima but who was actually called Plum.
“A stick,” said Dad. “Oh, you guessed it!”
“He’s an annoying little chap. Do you think we could pay him to go away?” said Blue Eyes.
“Oi, that’s my dad you’re talking about,” Nat shouted angrily, stepping forward.
The shiny bright children from St Scrofula’s turned to her and STARTED LAUGHING.
Oops, she thought. I’ve gone and blown it already! This is gonna be a loooong week …
(#ulink_e96b8b43-f2ab-5d48-a637-ea5e669d3fb3)
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.
