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Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Five Minutes of Fame Ever
Nigel Smith
The most embarrassing dad in the world is back in this hilarious series for girls from TV and radio-comedy writing talent, Nigel Smith.When Dad posts an embarrassing video of Nat online as a joke, she’s furious. Things are set to get much worse, however, when the video goes viral and she finds herself centre of the nation’s attention for all the wrong reasons – even the prime minister is imitating her!But when a local care home for abandoned pets is threatened with closure, Dad convinces Nat to use her new-found celebrity to raise money for it – with him acting as her agent, of course! Cue: a disastrous appearance hair-modelling job, a not-so-glamorous campaign for a local optician and a call to turn on the town’s rubbish autumn illuminations (the one with the miserable face off The X-Factor cancelled at the last minute). And as if Nat didn’t have enough to deal with, school isn’t exactly easy when you’re a minor celebrity…
Copyright (#uacb6488b-984b-58b0-81f4-abd1797d37a1)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Nathalia Buttface and the Most Embarrassing Five Minutes of Fame Ever
Text copyright © Nigel Smith, 2015
Illustrations copyright © Sarah Horne, 2015
Cover art © Sarah Horne, 2015
Nigel Smith and Sarah Horne assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007545254
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007545261
Version: 2015-06-05
To Carole, because without her I’d just be an embarrassing dad without a book.
And thank you to Nicola, because without her I wouldn’t have a title for this book. Which would be embarrassing.
Contents
Cover (#ue8a80683-869a-5cf0-bf01-ba6db4d2a966)
Title Page (#u2cb7cbf6-eaf4-5768-b31f-8d0377146c17)
Copyright
Dedication (#u19374ebb-cc05-5f91-93e0-0047c88372e3)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
(#uacb6488b-984b-58b0-81f4-abd1797d37a1)
RE YOU SURE NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO see this video?” asked Penny Posnitch doubtfully.
“I’m not an idiot,” said Nat. “I’m not my dad.”
“Will you hurry up? My arms are getting tired,” complained Darius.
“Just hold the camera straight and press the record button when I tell you,” snapped Nat.
The three of them were in Nat’s back garden. It was a lovely warm afternoon at the end of the school holidays. The sun was shining, the flowers were out, Dad was upstairs trying to write Christmas cracker jokes and shouting rude words at his laptop, and the three friends were making a dance video.
The dance video was going very badly.
And so was Dad’s joke writing; every so often they would hear him yell: “Oh heck, that’s not funny. I’m doomed …”
“I wonder if he needs a hand,” said Darius, putting the camera down. “I’ve got a great joke about a monkey who needs to go to the toilet.”
“The ‘monkey who needs to go to the toilet’ joke is not a joke anyone wants in their cracker while they’re eating their Christmas pudding,” said Nat. “Can we please do our dance video?”
“I want to hear the monkey joke,” said Penny.
Nat started hopping up and down. “I’ve been trying to make this video all morning,” she shouted. “Will you both CONCENTRATE.”
“I only came round to show Nathalia the new Dinky Blue, Girl Guru episode online,” grumbled Penny. “And now I’ve been roped into this.”
“She’s rubbish,” said Darius, making sick noises. “You should watch Doom Ninja Pete instead. He blew up a pig last week.”
“That’s disgusting,” said Penny, who was an animal lover.
Darius started doing his impression of a pig blowing up in slow motion, until Nat ran over and started throttling him.
“Pick-up-the-camera-and-film-us-doing-the-dance …”
“OK,” he squawked.
“Play the song on the phone, Penny.”
“I can’t remember the dance move after the song goes: ‘Baby baby oooh baby’,” said Penny.
“Which ‘Baby baby oooh baby’?” asked Nat. “She sings ‘Baby baby oooh baby’ about a ZILLION times. The song is CALLED ‘Baby baby oooh baby’.”
“Er – the first time,” said Penny.
“That’s the START of the song,” shouted Nat in frustration. “I’ve shown you the moves about a thousand million billion times at least and I’m not even exaggerating. What is the matter with you? It’s step left, arms cross, turn, arms up, bend, slide and wiggle. Got it?”
“You’re not a very good dance teacher,” said Penny sulkily. “You’re always shouting.”
“That’s how good dance teachers teach dance,” shouted Nat.
“Do you want me to film this bit?” asked Darius, filming that bit.
“Of course I don’t want you to film this bit; stop filming this bit,” said Nat.
“When I saw Flora Marling’s dance video there was no one shouting,” grumbled Penny.
“That’s because Flora Marling is flipping perfect, we all know that,” said Nat. “So this dance video has to be better than perfect.”
“You can’t be better than perfect,” corrected Darius, who was filming with one hand while picking his nose with the other.
“I’m not doing anything while he’s doing THAT,” said Penny, pulling a face.
Eventually Nat got Penny to concentrate and Darius to wash his hands and after a few more shouty rehearsals, she and Penny were doing the dance.
Nat was especially proud of a new move she had invented called the Prancing Pony. It was super-tricky and Penny had already got it wrong once and ended up in a hedge.
But finally it was going well.
“… Up and hop and jump and slide and hop,” whispered Nat, reminding Penny what to do, as they reached the tricky bit. To her delight Penny was doing it BETTER THAN PERFECTLY when …
“I’ve gotta go,” said Darius, putting the camera down on the ground. “See you.”
“WHAT? We haven’t finished, you total chimp,” said Nat.
“Then you shouldn’t have taken so long, Buttface,” said Darius. “I’m busy.”
