Nathalia Buttface and the Embarrassing Camp Catastrophe

“You should care. As it happens, your mum’s often talked about sending you to that school.”

A chill went down Nat’s spine. It was hard enough making friends at her own school, which was a normal one, let alone trying again with a bunch of snooty kids. She had worked her way up from the bottom of the bottom group of popular kids to nearly the middle of the bottom, and she wasn’t going to start at the bottom of the bottom again, thanks very much.

“It’s dead posh,” said Dad. “You’d like it. It looks a bit like a castle. It’s got a full-sized football pitch, floodlit tennis courts, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool.”

“So?” said Nat.

“All their kids go to top universities.”

“You’d think they’d be too tired to learn much, after all that running and swimming,” said Nat.

“They’ve even got their own school ponies,” said Dad.

“We’ve got school rabbits,” said Nat. “Well, we used to have school rabbits until the caretaker bought a new dog. Now we’ve got no rabbits, just a fat school dog.”

Her own dog shook his whiskery head as if to apologise for the school mutt’s doggy crimes.

“I bet the kids are stuck-up and horrible,” said Nat, “which is rubbish cos even the girls in my class are a bit stuck-up and horrible – and they go to MY school and they haven’t got anything to be stuck-up about.”

“Give them a chance when you get to the campsite,” said Dad. “You might make some nice new friends.”

“I haven’t even got nice OLD friends,” muttered Nat. She settled down on the mouldy sleeping bag. “And please tell me you’ve listened to me and you’re not coming. This camping trip’s rubbish anyway – I found out it’s all about geography.”

“Sounds great. Rock climbing, canoes, caves, maps, fossils, all that stuff.”

“Sounds rubbish. And you’ll just find new and horrible ways to show me up.”

“No I won’t, I promise.”

“And stupid Miss Hunny’s made Darius Bagley team leader. AND I’m his babysitter.”

“That was my idea,” said Dad.

“Yeah, I know,” sighed Nat. “Thanks.”

“Anyway, responsibility is good for you.”

“How would you know?” said Nat. “Mum’s in charge of everything.”

“Responsibility is good for SOME people,” laughed Dad.

They drove in silence for a little while. Silence, that is, if you didn’t count the racket from the dodgy exhaust. Nat’s brain was racing ahead, writing a LIST OF DOOM. Worse still, at the back of her mind, a little nagging voice was telling her it was ALL HER FAULT. If she hadn’t helped Darius with his stupid essay in the first place, they’d never be going camping.

The doom list seemed endless: rubbish campsite, week-long geography lessons, Darius in charge, Dad and his horrible little ukulele tagging along, snooty posh kids prancing about on their own ponies …

How bad was this week going to get? What else was going to go wrong?

Just then Dad hit a pothole and a frying pan slid off a shelf and clonked her on the head.

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“‘Lower Totley is a delightful town, full of historic charm’,” said Penny, sitting next to Darius and Nat on the back seat of the coach. “It says so on the town’s web page.”

“No it doesn’t,” said Darius, with an evil grin. “Not since ninja hacker Darius Bagley changed it.”

“He’s right,” laughed Nat, who had helped Darius with the spelling. “It now says: ‘Lower Snotley is a rubbish town full of historic zombies’.”

“You make him worse, Nat, you really do,” scolded Penny.

Nat stuck her tongue out at her.

Class 8H were on the coach to their super geography camping experience thingy. They had been travelling for less than ten minutes and Nat was already a bit cross.

To be fair, she had been a bit cross the entire week leading up to the trip, so the torrential rain that had been hammering down like wet nails all morning wasn’t likely to cheer her up.

“This campsite we’re going to has a website as well,” said Penny. “Don’t tell me you wrote something rude on that.”

“Nah,” said Darius, “better than that. I put this picture on it.”

He showed Penny a picture. She shrieked.

“And I can make that bit wiggle,” cackled Darius, chewing a toffee.

Penny peeped. “OK, now that’s funny,” she said.

“How about a singsong?” said Dad, standing up in the middle of the coach, holding his ukulele.

Nat threw Darius’s toffees at him. “Go away, sit down, shush. No one wants to sing,” she said.

“It is a bit early,” said Miss Hunny from the front seat. “At least wait until we get there.”

“Where we can hide in our tents,” sniggered Miss Austen.

“With earplugs in,” sniggered Miss Eyre.

Nat didn’t know why Misses Austen and Eyre had volunteered to come, as they were the laziest teachers in the school and she couldn’t imagine either of them rock climbing.

She grinned. She suddenly DID imagine them rock climbing. They were dangling in mid-air just as she pushed a massive boulder over the cliff …

PLINKY PLINK PLINK, went Dad on his stupid useless instrument.

“Oh, we’re off on a coach and it isn’t very quick, but two of the class are already travel-sick …” he sang.

“Join in on the chorus, kids,” he said.

“Dad, we haven’t got out of the one-way system yet and you’re already showing me up,” said Nat, jumping up and snatching his ukulele. “And you promised you wouldn’t.”

“I just want to make a good impression, for my certificate,” whispered Dad, sitting down on the back seat. “Budge up.”