Nathalia Buttface and The Totally Embarrassing Bridesmaid Disaster

by Nigel Smith

“NO FLIPPING DEAL,” she answered loudly. Then she slammed the slidy door and said: “Dad, Darius says he doesn’t want a lift tonight.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him as they drove off.

  “I tell you what, we’ve still got it,” said Dad as they coughed and spluttered their way home.

  “What?” said Nat, crossly.

  “The old showbiz magic,” said Dad, “me and Dolores Hunny, we’re still hilarious. And more than a tiny bit rock and roll, I can tell you.”

  Nat felt more than a tiny bit sick.

  “You wait till we get ‘Shredder’ Boris and Dave The Tub Thumper back in the band,” said Dad. “We are gonna smash that wedding.”

  “It’s a Bagley wedding, Dad,” said Nat as they pulled up at home, “I think they can smash it for themselves.”

  “Yes, well we’ll have to stop them,” said Dad, “it’s me who booked the golf club in the first place, it’s me who’ll have to cough up for any damage.”

  Nat hadn’t thought of that. The day was getting worse.

  But just when Nat thought things couldn’t get any worse… they got home to find Tiffannee and Hiram sitting on the sofa, holding hands like a couple of love birds.

  “We’ve got some great news for you, little lady,” said Hiram.

  Uh-oh, thought Nat.

  “You tell ’em, honey,” said Hiram.

  “Daddy’s lawyer called. He said the little oil spill probably wasn’t Daddy’s fault,” said Tiffannee.

  “Yay,” said Nat, flatly.

  “So he should be able to leave Texas very soon, and come to the wedding after all.”

  “The CANCELLED wedding,” Nat reminded them. “The very sadly cancelled wedding, which you’re not having any more.”

  “Well…” began Hiram.

  “Also,” gabbled Nat, who had a horrible feeling she knew what was coming, “what if your dad CAN’T make it? You can’t take the chance. You really ever so much can’t take the chance.”

  Hiram lifted up a massive laptop. “So that’s why I bought this. Do you know the little old church we’re getting married in has just got superfast broadband?”

  Nat was confused. “So?”

  Tiffannee squeaked with pleasure. “So even if Daddy can’t make it in person, he said go ahead, he’ll be there ONLINE.”

  “Ain’t the modern world great?” said Hiram, beaming.

  “In other words… THE WEDDING IS BACK ON!” said Tiffannee, clapping her hands. “My dream is alive! Come here and be hugged, I don’t even care if you crease my dress!”

  Nat began to sway dizzily as she was gripped in a squeezy hug. Tiffannee gave her loads of tiny, tickly kisses and Nat could see big fat tears of joy on her cousin’s face.

  “You’ve been such a big help,” said Tiffannee, “even when I’ve been a bit stressy. Knowing I could always count on you has helped me through this. You two are the best family in the world… ever!”

  Nat heard Dad gurgle something next to her, and Hiram say…

  “Gee, you look a little pale…”

  Outside, the rain lashed down.

  Her last thought, as she slid to the floor, was that somewhere, there was a tiny evil Bagley, rubbing his hands in glee.

  The mood as Dad drove Nat to school the next morning was glum.

  “Dad, what ARE you going to do about having TWO weddings booked in there AT THE SAME TIME?” said Nat, as they drove past The Country Club of Double-Wedding Doom, as Nat was now calling it.

  “Leave it to me,” said Dad.

  He said the same thing when he picked her up that afternoon, only this time Nat could tell there was an extra note of panic in his voice.

  “I’ve left it to you all day, Dad,” said Nat, “I always leave things to you and it always ends really badly.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Dad “I’ll get an idea soon-ish. I work better under pressure.”

  “We’re in even more of a mess than before,” said Nat. “There’s nothing else for it, I’m gonna tell Mum what’s happened, she’ll sort it out.”

  Dad pulled up on the kerb with a screech. He turned to Nat. “Your mum is ever so good at sorting things out,” he said carefully, “but so are nuclear weapons.”

  “What do you mean?” said Nat.

  “In both cases, there’s a lot of fall-out,” said Dad. “Horrible, horrible fall-out.”

  Nat thought for a while. This was true. And she reckoned a little bit of that fallout might very easily reach her, in the circumstances.

  “OK, well it seems to me you’ve only got two choices,” she said.

  “I know,” said Dad, and then paused. “Remind me what they are again.”

  “Choice one – you tell Oswald Bagley he can’t have the big wedding party you’ve promised him.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Choice two – you tell Tiffannee you’ve given her entire wedding to someone else.”

  “That sounds horrible too. What’s choice three?”

  “THERE ISN’T A CHOICE THREE, DAD, YOU SPANNER.”

  “Right,” said Dad. “I’ll think of a way out, don’t worry. Just trust me and act like there’s definitely not a horrible wedding disaster looming up ahead that’s going to get us both killed – or worse.”

  When Nat got to school the next day she went to find Darius, who was picking up litter as usual. She had a feeling the school quite liked making Darius pick up litter as she reckoned it saved them thousands of pounds on having a proper cleaner.

  “Come to say sorry?” said Darius, surrounded by crisp packets.

  “Shut up and listen,” she said, “or I’ll tip all this litter out and you’ll have to start again.”

  She told him how Tiffannee’s wedding was now back on, but how they’d already given her posh wedding to Oswald and Fiona.

  “You got what you wanted,” said Darius. “If your cousin can’t get married, you haven’t got to be a fairy princess. You win.”

  “BUT I DON’T WANT TO WIN LIKE THIS,” yelled Nat, utterly miserable. “I know she’s a bit annoying, but she’s quite sweet really.”

  And then she said the dreaded words that Mum and Dad annoyed her so by saying, but now really DID seem to explain everything:

  “She’s family.”

  Darius stopped jabbing at rubbish and looked at her for a long time.

  “Family,” he said eventually. “Yeah, I get it.”

  “I don’t even care if I’m a stupid fairy princess any more,” said Nat, feeling as low as she could remember. “I just want Tiffannee to have a nice wedding like we promised. But without scuppering Fiona’s.” She was expecting Darius to say it served her right for backing out of his evil deal, but he didn’t.

  “In science,” began Darius, and Nat groaned. “In science,” he began again insistently, “two things can be in the same place AT THE SAME TIME.”

  “What?” said Nat, who didn’t like science lessons. Except when Darius blew them up.

  “But only when you don’t know where they are.”

  “I thought you might be able to help, you total chimp,” said Nat, stomping off.

  That day after school Darius was already in the Atomic Dustbin when Nat hopped in. Nat had a nasty feeling Darius could be in two places at the same time. Being naughty in both.

  “Darius has had a BRILLIANT idea,” shouted Dad. “We can save both weddings!”

  Nat looked at Darius, but he was rolling about with the Dog in the back as usual.

  “How?” asked Nat, suspiciously.

  “You’ll see,” said Dad, starting up the campervan with a loud bang and pulling away.

  Five minutes later, they were standing in a bit of waste ground on the outskirts of the town.

  “See,” said Darius.

  “What?” said Nat, “a circus?”

  “I do like the circus,” said Dad, scolding Darius gently, “but I think I need to sort this wedding disaster out before we start enjoying ourselves.”

  I
n front of them was the rattiest, most run-down circus Nat had ever seen. There was a red-and-white-striped big top that could only be described as a small top.

  There were a cluster of empty booths with hand painted signs saying things like:

  And:

  There were half a dozen scruffy ponies wandering around looking for grass to nibble on, but the ground was mostly bare and muddy.

  A huge hand-painted sign on the big top said in wonky letters:

  “This is my uncle Spiro’s Circus,” said Darius. “He’s over here for Oswald’s wedding.”

  “It’s not very super,” said Nat, watching a large dog wee up the side of a unicycle. “In fact, it’s manky.”

  Darius handed them an article he’d torn out of one of Tiffannee’s bridal magazines. There was a big feature on ‘Perfect Olde English Summer Fayre Weddings’. The picture showed a huge green lawn, chock-full of happy guests. In the middle was a beautiful big marquée.

  “I don’t get it,” said Nat. “What’s that lovely wedding got to do with this ratty old circus?”

  “You need to use your imagination,” said Darius.

  “I get it!” said Dad, jumping up and down in happiness. “Darius, you’re a genius!”

  “I do not get it,” said Nat, hopping up and down in fury. “What’s going on?”

  “We can do BOTH weddings at the same time!” said Dad.

  “How?” said Nat.

  Darius and Dad looked at her as if she was a small, dim child, or an especially thick spaniel.

  “You tell your cousin you’ve got an even better wedding than the Country Club arranged for her,” said Darius.

  “Meanwhile we just tidy this place up a bit,” said Dad, “and in no time we’ll have the place looking like a perfect wedding summer fayre.”

  “That way Oswald and Fiona keep the Castle Country Club for their wedding,” said Darius.

  “And if we time it right we can run backwards and forwards between the two weddings…”

  “And be at both at the same time,” said Darius.

  “And no one will be any the wiser!” finished Dad, putting his hands on his hips triumphantly. “Simple. What can possibly go wrong?”

  Nat stared at Dad coldly. She had heard that line WAY too many times.

  “A MILLION things can go wrong, Dad!” shouted Nat. “The cars, the flowers, the food, the cakes, the band, the disco, the whole thing…”

  “That’s just details,” said Dad, “we’ve got days to get that together.”

  “Easy,” said Darius.

  “I think this could be just what Tiffannee wanted,” said Dad.

  “She wanted traditional,” said Nat. “Ye olde English traditional. I don’t think she wanted acrobats, fire eaters, trapeze artists and lion tamers.”

  “No lion tamers,” said Darius. “That’s banned these days. It’s cruel, and besides, the lion ate the tamer.”

  “Shame. We could have fed the bridesmaids to the lions,” said Nat.

  They walked around a bit more. No one seemed to be about. Signs creaked in the breeze.

  “Looking on the bright side, there’s plenty of space,” said Dad, “and we could call the big top a marquée.”

  “I suppose,” said Nat, turning to Darius, “but are you sure we can borrow it?”

  “You’ll need to ask nicely,” said Darius.

  They walked a little further and saw some empty cages looking a bit sad.

  “What does everyone do instead of lion taming then?” said Nat, who was still imagining Daisy Wetwipe being chased by a big, peckish cat.

  “We had to learn the new tricks,” said a large man with a big, bushy beard who suddenly appeared before them looking worryingly like Oswald Bagley. Except he was smiling and Oswald never did. The man had emerged from a weather-beaten blue caravan. He grabbed Darius and picked him up with one enormous hand.

  “Alley-oop!” said the man and chucked Darius straight up like he was tossing the caber. Darius did a neat somersault and landed on the man’s other hand.

  You are literally a chimpanzee, thought Nat.

  “We make a circus clown of you yet!” said the man, smiling. He held out an enormous hand the size of a dinner plate to Nat and Dad in turn. “Spiro Bagley,” he said, “or – to use my full title: ‘Spiro The Magnifico’.”

  Spiro The Magnifico bowed so low his twirly moustache almost scraped the ground. For a big man he was surprisingly bendy, thought Nat.

  “Please be welcome to my humble home,” he said, gesturing towards the largest caravan Nat had ever seen. It was wooden, raised high on huge wheels and had a carved, curved roof. It was painted red and white and there was a little chimney stuck on the top.

  “When I was a boy,” said Spiro The Magnifico, walking then towards the van, “it took four elephants to pull this caravan. Whole towns would come to a stop to watch it pass. Children would run in front waving the flowers for free tickets, and gardeners would run behind waving shovels, for the free manure.” He sighed, “It’s not same on the back of a lorry. Still, that’s progress.”

  Inside it was warm and cosy, cluttered with sparkly cushions, thick rugs, shiny trinkets, bits of circus equipment, dogs, cats, a turtle named Desmond, three parrots and a penguin.

  Spiro magnificently put the kettle on and Nat quickly realised that Dad had fallen in love with the caravan, probably because it was even older and fuller of junk than the Atomic Dustbin.

  “I think of myself as a bit of a traveller too,” Dad began. Nat flashed him a “shuddup,” look that he ignored.

  “I’ve got my own van,” Dad burbled on, scratching the penguin’s feathery head. “I’ve been everywhere in it.”

  “A fellow traveller,” beamed Spiro. “Tell me, what do you think of Samarkand? Aren’t the dawns the greatest thing? And midnight under the stars in the Atlas mountains? Makes you feel alive and free. And tell me, do the Kalash of the Rumbur valley still sing and play in the Hindu Kush?”

  “I expect so,” said Dad, “I once got stuck in a car park in Eastbourne and a minibus full of angry pensioners chased me up and down the sea front for hours. That was pretty life-changing. You don’t wanna be on the receiving end of those zimmer frames, let me tell you.”

  There was silence. Nat looked for the biggest cushion to hide under.

  “Anyway, now we’ve swapped traveller’s tales,” said Dad, “I feel we’re brothers of the road. So can we borrow your circus next weekend?”

  Uncle Spiro laughed, magnificently, and handed out tiny cups of sweet tea.

  “You make the big joke,” he said, “you cannot do this, it’s far too precious.”

  Nat looked out of a window. A lone dog howled and the sign fell off the fortune-teller’s van.

  “Leave this to me, kids,” whispered Dad. “Go outside and play. Lemme talk to him, mano to mano.”

  Dad shooed her and Darius out, where they instantly bumped into a creaky old acrobat called Spangle Bagley who told them about how her arthritis played havoc with her high-wire act these days.

  Spangle invited them into her caravan. Nat followed. Darius, bored, just wandered off.

  Inside the van, Nat noticed it was covered with pictures of a young boy. “That’s my son; he ran away from the circus to join a bank,” she sniffed. “A bank, what kind of a dream is that for a young Bagley? We haven’t spoken since.”

  When Nat came out again, Darius had properly disappeared.

  It took her AGES to find him skulking around the back of the big top, next to a MASSIVE CANNON.

  A sign next to it said:

  Darius was climbing in. Nat giggled until she saw the fuse. It was alight! Darius had lit the fuse!

  “What are you doing?” she yelled. “Come out of there, AT ONCE.”

  “Why?” said Darius. “I’ve always wanted to do it.”

  The fuse hissed further down. Nat ran over and tried to blow it out, but it just made it hotter.

  “Get a properly quick move on,” she yelled. �
�You might now have even less time than you had before I tried to put the fuse out.”

  “I wanna do it,” said Darius, “get lost. Anyway, there’s a safety net – look.”

  A gust of wind caught the nearby safety net. It collapsed.

  “THE SAFETY NET HAS FALLEN DOWN!” yelled Nat.

  “You could have told me,” said Darius, scrabbling around inside to get out.

  “Stop moaning, get climbing.”

  “I’m stuck,” he said, scrabbling some more.

  “That’s ’cos you’ve spent a month in our pantry eating all our food, you greedy little chimp,” said Nat.

  “You’re being fatt-ist,” said Darius.

  “No I’m not, just get your massive ugly backside out of there before you’re blown up,” shouted Nat.

  But all she could hear was the sound of a small, wedged boy, wriggling frantically.

  And the fizzing of a fuse.

  I don’t believe I’m doing this, thought Nat, and quickly ran up the cannon’s steps and dived head first into the mouth of the huge gun.

  “Grab my arms,” she said. She felt two sticky hands grasp hers. She pulled, he pushed.

  “Does this count as a favour?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Is this the favour? The favour you think I owe you – even though I don’t? Or shall I leave you in here?”

  “Oh, I suppose so,” said Darius.

  Finally, agonisingly slowly, she hauled him out towards the lip of the big gun.

  “One last push,” she cried, and then they were both out, tumbling on to the ground.

  “It was probably broken anyway,” said Darius. Just then the cannon went off with a massive BOOM that brought Dad, Uncle Spiro and Gladys the fortune teller running over in a big panic.

  “AAAAGH!” Dad shouted, seeing the smoking cannon and the two children lying on the grass.

  “We’re fine,” said Nat, sitting up, as Dad fainted.

  Gladys invited them all back to her tent for a hot cup of tea. Dad soon had a tartan blanket over his shoulders and the old lady making a big fuss over him.

  Nat thought that wasn’t very fair, as it was her and Darius who had just escaped cannonball doom, not stupid Dad. But she didn’t say anything as she knew she was in MASSIVE TROUBLE for messing with the huge gun.