by Nigel Smith
Small applause.
“But that’s only just the start. It’s not all fun and games, as you know.”
“There’s not been ANY fun and games so far,” said Julia Pryde.
“Ha ha, very funny. Wrong attitude, so stop it,” said Mr Dewdrop. “There’s going to be another competition while you’re here. Your teachers should have had all the details on email last week.”
Miss Hunny looked pained. She coughed, sounding apologetic. “Actually, our school didn’t pay the last broadband bill, so our Internet’s been cut off. Could you just tell us what you mean by another competition?”
Nat groaned. Even her school was embarrassing. But no one else from 8H even noticed, mainly because no one else was listening. They were watching Darius hang upside down from the back of a chair.
“We sent a letter to both the essay winners,” said Mr Dewdrop. He looked at Darius. “Didn’t you get it?”
“The postman doesn’t deliver to Darius’s house,” explained Nat. “He’s a bit nervous.”
Mr Dewdrop smiled a forced smile. “The winners of the essay competition, with the help of their classmates, will take part in another competition. They need to present a big geography project on Saturday. It’s carnival day in Lower Totley and announcing the winner will be part of the fantastic entertainment!”
“What sort of project will it be?” said Miss Hunny.
“It’s going to be so exciting,” trilled Mr Dewdrop. “The children have to make something based on what we do here this week. There’ll be loads of bonus marks for the school that goes the extra mile – or kilometre, as we now say. Basically, you can’t work too hard!”
“Wanna bet?” said Marcus Milligan.
“Just make sure you celebrate our green and pleasant countryside!” said Mr Dewdrop.
“Wanna see something green and unpleasant?” said Darius. “Just look in my snot rag.”
Nat saw Mr Dewdrop shudder. She grinned. She reckoned the employees of the Nice ‘N’ Neat Countryside Alliance weren’t used to schools like hers.
But then she saw Dad frowning. Oops, she thought.
Mr Dewdrop ploughed on. “Isn’t that exciting?”
“You are so lame,” moaned Julia Pryde.
Nat giggled.
“I thought this was a holiday,” said Milly Barnacle. “Holiday camp, they said.”
“Yeah, but now we’ve got to work to make the project,” moaned Marcus Milligan. “Stupid projects.”
“And present it in front of the whole town,” moaned Sally Bung.
“Blame Bagley,” said Julia Pryde. “For winning the poxy essay competition in the first place.”
“Yeah, I can’t wait to see him up on stage presenting our work,” said Peaches Bleary.
All of 8H laughed.
Until Darius spoke.
“I’m not doing it,” said Darius. He pointed at Nat. “SHE wrote the essay. It’s her fault.”
“It IS her fault,” said Miss Hunny.
“That’s right,” said Dad. “She worked really hard on that essay so give her the credit.”
“So NOW I get the credit?” said Nat.
“Yes, you get the credit,” said Penny, suddenly remembering her promise. “Listen, everyone, it’s all Nathalia’s doing.” She smiled at Nat.
The rest of 8H were glaring at her.
“Is this true?” said Mr Dewdrop. “Did you write that wonderful essay?”
Nat stood up and sighed. “Yes,” she admitted.
“Oh,” Mr Dewdrop said, “this is most irregular. But everything is organised. Changing things now would cause a lot of mess. So, well, you’ll have to present your class project, that’s all.”
All of 8H were now laughing at Nat.
“What?” said Nat. “Not fair. Have you seen my class? I’ll look like an idiot.” She looked at her classmates. “No offence.”
But Mr D had started so he was going to finish. “You’ll present your projects at our headquarters, the former library, at Lower Snotley – I mean, Lower Totley – on Saturday. The mayor will be there, and the local paper. And the school whose work is judged the best will get … a cup!”
“Ooh,” went the super-keen St Scrofula’s kids.
Nat’s class just made rude noises.
“And not just a cup,” said Mr Dewdrop. “Your school will get a packet of garden centre coupons too!”
Now 8H started laughing at him.
Mr Dewdrop looked confused, but then Nat nudged the chair Darius was rocking on and Darius fell on his head.
NOW they cheered.
Mr Dewdrop smiled, thinking they were cheering him and his competition. He sat down, grateful it was over.
Dad leapt to his feet and clapped a hand on Nat’s shoulder. “That’s brilliant news,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll do ever so well making the project and presenting it.” He nodded towards her classmates and teachers and lowered his voice. “And anyway, winning’s not everything, is it?
There was a shower block nearby, housed in a long building made of brick.
“What was the point of digging our own loo?” grumbled Nat, showering under a feeble stream of lukewarm water. “They’ve got loads of flipping loos in here.”
She was talking to Penny in the next cubicle, but from the other side of her shower stall came Plum’s snooty voice:
“We’re learning valuable life lessons. Don’t you know anything?”
“What possible life lesson can you learn from digging your own poo-hole?” snapped Nat, trying to get her soap to lather.
“How about not winning stupid camping prizes you don’t want?” said Penny, just loud enough for Nat to hear.
Just before bed, the children were told to gather around a big campfire. Mrs Ferret said it was something to do with “bonding”.
Nat had no intention of “bonding” with the St Scrofula’s lot, so had to be practically dragged there by Penny, who hoped there’d be spooky ghost stories.
But when she got to the big crackling fire, Nat found it was WAY MORE FRIGHTENING than silly ghost stories.
DAD WAS PLAYING THE UKULELE!
IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!!
Noooo, she thought.
Dad was sitting on a log, enjoying every second of the attention.
“I’m a teller of tales,” he said, plunking away, “a singer of songs, a weaver of dreams.”
“A massive embarrassment …” muttered Nat.
“I’m the bard of bad, the balladeer of being down.”
“There’s so many meteorites in the universe,” Nat said to Darius, who she noticed HAD NOT HAD A SHOWER, “you’d think just one could whizz down and land on me. Or better still, Dad. But they never ever do.”
Darius grinned. In the firelight he looked demonic. Mind you, considered Nat, Darius would look like a demon even if he worked in a tea shop run by two retired vicars and a fluffy cat called Mr Snuffles.
“It’s getting late,” said Nat, prodding him with a smoky stick. “Last chance to give me your chalet. Or there shall be … consequences.”
Darius looked at her, a faint smile on his grubby face.
“Like what?” he said.
“I can think of terrible things,” she said. “Just not right at this second.”
“Enjoy the yurt,” said Darius, dodging out of pinching range.
Just then, Mr Bungee came over to the fire, carrying something that looked like a big green nest. He sat by Dad and put a friendly arm around him.
“You’re doing a great job with the entertaining, eh?” said Mr Bungee, with what Nat thought was a crafty smile. “I bin doing a lot of thinking about you.”
“That’s nice,” said Dad. “The only thing worse than being thought about is NOT being thought about.”
“I was thinking you’re just what this camp needs.”
“Glad you noticed,” said Dad happily. He looked sideways at Mr Dewdrop and gave him a quick thumbs-up.
“You’re like the real spirit of the woods
, I reckon,” said Mr B.
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” said Dad. “I am the teller of tales and the weaver of dreams, the oracle of the oak and the bard of the birch.”
Nat groaned; Dad always got so carried away. But Mr Bungee was clapping Dad on the back.
“You’re like our very own Green Bogey.”
“Come again?” said Dad, who suddenly sounded less than impressed.
“Everyone around here knows about the Green Bogey. A Green Bogey is like a woodland sprite, or playful spirit,” said Mr B. “Green Bogeys are everywhere.”
“Yeah – look, I’ve caught loads,” said Darius, showing Nat his hanky.
“Gerroff,” she said, hitting him, “you’ve done a snot joke once today already.”
“Hmm. Well, that sounds sensible enough,” said Dad. “What does the Green Bogey do?”
“Same great fun stuff you’re doing now,” said Mr B, “except you do it … in the Green Bogey hat. I made it specially for you.”
He produced the most ridiculous thing to go on a head since the invention of the combined baseball cap and clock radio Dad had once bought out of a catalogue.
It was made from green willow branches and covered with twigs and leaves and bits of grass. Worse, there were bells inside, which tinkled as Mr Bungee plopped it on to Dad’s head.
“Careful of the thinning bit,” said Dad, “that tickles.”
It was a horrible, ridiculous mess.
If the Bagleys were birds, that’s the nest they’d make, thought Nat.
Dad turned to the children, who were now oddly quiet.
“So what do you think?” he said, shaking his head so the leaves rustled and the bells tinkled. “I’m the Green Bogey!”
Nat thought the laughter that followed would never end.
But sadly it did end, because Dad had something he wanted to share with everyone.
A SONG.
“I’m writing the saga of your great camping adventure this week,” said Dad, “and each night, I will sew more stories into the woof and warp of the tapestry of the, er, no, it’s more the … the cloth of, um, perhaps the woolly blanket of your … Oh, I think I’ve lost my train of thought somewhere. I was definitely weaving. Or sewing.”
“Get on with it,” said Rufus from the safety of the darkness beyond the firelight.
“Good point, that, man,” said Dad. “I shall now get on with it. This is called ‘Green Bogey Man Boogie’.”
He plucked a few dodgy chords on his ukulele, cleared his throat, and started to sing.
Well, not sing, exactly, but he began to make a noise. Dad sang the way a hippopotamus belly dances. That is, very badly and often with fatal results.
“I’m the green man from the forest,” sang Dad,
“And everything is green,
My head is green, my feet are green,
And everything in between is green, oh,
And everything in between.”
“And everything in between,” sang the children, in between their giggles.
A few of the ruder boys demonstrated what kind of “in between” they thought Dad meant.
But Dad, who loved an audience, especially when they were laughing, thought he was a big hit and carried on warbling.
“I look after all the doves,” he wailed, getting a bit carried away,
“I look after all the bunnies,
I put on rubber gloves, oh,
And then dig all the dunnies.
And then dig all the dunnies.”
“And then dig all the dunnies, oh,” sang all the kids, minus Nathalia. She was edging towards a nice, thick, leafy, dark bush.
It can’t possibly get worse, she thought.
But then it got worse.
“Well, the wind, it was a-blowin’,
And the grass, it was a-growin’,
And the cattle were a-lowin’,
And Nathalia’s pants were a-showin’
On the monkey bars, oh,
On the monkey bars.”
That was it. The camp erupted with laughter. Even Dad’s old friend Miss Hunny had shoved a hanky in her mouth, but she couldn’t stop her shoulders shaking.
“Dad, shut up!” shouted Nathalia, but her words were drowned out by the laughter.
She jumped up and stamped her foot in shame and fury. Which only made the laughter worse. Coldly she marched over to Dad and snatched his wretched ukulele off him.
“Be a good sport, love,” said Dad quickly, looking backwards and forwards between his angry daughter and the campfire, which was too near his little instrument for comfort. “There’s loads more verses. Everyone in the camp comes in for a bit of gentle ribbing.”
He lowered his voice. “I can’t leave you out – it’ll look like favouritism.”
Nat drew her arm back as if to lob the hated uke into the flames. Dad hopped up and grabbed it off her.
“Careful,” he said, “that’s the spanner of the gods.”
“No, Dad, YOU’RE the spanner of the gods,” she said, stomping off.
She glared at Mr Dewdrop, who was scribbling with a pencil on his big stupid clipboard, as always.
“What are YOU looking at?” she snarled.
He coughed nervously. “Are you part of the act?” he said.
A red mist came down in front of Nat’s eyes. She grabbed his pencil and hurled it into the flames.
“Yes I am,” she said, “and that’s the big finish.”
As she stormed off, she heard Dad’s voice.
“I think that school’s having a bad influence on her,” he was saying. “I’ve noticed she does get very cross these days and that’s the only sensible explanation.”
AAAAGH, thought Nat.
“That snobby school is making us a laughing stock,” said Nat. “And my dad doesn’t need any help with that.”
She was lying in her sleeping bag, wide awake, in her horrid yurt with Penny. It was the middle of the night and light from her phone was casting spooky shadows on the cloth walls. Outside owls hooted and somewhere a cow mooed. They seemed a million miles from anywhere.
Over in his cabin, Darius farted so loudly it sent the owl flapping off with a shriek. And it woke Penny with a start.
“What? Oh, they’re not all bad,” yawned Penny. “I met a nice girl called Perudo Box today. She’s got pet llamas and she says I can visit and feed them and everything.”
“Ooh, you big fat traitor,” said Nat.
“Why do you hate on them so much?” said Penny, who didn’t hate on anything. Which Nat hated.
“Because my stupid dad thinks the sun shines out of their exam results,” said Nat. “And now they’re gonna look awesome on Saturday. They’ll come up with some mega project to show off when we haven’t even had a single idea yet. And let’s face it, all I know about geography is how to dig a dunny.”
“You’ve got us and Mr Keane to help you come up with an idea for a winning project,” said Penny. “Doesn’t that sound good?”
Nat just groaned.
The big worry in Nat’s mind swam to the surface and raced away. “I’m gonna make a right fool of myself, with all your help. Then Dad’s gonna think I need to be at a better school and then he’ll send me there. What happens THEN?”
“You’d probably get more than twelve per cent in your biology tests, for a start,” said Penny, who was just being honest.
“I revised the wrong things, stop going on about it,” said Nat. “Look, I’m not going to that school.” She thought hard. “Which means, they need to look as rubbish as us.”
“So what are you going to do to them?” yawned Penny, closing her eyes.
“Dunno. Normally I’d just get Darius to come up with an evil plan, but I’m not talking to him because he won’t let me have the chalet.”
“Ask your other friends then.”
Nat wasn’t sure she had that many. She ticked off the options on her fingers: “Julia Pryde’s quite a meanie, which could be useful but I don
’t really trust her. Sally Puddle is a total teacher’s pet even though she, like, pretends she isn’t—”
“OMG, she so is,” agreed Penny.
“Don’t interrupt. Peaches Bleary is one of those girly girls. And the only other girl I’m sort of friends with is Milly Barnacle and I don’t like her anyway. She’s a bit clingy.”
There was a long pause.
In the dark, Penny said, “There’s me. I can help.”
“Yeah, right,” said Nat.
“What does that mean?” said Penny.
If Nat hadn’t been quite so wrapped up in herself, she might have noticed Penny sounded a bit hurt.
“You’re a total goody two-shoes,” said Nat. “I need someone who can be devious and evil and sneaky. And not someone who thinks they’re a fairy princess from the cloud city of la-la land. No offence.”
“I am offended, actually,” said Penny, but into her sleeping bag so Nat wasn’t sure she’d heard her right.
Nat closed her eyes and waited for sleep. She had heard that great lungfuls of fresh air and dollops of exercise and lashings of good wholesome food make you sleep like a top.
Still wide awake hours later, she wanted to find the idiot who said that and throttle them.
“Sleep all right?” Nat asked Darius the next morning.
She was REALLY grumpy.
They were in the dining room, shovelling down heaped plates of fried stuff. Dad was helping out with the cooking, which was a shock for most people who liked normal food. Nat was used to the greasy, burned mess that stared back at her from her tin plate. Going by the retching sounds from the St Scrofula’s kids, she guessed they were used to rather finer grub.
“Did you have a nice, long, relaxing slumber in your luxury cabin of loveliness?” said Nat, bouncing her fork off a rubber egg.
“Can’t remember, I was too busy being asleep,” said munching Darius, who ate anything. And was, as usual, eating with his mouth open.
“I feel sick,” said a St Scrofula’s girl sitting opposite, called Tallulah Puddleduck.
“Wanna know how my night was?” hissed Nat.
Behind her, Dad was waving a tea towel at a smoking frying pan.
