Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Nathalia Buttface and the Most Epically Embarrassing Trip Ever

Text copyright © Nigel Smith 2015

Cover illustration © Sarah Horne 2015

Nigel Smith and Sarah Horne assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

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: 9780007545230

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007545247

Version: 2015-02-13

To Michèle. Because mums who live with embarrassing dads suffer just as much.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

The Bit After the Book’s Finished

A Sneek Preview from Nathalia Buttface

Also by Nigel Smith

About the Author

About the Publisher

’m not going on holiday to France, Dad,” said Nathalia Bumolé, crossly. “It’s rubbish.”

The Most Embarrassing Dad in the World paused. He hadn’t expected this reaction. In fact, he had come home from the pub with his Great French Holiday Idea feeling really pleased with himself.

Dad liked France. He liked the weather and the food and the wine and talking to local people.

“You wear STUPID shorts, your bald spot goes pink and peely, you drink red wine every day and get silly and even more embarrassing than usual and your teeth look like a vampire’s,” Nat went on, not pausing for breath, “and THE VERY WORST thing is, you talk in a funny accent.”

“It’s called speaking French.”

“It is not, Dad, it’s called ‘speaking English in a silly voice’. You don’t even bother to change the words. You are literally supposed to change the words to actual French ones. I know that and I’m eleven. BUT I didn’t know it at my primary school, did I? In my first French lesson.”

Dad put the kettle on. He knew what was coming; he’d heard this story about Nat’s first French lesson a lot. He looked around the kitchen for support from Mum but she was in the living room. She was pretending to do emails, but she was really playing a game on her phone and having a quiet giggle at Dad being in trouble again.

“Cos of you, when Madame Hérisson asked us who could speak any French, I put my hand up.”

“Biscuit?” said Dad, still trying to avoid the story. “There might be one left as your nan’s not been here for a couple of days.”

But Nat wasn’t going to let him escape. She was an angry blur of stick arms and legs and flying blonde hair. Dad was already regretting getting her out of bed to tell her about the Great French Holiday Idea.

Nat advanced on her father. “I put my hand up and said ‘Yes, I know French,’ and Madame Hérisson said ‘Wonderful, come up and tell the class what you had for breakfast, in French.’”

“No custard creams,” said Dad, popping the lid of the biscuit tin back on. “I could do you a cheese toastie though?”

But Nat was too busy remembering that horribly embarrassing lesson.

“’Ello my leetle class mateys,” Nat had said, confidently, “for brek-farst, I ’ad a sliss of tost.” She waited for applause.

“Very amusing,” said Madame Hérisson coldly. She didn’t look amused. Nat’s classmates giggled.

“Zere is nuffink zat iss fuh-nee about a sliss of tost,” Nat continued, still speaking what she now called ‘Dad French’.

“Do it properly or sit down,” snapped Madame Hérisson, marking Nat out for special attention that year.

Nat pressed on. Perhaps her accent wasn’t big enough. She tried Dad French again. “I ’ad ze sliss off tost, and I ’ad a leetle beet of butt-urgh wheech I spred weeeth a ker-nurf.” The giggling got louder.

“A ker-nurf?” said Madame Hérisson. “A KER-NURF? What are you talking about, girl?”

“Like a ker-nurf and furk,” said Nat. By now the class was in uproar.

“Class clown, are you?” said Madame Hérisson. “Detention.”

Dad was always embarrassing her. He could even do it when he WASN’T THERE. Of course, it was way worse when he was there. Which was why she had tried so very hard to stop him interfering at her new school.

Epic fail.

It had started on day one. Nat’s form teacher, Miss Hunny, was an old friend of Dad’s (aaarrggh!) and had encouraged Dad to ‘join in’ at school events (double aaarrggh!).

Dad had very much joined in.

He organised a school trip and lost a pupil AND a teacher.

He put on a quiz night that ended in a riot.

And he was DJ at the end-of-term school disco and accidentally projected Nat’s NAKED BABY PHOTOS six metres high in the school hall!

But at least the summer holidays were about to start. After tomorrow, her classmates would have eight weeks to forget about all the disasters Dad had caused. And with a bit of luck they might even forget her horrible surname too.

Even THAT was Dad’s fault. Not just because it was his stupid name, but because he had managed to reveal it live on air on the breakfast radio show that EVERYONE at Nat’s school listened to.

And it didn’t matter how many times she explained ‘Bumolé’ was pronounced Bew-mow–lay. She was still going to be Bum Hole for the rest of her school life, unless everyone developed a very short memory over the summer holidays.

Even her best friend, Darius Bagley, called her Buttface.

Dad was talking again now, doing his gentle voice that drove her nuts.

“Yes yes yes. But let me tell you about my Great French Holiday Idea. It’s just brilliant. And the best of it is – it’s free.”

Dad liked free. Dad liked free a bit too much, if you asked Nat. Mum said that in life you get what you pay for. Which is why when Mum went food shopping they got pies with super fluffy crusts full of chunks of tender chicken and veg enfolded in a lovely tasty sauce, perhaps with some rustic hand-cut golden chips.

When Dad went food shopping they got a brown pie in a tin.

With a big yellow sticker on it saying: ‘Final reduction – eat today if you know what’s good for you. May cause swelling and rash if rubbed on skin.’

Mum walked into the kitchen, not smiling any more. Nat started smiling. Mum had heard the word ‘free’ too, and she didn’t like the sound of it either.

“What do you mean, Ivor, when you say ‘free’?” she purred dangerously.

“I met Posh Barry down the Red Lion tonight,” Dad began. Both Nat and Mum groaned. They didn’t like Posh Barry very much. To be fair, Nat didn’t like any of Dad’s friends very much. Because they were all idiots. And when Dad was with them, he became more of an idiot too.

“Posh Barry isn’t even posh,” said Nat. “He’s just one of your stupid old friends from school. He sells scrap. He’s always got bits of wire in his hair and he smells like a tin can, so I don’t know why you all call him Posh Barry.”

“His wife’s worse,” said Mum, joining in. “‘Even Posher Linda’ used to be a hairdresser in the high street. She met Barry when he asked her to get the bits of scrap out of his hair. He said it would save him money at the hairdresser’s if she married him, so she did. Now she doesn’t work and spends most of her time back at her old salon getting her own hair done.”

But the absolute worst thing about Posh Barry and Even Posher Linda was their ghastly daughter, Mimsy. Mimsy was the year above Nat at school. She was spoilt rotten. She was also very popular, mainly because she gave people gifts all the time. It was only stuff she didn’t want any more (or already had a dozen of) but it guaranteed she had loads of friends.

Worse, she had a stupid blog that EVERYONE at school read where she posted about ponies and iPhones and sparkly new trainers and lots of other things that Nat had to pretend she didn’t want and wasn’t massively jealous of.

Whenever Nat was forced to hang out with Mimsy, Mimsy would always make fun of Nat’s clothes, and her rubbish old phone, and, obvs – her embarrassing dad. Which Nat really hated because SHE was the only person who was allowed to do that. Mimsy liked to put embarrassing photos of Nat’s dad on her blog – which, let’s be frank, were not hard to find – so everyone at school could have another good laugh at Nat.

“There’s no way I’m going to spend my summer holidays hanging out with Mi—”

“Wait! You don’t have to. They’re not going to be there. Posh Barry has said we can stay in his lovely new house in France this summer – for free! How about that?”

Nat and Mum eyed Dad suspiciously.

“It’s a lovely old farmhouse right down in the south, near the sea, with a pool, surrounded by woods, and it’s all ours.”

“Honestly?” said Mum cautiously.

“Honest!” said Dad. “They said they wouldn’t DARE come over till we’ve finished anyway.”

A small warning bell went clang in the back of Nat’s head. She ignored it, which, she soon realised, was daft.

“In that case, it sounds nice,” said mum warily. “I suppose I should say well done.”

“Thought you’d like it,” said Dad, giving her a hug.

Eww, Nat cringed. Parents hugging …

“Why won’t they be there?” said Nat. She knew her dad and his Great Ideas, and had a horrible feeling that there was more to this story than met the eye.

Dad suddenly looked a bit shifty. She’d got him. “Ah well, there is one tiny little catch,” said Dad. “But it’s so small it’s hardly worth mentioning …”

Just mention it, Baldy, thought Nat.

“It might need a tiny bit of work.”

t needed more than a tiny bit. After two pints of Goblin’s Knob ale down the pub, Dad had agreed to: patch the roof, fix the floorboards, mend the hot water boiler, repaint downstairs, re-wallpaper upstairs, repair the windows, mow the lawn, and put in a cat flap. After a couple more pints he had volunteered to tarmac the drive, plant some trees and get rid of the ghost.

Posh Barry wasn’t absolutely sure there was a ghost, but his wife Even Posher Linda had ‘sensed’ something the first night they had stayed there and wasn’t going to set foot in the place again until it was got rid of. That was a while ago now, and since then the little French farmhouse had been left to rot.

“A ghost,” Nat told Darius the next day at school. “We’ve got to stay in an old, damp, smelly falling-down house with a ghost. And ghosts don’t exist so it’ll probably be an axe murderer, hiding out.”

“A ghost would be the best pet,” said Darius, whose own pet collection consisted of a one-legged frog called Hoppy, a dead slug and a jar of flies. “I could train it to haunt Miss Hunny.”

Nat had just moved to the area and so had only been at her new school for the summer term, but Darius Bagley had quickly become her best friend. This was despite him being the naughtiest boy in the school/town/country/world. No one quite knew how this had happened, least of all Nat.

But Nat, being fiercely loyal, argued that Darius wasn’t so much naughty as just MISUNDERSTOOD. She was also one of the very few people to realise he was both super-bright and super-funny, though she did have to admit he was also super-embarrassing (but still not as bad as Dad).

The hot afternoon was dragging on and Nat shifted uncomfortably at her desk. “It’s just this woman Linda. She’s soft in the head. Dad says when she was a little girl she was scared by a lady with a scarf at Blackpool pleasure beach and since then she’s been very sensitive to reverberations.”

Nat frowned as she tried to get the story right. “I think it was a lady with a scarf. It might have been a donkey with a straw hat; I wasn’t really listening. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, point is she’s bonkers and there’s probably no ghost.”

Nat was being quite loud but their teacher, Miss Hunny, didn’t tell them off for chatting because everyone was chatting. It was nearly the end of term and it was too hot even with all the windows open, and Miss Hunny was flicking through the pages of Last-minute Budget Breaks Magazine. Rather than getting on with her marking, she was trying to work out how long she could afford to stay in a lovely beach house on a Greek island. On her wages it was about an hour and a half. She slammed the magazine shut sharply.

“I suppose we should get back to our book,” sighed Miss Hunny. The class groaned. “Oh don’t be like that,” she said. “It’s a classic.”

That made it worse.

Nat knew there were two sorts of classics: old classics and new classics. They were both terrible, especially when the sun was shining outside.

OLD CLASSICS are written by someone who is dead. Women in these books wear bonnets and faint. They are called Mistress Bindweed. Men are rich and rude and have a secret. They are called Captain Stain.

Popular words in old classics include: periwig, effervescent and rapscallion.

NEW CLASSICS are written by intense people about things that REALLY MATTER, OK? And no one faints.

Popular words in new classics include: innit, aggro, issues, empowered and minging.

No one in the class was keen to get back to Edna O’Dreary’s award-winning novel, My Life, Your Fault, so a cheer went up when Nat’s dreamy friend Penny Posnitch shouted out: “What are you doing in the holidays, Miss?”

It was the old ‘ask the teacher about themselves’ tactic. Now THAT’s a classic.

Miss Hunny was glad to take the bait. She’d had quite enough of Edna O’Dreary too.

“I was invited on a cruise with some friends,” she said, “where I could have watched palm trees and golden beaches slip by as I lazed around the ship’s pool.” Miss Hunny had a faraway look in her eyes. Then she frowned. “But I can only afford a return ticket on the Mersey Ferry.”

The class laughed and Miss Hunny muttered something rude under her breath.

Nat hadn’t been invited on holiday with any friends that summer, or even round to anyone’s house. She had a horrible suspicion part of the problem was the creature sitting next to her, picking his nose and eating the crispy bits.

“What are you doing this summer?” Nat asked Darius. “Mutating into a human?”

“I’m going to Norway with My Filthy Granny,” he said offhand. Nat was puzzled; she didn’t know he had a granny. In fact, she had a theory that Darius was created in a laboratory somewhere.

At home time she found Darius trudging along with her to the school gates. Dad was parked round the corner in his terrible old van, the Atomic Dustbin, because she’d forbidden him to bring it anywhere in sight of the school. Ever since it had exploded in the school car park.

“Give us a lift?” asked Darius. “Oswald can’t fetch me, he’s in a meeting.”

A meeting? thought Nat. Oswald?

Darius didn’t have any parents; Nat had never asked why, and Darius never wanted to talk about it. Oswald Bagley was Darius’s terrifying older brother, who was looking after him. The way wolves sometimes look after man-cubs lost in the forest. Only Oswald was hairier, with more teeth and fleas. He certainly wasn’t the kind of person to have a meeting. No one wanted to meet him, for a start.

They were just about to leave the school gates when Nat heard a sniggering sort of voice behind her.

“So, I hear you’re going to stay in our house in France over the summer?” said Mimsy with a showy-off flick of her hair. “You do know it’s a wreck right now, don’t you? Good luck to you and your TOTAL FAIL of a dad fixing that up … It’ll probably look even worse by the time he’s done with it.”

Then Mimsy walked off laughing with her friends and Nat heard the words she’d been dreading: “Don’t worry, I’ll be blogging all about it when I get there. I’ve got a lush new camera. Wait for the pictures.”

“Thanks for sticking up for me, chimpy,” Nat said to Darius as he rejoined her.

Darius was staring hard at Mimsy. “Do you fancy her or something?” said Nat crossly.

“Wait,” he said mysteriously. “Three … two … one …”

Just then Mimsy shrieked as a huge hole opened up at the bottom of her bulging schoolbag and all the contents spilled out on the floor. Everyone laughed as she scrabbled to pick them up.

For a second Nat thought maybe her suspicions had been right all along and Darius actually WAS the devil, but then she saw him folding up his little pocket knife.

And she remembered why they were friends.

Dad smiled when he saw Darius at the school gates, and the Dog leaped out of the van, scattering pans and boxes and all the other usual van rubbish out on to the pavement as he went. The Dog loved licking Darius as he was the stickiest and therefore the tastiest child he’d ever licked. Nat liked it when Darius got licked by the Dog; at least that got him clean.

Dad chatted about his Great French Holiday Idea all the way to Darius’s house. All Darius wanted to know about was the ghost. “Is it a strangling ghost, a restless spirit that throws things about, or a blood-sucking phantom?” he asked.

“Oh, a bit of all three I should expect,” said Dad cheerfully. “Which reminds me, did Nathalia tell you about the time she thought the kettle was haunted?”

“Shuddup, Dad,” hissed Nat.

Obviously he didn’t shuddup, and Nat had to endure the story all over again.

“… Turns out it was just a faulty plug!” laughed Dad, finishing his tale. “But she still won’t make a cup of tea after nine o’clock at night.”

“Thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?” said Darius. Nat looked for something heavy to brain Dad with.

The van groaned to a halt as they pulled up in front of Darius’s little house. The garden, as usual, was full of rubbish.

“This garden looks like the inside of your head,” Nat said to Dad.

Parked next to the house was a large black van with pictures of corpses playing musical instruments all over it. In big bloody red letters someone had painted the words:

My Filthy Granny

“Has the circus come to your house?” asked Dad.

Darius was very quiet. He didn’t seem to want to get out.

Dad thought for a minute and said: “You going to invite us in for a cup of tea then?”

Nat thought he’d gone mad. What was Dad thinking? No one went for a cup of tea at Oswald Bagley’s house. An evening of mayhem and animal sacrifices, maybe, but not PG Tips. But Dad was already walking down the path, arm round Darius. Nat followed warily.

Inside the small, dark sitting room it looked like a meeting of the Zombie Council of Great Britain. Five scrawny young men, all dressed in black with white faces, blood-red lips and green-tinged eyes, lolled around drinking out of cans. Oswald grunted when he saw his younger brother and nodded at Dad and Nat. He didn’t speak.

One of the creatures grabbed Darius playfully, though it was a bit rough for Nat’s liking. “Here’s our other little roadie. Where you been – school?” There was something sneery and unpleasant in his voice. Darius was smiling but Nat knew it wasn’t a real smile.

Nat saw a poster lying on the floor. It read:

On tour – My Filthy Granny. Heavier than heavy metal, blacker than black metal, thrashier than thrash metal, speedier than speed metal, deader than death metal.

There were a bunch of dates in towns whose names Nat didn’t recognise, but guessed were in Norway. So this is what Darius meant.

“A band, are you?” said Dad. The Grannies stopped throwing Darius about and turned bloodshot eyes towards him. “I used to play all the time …” Dad burbled on. “Course, I was a bit thinner in those days.”

Nat began to get that familiar nasty creeping sensation down the back of her neck and in her stomach – the sign that her dad was about to be horribly embarrassing.

“I’ve got something in the van you’ll like,” he said, jumping up and running out the front door. The Grannies turned their pale faces to Nat. She tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t get her eaten. She started with Darius. “You never said your brother was in a band.”

“He’s not,” said the drummer, who used to be called Simon but apparently was now known as Dirty McNasty. “Oswald’s our security.” Oswald cracked his knuckles. Nat thought that he was probably there to stop the audience leaving.

“Oswald AND little Darius,” said Mr McNasty. “You’re coming wiv us too, ain’t ya?” he said. “We all have a lot of – love – for little Darius.” He cuffed Darius round the head lovingly enough to make his eyes wobble.

“Don’t go asking for no autographs,” said the singer, Derek Vomit, to Nat, unnecessarily. “You don’t get no autographs, unless you get a tattoo of us. Shows you’re a real fan. We’re giving Darius one when we get to Oslo.”

“Listen to this,” said Dad, coming back in, holding a tiny, pink ukulele. It looked like a guitar that hadn’t grown up yet. Nat felt sick. “I wrote this song ages ago. It was very popular down the student union bar. I was quite the rocker.”

Nat wanted to hide under a cushion but it was unpleasant enough sitting ON a Bagley cushion; you would not want to be under one.

“Feel free to join in on the chorus, lads,” said Dad, plunking tunelessly away. He LOVED meeting fellow musicians. “You’ll probably want to use it at one of your gigs.”

Nat knew there was only one thing worse than Dad playing the ukulele. It was Dad singing. Dad started singing.

“I am a rocker,” he started, surprisingly loudly. And unsurprisingly flat. “I am a shocker. You be the door and I’ll be the knocker …”

Oswald and the Filthy Grannies stared at the warbling idiot, grinning. Nat immediately saw they were nasty grins, but Dad took it for encouragement and sang louder.

“Let’s have a go,” said the guitarist, whose mum knew him as Jason but who was now called Stinky Gibbon. Dad handed him the uke. Stinky played a couple of notes and there was a crunching noise as he deliberately broke the neck off. “Oops, sorry!” he said, laughing. He handed Dad the smashed instrument back. “That’s rock and roll for you.”

Dad took the mashed instrument and thought for a moment.

“You’re taking Darius with you this summer, are you?” he said to Oswald. There was a bit of steel in Dad’s voice that Nat hardly recognised. Oswald nodded.

“Well, you’re not,” said Dad. “He’s coming with us.”

Nat couldn’t be sure, but she thought that under his horrible black beard, Oswald Bagley smiled.

t was the Saturday after school had finished and Nat and Dad were outside the house, packing the Atomic Dustbin. This first involved un-packing the Atomic Dustbin, as it was always full of junk. It was crammed with the stuff Dad liked that Mum wouldn’t let in the house. So anyone walking past their drive that morning would have seen a rubbish van parked next to a rubbish tip. Nat had a baseball cap pulled down as far over her face as possible, in case anyone who knew her walked by.

Dad wasn’t wearing a baseball cap; he thought baseball caps looked stupid. He was wearing an old T-shirt with ‘Little Monkeys’ written on it. Underneath was printed a photo of Nat, aged four, holding a monkey in a safari park. Nat was pulling a face because the chimp had just poked her in the eye. Dad thought the picture was cute, hence the T-shirt. Nat did not think it was cute, hence she’d thrown it in the bin fourteen times. But it still kept appearing. Next time, she thought darkly, I’m setting fire to it. Even if Dad’s wearing it.

But even worse than the T-shirt were Dad’s shorts. Dad wore shorts from June 1st to August 31st, because, he said, that was summer. He didn’t wear them at any other time, no matter how hot, and he never wore anything else in the summer, no matter how cold or rainy. Dad was very proud of his shorts because he’d had them AT SCHOOL and he could still get into them. They were red and shiny and very very short. Way too short. From a distance it looked like he’d just forgotten to put his trousers on. Old ladies walked past the drive tutting and shielding their eyes.

Dad had extremely thin white hairy legs and in these shorts you could see ALL of those thin white hairy legs, from ankle to unmentionable. He bent over in the van and made it worse. Nat heard shrieks from the other side of the street and had to hide behind the Dog.

To top it all, Dad had the radio on. Fighting over the radio was becoming what writers of modern classics would call: AN ISSUE. In the old days, Nat didn’t care what awful music Dad listened to, because she was still finding out what music she liked. But now she was older and had found out what she liked and it was the music they played on RADIO ZINGG!!! It was happy bouncy music you could dance to. Dad liked RADIO DAD. The songs on RADIO DAD went on for hours and if you tried to dance to them you’d break your legs. They were boring and miserable and now it was playing at full blast and all the neighbours would think that she liked Dave Spong and his Incredible Flaming Earwigs, or whoever it was.

Because of all this, Nat was very keen to get the van cleared and packed so they could get out of there. But the more Dad chucked out on to the drive, the more there was still inside. It was like some evil van curse.

Normal families fly abroad on holiday, thought Nat sourly, dragging more cases to the van. But Dad kept telling them it would be ‘more fun’ (in other words, cheaper) to drive there instead.

“We’ll need a car when we get there anyway,” he had argued to Mum. “And this saves us the expense of hiring one. Plus, we’ll make a holiday of the journey. We can sleep in the van. Or there’s a big old tent in the back. You like camping!”

This was not true. Mum hated camping. Mum liked hotels and hot water and fluffy towels and chocolates on the pillow and room service. She did not like:

Tents, campsites, bugs, sleeping bags, burnt sausages, shared showers, smelly loos, rain, fetching water from a pipe in a field, cows, hippies, wet socks, and any of the four great smells of camping – plastic, burnt wood, damp dirt and wee.

This wasn’t the reason she gave though. Mum would have to miss the whole camping bit because obviously, she said, she couldn’t get a month off work. “Unlike your father, who rarely gets a month ON work.”

Mum usually got upset when she missed out on family time, but Nat was pretty sure Mum was relieved to be missing out on the camping part of the trip.

Instead, the plan was that Dad, Nat and Darius would take the van over to France, and when Mum could get away she would fly out to join them, probably towards the end, and once Dad had found her a nice hotel nearby.

“But you can just stay in the house! I’ll have it done up by the time you arrive,” Dad had argued.

“Now, I don’t mean to be critical, love,” Mum had pointed out, “but you’re not a builder. You write jokes for Christmas crackers. I have no idea why you’ve agreed to do all this work. The last time you tried to put up a bookshelf you nailed your head to a copy of Great Expectations.”

Dad had mumbled something about it being a bit quiet on the Christmas cracker-joke-writing job front at the moment and that it might be good for him to develop another skill or two. Mum had just smiled and kissed him and reminded him to take out extra health insurance and a first-aid kit.

“Do you think we’ll need this?” Dad asked Nat, emerging backwards from the depths of the van, waving an electric pencil sharpener.

“No idea, Dad, I’ve got my eyes closed,” shouted Nat, burying her face in the Dog’s warm fur. “Please change your shorts.”

Whatever Dad said next was drowned out by the roar of a huge motorcycle engine. Oswald had arrived with Darius sitting on the back of the bike. The Dog bounded up, sure of a treat. Darius hopped off and picked some flies out of his teeth. He was carrying a small tatty rucksack. It didn’t look big enough to hold a decent packed lunch, let alone anything else.

“Is that all you’re bringing?” asked Nat.

“It’s all I’ve got,” Darius replied lightly, before getting bundled over by the excited Dog. The two of them rolled around in the front garden. Oswald nodded to Dad, revved his motorbike and sped off without saying goodbye to his little brother. Dad watched him go for a moment, then turned to Darius. “Best say goodbye to the mutt,” he said, “we’re taking him to the kennels later.”

Nat was shocked. “Dad—” she began.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he said, cutting her off, “but he’ll hate that long drive and he won’t like strange places and Mum’s too busy to look after him. He’ll be better off in a kennel, trust me. I’ve picked a nice one.”

Nat wasn’t one to take no for an answer. “Mum …” she shouted, running indoors.

Mum was on her mobile and doing emails at the same time. Nat wanted to tell her why she HAD to have the Dog with her and that Mum HAD to make Dad understand but didn’t want to interrupt so, after hovering nearby for a few minutes, she went upstairs and threw herself on the bed in misery.

Which is where she was when Bad News Nan came looking for her.

“Your fasher said you washn’t feeling very well,” she said, showering Nat with biscuit crumbs. Her voice was muffled due to the addition of digestives and the lack of teeth. Bad News Nan often kept her false teeth in her pocket so as not to wear them out by over-use. Many an evening at home had been livened up by the sudden discovery of Nan’s gnashers under a cushion.

Or in the dishwasher.

Or in the biscuit tin.

Or in the butter dish.

“It’s just Dad,” grumbled Nat, “and this stupid holiday. It’s going to be a typical Dad disaster, I know it. And if I haven’t got the Dog, there’ll be no one to have a sensible conversation with.”

Bad News Nan had stopped listening after the word ‘disaster’. She liked nothing better than a good disaster. “Well, if you think your life’s bad …” she began, and proceeded to tell Nat about:

Edna Pudding – lost two fingers in the bacon slicer at Morrison’s.

Deidre Scratchnsniff – put winning lottery ticket through a hot wash.

Frank Mealtime – took a pedalo out too far at Camber Sands and was captured by Somali pirates. His niece had to put all her bone china figurines on eBay to pay the ransom.

Nat wasn’t too sure how true any of these were (especially the Edna story, because the last time she’d seen Mrs Pudding she was working on the checkouts, not the deli counter), but funnily enough, they did make her feel a bit better.

“I’ve told your father this whole expedition is stupid,” she droned on. “I said little Nat should just come and stay with me this summer. Would you like that?”

Nat hesitated. On the one hand, Bad News Nan was completely mad and never stopped talking or eating unless she was asleep, and even then kept going sometimes. Nat knew she would be forced to listen to all the hard-luck stories that Nan collected the way Mum collected parking tickets. On the other hand, having no Dad to show her up sounded pretty amazing, and she could hang out with Penny Posnitch who lived round the corner from Nan. She could make a few new friends and maybe move up the popularity ladder at least TWO RUNGS.

And besides that, there would be NOTHING TO DO at Nan’s except do what Nan did – get up at lunchtime, watch endless episodes of Judge Judy, and never eat a vegetable again. On balance – it sounded brilliant.

Only one problem.

“How about Darius and the Dog?” Nat asked.

“I’m not looking after them,” said Nan firmly. “They’d both have to go in kennels.”

Nat sighed and reluctantly pushed herself off the bed. France it was. But she was NOT putting the Dog in kennels. She just needed a plan.

t last the van was cleared of all its rubbish and repacked with slightly more useful rubbish, and it was time for everyone to say their goodbyes. Mum gave Nat an extra squeezy hug.

“Can I stay here and get a job in your office instead?” whispered Nat, only half joking.

Mum grinned. “Yes, I wish we could swap places. But look, you’re going to a foreign country with your idiot father and demon child Darius Bagley in a horrible van to rebuild a haunted house. Think how lucky you are!”

Sometimes, thought Nat, Mum’s sense of humour is as bad as Dad’s.

“Right, let’s go. Where’s the Dog?” said Dad, looking sweaty and harassed.

Somewhere in the Dog’s tiny doggie brain he must have sensed something was up, because they found him trembling under a pile of dirty washing. Dad had to carry him out to the van, still tangled up in the sheets and looking utterly pathetic. He turned his sad brown dog eyes to Mum as he was carried to the van, as if to say, “Are you doing this to me too?”

“In, in, let’s go,” said Dad to Nat and Darius as he slammed the door and started the engine. Or rather, tried to start the engine. It coughed and banged and wheezed and went silent.

Mum waved her arms, exasperated. “You said you’d get this horrible old thing ready for the road!” she said. “How do you expect it to carry you across half of France if you can’t get it off the drive?”

“We can’t go! We have to stay here, what a shame, never mind,” shouted Nat as she scrambled out of the van, her heart leaping with joy.

“Nothing I can’t fix,” said Dad, hopping out. He lifted the bonnet and leaned right over to get at the engine. There was a scream from Mrs Possett opposite at number 26 who wished she hadn’t chosen that moment to stand at the window and take her net curtains down.

“You could stop Dad going,” Nat said urgently to Mum, out of earshot, “he does what you tell him.”

“No, he doesn’t,” said Mum, pleased at the thought all the same, “but anyway, it’ll be good for him to fix this silly house and prove to everyone round here he’s not totally daft and useless.”

But he is, thought Nat.

There was muffled clanging and swearing from under the bonnet for about five minutes, until Darius jumped out of the van, holding some kind of multitool he’d taken from his rucksack. “Let’s have a look,” he said to Dad. “I’ve fixed Oswald’s bike loads of times.”

Dad slapped him on the back and walked over to Mum. “See,” he said, “no problem. Darius is going to mend it.”

“He’s just a little boy, you moron!” yelled Mum. “You ARE daft and useless.”

Told you, thought Nat.

By now there was quite a crowd gathering on the pavement to watch what was going on. The neighbours knew there was always something fun to watch at Nat’s house. A lot of them preferred it to the telly. Nat and the Dog got back in the van and hid.

“But he’s brilliant with his hands,” said Dad cheerfully. “Who do you think fixed our washing machine last month?”

In the van, Nat cringed. Even she knew Dad had just made a massive mistake. Mum grabbed the nearest object from the pile of junk that had been chucked out of the van. It happened to be a rude garden gnome that Dad once thought was funny. Now he just thought it looked heavy and sharp. She advanced on Dad dangerously. He smartly backed off, towards the small crowd, who were really getting their money’s worth today.

“You said you got an engineer out,” she said quietly. Nat got worried. Most people get louder as they get angrier, but not Mum. She started off loud, then got quieter. She was deadly quiet now.

“Be fair, love, he did a great job, and he was much cheaper than a real engineer. You can pay him in Mars bars and Pringles.”

Dad had also discovered that if you gave Darius enough fizzy orange pop he worked twice as quickly, but interestingly, Mum got even madder when he told her that.

Nat watched through her fingers as the rude gnome went whistling past Dad’s left ear and took out Mister Sponge who was peeping over the privet. He went down like a sack of bricks, but whatever he shouted was lost as the van roared to life, sounding louder and healthier than ever. Darius, face covered in oil, gave them a thumbs up and a huge smile from the driver’s seat.

“Darius, right, get out of that seat, shut the bonnet, get in the back, quick,” shouted Dad, slamming the door. “Bye, love, sorry, have to dash, love you, gotta catch the ferry, bye!” And they were off, scattering the neighbours as they went.

By the time they got to the kennels, the Dog had licked all the oil off Darius and Dad noticed he had a lot of texts from Mum on his mobile. He wouldn’t let Nat see them, but she did manage to glimpse a few of the words. One or two were completely new to her. She made a mental note to ask Darius about them when Dad wasn’t listening.

They were now in the leafy bit of town where the kennels were. It was the bit of town that pretended to be countryside, even though there was now a massive busy road going right through it, and a kebab shop and off-licence on almost every corner.

Soon they turned down a driveway with a big sign saying ‘Pawlty Towers’. Mournful howling resounded from behind large dark hedges. The woman who came to meet them at the front gate was middle-aged and built like a huge Saint Bernard dog. Nat sniggered when she said her name was Bernadette. The lady shot her a stern glance.

Bernadette wore a quilted green jacket and horse-riding trousers, even though Nat couldn’t see a horse anywhere. She took one look at Nat’s miserable dog – who was being carried out of the van, bundled up in the bed sheets like a pile of wet washing – and turned up her nose.

“Well, we usually only take pedigrees,” she said. “On the phone you said he was a pedigree.” Nat looked at Dad. Here we go again, she thought. Dad would say anything to try and get his own way.

“Did I?” he remarked innocently. “I think I said there was some pedigree IN him. Would you not call him a pedigree then?”

“No, this is what we in the dog business call a mutt,” said Bernadette. She was going to say a lot more but just then Dad hoisted the Dog higher and she suddenly got an eyeful of the shorts. “Oh my goodness,” she muttered. “Oh dear me.” She went red and quickly turned round. “Yes, well, there is one space. I’ll lead the way. DO NOT walk in front of me.”

As they trudged up the gravel path, past the cages full of dogs, all now barking like mad, Nat whispered to Darius: “Right, remember what we planned.” Darius looked blank. “The plan,” said Nat. “My plan to rescue the Dog. The plan I planned. It’s all planned. I told you the—”

“Nah, I’ve got a better plan, Buttface,” interrupted Darius, hopping over cracks in the pavement.

Nat fumed. “You have NOT got a plan!” she hissed. “You never have a plan. You just do the first thing that comes into your head. That’s why you get on with Dad. He’s the same. A big chimp, like you.”

She did an impression of Dad crossed with a monkey: “Oh look, a banana, think I’ll eat it. Oh no, now here’s a coconut, yum yum, ooh and now there’s a tyre, I’ll swing on that. Now, what was I doing with that banana? No idea, because I’m a chimp, ooh ooh.”

“Is that girl all right in the head?” said Bernadette. “Can you get her to stop making animal noises? She’s upsetting the dogs.”

“Just do the plan, chimpy,” said Nat. “MY plan.”

Nat’s plan was really complicated. She’d not had a lot of time to think about it. If she’d have had MORE time maybe she’d have made it simpler, but either way, this was Nat’s plan:

They get to the kennel door.

Darius pretends to have a terrible sudden illness, involving general agonised thrashing about and foaming at the mouth (Darius liked this bit).

While everyone’s looking after Darius, Nat steals the keys to the kennels.

Nat finds a dog that looks just like her dog, and frees it.

Nat gives Darius a secret signal to stop thrashing/foaming.

They give the lookalike dog to the kennel lady, who locks it up.

They hide Nat’s dog under the blanket and escape with him back to the car.

But when they got to the cage, Darius refused to pretend to be ill, no matter how hard Nat pinched him. The kennel lady unlocked the door. The Dog whimpered and jumped into Darius’s arms. Still Darius just stood there. Finally, in desperation, Nat threw herself on the ground and began shouting:

“Oh the pain, the pain. It’s at the very least rabies. Help.”

To her fury, everyone ignored her. Dad was filling out a form and Bernadette had already decided Nat was a silly little thing and best ignored. It was hopeless. Nat really DID feel like thrashing about, but in frustration. This is all Bagley’s fault, she thought. He’s ruined my perfect plan.

Then Darius did something strange. He threw the keys to the Atomic Dustbin on the path just behind Dad. “You’ve dropped the keys,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Dad, bending right over to pick them up. Bernadette made a strangled sort of being-sick noise and turned her back to them, sharpish.

At that moment, Darius shoved the Dog’s empty bed sheets into the cage and thrust the actual Dog at Nat, whispering: “Hide him.”

Inside the cage all you could see was the bundle of washing. As far as anyone could tell, the Dog could still have been wrapped up in it. He wasn’t, of course; because by now Nat was stuffing him under the table in the van and giving him one of Dad’s socks to chew quietly.

By the time Dad had straightened up again and Bernadette had opened her eyes, she had had quite enough of this weird family and quickly finished off the paperwork, locking the cage door without really looking and shooing them all off her property.

Nat was in the back of the van when Dad and Darius returned. “Sorry, love,” said Dad. “It’s for the best.”

Nat nodded. Under the table, covered in tea towels, was the Dog. He probably nodded too.

Nat didn’t speak to Darius again until it was dark and they were nearly at the ferry terminal. “Anyway, well done. My plan was better, though …” she finally muttered.

Darius didn’t say anything because he was trying to stretch a bogey longer than anyone had ever stretched a bogey before. The Dog didn’t say anything because he was rather hoping to eat the bogey.

“You just got lucky,” Nat went on. “Even my dad’s plans are better than yours and he’s a moron.”

At that moment Dad slammed on the handbrake. He turned round. “Probably should have thought of this before,” he said, with a sort of laugh, “but, um, you HAVE got your passport with you, haven’t you, Darius?”

Darius’s face was blank. His bogey snapped and slapped on the table.

“Told you so,” said Nat.

hey were sitting in the queue of cars and vans and lorries to get on the next ferry. It was now properly dark and the ferry terminal, lit by huge white lamps, looked misty and spooky. Men and women in high-visibility jackets walked around on the concrete, acting fierce. Dad had just borrowed Nat’s phone to call Darius’s brother, Oswald, as his didn’t seem to be working. Nat thought Dad should be in a massive panic but he just looked mildly confused. Like he always did.

“So, according to Oswald,” Dad said, “you’ve never even HAD a passport. Oswald said something about not believing in them. He thinks people should be able to go where and do whatever they want and everyone else can go and get, er –” Dad paused – “get lost, was the general idea. At least I think that’s what he said, because there was some kind of explosion taking place nearby.”

“That’ll be the Grannies,” said Darius.

“Why, do their songs sound like explosions?” asked Nat.

“No,” said Darius, “they just like blowing things up.”

“Right,” said Dad. “Anyway, I asked how you’d have got into Norway with them without a passport. He said you just fitted nicely inside a big amplifier.”

“Yeah, I do,” said Darius.

“Interesting.” Dad paused for a few seconds, sucking on a mint. “So I suppose you could fit inside a …” Dad looked around for something to hide Darius in.

“Dad, you can’t!” shouted Nat, realising with horror what Dad was thinking of doing. “We have to go back NOW. Smuggling a dog is one thing, but smuggling people is really bad. I saw a documentary on it. On Blue Peter.”

“Smuggling a dog?” said Dad. “What dog?”

Nat put her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Then the Dog, who’d been quiet long enough, gave a short bark as if to say, “THIS dog, stupid.”

“Blooming heck, love, you’ll get us shot,” said Dad mildly. “There’s all sorts of laws about taking dogs out of the country.”

“Dogs AND PEOPLE!” shouted Nat, attracting the attention of one of the men in the yellow jackets, who glanced over at the van. She lowered her voice. “We’ll all go to prison and I don’t care what Nan says, I don’t think prisons are very nice.”

Bad News Nan always said that when she got REALLY old, instead of going into a cheapo old people’s home, she was going to rob a post office and with a bit of luck she’d get sent to prison. She said the food was better in the nick, there were bigger TVs and the people inside were more interesting. She also said she couldn’t lose because if she got away with the post office hold-up then she’d be rich enough to afford a nice old people’s home with huge TVs and endless Hobnobs.

This made Nat very nervous every time she went to the post office with her. She’d always try and sneak a look inside Nan’s handbag just in case she was hiding a black balaclava and some kind of offensive weapon. Luckily, up till now, the only offensive thing Nat had found in Nan’s handbag were her teeth.

“Well, let’s be sensible,” said Dad. These words always terrified Nat. Dad’s version of sensible was NOT anyone else’s. “It takes weeks to get a passport, and it would involve loads of important paperwork that we’d need to find at Darius’s house, and I don’t think Oswald is a paperwork kind of person.”

“That’s true,” said Darius. “He’s more of a setting-fire-to-paperwork kind of person.”

Nat knew this to be true. Oswald liked setting fire to Darius’s school books, for instance.

“So,” said Dad, “given I’ve paid for these ferry tickets now, the sensible thing to do is carry on.”

“That’s not sensible, Dad,” she yelled, “that’s ILLEGAL AND WRONG!”

But Dad had already disappeared into the back of the van and was rummaging through the junk. He eventually reappeared with a great big picnic basket.

“Oh right,” said Nat, “let’s all have a ham sandwich and a pork pie. That’ll make it better.” Dad ignored her and started chucking out all the crockery. When it was empty, he eyed up Darius. “In you get, lad,” he said. “It’s literally the only option.”

“It literally is not the only option, Dad,” argued Nat, as Darius clambered in. “It’s literally the most terrible of all the options you could choose.”

“Except swimming across the channel,” said Darius from inside the hamper. “That’s a more terrible option.”

“Don’t give him ideas,” said Nat, watching Dad’s face as he thought about it.

“Can you squeeze the Dog in with you?” asked Dad, chucking it at Darius regardless.

“Just about,” said Darius.

And with that, Dad got back in the driver’s seat. The ferry had begun to load and cars were moving. “Just don’t make a noise,” Dad shouted over the noise of the engine.

“OK, but the Dog’s breath really smells,” said Darius.

Nat broke into a proper cold sweat when they drove up to the customs window and Dad handed over their two passports. You’ve really done it this time, Dad, she thought. Visiting your dad in prison was embarrassing, but being in prison WITH him was something else.

It seemed to take forever for the bored border guard to flick through the passports.

“Bum hole?” he said eventually, with the first smile he’d cracked all year. “Is this a wind-up?”

Nat went red. It didn’t matter how many times she heard it …

“It’s pronounced bew-mow-lay, actually,” said Dad. “It’s old and French. There are the Paris Bumolés, the Lille Bumolés, and I think there are some Nice Bumolés down south.”

“France is full of Bumolés, is it?” sniggered the border guard. “I thought so.”

Finally, after he’d finished laughing, their van was waved on to the ferry.

“That’s another big fat stress wrinkle in my forehead you’ve given me, Dad,” complained Nat when they were safely parked inside the hold of the massive ship. “By the time I’m eighteen I’ll look like a bulldog chewing a hot chip.”

There was a snort of laughter from the picnic basket and Nat nearly had a heart attack. “SHUT UP, DARIUS!” she shouted. Really really loudly.

“Shush!” said Dad.

There was a gargling, choking sound from the basket. “Stop messing,” said Nat, who was getting more and more nervous.

“I can’t help it, the Dog’s dropped one,” said Darius in a voice that sounded like he was being strangled by a sweaty sock. This was terrible news. The Dog’s guffs were legendary. He could clear a large room in seconds. Nat could only imagine what it must have been like in a tiny space. She started to giggle.

“Well, don’t let it out,” she said. “It’s bound to smell horrible.”

“It does!” said Darius, gasping for breath. “It’s doing something weird to me. I’m starting to see things. Lemme out the basket.”

“Soon,” said Dad, watching all the passengers getting out of their cars. “We have to wait until the coast is clear.” He sniffed. “Oh no, that is bad,” he added. “We’re even getting it out here.”

“I’m going to be sick!” said Darius.

“Put your head between your knees,” spluttered Nat, who couldn’t stop giggling.

“It IS between my knees; how do you think I fit in the picnic basket?”

“Is everything all right?” said a voice suddenly. It was a member of the ship’s crew, poking his nose in at the van window. “Everyone else has gone upstairs. You’ll have missed the fish and chips at the cafeteria by now. Very popular is the fish and chips. Everything else is French muck.”

The man peered into the van. He sniffed the air. “I dunno what’s on your picnic menu tonight,” he said, pulling a face, “but if I were you, I’d stick to crisps.”

Dad laughed a pretend laugh. Even Nat could tell it was the kind of laugh that massively guilty people do when they’re hiding something. The man looked at them both.

“You have to get out, we’re locking this cargo dock in five minutes.”

“No problem,” said Dad, not moving. “Bye.”

But the man wasn’t going anywhere. “And why do you keep shouting about a picnic basket?”

“Er – because we’re very proud of it,” said Dad. “We got it at a pound shop.”

“How much was it?” said the crafty man, who was called Mick and had been trained to be suspicious. It had earned him his nickname.

“A tenner,” said Dad without thinking, falling into the trap.

Nat put her head in her hands. A tenner? she thought. From a POUND SHOP? Oh, Dad, we’re doomed …

“Ha! Oh really?” said Suspicious Mick happily. “I’m not sure about that. Not sure one little bit. Something’s not right about this story. I think I want a look at this famous picnic basket.”

There was nothing they could do. Their epic journey was over before it had even begun. Dad opened the slidy van door and Suspicious Mick took hold of the basket lid. He wafted the air, which was still smelling grim. “If you’ve got egg sandwiches in there, they’re off,” he said.

This is it, thought Nat. I wonder if they have a prison cell on the ship or if they still make you walk the plank. Oh well, as long as I get to see Dad go overboard first. Hope there’re sharks …

Suspicious Mick lifted the lid.

“I can explain …” began Dad.

The basket was empty.

“Oh. No, I can’t,” said Dad.

ooking on the bright side …” said Dad, as he and Nat ran around the deck of the crowded ship looking for the missing Darius and the Dog, “he could always get a job in a circus. You know, escaping from things. You can get on telly doing that.”

“There’s no bright side if he’s escaped right off this ferry and we never see him again,” said Nat angrily, peeking under a lifeboat cover. “And that’s not really a proper job anyway. You told me that joining a circus is NOT a proper job.”

Dad thought for a moment. Nat watched as the bright lights on the deck showed up all the wrinkles in his forehead. “I remember that conversation,” he said. “You said you wanted to be a lion tamer.” A few passengers who had come outside to look at the sea began listening to their conversation.

Dad carried on. “You practised lion taming on next door’s guinea pigs.” An elderly couple in matching pink and blue anoraks looked at Nat and went “Aaaah” in that way old people in anoraks do.

“That’s so sweet, isn’t it, Ernie?” shouted the old lady to her husband, who was a bit deaf. “She started on guinea pigs.” Dad turned to the couple, glad of a chance to talk about his wonderful little girl.

“Oh, but you don’t know the best bit,” Dad smiled.

“He said you don’t know the best bit,” shouted the old lady to her husband, loudly enough for him to hear, which meant loudly enough for everyone within fifty metres to hear as well.

Nat looked quickly around for somewhere to hide and made a note in her head to get Darius to teach HER how to disappear.

“She tried to lion-tame some cows in a field when we were having a picnic,” Dad went on. “She spent an hour trying to get them to jump through a hula hoop.”

Nat saw a little metal door with a sign on which read KEEP OUT – CREW ONLY. She tried the handle and found it wasn’t locked. Nat hated breaking rules, but it was this or suffer yet another one of Dad’s embarrassing tales about her, so … she opened the door and slipped quietly inside.

Out on deck, Dad was just getting to the best bit:

“Then the farmer came and shouted at her to stop bothering his cows as it would put them off milking. But when the cows saw him they thought it was time to get milked, so they started running towards him.

“Problem was, Nathalia was right in their way. She realised they weren’t going to stop. The farmer was shouting, she was screaming and running as fast as her tiny little skinny legs would carry her.

“Which wasn’t that fast because she slipped in one cow pat and went face-first in another. It was soooooo funny!”

“He said then the little girl went face-first in cow poo!” shouted the old lady.

“Oh that IS funny, he’s quite right,” said the old man. “Is he part of the entertainment? Should we give him a tip?”

“It put her off lion-taming for life,” said Dad, chuckling. He looked around for the star of his story. “Hmmm,” he said. “Where’s she gone?”

The room Nat was hiding in was small and dark. It was a kind of store room, full of stuff some people tell other people will be useful one day. Nat hadn’t put the light on but she felt safe in the gloom – right until the moment someone tapped her on the shoulder and said:

“Boo.”

She gave a shriek of fright and jumped about two feet in the air, landing with a crash on some boxes of Styrofoam cups. The box burst and the squeaky cups scattered on to the floor.

“Shush,” said Darius, coming out of his hiding place, “you’ll attract attention. If we were escaping from a prisoner of war camp, you’d have been shot by now.”

Nat grabbed him by the hair. “It’s not a machine-gun tower you need to worry about,” she said. “It’s being strangled by me.”

They rolled around on the squeaky cups for a while, Nat getting in some good pinches and a fair amount of strangling, until the Dog jumped between them, licking them both into submission. Finally Nat let go and sat there, panting. “Do not creep up on me again,” she said, chucking a pack of dishcloths at his head. “Anyway, how did you escape without being seen?”

“It was easy,” he replied, rubbing his bruises. “I’m pretty good at getting out of small dark places. I’ve had tons of practice.” Not for the first time, Nat suddenly felt sorry for her friend, and went from wanting to murder him to wanting to hug him. She HATED the way he did that to her, so she bashed him with a mop.

Before she could say anything more, Dad popped his head round the door. “You in here, love?” he said. “There are loads of people outside who want to meet the famous cow-tamer.”

The Dog bounded out to him, and then Dad noticed Darius. “Oh, we wondered where you’d got to,” he said cheerfully. “Come on, the canteen’s open. Last chance for pork pies and pickled eggs before Paris.” He looked the boy up and down briefly, making sure he was in one piece, then they all trundled off for something to eat and that was that.

One of the few things Nat ever admitted she liked about her idiot dad was that he wasn’t one of those ‘asking-loads-of-difficult-questions’ dads. He just got on with it. And went to buy a pork pie and a pickled egg.

“They don’t sell these in Europe!” said Dad defensively, as Nat told him off for coming back with his THIRD pork pie slice from the ferry canteen. The Dog was now safely hidden in their van, giving them all a chance to relax and enjoy the ‘delicious and delightful’ canteen food.

There is a rule everyone should know which says that the nicer the words in a menu are, the more horrid the food will be. For example, if you read something which says:

‘Delicious tender fish gently coaxed from the sea and enrobed in mouth-tingling crispy crumb batter, served sizzling on an enticing bed of fluffy petits pois, encircled by gorgeously ruffled hand-carved wedges of majestic potato …’

… it’ll be rank.

“These fish and chips are rank, Dad,” moaned Nat, “and it said on the menu they would be delicious.” There was a huge burp. “Oh, I see you’ve finished,” she said to Darius primly.

“Don’t you want the rest of yours?” said Darius, wiping tomato ketchup from his chin with his sleeve. Nat pushed her plate over to him.

“OK, so here’s the plan,” said Dad. Nat looked at him, puzzled. Dad never planned anything. But now he unfolded a huge map across the table, along with lots of bits of paper. And pens. And bits of string, receipts, bus tickets, packets of sugar, some lego bricks, pocket fluff and paper clips.

Some French kids on the next table started pointing. Nat tried to ignore them.

“We should get back to our cabin and get some sleep now,” said Dad, as Darius scraped tomato sauce off the map with a knife and sucked it clean. “Tomorrow we get into France …”

“Unless we get caught smuggli—ah ha hoo ha nothing,” burbled Nat, who out of the corner of her eye had spotted Suspicious Mick, walking past with a tray of rank fish and chips. Nat grabbed the map and held it over her face.

“I’ve worked out a route to the farmhouse,” Dad continued, putting the map down on to the table and into a splodge of tomato ketchup. Nat looked at the map and saw that he had just taken a red felt tip and drawn a straight line from the ferry terminal all the way to where Posh Barry’s rubbish damp haunted house was.

“The quickest distance between two points is a straight line,” Dad explained. “So we’ll just go on the roads that are nearest the line. It’ll save time.”

“Stupid idea,” said a voice over his shoulder. Nat froze.

It was Suspicious Mick. “Why’s that then?” asked Dad. Mick pulled up a chair and sat down without being asked. Darius slid under the table. Nat watched as a grubby hand came up, grabbed the rest of her freshly battered fish and disappeared under the table again.

Dad did not like people in uniform. He often told Nat that they made him feel like he had something to hide, even when he didn’t. Obviously this time he DID have something to hide. But did that mean that Dad would keep a low profile? Oh no, nothing that sensible. Nat guessed what was coming: an argument. She was right.

“It’s not ridiculous, it’s genius,” argued Dad.

Suspicious Mick snorted. “I can tell you’re not a REAL driver. A REAL driver would take the road from …”

Nat listened to the man drone on endlessly about roads and roundabouts and routes and, not for the first time, wished she could press a ‘fast-forward’ button on bits of her life.

Dad obviously felt the same. He had a very short attention span at the best of times. Finally he’d had enough. He stood up. “Right,” said Dad. “I’ll show you who’s the better driver. Come to the video arcade. If you’re not too scared.” Nat put her head on the table and tried not to cry.

Suspicious Mick realised he was being watched by a bunch of bored French kids so now he could not back down.

When they reached the arcade, trailed by the now not-bored French kids (and with Darius following at a safe distance), they found two big racing car machines, side by side.

“This won’t prove anything,” said Suspicious Mick. “It’s childish.”

That’s my Dad! thought Nat. Took you long enough.

“Bwark bwark bwark,” said Dad, making chicken noises, and doing that thing with his head and elbows. The French kids laughed.

Nat tugged at Dad’s sleeve. “Don’t upset him,” she whispered. “He might get us into trouble.”

But Dad was enjoying himself now. “Come on, Mick, get in,” he said. “Or should I call you MICK NUGGET?”

“McNUGGET!” laughed the French kids. One nudged Nat. “Eet’s funny becawse ’is name is Mick and ’e’s ze chicken,” he explained.

“Yes, I know,” she said crossly. “I get le joke. It’s just a bad one. Like all Dad’s jokes. Stop encouraging him.”

Now the two men were in their cars. They put their money in and the race clock counted down. FIVE … FOUR …

“Last one to finish has to run through the ship with their pants on their head!” shouted Dad.

Nat froze. Dad was a REALLY SLOW driver. And he always got lost. He was bound to lose.

THREE …

Worse, he was wearing his ‘Little Monkeys’ T-shirt again. So the whole boat would know the pants-head man was her dad.

TWO …

“You’re on!” shouted Suspicious Mick over the noise of the electronic engines and the chanting children.

“Pants pants pants!” they shouted. “Head head head!”

Nat noticed that Darius was leading the chanting.

ONE.

And they were off.

y the end of lap one Dad was already losing.

“Put your foot down, Dad!” yelled Nat. “You’re going to be Pants Head if you don’t catch him soon.”

Suspicious Mick was concentrating hard. He had EVERYTHING clenched: teeth, fingers, buttocks. Truth is, he was a clenched kind of person to begin with. He had played this game loads over the years. He often chucked children off the machine to get a free go.

He knew all the bits to speed on and where to brake. He even knew the cheaty short cuts. Nat watched in despair as Suspicious Mick slid sideways round a nasty bend and went through a wall of tyres on to another bit of track, saving a good ten seconds. Meanwhile, Dad carefully changed down into second gear to avoid running into a pigeon. He was DOOMED.

Suspicious Mick hit the throttle on a long straight. The car roared and surged forward. The stupid animated fans on the machine cheered as the real audience booed. But wait … Something weird was happening. Mick was heading for a hairpin bend at a ridiculous speed. He was going TOO FAST. Surely he couldn’t take that bend this fast, thought Nat.

No, he couldn’t. He was jabbing his foot on the brake pedal but nothing was happening. With a yell he tried to turn the wheel, but it was too late. His car ploughed into a bank of spectators in the biggest crash anyone had ever seen. The screen erupted in cartoon flame.

The French kids cheered. Mick frantically reversed. Dad was starting to gain on him. Mick roared off, Dad now only two cars behind. The same crazy thing happened again; Mick got faster and faster, crashing into barrier after barrier, metal shrieking and sparks flying.

But he was still just in front as the finish line came in sight. But it was close – Dad was right behind him. “Come on, Dad,” shouted Nat, “put your blinking foot down!”

The chequered flag went up, signalling the end of the race was nigh. It went down on …

Mick’s car! He had won.

Mick jumped up. “Beat you, beat you, ha ha ha,” he shouted nastily. The kids booed like he was a panto villain. “Pants on your head, get them on!” crowed Mick heartlessly.

Nat felt sick. Dad was going to break all previous embarrassment records. But no. What was this? A computerised referee appeared on the screen, wagging a finger at Mick’s car.

Stern text appeared.

“Due to dangerous driving, this car has been given a ten-second time penalty. The winner of the race is now – car number two.”

Dad had won!

The French kids went wild. Dad did a victory lap of the arcade as Nat cringed and Mick slunk off saying he had to get back to work and the machine was broken and it wasn’t fair and he never wanted to see any of them ever again and no he WASN’T going to wear his pants on his head for anyone, thank you, so there.

“Bad loser, bad loser,” sang the chorus of kids behind him. He shook his fist at them and went off to shout at the smallest people he could find.

Nat breathed a sigh of relief. She knew Dad would DEFINITELY have worn his pants on his head if he’d

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