responsibility is good for you.”
“How would you know?” said Nat. “Mum’s in charge of everything.”
“Responsibility is good for SOME people,” laughed Dad.
They drove in silence for a little while. Silence, that is, if you didn’t count the racket from the dodgy exhaust. Nat’s brain was racing ahead, writing a LIST OF DOOM. Worse still, at the back of her mind, a little nagging voice was telling her it was ALL HER FAULT. If she hadn’t helped Darius with his stupid essay in the first place, they’d never be going camping.
The doom list seemed endless: rubbish campsite, week-long geography lessons, Darius in charge, Dad and his horrible little ukulele tagging along, snooty posh kids prancing about on their own ponies …
How bad was this week going to get? What else was going to go wrong?
Just then Dad hit a pothole and a frying pan slid off a shelf and clonked her on the head.
“‘Lower Totley is a delightful town, full of historic charm’,” said Penny, sitting next to Darius and Nat on the back seat of the coach. “It says so on the town’s web page.”
“No it doesn’t,” said Darius, with an evil grin. “Not since ninja hacker Darius Bagley changed it.”
“He’s right,” laughed Nat, who had helped Darius with the spelling. “It now says: ‘Lower Snotley is a rubbish town full of historic zombies’.”
“You make him worse, Nat, you really do,” scolded Penny.
Nat stuck her tongue out at her.
Class 8H were on the coach to their super geography camping experience thingy. They had been travelling for less than ten minutes and Nat was already a bit cross.
To be fair, she had been a bit cross the entire week leading up to the trip, so the torrential rain that had been hammering down like wet nails all morning wasn’t likely to cheer her up.
“This campsite we’re going to has a website as well,” said Penny. “Don’t tell me you wrote something rude on that.”
“Nah,” said Darius, “better than that. I put this picture on it.”
He showed Penny a picture. She shrieked.
“And I can make that bit wiggle,” cackled Darius, chewing a toffee.
Penny peeped. “OK, now that’s funny,” she said.
“How about a singsong?” said Dad, standing up in the middle of the coach, holding his ukulele.
Nat threw Darius’s toffees at him. “Go away, sit down, shush. No one wants to sing,” she said.
“It is a bit early,” said Miss Hunny from the front seat. “At least wait until we get there.”
“Where we can hide in our tents,” sniggered Miss Austen.
“With earplugs in,” sniggered Miss Eyre.
Nat didn’t know why Misses Austen and Eyre had volunteered to come, as they were the laziest teachers in the school and she couldn’t imagine either of them rock climbing.
She grinned. She suddenly DID imagine them rock climbing. They were dangling in mid-air just as she pushed a massive boulder over the cliff …
PLINKY PLINK PLINK, went Dad on his stupid useless instrument.
“Oh, we’re off on a coach and it isn’t very quick, but two of the class are already travel-sick …” he sang.
“Join in on the chorus, kids,” he said.
“Dad, we haven’t got out of the one-way system yet and you’re already showing me up,” said Nat, jumping up and snatching his ukulele. “And you promised you wouldn’t.”
“I just want to make a good impression, for my certificate,” whispered Dad, sitting down on the back seat. “Budge up.”
He pointed to a man Nat didn’t recognise, sitting up by the coach driver. “That’s the organiser, Mr Dewdrop, from the Nice ’N’ Neat Countryside Alliance. It’s their essay competition that Darius won—”
“That I won.”
“Oh yes, whatever. But anyway, Mr Dewdrop is going to do a report on me this week. He’ll judge me to see if I can get my Approved for Kids certificate. Should be easy. Kids love me; I’m totally down with them. I watch all the soaps they like and I can rap and everything.”
“Please stop talking,” said Nat.
“It’ll be me getting top marks, obvs.”
Dad plunked a few notes on his tiny little guitar.
“Although, just to be on the totally safe side, it would be great if you and your friends could tell Mr Dewdrop just how utterly brilliant you all think I am. All the time, every day, as often and as loudly as possible.”
Nat groaned. It was so unfair. Not only was she expected to put up with her mega-embarrassing dad all week, but she was also supposed to say he was great! She wouldn’t do it.
BUT another thought struck her. If Dad did well on this trip and then got his certificate, he could finally get a proper job and be out of her hair …
Dad pottered back to his seat at the front, trying to high-five the children as he went past. No one high-fived him back, so he pretended he was waving to passers-by outside. Someone outside waved back. Not nicely.
Nat cringed. It was going to be SO hard …
After a few hours, they were driving through yet another small soggy village, glistening and grey in the rain. Nat and Penny were sharing headphones, listening to Princess Boo’s new album, and Darius was working on verse 768 of his epic poo poem, “Diarrhoea”.
He kept pulling out Nat’s earpiece, asking her to suggest rhymes for words like “squelchy” or “explode”.
She was grateful for the interruption when Mr Dewdrop came and sat nervously by Darius.
Mr Dewdrop was a young man, very thin and pale, with ash-brown frizzy hair. He reminded Nat of a sickly reed, struggling for life in a marsh. He had encouraged a straggly moustache to cover up some of his red spots.
“Mr Bagley?” he said.
Darius looked around.
“He means you, idiot,” said Nat.
“What?” Darius said dangerously. He didn’t like strangers.
