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.
“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
