Nathalia Buttface and the Embarrassing Camp Catastrophe. Nigel Smith
They are hot. Hot enough to boil a kiwi’s behind. The first one to eat a whole chilli wins.”
With relief, Nat saw that Plum looked nervous.
Nat took a pepper. It almost glowed red in her hand, like an ember from a fire.
She looked at her classmates. They were all urging her on. If Nat lost this, they would lose the contest. She had no choice. She rammed the thing in her mouth and started chewing.
It wasn’t too bad for about half a nanosecond.
Then it was bad. Very bad indeed.
Nat thought the roof of her mouth was going to erupt through the top of her head. Her tongue felt like a firework and even her teeth rattled.
“I’M GOING TO DIE AND I’M NOT EVEN JOKING!” she yelled, running around in circles, mouth open, desperately trying to suck in cooling air.
“WATER, WATER, GIMME WATER!!!!”
She snatched Penny’s water bottle and took huge gulps.
“Water makes it worse,” said Mr Bungee, with a nasty grin.
“AAAAGH, YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME EARLIER!” Nat screamed, running around some more, tongue hanging out like a thirsty dog.
It took about five minutes for the throbbing pain to die down, and about ten minutes for everyone to stop laughing at her.
“Did I win?” Nat said finally. Her eyes streamed with tears and she could hardly speak.
“Course you won,” said Plum in a superior kind of way. “I didn’t do it.”
“Why not?” asked Nat.
“Didn’t need to – I was already one up. I’ll wait for the third challenge.”
“Tiebreaker,” said Mr Bungee. “Winner takes all. Loser takes … a couple of dunny shovels.”
“Ooooh,” said the watching kids from both schools, who were now all willing their champion to victory. And wishing poo-shaped defeat on their rivals.
“We think you’re awesome, Plum,” shouted her best friend, a tall girl called Thursday Wonton. “Absolutely amazeballs.”
“Yay!” cheered the Scrofulas.
“You’d better win, Buttface,” said Darius helpfully. “You’re unpopular enough as it is.”
“Yay,” agreed Nat’s class.
Nat scowled at them.
Mr Bungee, who was milking the suspense for all it was worth, finally made the announcement they were waiting for.
“The last challenge is a straightforward race,” he said.
It was straightforward. Straight and forward through an assault course.
The huge assault course was already set up in the woods. There were ropes to swing along, a net to crawl under, a pipe to squeeze through, tyres to hop in and out of, and then, finally, a big wooden wall.
“Best thing is, all the mud will break your fall,” said Mr Bungee, “so you can really go for it. Are you ready?”
“No. Not really,” said Nat unhappily.
But Mr Bungee had already raised a whistle to his lips.
“There’s a bell on a tree at the end of the course,” he said. “The first one to ring it wins.”
All the kids yelled as he blew for the start of the race.
Plum was off like a rocket, squishing through the mud.
The first obstacle was a big net, close to the ground. Nat watched as her rival slid under it with practised ease.
“You’ve done this before,” said Nat, as she got to the net.
“Yah, we’ve got our own assault course at school,” said Plum, who was halfway through. “It’s so fun.”
So fun, yah. The only assault course we’ve got is running past the Year Eleven boys smoking behind the science block, thought Nat grimly, as she dived under the net after her opponent.
The mud was cold and sticky and soon she was plastered in it. But before Nat could wiggle out the other side, Plum was already whizzing along the monkey bars like, well, like a monkey.
“You’re losing!” shouted Penny from the sidelines.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Nat, reaching the monkey bars.
“Your tracky bottoms are coming loose,” said Penny, telling her something she didn’t know.
“EEEK!”
Automatically, Nat put her hands down to pull up her trousers. Forgetting she was holding on to the monkey bars.
Splat! Down she went, into the mud.
“You fall off, you gotta start again,” shouted Mr Bungee.
Nat squelched desperately back to the start of the course and began again.
Halfway across, going hand-to-hand on the bars, she became aware of her problem tracky bottoms. Why were they so loose? She kept crossing her skinny legs to hold them up, but they kept slipping down!
“I think I mixed up our tracky bottoms and I packed mine in your rucksack by mistake,” shouted Dad. “They might be a bit big for you.” He fidgeted on the spot. “Also, it might explain why I’ve got a bit of chafing. I thought these were tight.”
“We can see your pa-ants!” chanted the boys from St Scrofula’s. “We can see your pa-ants!”
Dangling there in mid-air, covered in mud and with Dad’s oversized tracky bottoms sliding down, Nat heard a horrible wail of fury. She wondered where it was coming from. Then she realised: it was coming from her!
She saw Dad – rubbish, tracky-bottoms-swapping, pants-revealing Dad – standing at the end of the assault course. He waved.
A red mist descended in front of her eyes.
This time she WAS GOING TO STRANGLE HIM.
With a yell, she raced through the monkey bars, hurled herself into the pipe, hopped furiously across the tyres and reached the big wall just as Plum was disappearing over it.
“Come ’ere, you,” she shouted, and grabbed Plum’s leg.
“Aaaargh!” yelled the girl, as Nat yanked her off the wall and used her as a stepping stone.
Nat was over the wall and in the lead! She was way ahead. Nothing could stop her now.
“You’ve won, now ring the bell,” yelled Dad.
But then he saw that Nat DID NOT CARE ABOUT THE BELL.
She was completely ignoring the bell.
Instead, she was heading straight for him, outstretched hands full of gooey mud.
“I’ll just … just go and, er … look for something in these trees,” said Dad, ducking behind a handy oak.
“You’ve embarrassed me for the last time,” shouted Nat, chasing him in circles.
She had just got him cornered against a big tree and was about to plaster him in mud when she heard a bell ring.
It was Plum, ringing in victory.
“Oops,” said Nat.