My Brother's Famous Bottom Goes Camping (3 page)

‘Really? Oh well, they’re much like cats, foxes are. They both have long tails. If I had a long tail I wouldn’t like to get it wet. Would you, Nick?’

‘I might if I was a crocodile,’ I pointed out, and Dad gave me a sharp look.

‘The trouble with you, Nick,’ he said, wagging
a finger at me, ‘is that you go to school and you learn things and then you come home and upset me with what you know.’

I grinned back at him. ‘You don’t like me being right,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ Dad agreed. ‘Now, can I borrow your water-splurter, or not?’

‘Of course you can.’

So last night Dad set up the twins’ little play-tent right beside the hen run. Then we all watched
while he tried to squeeze inside.

‘Daddy’s too big,’ said Tomato.

‘Fat Daddy,’ said Cheese.

‘I am not fat!’ shouted Dad. ‘This tent is stupid. I’ve never seen such a small tent. A mouse couldn’t go camping in this.’

Dad finally managed to make himself reasonably comfortable, even though his feet were sticking out of one end of the tent and his head and shoulders were sticking out at the other. The tent only covered a little bit in the middle.

‘There,’ said Dad. ‘That’s fine.’

The rest of us couldn’t speak for laughing. You’ve never seen anything like it!

‘All right, laugh if you must,’ snapped Dad. ‘I’ll show you. When that fox comes he’s going to get the biggest surprise of his life.’

‘He certainly will when he sees you wearing a tent like a miniskirt!’ shrieked Mum.

We left Dad to it. I went up to bed and fell asleep. And then, shortly after midnight, I was woken by the most dreadful noises and a bright light streaming through my curtains. I thought the Martians had invaded.

I whisked back the curtains and peered outside. A giant beam of light had flooded our garden. It came from next door. Mr Tugg is not only the world’s angriest man, he also runs the local Neighbourhood Watch. He’s always trying to get people arrested. I dropped a crisp on the pavement near his house last week and he tried to get me arrested for dropping litter. Then a pigeon
waddled up and ate it. Mr Tugg was furious! He accused the pigeon of eating the evidence! I think he wanted to arrest the pigeon too.

Anyhow, Mr Tugg is very hot on security and he’s got searchlights mounted at the front and back of his house. He switches them on if he thinks there are burglars around, and it looked like he’d spotted one in our garden.

Mr Tugg was chasing a tent on legs round and round the hen run, while the tent on legs kept spraying Mr Tugg with high-powered jets of water from my water-gun. Then Dad tried to
escape by dashing into the run and hiding behind the hen coop. Mr Tugg came roaring after him, slid on all the wet mud and went crashing into the hen house.

Hens came hurtling out, flapping and clucking as if the sky had fallen in on them. Mr Tugg threw himself on top of Dad, blew his whistle and tried to arrest him, while Dad made several useless attempts to get back on his feet.

After that the whole thing turned into the weirdest pyjama-party you can imagine. Mum rushed out of our house in her pyjamas, closely followed from next door by Mrs Tugg in her nightie. They dashed over and tried to separate the two mud-wrestlers. It wasn’t long before they ended up in the mud too and that was when Mum finally snapped.

‘STOPPPPP!!!’ she bellowed.

The fighting ceased at once. At last Dad and Mr Tugg looked at each other properly for the first time.

‘You idiot!’ hissed Mr Tugg. ‘I thought you were a burglar!’

‘And I thought you were a fox,’ Dad growled.

‘Do I look like a fox?’ cried Mr Tugg.

‘No! You look like a hard-boiled egg with a moustache!’

‘You’re crazy!’ roared Mr Tugg, trying to brush great wodges of mud off his clothes and only smearing it even further. ‘I always knew you were off your head.’

And so it went on. It took Mum and Mrs Tugg ten minutes to get them calmed down. Eventually Mr Tugg was dragged back to his own house and my mum persuaded Dad he should come back into our house for the rest of the night.

After that everything was peaceful, at least until morning. Breakfast was a very quiet affair. Mum would hardly speak to Dad, she was still so
cross with him. Dad pretended he hadn’t done anything wrong.

‘And besides,’ he pointed out, ‘the fox didn’t come back, did it? I told you I’d protect the hens, and I did.’

Mum took a deep breath. ‘I don’t suppose those hens will ever lay eggs now. First they almost get eaten by a fox and then they have to put up with you and Mr Tugg playing at cops and robbers.’

Dad opened his mouth to protest but one look at Mum’s face told him he’d do a lot better to keep quiet, so he did. However, I was wondering what he would do next.

Dad’s not very pleased with Mr Tugg.

‘He’s an interfering old moan-bag,’ Dad complained as we put away the breakfast things. ‘If he wanted to play at being a policeman why didn’t he join the police force?’

‘Perhaps he prefers a quiet life,’ suggested Mum. ‘He runs the local Neighbourhood Watch to help everyone protect their property.’

Dad snorted. ‘No – he runs Neighbourhood Watch because he likes blowing whistles, waving torches and setting traps for burglars. I bet he was a boy scout when he was a kid and had so many badges he had to have a special jumper with extra sleeves to make room for them. Mr Goody-Goody, that’s who he is. And why are you
laughing at me?’

‘I’m laughing at the idea of a jumper with extra sleeves.’

‘Well, don’t. It’s cruel to laugh at a man when he’s in pain. Have you seen the bruise I’ve got on my shin from when Mr Tugg pushed me into the hen house?’

‘You said you slipped on the mud,’ Mum reminded him.

‘I slipped because I was pushed.’ Dad rolled up a trouser leg to show off his bruise. ‘Look at that. It’s the size of a melon.’

Mum bent down to get a better look. ‘Hmmm, more grape-sized, if you ask me,’ she muttered, winking at me. ‘I’m not surprised Mr Tugg wanted to arrest you, creeping about with a tent wrapped round your middle.’

‘I thought I heard the fox and I got up to look but I couldn’t get out of the tent fast enough so I had to stand there with it on. You can hardly blame me. The tent was too small.’

‘Oh! It was the tent’s fault?’

‘Exactly,’ Dad nodded, and then he brightened up. ‘But it did give me a good idea.’

Mum’s eyes narrowed. ‘Oh dear. Now I’m really panicking,’ she said. ‘Your ideas are always off the planet.’

Dad smiled. ‘That’s because I’m a freethinker. It’s important to try and think differently. Anyhow, what I thought was why –’ Dad broke off suddenly and frowned at something on the table. ‘Am I right in thinking that there’s a carrot sitting up at the table wearing dolls’ clothes?’

‘Yes,’ said Mum.

‘But it’s a carrot,’ Dad repeated.

‘Yes. Her name is Cecily Sprout,’ Mum told him.

‘But it’s a carrot,’ Dad repeated.

‘Yes. It’s Tomato’s latest doll.’

‘But it’s a carrot,’ said Dad again.