My Brother's Famous Bottom Makes a Splash! Read online

  ‘You mean there was a real hen in there? Not a toy one?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ yelled the man in the wheelchair. ‘First of all it’s a gigantic paddleboard and now there’s a hen in the girl’s case! The whole family’s bonkers!’

  ‘Keep your opinions to yourself,’ Mum said coldly. ‘Huh! Think we’re bonkers, do you? You haven’t seen anything yet. This is what we’re like on a good day.’

  The lady stamped our boarding cards and handed them over the counter.

  ‘Enjoy your holiday,’ she said, giving us a big red-and-bright-white smile.

  ‘You have very nice teeth,’ Dad told her. ‘And an awful lot of them.’

  The lady blushed and looked rather alarmed.

  ‘Just ignore him,’ Mum advised. ‘I do.’

  At last we were all checked in and it wasn’t long before we were sitting on the plane and on our way. HOORAY!

  3. Ice Cream and Pumpkin Pie

  TURKEY – it’s hot! The sand burns your feet! I have to keep my flip-flops on and even then the sand gets in at the sides and I end up hopping about from one bit of shade to the next. Quick, jump in the sea and cool down. Ahhhh, lovely!

  You can imagine what it’s like when all five of us are on the beach – four people going ‘Ooh! Ow! Ouch! Eeek!’ and hop-popping about like a bunch of noisy twits on pogo sticks. Mum, of course, wears sensible trainers and just watches us with an amused smile.

  Dad’s bought some new sunglasses. ‘They are so cool,’ he said, leaning casually against his propped-up paddleboard. ‘Do I look like a film star?’

  ‘No,’ Mum answered.

  ‘How about a guy from a rock band?’

  Mum shook her head.

  Dad frowned. ‘You’re just trying to annoy me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ Mum peered over her own sunglasses and flashed a smile at him. ‘I am, because I don’t care if you look cool, or like a film star, or a boy from a band. I love you just the way you are.’ And she blew Dad a kiss.

  Dad went to blow a kiss back but the paddleboard suddenly slipped and all he managed to do was collapse on the burning sand and then leap up, yelling. ‘I’m on fire!’ he bellowed as he went crashing off into the sea to cool down.

  Mum watched for a moment, waved and called after him, ‘Now you look cool!’

  A family sitting near us on the beach looked across at Mum. The woman had a sharp, thin nose and her eyes were close together so she looked a bit like a bird – a heron maybe, or a stork. Anyhow, she was sitting up on her sunbed watching Dad’s theatrics.

  ‘Is your husband always as noisy as this?’ she asked.

  ‘Noisy?’ repeated Mum. ‘Not at all. You wait until he really gets going. You won’t be able to hear yourself breathe.’ Mum turned her attention back to her magazine, leaving the woman boggle-eyed and lost for words.

  Her name is Mrs Grubnose. She and her husband have got a son, Mason. His nose is just like his mother’s, and his eyes too. Mason has a way of looking at you as if he’d like to push you into a giant liquidizer and press the start button.

  Mr Grubnose is something else. He is short and thin and has a moustache that looks as if it has been sneezed out of his nose and then got stuck on his upper lip. His swimming shorts are ridiculously baggy and his tiny legs poke out like a pair of twigs. In other words the whole family is weird. I shall certainly try and keep well clear of Mason.

  But apart from the Grubnoses everything is super-brilliant! You should have seen breakfast this morning. The table was piled high with fabulous food. The twins were so excited they had to show everyone.

  ‘Look! CHEESE!’ shouted Cheese.

  ‘TOMATO!’ shouted Tomato. They looked at each other, picked up their food and waved it wildly at everyone in the restaurant.

  ‘CHEESE AND TOMATO!’ they yelled. The whole restaurant stared. Mum turned to Dad.

  ‘You’re the one who decided to call the twins Cheese and Tomato, so I shall let you explain why they’re so excited.’

  Dad turned red and gazed at the sea of faces looking questioningly at us. ‘Um, I think I left something upstairs in our room,’ he said and quickly left.

  ‘Coward!’ Mum called after him, and she winked at me, then turned to the twins. ‘Now then, you two, put that food down and stop making such an exhibition of yourselves.’

  The Grubnoses were seated a couple of tables away but while most of the restaurant was chuckling and pointing, all three Grubnoses were scowling like a bunch of giraffes trying to put on pyjamas. Oh, well, you can’t please everyone.

  Anyhow, breakfast was brilliant and Hotel Kismet is brilliant and we’ve got fabulous rooms. Mum and Dad have a room and the twins and I have a room opposite theirs. Plus, both rooms have balconies where we can sit and look at the sea or the people down below in the street going shopping.

  It’s fantastic, except when Tomato decided to get rid of the rest of the apple she didn’t want and threw it over the balcony and almost hit Mrs Grubnose, who was trying on some earrings outside a shop. She looked up but we ducked down very quickly and I don’t think she saw us.

  The little town we are in is called Kalkan and it’s pretty, especially by the harbour. There are loads of animals on the streets. Well, maybe not loads, but there are quite a few cats and dogs wandering about. Irfan and the hotel manager Arif say that the animals don’t belong to anyone and have no homes, which is pretty sad. Irfan works on Reception and also he’s the waiter at our table. He knows everything and speaks very good English – and even better Turkish. In fact, I said to him, completely deadpan: ‘You speak brilliant Turkish, Irfan.’

  He frowned and searched my face. Was I serious? Then his shoulders began to heave with laughter. ‘Yes! Very good Turkish. I speak very, very good Turkish. Maybe I am Turkish! You are funny man, Nicky, like your baba, father.’

  Irfan’s name sounds like ‘ear-fan’ when you say it, which is really funny because it’s as if Irfan has huge ears that he can flap about like fans. He hasn’t and he can’t. His ears are actually quite neat and small. He is good looking and has very twinkly eyes.

  The twins like all the animals. They want to stroke all the cats and pat all the dogs and I think they would like to take all of them home with them.

  ‘Can we have a dog in our room?’ Tomato asked Mum and Dad.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can we have a cat?’ Cheese wanted to know.

  ‘No.’

  ‘A very small cat?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Tomato demanded.

  ‘Because this is a hotel for people,’ Dad explained.

  ‘Can we go to an animal hotel?’ Tomato piped up.

  ‘No, we can’t, because we’re people. The animals won’t let us in,’ Dad added.

  Cheese sniffed. ‘When I grow up I shall have a hotel for animals and people.’

  ‘Like a zoo,’ Tomato added. ‘With people in cages. Daddy in a cage. Mummy in a cage.’

  ‘That’s not very nice,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t want to be in a cage. Anyhow, you’re talking nonsense. Let’s go to the beach.’

  ‘BEACH!’ yelled Cheese.

  So we went down to the beach. On the way we had to stop about two hundred times to say hello to various cats and dogs. One of the dogs just would not stop following us. It had a rather cute face, rough, sandy-coloured hair and one ear up and one ear down. The ‘up’ ear had a little blue plastic ring attached to it.

  ‘I wonder what his name is?’ said Mum.

  ‘I think it’s a girl dog,’ I told her.

  ‘Poobum,’ said Cheese. Mum eyed him sharply.

  ‘That’s rude and not nice. You can’t call a dog Poobum. Think again.’

  Cheese thought again and suddenly smiled. ‘Bumpoo!’

  ‘No!’ cried Mum, half laughing. ‘That’s just as bad as before. Think of something nice.’

  ‘Ice Cream,’ Tomato shouted. ‘It’s a girl dog. Nicky says so and her name is Ice Cream.’


  Mum groaned and scratched her head. What was she to say? It wasn’t rude. It was nice.

  ‘You can’t call a dog Ice Cream,’ Dad said.

  ‘Why ever not?’ asked Mum. ‘You called the twins Cheese and Tomato, which is a lot more daft than calling a dog Ice Cream. I think it’s a very good name.’

  At the beach Ice Cream came and sat beside us and wagged her tail in the sand.

  The Grubnoses were lying on the same sunbeds as before. They eyed us crossly.

  ‘Dogs shouldn’t be allowed on beaches,’ said Mrs Grubnose.

  Dad shrugged, glanced at Ice Cream and then looked back at Mrs Grubnose.

  ‘You’ll have to tell the dog, then. She only understands Turkish. Besides, she doesn’t belong to us.’

  Mrs Grubnose’s eyes narrowed angrily. She gave a huff and turned her back on us. Mason looked at me very hard, pointed at Ice Cream and made his hand into a gun shape. What a charming boy.

  Dad gazed out to sea. Several boats were slowly sailing from one little island to another, looking for bays. When they stopped everyone would swim in the sea for a bit. Then they would climb back on board and set off for another island, a new bay and more swimming.

  Dad’s eyes had gone all dreamy and thoughtful. ‘Tomorrow,’ he announced, ‘I am going to paddle to that little island out there.’

  ‘Daddy going for a PIDDLE!’ shouted Cheese, and suddenly half the beach was looking at us.

  Dad had gone very red. He got to his feet. ‘He means “paddle”. I’m going paddleboarding tomorrow. Cheese gets his words mixed up. Sorry.’

  Mr Grubnose choked. ‘You call your son “Cheese”? What kind of grown man calls his own son “Cheese”?’

  ‘This kind of grown man.’ Dad smiled, poking his own chest. ‘And he calls his daughter “Tomato” and his wife “Pumpkin Pie” – and it’s none of your business. Bye-bye.’ And he sat down.

  Mum glared at him. ‘You have never, ever called me Pumpkin Pie,’ she hissed.

  ‘It’s never too late to start, Pumpkin,’ chuckled Dad.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ But Mum couldn’t help laughing herself. She settled back on her sunbed, with one hand scratching Ice Cream’s head as the dog lay on the sand beside her.

  4. Captain Disaster

  We spent the rest of the day checking out our new surroundings. Guess what? We found shops where you could hire paddleboards. Dad needn’t have brought his paddleboard on the plane after all. And we wouldn’t have had all that fuss at the airport!

  I could tell by the look on her face that Mum was not impressed. However, she didn’t say a word. Neither did Dad! But I could tell by the look on his face that he knew what Mum was thinking and she knew that he knew. I think that being an adult must be very complicated sometimes.

  Ice Cream followed us all the way back to the hotel and wanted to come inside. We could tell this by the way she pawed at the front door and looked at us with very shiny, hopeful eyes. Cheese and Tomato were pretty upset when Mum and Dad both said it wasn’t possible.

  ‘But if it rains she’ll get wet,’ snivelled Tomato.

  ‘We’re in Turkey. It doesn’t rain here in the summer. That’s why we came,’ Mum said, drily. ‘Besides, there are plenty of places outside where she can shelter if it does rain.’

  ‘She’ll be hungry,’ said Cheese. ‘She’ll starve and then she’ll be deaded.’

  Tomato gave another sniff. ‘I don’t like deaded dogs.’

  ‘I have never seen such a well-fed dog,’ Dad told the twins. ‘Her stomach is bulging. She’s probably eaten at least six meals today already.’

  It was my turn to speak up. ‘I asked Irfan why some of the dogs and cats have got blue plastic earrings in one ear. He said it was to show that they had been neutered and were being looked after by an animal charity. The charity puts food out for them too.’

  ‘Ah! I wondered why most of the strays seemed to be well fed and looked after. Good for them.’ Dad nodded.

  The twins cheered up when they heard about the charity and we were able to go into the hotel and leave Ice Cream outside. So that was all right, at least for now.

  The next day was paddleboarding day and Dad was true to his word. We had hardly got breakfast out of the way – cheese, bread, four different jams, eggs, olives, tomatoes, cucumber, pastries, melon, grapes, figs – when Dad shot off to get the board from their room. It was time for the beach.

  ‘Are you really going to do this?’ asked Mum, as we stood on the beach and watched Dad prepare for his trip. ‘I mean, I know you have lots of daft ideas but paddling to that island must be the most seriously bad idea ever.’

  ‘Nonsense. That island is hardly any distance at all. I could almost walk there and besides, paddleboards don’t sink.’

  Mum gave Dad a hard look. ‘Maybe paddleboards don’t, but humans do.’

  Dad held up a yellow life jacket. ‘I shall be wearing this.’

  ‘OK, so maybe you won’t sink, but that island is still a long way off and you do have a habit of getting into trouble, Ron. Things go wrong. Don’t ask me why. Sometimes I think you should really be called Captain Disaster.’

  ‘Huh – very funny,’ Dad mumbled grumpily as he pulled on the life jacket. ‘Right, I’m ready.’ He edged towards the water.

  ‘How will we know when you get there?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve got my mobile in a waterproof bag. I’ll text you. Byeeee!’

  And with that Dad climbed on to the paddleboard and set off. When you’re paddling the board, you start off kneeling down and then slowly get to your feet. Dad only fell off five times when he tried to stand up. And that was barely three metres from the beach.

  Mum shouted at him, ‘Captain Disaster!’

  Dad yelled something back but we didn’t quite catch what he said, which was probably a good thing. In any case, it wasn’t long before we lost sight of him and had to stop looking.

  ‘Anyone for an ice cream?’ suggested Mum cheerfully. The twins had hardly stopped yelling ‘YES!’ when a quite different kind of Ice Cream was right next to us, wagging her tail furiously.

  ‘Ice Cream wants an ice cream!’ Tomato laughed.

  ‘Yes. I can see that,’ said Mum. ‘What kind of ice cream do you think our Ice Cream dog is? Chocolate? Mint?’

  ‘Toffee,’ said Cheese. ‘Because she’s toffee-coloured. She’s Toffee Ice Cream.’

  ‘That’s a very long name for a dog,’ Mum observed.

  We got our ices and the dog immediately ate Cheese’s before he’d managed a single lick. You have never seen such a sad face.

  ‘Bad dog! Poo dog!’ Cheese scolded. ‘Don’t like you any more!’

  ‘You can’t blame the dog,’ Mum said. ‘That’s what most dogs will do if you give them the chance. Nicky, here’s some money. Go and get another ice cream, and make sure Cheese gets it this time.’

  I went off and joined the ice-cream queue. I was looking around while I was waiting. Things were getting very busy in the bay. Boats and jet skis were whizzing about, all heading in the same direction, towards the nearest island. Something odd was going on. My stomach gave a horrible lurch, my heart stopped beating and when it started up again it was going twice as fast.

  CAPTAIN DISASTER!!!

  I ran like mad back to the others. Everyone on the beach was on their feet, staring out to sea. Mum was holding her mobile to her ear and – talking.

  ‘Where are you? – What do you mean, you’re “in the sea”. The sea is a big place, Ron. Are you in the sea or on it? – What? A bit of both? Some bits of you are in the sea and some are on it? What does that mean? Are you in bits, floating about? – Yes, of course I’m joking! – Your life jacket came off? How did that happen? – It was rubbing you under your arms? Oh, you poor little baby, I don’t think! You great, crumbling cabbage-head! Well, you’re obviously not drowning if you’re able to ring me, so what’s going on? There are about fifty boats out there looking – Oh, they’ve found you? Good. – One of them
is going to tow you back? – Yes, of course we’ll wait here. Honestly, you are such an embarrassment. Put your life jacket on and get back here. Goodbye.’

  Mum put her phone in her bag and folded her arms. She looked at me.

  ‘Nicholas, I want you to know that fathers are meant to be good role models for their sons to copy. However, your father is providing you with an excellent example of a role model that you should not copy at any time whatsoever. I hope you understand that.’

  I nodded. ‘Captain Disaster?’ I hinted.

  ‘Yes. Indeed. Captain Disaster and God of Calamities, Catastrophes, Mishaps, Mayhem and Accidents. Have I missed anything out?’

  I shook my head. We both watched as a jet ski approached the shore, towing Dad to safety on his paddleboard. As soon as he caught sight of us Dad stood up, waved cheerfully and promptly fell into the sea. The jet-skier didn’t notice and carried on towing the empty board. Dad had to swim the final twenty metres to the shore.

  He waded slowly out of the water, collected the paddleboard, shook hands with the jet-skier and came across to us.

  ‘Phew!’ he said. ‘That was an adventure.’

  ‘No, Ron, it was not an adventure. It was an embarrassment. The entire town of Kalkan now knows that I have an idiot for a husband. I am banning you from using your paddleboard for the rest of this holiday. Furthermore, you are not taking it back home on the plane. I refuse to go through all that fuss at the airport again.’

  ‘But what about my paddleboard?’ asked Dad.

  ‘It can be chopped up for firewood, for all I care,’ declared Mum.

  ‘That’s a bit harsh,’ said Dad, pulling at his beard.

  ‘Maybe,’ Mum told him. ‘But if it means that you will be safer then I shall feel a lot happier because, you see, despite the fact that you are a crumbling cabbage-head, I still happen to love you and care for you and I would rather you didn’t drown. Now, go and get Cheese and yourself an ice cream like a good little boy. And don’t let Ice Cream eat it. She’s already had Cheese’s first one!’