by Hilary McKay
And then he looked down at the pink paper he was holding in his hand.
And unfolded it.
It was very pretty. She had dotted her ‘i’s with little tiny hearts.
‘AAARGGHHH!’ yelled Charlie, flinging the hateful pink paper on the floor and jumping on it with both feet. ‘Rotten girl! Her and her wheelies! Her and her plaits! Babysitting! Do I look like a baby?’
He stared at Max, fists clenched and raging, with rivers of pirate make up pouring down his cheeks.
Max stared back.
‘STOP LAUGHING! IT’S NOT FUNNY!’
‘I’m not laughing,’ said Max, and he wasn’t. He knew too well how Charlie felt.
‘What’ll I tell Henry?’ snuffled Charlie, and buried his head in his arms. He was suddenly very tired of being in love.
Then Max took charge, like he always used to do in a crisis.
‘Wait there!’ said Max.
‘He saved my life!’ Charlie to Henry the next morning. ‘Max did. When I fainted …’
‘Fainted?’
‘… with sadness and he saved my life by wafting crisps round my head till I revived … cheese and onion. They’re making me better. This is the fourth bag I’ve had since last night. She’s mad, you know?’
‘Gemma is?’
‘Guess what she said when I asked her to marry me?’
‘What?’
‘She said, “Yeah all right”’
‘She’s mad,’ agreed Henry.
‘Blue feet she’s got and she won’t eat pepperoni. Low fat yoghurt, that’s what she likes.’
‘Yuk!’
‘And my mum says she either can’t count or can’t tell the time … anyway, we’re over her, Max and me, and we’re going swimming after school tonight. Max said he’d take me …’
‘Oh!’ said Henry jealously.
‘And he said you can come too, if your mum says yes.’
‘She’ll say yes,’ said Henry, skipping with pleasure, ‘because she likes Max. She’s says he’s responsible. And grown up. Grown up and responsible! Can you drink crisps like you can Smarties?’
‘No,’ said Charlie, ‘but I can balance them on my nose and lick them off with my tongue! Max showed me how last night.’
‘Cheese and onion?’
‘Any flavour!’
‘Sounds a bit ponky!’
‘Who cares about ponky?’ asked Charlie.
‘Not Max and me!’
1
Four Days Before the Big Sleep
Charlie and Henry were both seven years old, and they were best friends. They were best friends, and they quarrelled all the time. They argued at school. They squabbled at birthday parties. They nearly always had to be separated on school trips. Their friends said, ‘Charlie and Henry have been like that for ever!’ and took no notice; but their teachers called them The Terrible Two. ‘Double Trouble!’ agreed Charlie and Henry’s fathers.
Their mothers said,
‘You boys ALWAYS end up quarrelling!’
One Monday morning, Charlie’s big brother Max asked if he could stay with a friend for the night on Friday and his mother said he could. This would mean there would be an empty bed in Charlie’s bedroom. That Monday afternoon, Charlie and Henry ran out of school to where their mothers were both standing moaning about them and Charlie asked, ‘On Friday night, can Henry come for a sleepover?’
Straight away Charlie and Henry’s mothers said,
‘No!’
‘No,’ they said. ‘We haven’t forgotten the last time!’
The last time Henry’s father had had to get dressed at two o’clock in the morning and take Charlie home because Charlie said he could not bear listening to the way Henry breathed for one moment longer.
‘He is copying my breathing!’ Charlie had complained furiously. ‘Every time I breathe, he breathes! He has been doing it ever since you took away his Super Soaker Water Squirter! And what has happened to my Itching Powder and my two dead flies? That’s what I want to know!’
So Charlie had been taken home, and Henry’s Super Soaker was banned for a week. But the Itching Powder and the two dead flies turned up safe and sound in Henry’s bed, where Charlie had put them, and Charlie and Henry soon forgot all about their quarrel. They were astonished when their mothers reminded them. They looked at each other and they put on their Sad Little Boy faces and then they tried again.
Charlie said to his mother: ‘You let Max have sleepovers but you won’t let me!’
‘You like Max better than me!’
‘He’s your favourite!’
‘It’s not fair!’
And Henry said to his mother: ‘At least Charlie has Max! I have no brothers or sisters and I am fed up with living in a house just with grown-ups.’
Their mothers made moaning sounds but Charlie and Henry did not stop.
They said: ‘We never quarrel!’
‘Charlie likes it when I hit him.’
‘Henry likes it when I push him over.’
‘We only argue a bit.’
‘I don’t argue,’ said Charlie.
‘How can you say that?’ asked Henry. ‘You argue all the time!’
‘Just because I don’t agree with every single word you say!’ said Charlie.
‘Argue argue argue,’ said Henry, sticking his thumbs in his ears and waving his fingers rudely at Charlie. ‘Moan moan moan!’
‘You think you are so clever!’ said Charlie, grabbing at him. ‘You are not half as clever as you think you are!’
‘You are not a quarter as clever as you think you are,’ replied Henry, dodging behind his mother.
‘You are not a millionth!’ shouted Charlie.
‘You are not a quarter of a millionth!’ said Henry.
Charlie was not very good at maths and he could not think of any amount smaller than a quarter of a millionth to say Henry was not as clever as, so he did not say anything. He stared up at the sky as if he did not care.
Henry came out from behind his mother and stuck out his tongue to show that he had won.
‘Ha!’ shouted Charlie, and jumped on Henry and tipped him on to the ground. It was always very easy for anyone to tip Henry over. He did not seem to be properly balanced.
Charlie sat down on top of Henry and Henry flung his arms about and bashed Charlie on the nose. It started to bleed at once. Charlie’s nose always bled at the smallest bump. It did not seem to be very well made.
All this arguing and wrestling and nose bashing had taken less than two minutes.
And Charlie and Henry were still best friends at the end of it, but their mothers did not understand that. Henry’s mother jerked Henry to his feet and said, ‘Now say you are sorry! Look what you’ve done to poor Charlie!’
Charlie’s mother pushed a handful of tissues on to Charlie’s nose and snapped,
‘Sit still until it stops!’
‘It is you who should say sorry! Bumping down on poor Henry like that!’
Then both mothers exclaimed together,
‘And you two are supposed to be friends!’
Charlie and Henry stopped asking if they could have a sleepover for the rest of that afternoon. But they agreed to start again the next morning (which was Tuesday). Patiently, maybe a hundred times, they asked the same question: ‘Why can’t we have a sleepover?’ Also Charlie said how his mother liked Max more than she liked him, and that it was not fair. And Henry said how tired he was of living with just grown-ups, and that it was not fair.
It was very hard work for Charlie and Henry, but in the end it worked. On Wednesday afternoon their mothers gave in and said, ‘Oh all right! Anything for peace and quiet! But this will be your Last Chance Ever!’
2
Two Days Before the Big Sleep
Charlie and Henry planned the best sleepover ever. They made an agreement:
No Itching Powder, No Dead Flies and No Super Soakers to be squirted at the ceiling in order to make surprise indoor rain.
&
nbsp; ‘We’ll look for ghosts,’ said Charlie.
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Henry. ‘And we’ll have a midnight feast.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Charlie.
It felt very strange saying ‘Good idea!’ and ‘Brilliant!’ to each other, but it was all part of Charlie and Henry’s plan. They knew their sleepover would be cancelled if they began quarrelling, so for the next two days they were very polite. They did not fight at all, at least not where anyone could see them.
‘It won’t last,’ said Charlie’s mother. She was in a very gloomy mood because the sleepover was happening at her house, but Henry’s mother (who was planning a trip to the cinema with her phone switched off) was much more cheerful. She said, ‘Perhaps Charlie and Henry are beginning to grow up. At last.’
Then they both said, ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely!’
It sometimes seemed to Charlie and Henry’s mothers that Charlie and Henry were taking an awfully long time to grow up.
Charlie and Henry spent all their pocket money collecting food for the midnight feast. They bought salted peanuts, strawberry bootlaces, cheese triangles, Coca-Cola, chocolate M&Ms and curry-fl avoured crisps. They hid all these things in the bottom of Henry’s sleeping bag. Henry had carried his sleeping bag round to Charlie’s house as soon as their mothers gave in and said the sleepover was allowed. Since then it had been kept in Charlie’s bedroom in the bottom of the wardrobe that he shared with Max.
Charlie and Max had bunk beds. Max had the top bunk and Charlie had the bottom. Max would never let Charlie have a turn in the top bunk because sometimes Charlie had accidents at night.
‘And what if it dripped through?’ Max said. ‘And I was underneath! Horrible!’
Max did not like the idea of Charlie’s sleepover. He said,
‘You’d better not touch any of my stuff up here?’
‘And you can tell Henry from me that he’s to leave my skateboard and my bike alone this time! I wish he wasn’t sleeping in my bed! I hope he doesn’t do what you sometimes do!’
Charlie pretended not to hear.
‘Well,’ said Max gloomily, ‘I suppose he’s got a good thick sleeping bag!’ He lifted Henry’s sleeping bag out of the wardrobe, discovered the bulge in the bottom, and tipped it upside down.
‘Those are our midnight feast supplies,’ said Charlie proudly, as salted peanuts, strawberry bootlaces, cheese triangles, chocolate M&Ms, curry-flavoured crisps and bottles of Coca-Cola tumbled on to the floor.
‘Crikey!’ said Max, even more gloomily. ‘If you eat that lot you’ll both be sick for sure.’
Charlie ignored that too.
‘Still,’ continued Max, ‘maybe Henry won’t be here long enough to eat it! Didn’t Mum promise his mother she’d take him home the minute you started fighting?’
‘Yes, well, we won’t be fighting!’ said Charlie. ‘And we won’t be sick either! So ha ha! We’re going to stay awake all night and look for … ghosts!’
‘You two would be scared stiff if you saw a ghost!’ Max laughed.
‘We wouldn’t!’ Charlie said. ‘I wish we really could.’
‘You be careful what you wish for!’ said Max, and in the middle of the night Charlie remembered those words.
3
The Big Sleep: Eight O’Clock Till Ten O’Clock
(at night)
Max left, and Henry arrived with a big square bag. Henry’s mother had packed Henry’s bag very carefully with everything he could possibly need. When she was not looking Henry had swiftly unpacked it again. So Henry had not brought pyjamas or slippers or washing things or anything like that. Instead he had brought his hamster in its cage. It took up the whole bag. Henry lifted the hamster cage up on to Max’s bed and said, ‘I thought I could borrow stuff off you!’
Charlie didn’t mind that at all. He got out a pair of his own pyjamas for Henry, and found a toothbrush he could use in the bathroom. After Charlie had sorted out Henry’s pyjamas and toothbrush he suggested that they go for a treasure hunt through all Max’s drawers and boxes in search of Interesting Secret Stuff. They treasure-hunted for a long time, but they did not find anything because Max had guessed this might happen and he had packed up all his Interesting Secret Stuff and taken it with him. Then they made Lego tanks and had a battle which got noisier and noisier until Charlie’s mother came in and ordered, ‘Bed!’
Henry grumbled a bit about his pyjamas as they got ready for bed. He said they were pink but Charlie explained they were pale red. Henry didn’t say anything about the toothbrush (at the time).
When they were both ready, they went downstairs to say goodnight to Charlie’s father and mother.
‘Goodnight,’ said Charlie’s father. ‘And remember, if there is any bother I will come and sleep on the floor and I warn you, I snore like a camel, don’t I Charlie?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie proudly, and Henry said, ‘I bet you’ve never heard a camel snore!’ So Charlie said, ‘How would you know what I’ve heard snore?’
Charlie’s mother said hurriedly, ‘Night-night, boys, sweet dreams, don’t talk too long! Are you wearing Charlie’s pyjamas, Henry?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘Mine got left at home. Do you mind?’
Charlie’s mother said she didn’t mind a bit. She said that as long as he and Charlie did not spend the night quarrelling about camels Henry could wear anything he liked. This was rather a silly thing to say, because as soon as Henry was back in the bedroom he put on Charlie’s plastic suit of armour, and the shield and the sword belt and the sword. Then he clanked up the ladder to Max’s top bunk where his sleeping bag was already unrolled, and lay down beside his hamster cage. ‘Pass me the bow and arrows, please, Charlie!’ said Henry.
‘No I won’t!’ said Charlie. ‘First you moan about my pyjamas, then you grab my suit of armour and now you want my bow and arrows!’
Charlie got out of his bunk and picked up the bow and arrows himself. Then he climbed on top of his chest of drawers and shot Henry as he lay in bed.
Henry said in a sad quiet voice, ‘I don’t mind if you hurt me but please don’t frighten my poor little hamster.’
‘You only said that to make me feel bad,’ said Charlie, fitting another arrow to his bowstring.
Henry did not reply. Instead, with great difficulty, he struggled out of the suit of armour and threw the pieces one by one at Charlie’s head. Charlie fired his last arrow and made a rush for the top bunk, intending to pull Henry out and dump him on to the floor. From downstairs came a sudden voice.
‘Are you boys behaving up there?’
‘Yes!’ shouted Charlie and Henry, letting go of each other.
‘Nearly asleep?’
‘Nearly,’ they called, diving under the covers and lying down flat.
‘Shall I come up and see?’
‘No, no, no!’ yelled Charlie and Henry with their eyes tight shut.
For a long time the room was very quiet. And it was very dark.
In the darkness Henry murmured, ‘Charlie!’
Charlie nearly jumped out of his skin.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘What if we heard footsteps coming louder and louder up the stairs and then suddenly the door burst open with a huge bang and cold air rushed into the room and a great black shape towered over us and we saw a green light all around and heard the sound of screaming like in Harry Potter?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie, not at all keen on thinking very hard about this idea.
‘I only wondered,’ said Henry, ‘because it’s gone very quiet downstairs and I think something horrible has happened to your mum and dad and it’s going to happen to us next and I’m sure I saw the door move. Watch!’
4
Ten O’Clock Till Midnight
Charlie watched the door and watched the door. He watched until his eyes hurt. All he could see was a grey shape, against a slightly lighter greyness, but it seemed to him that Henry was right, and that now and then it did move.
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br /> Henry moaned, ‘I hate your rotten sleepover!’
That made Charlie mad. ‘Big moaning baby!’ he hissed.
‘If you’re so brave, why are you whispering?’ demanded Henry. ‘Why don’t you do something useful? Like shut the door.’
‘Because I don’t want to,’ said Charlie.
‘Oh yes!’ said Henry. ‘I bet you’re scareder than me!’
‘Scaredy cat!’
‘I’m not!’ said Charlie, and to prove he wasn’t, he bounced out of bed, closed the door properly, and began barricading it with all the biggest things in the room, his skateboard, his beanbag and, balanced on the top, his enormously heavy and rattly box of Lego. Then he snapped off the light and marched back to bed.
‘Now you will be safe, poor little Henry,’ said Charlie in a very kind voice.
Henry sighed and rolled over and got his legs twisted up in his sleeping bag and announced, ‘I need to go to the bathroom!’
‘You can’t! I’d have to move all my stuff!’
‘Well, I do.’
‘I don’t care. You’ll have to wait till morning! Think about something else! When shall we have our midnight feast?’
‘Midnight, of course,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t know if I can wait till morning.’
‘Of course you can! Do you think it’s nearly midnight?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because my light-up watch says half past ten.’