Tiff, who was clearing up the table, shouted “No! Not yet!” just like that. It was really weird.
“Why not?” asked Rosie, sounding a bit miffed.
“Because…” spluttered her sister.
“Because Tiffany’s been helping me all evening and she thought that you could all help to clear the table,” explained Rosie’s mum.
We didn’t mind doing that, and she was right, Tiff had been helping out with the food and everything. I’m sure that she would rather have been out with Spud somewhere. She hadn’t even grumbled about it either.
While we were taking the plates and stuff into the kitchen, Rosie’s mum went into the lounge. We could hear whispering and giggling.
“I bet Mum wants to join in with Twister,” said Rosie in a quiet voice. “She keeps telling me that it’s one of her favourite games.”
“You should let her. It’ll be fun,” I said. I couldn’t see either of my parents wanting to join in with something like that. But Rosie’s mum is pretty cool.
“It’s embarrassing!” Rosie hissed, just as her mum came back into the kitchen.
“What’s embarrassing?” she asked.
“Me always wearing my football shirt,” I said quickly.
“It’s not embarrassing,” laughed Rosie’s mum. “If that’s what you want to wear, then you go right ahead and wear it Kenny. Stand up for what you believe in, that’s what I say.” Rosie rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, thank you girls,” Rosie’s mum continued, taking a pile of plates from Fliss. “You go into the lounge and do whatever you’re going to do. I might join in with Twister myself!”
“What did I tell you?” Rosie muttered under her breath.
We grabbed our torches and stumbled across the hall into the lounge. When Rosie opened the door, there was a loud blast of music and a flash of coloured lights. It looked like a proper disco! Mega-cool or what!
Rosie’s dad, Adam and Spud were at the far end of the lounge. They all had great goofy grins on their faces.
“I thought there was a power cut!” shouted Rosie above the Spice Girls, who were blaring out from the cassette player.
“There was, but the electricity came on again just before you had your meal,” explained Rosie’s dad. “Your mum thought it would be nice if we surprised you with all this.”
The Christmas lights, which were strung up around the walls, were flashing in time to the music.
“Spud helped me with those,” said Mr Cartwright, “and Adam helped with the music, didn’t you son?” Adam grinned and nodded.
“It’s brill!” Rosie gave her dad and Adam a big kiss, and punched Spud on the arm in a friendly way.
Rosie’s mum and Tiff had appeared in the doorway.
“Thanks Mum!” Rosie called and blew her a kiss.
Her mum smiled and said, “But I thought we were going to play Twister!”
“Later Mum!” Rosie laughed and pulled a face at the rest of us.
Rosie’s dad didn’t look as though he was the kind of man who likes to dance. He looked a bit embarrassed watching us too. I’m a fling-myself-all-over-the-room kind of dancer, and when I’d trodden on his toes a few times he decided that it was time he made a move. As far away from us as possible!
“Bye girls! Have a good party!” he called. Rosie looked disappointed to see him leaving. 1 think she thought it was nice to have all her family round her for once. I guess she wants her parents to get back together, but I don’t think they will. They seem kind of happy without each other.
“Thanks Mr Cartwright!” we shouted to Rosie’s dad. “This is wicked!” Rosie just stood there looking sad.
“Come on Rosie! Get with the groove!” I shouted and got her dancing again.
At least Adam was smiling again. He was kind of whizzing backwards and forwards in his wheelchair as though he was dancing with us.
“Hey, what have you got there?” I asked him. He had a box resting on his knee. He moved closer so that I could see it. It was a CD-Rom all about football. It was way cool!
“You lucky thing! Did your dad bring it for you?” I asked. Adam nodded.
“Monster!”
Adam is really hot on the computer. He has a good one because it’s a kind of therapy for him. Rosie and Tiff use it too of course, but it’s in Adam’s room and he seems to use it the most. He had to show Rosie’s mum how to use it when she started college, which we all thought was funny. It’s usually parents who show their kids how to do stuff isn’t it? But with computers it always seems to be the other way round!
“Did Dad bring you that because he didn’t take you fishing?” asked Rosie dancing up to us. Adam nodded.
“That’s not fair is it?” she said grumpily.
“He probably realised how disappointed Adam was,” I said.
“Yeah well. It’s not the same is it?” Rosie said crossly.
“Chill out!” I laughed. “Adam’s happy and your dad set all this up,” I said pointing to the lights. “You can’t have a downer on him today!” Rosie looked a bit guilty. “Suppose not,” she said and danced over to the others.
“Aren’t we playing Twister then?” called out Mrs Cartwright.
“No Mum!” laughed Rosie.
“Well anyway, ‘dancing’s what I want, what I really really want’,” sang Rosie’s mum in time to the music. “I think I love dancing more than I love Twister, anyway.”
Rosie groaned but you could tell that she was secretly pleased that her mum was so trendy. And her mum was brill. You’d think she was the schoolgirl, the way she screamed with laughter all the time. But she wasn’t embarrassing or anything. I still think that Rosie sometimes wishes her mum would act her age more.
After she’d been dancing for half an hour or so, Mrs Cartwright flopped onto the settee. “Phew! I’m exhausted. I think I need a lie-down!” she gasped, “and speaking of lying down…” She looked at her watch, “it’s almost nine now. Another half an hour then it’s time you lot started making tracks upstairs.”
“Aw Mum! You said ten!” pleaded Rosie, looking at her mum with her eyes all wide.
“Don’t push it my girl!” laughed her mum. “If you’re good – we’ll see!”
“Cool!” we all yelled and did high fives.
Rosie’s mum went out and we expected Tiff and Spud to follow, but they didn’t, they stayed behind.
“It’s alright,” Rosie told them. “We’re not going to wreck the place. We don’t need to be chaperoned any more!”
“We thought we might stay, actually. This is my cassette you’re playing,” mumbled Tiff.
We were listening to Oasis, which was class. Tiff and Spud started dancing – if you could call it that. Spud sort of jerked around the floor and Tiff shuffled along behind him. Very strange! Rosie shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘I’m sorry about them, but what can I do?’ But the rest of us didn’t mind. The more the merrier, and Tiff and Spud were alright really. Adam stayed for a short while, but then Rosie’s mum came in to get him ready for bed. He sort of waved ‘Goodbye’ to us all. I’m glad that he’d joined in with our party.
Time seems to flash past when you’re having fun doesn’t it? We couldn’t believe it when Rosie’s mum came in and told us that it was nearly ten. Lyndz was starting to look a bit dopey and Fliss had been slumped on the settee for the last fifteen minutes or so. But the rest of us were full of beans and ready to dance the night away.
“Not in this house you don’t!” laughed Rosie’s mum. “Right, quick sticks, upstairs and ready for bed. And I don’t want to hear a peep out of you.”
She looked at us and laughed. “Some hope!”
We’d had a great day. Better than we’d expected when we first arrived. And everyone seemed really happy, especially Rosie.
“Great party, Rosie!” said Frankie, when we got up to the bedroom.
“Yeah, monster!” I agreed.
Fliss and Lyndz had already crashed out on the bed, but they mumbled their appreciati
on too.
Speaking of crashing out on the bed, we hadn’t decided who was going to sleep where. When we have a sleepover at Rosie’s, three of us manage to fit on her double bed and the other two have to sleep on the floor. It’s only fair that Rosie has the bed seeing as it’s her house, and the rest of us usually toss for it. Only this time it looked as though Fliss and Lyndz were already settled down for the night. They still had to get undressed and do all the bathroom stuff. But even I wasn’t mean enough to make them sleep on the floor.
“It looks like you and me kid!” I said to Frankie in my fake American accent. She just groaned. Cheeky thing!
I can’t work Fliss out sometimes. We virtually had to carry her into the bathroom because she was so tired, but when we got back into our sleeping bags and someone mentioned the magic words, “Is it time for our presents now?” Whoosh! She was wide-awake and raring to go.
“Presents! I’d almost forgotten about our presents! Go and get them Rosie!” she yelled.
“OK. Keep your hair on!” said Rosie and felt under her pillow for the room’s key.
“Right, who’s the joker?” she demanded. “Whoever’s got the key, can you give it back now? Please.”
We all looked at each other. Or rather everyone looked at me. I do sometimes hide things for a joke, I’ll admit. But not this time. Besides, I’d never been alone in the bedroom, so I couldn’t have taken the key. Come to think of it, we’d all been together since we got there. Apart from Fliss. She’d been by herself for half an hour or more when we left her during Hide and Seek.
“OK Fliss, we know you’ve got it. Hand it over!” I said, half-joking. We were all totally gob-smacked when Fliss went very red and started to cry.
“I haven’t got the key,” Fliss sobbed. “I did look for it when you lot left me during Hide and Seek, but I couldn’t find it. I’m sorry.”
“Well what would you have done if you had found it?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. Just felt the presents I suppose,” Fliss mumbled through her sniffs.
“That’s a bit sneaky Fliss,” said Frankie. “We were all supposed to get our presents together.”
“And now none of us can get them because we’ve lost the key,” said Rosie crossly.
“Look I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I?” cried Fliss. “I wouldn’t have taken them or anything.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” said Rosie more gently. “Maybe the key fell off the bed when you were feeling for it.” We all got down on our hands and knees and shone our torches under the bed. The key wasn’t there, but there were several large gaps between the floorboards.
“Maybe it’s fallen down there,” said Frankie.
We pushed Rosie’s bed to one side and Rosie shone her torch down the gaps. “I can see it!” she said. “Who’s going to put their hand down to pull it out?”
We all looked at Fliss. She’d got us into this mess, and she probably had the smallest hands to get us out!
“It feels all dusty and horrible!” she grumbled as she fished about under the floorboards.
“Yeah, watch out for the mice!” I laughed.
Fliss, who had just grabbed hold of the key, screamed, pulled her arm out of the floorboards and let go of the key. CLINK! We heard it landing somewhere at the other side of the room.
“Oh well done Fliss!” I snarled.
“It was your fault for making me jump!” she snapped back.
“Oh for goodness sake stop it you two!” said Frankie. “I can see the key by the door.” She went and picked it up. “There. Right, who’s for presents?”
“ME!” we all shouted.
“I’ll get them,” said Rosie. She took the key from Frankie and crept out of the door.
When she was out of the room, Mrs Cartwright came in.
“Not in bed yet girls?” she asked. “I thought you might need these.” She tipped a carrier bag on to the bed. Our midnight feast!
“Thanks Mrs Cartwright!” we said.
“That’s OK. Just don’t make yourselves sick. And don’t stay awake too long. Where’s Rosie-Posie?”
“Here!” Rosie had just come back into the bedroom, carrying the plastic sack full of presents.
“Ooh, your presents!” said her mum, smiling. “I might stay to watch you opening those!”
One look at Rosie’s face made her change her mind!
“On second thoughts, I could do with going to bed. Have fun! And try not to make too much noise!” Mrs Cartwright went out, closing the door behind her.
“Why don’t we have our midnight feast while we open our presents?” asked Frankie. “It’ll be cool!”
We all went to sit on Rosie’s bed and spread the sweets out in the middle. There were Black Jacks, fizzy fish, rhubarb and crumble sweets, a Mars bar, some Doritos and a big bag of popcorn. Scrummy!
As we started to munch into everything, Rosie delved into her sack and pulled out the first present.
“Frankie!” she announced, and tossed a parcel towards her. It looked quite big and lumpy. It was impossible to guess what it might be.
“Go on! Open it!” shouted Fliss.
“No, I’m going to wait until we’ve all got our presents, then we can open them together,” said Frankie. Typical! I’d have ripped into mine straight away. Now we’d all have to wait until everyone had got one.
“Come on then Rosie. Hurry up!” I was getting as bad as Fliss!
Rosie handed a big, flat parcel to Lyndz. It looked quite heavy, but you couldn’t tell what it was. She kept a scrunched up parcel for herself which sort of rattled when she touched it. When she gave Fliss hers, you could tell she was just dying to open it. She kept squeezing it and putting it close to her ear and shaking it. I had to turn away because I was dying to laugh and I didn’t want her to know that it was from me. My present was the last out of the sack. It was soft and squashy, but it kind of rattled too, in a muffled sort of way.
“On your marks! Get set!” shouted Rosie, her parcel in her hand. “GO!”
We all ripped into the brown paper. My present had about a whole roll of sellotape on it, so it wasn’t easy to get at.
“Look at this! My own baby sister!” shrieked Frankie. She was holding a gross-looking baby doll. It was all squashy and looked as though it was about to puke any minute. But Frankie loved it.
“Look it’s got a bottle too. Can I fill it with water?” she yelled and rushed out to the bathroom.
“Whoever bought her that got it right!” I laughed. “But you do realise, we’ll now have a sixth member of the Sleepover Club. She’ll take it everywhere with her!”
“I’d never have thought of that for Frankie,” said Fliss. “She always seems too grown up for dolls!”
Frankie rushed back into the room, “Look at this!” she yelled. “It’s so cool!”
She gave the baby its bottle and it started to wee.
“Oh gross!” I said. Only Frankie could be thrilled with that.
“Oh wow!” gasped Fliss. “Look at these bangles. Wicked! I saw these in Miss Selfridge. They’re brill! You got them for me didn’t you, Rosie? Thanks, they’re great!”
Monster! She actually thought that someone had bought them! Fortunately when she said that I had just opened my present, which was a wicked pair of Leicester City socks. I shoved them in my mouth to stop myself laughing at Fliss, and I nearly choked on the Fox keyring, which was wrapped up inside them.
“Oh man! This is so cool!” I shrieked, bouncing up and down on Rosie’s bed. I looked round at the others, but it was impossible to tell who had bought them for me.
“I bet this was from you Fliss, wasn’t it?” asked Rosie. She was looking at some frosted eyeshadow, and matching lipstick and nail varnish. Fliss blushed and nodded.
“Thank you!” said Rosie hugging her. “I always have to borrow Tiff’s make-up and now I’ve got some of my very own!”
Lyndz was still trying to unfasten her present. Frankie leaned across to help her. When they f
inally ripped off the paper, we could see that it was a handmade wooden door plaque, which read: ‘LYNDZ’S ROOM’. Underneath someone had painted: ‘Keep Out Stuart, Tom, Ben and Spike’.
“This is great!” yelled Lyndz. “Now they’ve no excuse to barge into my room!”
We looked at each other’s presents and tried to guess who had bought them. But apart from Fliss admitting that she’d bought Rosie’s make-up, no one was letting on.
Frankie was still shaking with laughter at her doll, when Mrs Cartwright appeared. She was in her dressing gown and had taken her make-up off. She didn’t look quite as young and trendy as she usually did. And she sounded very tired.
“Come on you lot! Some of us have assignments to finish tomorrow!” she sighed.
“Sorry!” we all said, and got into our sleeping bags.
“Night!” she called and turned the light out. We counted to twenty-five, then turned on our torches.
“Thanks for a great party Rosie,” Frankie whispered.
“It has been good hasn’t it?” Rosie whispered back. And it had. After a lousy start!
We sang our Club song, turned off our torches and settled down to sleep. Frankie had her sleeping bag right next to mine on the floor.
“Did you get me my socks?” I whispered.
“I’m not saying anything,” she laughed. I thought she might have done, but then I thought that I recognised her writing on Lyndz’s plaque.
“Who do you think bought you the doll?” I asked, but she was already asleep. I could see her ‘baby’ tucked up beside her. Sweet! A bit sad, but sweet all the same!
The next morning when we woke up – wouldn’t you know it, – the sun was shining! We played the outdoor games we should have played at the party. Then, after breakfast, it was time for us to go. Fliss’s mum came to collect Fliss and Lyndz. Fliss was wearing her bracelets. I was well-chuffed about that, but I didn’t let on that I’d made them. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, as Frankie’s gran says.
Frankie and I walked home together. We were already planning what we should do for our twentieth birthday sleepover! We agreed that Rosie’s party had been pretty cool, and that the bad things like the rain and the power cut are what had made it special. It just goes to show that however much you plan something, it never turns out as you expect it to.
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