Mega Sleepover 4

by Fiona Cummings

  I kept getting out the posters from under my bed and sorting them into two piles – ones that I loved, and ones that I really really loved. The only problem was that I always ended up with two posters in the first pile, and about thirty-six in the second. Then I felt guilty about leaving those two out to start with, so I put them back with the others anyway. I’m not very good at making decisions.

  In the end, Mum helped me make up my mind. She said that the sensible thing to do would be to keep only the most recent posters. The important thing was not to look at them too closely, just decide how long I’d had them.

  In the end I had a big pile to take to the sale and a smaller pile to keep. Once I’d decided which posters were going, I put them in a plastic bag and didn’t look at them again. Then I did the same thing with all my horse magazines. I felt sad about getting rid of them, but fortunately I had something to take my mind off it. On the Tuesday before her sleepover, Frankie had come rushing into the playground.

  “I’ve had a brilliant idea!” she announced.

  “Not another one!” we groaned.

  “No, you’ll love this!” she said, looking very pleased with herself.

  “We’re in for a Frankie Thomas special are we?” laughed Kenny. “Go on then. Spill!”

  “Well, you know we’re having the sale to raise money for the riding school?” she began.

  “Are we?” “What sale?” “I didn’t know about that!” the rest of us said, pretending to look shocked.

  “Ha, ha, ha!” said Frankie. “Well I thought it would be pretty cool if the sleepover had a horsey theme. We could all wear something connected with horses. We can eat cowboy-type food, even our games could be horsey ones. AND whatever you bring for the midnight feast has to fit into the theme too. What do you think?”

  “Brilliant!” I laughed, jumping up and down. This sounded like my kind of party.

  “Wicked!” said Rosie and Kenny together.

  “I don’t understand,” said Fliss. “You mean we’ve got to dress up as a horse?”

  “Derr!” said the rest of us, tapping our heads.

  “No, Fliss, you can dress as a cowboy or an Indian if you want. Or wear jodhpurs,” explained Frankie. “Just use your imagination.”

  “But I don’t think I’ve got anything like that to wear,” moaned Fliss.

  “Oh, come on, Fliss,” snapped Kenny. “You’ve got more clothes than the rest of us put together. I’m sure you can find something.”

  We left it so that we wouldn’t tell anyone else what we were wearing. It had to be a surprise on Friday night.

  I couldn’t wait for the sleepover. I love all our sleepovers of course, because we always end up having a wicked time. But it’s even more fun if we have to dress up – and I’m really lucky because I’ve got some ace dressing-up clothes.

  I could have worn the jodhpurs that I wear for riding, but they’re a bit dirty and smelly. Besides, Mum once made me some of those leather chaps that cowboys wear over their jeans. 1 love wearing those, and I knew that Kenny would just about die when she saw them.

  So on Friday, when I got ready for the sleepover, I put on the chaps and my checked shirt, and Dad lent me one of his bootlace ties. Then I found a beaten-up old leather hat in the dressing-up box. It sort of looked like a cowboy hat. I thought it was pretty cool anyway. The last thing to do was borrow one of Ben’s toy guns. I hid it from Mum though, because she doesn’t like him having them.

  When Dad dropped me off at Frankie’s I was so excited I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. I grabbed my sleepover kit and my bag of horse posters and magazines and rushed up to the door. Kenny was already there, looking like the meanest cowboy in the West.

  When she heard me, she spun round and said in a fake American accent, “Not so fast pardn’r. This doorway ain’t big enough for the both of us!”

  We both dropped our bags and grabbed the guns from our holsters. Then we pretended to have this mega shoot-out down Frankie’s path. Suddenly the front door opened.

  “All right, Butch and Sundance. You’d better come in before the neighbours call the police!” It was Frankie’s dad.

  Well, Kenny and I just creased up. And it didn’t help when Fliss came tiptoeing down the path looking like Little Bo Peep!

  “Hic! What are you like, Fliss?” I giggled.

  “I’m a cowgirl!” she said angrily. I could tell that she was in a major strop.

  “Oh yes, hic! I see now!” I said. She was wearing a flouncy skirt, a white blouse and ankle boots. She didn’t look like a cowgirl at all.

  “Frankie!” shouted Mr Thomas. “I think Lyndz needs your assistance. She’s got hiccups again!”

  Frankie came flying downstairs. She looked pretty cool in a pair of jodhpurs and a riding jacket. Rosie was behind her. She was dressed like an Indian squaw. She said her mum had made her dress out of chamois-leather cloths! It was wicked!

  We all looked at each other, shouting “Coo-el!” We didn’t mention the fact that Fliss looked as though she’d escaped from the pages of a nursery-rhyme book.

  Frankie tried to get rid of my hiccups, but they just wouldn’t go away. Eventually her mum appeared.

  “I’ll give you five pounds if you hiccup again, Lyndz,” she said.

  The others all stared at me, willing me to make another sound. But do you know, I couldn’t!

  “Thought that might happen,” laughed Frankie’s mum, and disappeared again.

  We took our things up to Frankie’s room, then Kenny asked, “What’s the plan then, Buffalo Bill?”

  “We’re going to do a spot of show jumping, old girl,” said Frankie in a put-on snooty voice.

  “Jolly good!” we all laughed and traipsed downstairs again, following Frankie out into the garden.

  She’d made a sort of obstacle course with planks of wood and things. Frankie pretended to be a horse and Kenny was her rider, then they had to try to get round the course, jumping the fences without falling over. It was hysterical to watch – and even more hysterical to do. We all had a go at being the horse and the rider. Even Fliss, which was a surprise. It was even more surprising when she was quite good at it!

  When we’d finished, we flopped on the grass for a bit to get our breath back. Then we played our game where we get into two teams, with one horse and one rider on each team, and each team has to try to knock the other one over. We play that a lot, but this time Frankie said it was like jousting so it was an OK horsey-type game. I was ready for something to eat after that – it’s pretty exhausting.

  It was getting dark and Frankie’s dad had built a small fire in the corner of the garden. We sat round it and helped to cook baked beans and vegebangers. It was wicked!

  “We’re just like cowboys!” laughed Kenny.

  “I expect the plains of America are a bit more rugged than our back garden,” said Frankie’s dad. “Hang on a minute though.” He rushed behind the dustbins and started to howl like a wolf.

  “Yes, that’s definitely more like it!” said Mrs Thomas, shaking her head and pulling faces at us. “It keeps him happy!” she whispered.

  After the baked beans, we toasted marshmallows on long skewers until they were dripping and tasted a bit smoky. Scrummy!

  We were all starting to feel a bit drowsy, but Frankie had one more thing for us to do. And this was no game. This was Organising Tomorrow’s Big Sale.

  We headed up to Frankie’s room find sat on her bed. Frankie took a sheet of paper from her desk. “Look, this is what I thought we’d do tomorrow,” she said.

  We all crowded round to have a look. It was a sort of timetable:

  “Wicked!” we all laughed. “Especially the pigging out bit!”

  “So what’s everyone going to sell?” asked Frankie.

  I raced over to the bunk beds, grabbed the bag containing my posters and magazines and took it back to Frankie’s bed. The others were clutching their bags too.

  “OK, after three, everyone tip their stuff out!”
commanded Kenny. “One… two… three!”

  Posters, make-up, toys and clothes spilled out over the bed.

  “I hope everything’s clean!” said Fliss, picking things up and shaking them as though they were full of dust.

  “We don’t seem to have much!” said Frankie. She looked very disappointed.

  “There are only five of us, Frankie!” said Rosie. “There’s only so much stuff we could get rid of.”

  “Speaking of which,” I said, “there don’t seem to be many football things here, Kenny.”

  She gave me an evil stare.

  “That’s because they’re all here,” said Frankie. She fished under her bed and found another plastic bag. She tipped lots of posters and programmes on to the bed. There were even a couple of old books about football too.

  “Were you trying to hide those, Kenny?” asked Rosie.

  “No, I er… well, all right, yes. I just wanted to make sure that Lyndz had brought her horse posters, that’s all,” Kenny admitted.

  We all laughed. Poor Kenny, you just knew it had almost broken her heart to part with so much stuff!

  “Well I reckon we’ll only need three tables tomorrow,” said Frankie, taking charge again. “One for the books and posters, that’s you, Kenny and Lyndz. One for the clothes and make-up – that will be yours, Rosie and Fliss. And then I’ll just need a small one for my toys.”

  “That’s not fair!” moaned Fliss. “Everyone will notice your things because they’ll be on their own.”

  “All right, you have the small table then,” sighed Frankie.

  “No, it’s OK,” said Fliss after a while. “I think I’d rather be with Rosie.”

  We all tutted. It was typical of Fliss always to want something else, just to be difficult.

  With all our arrangements for the next day sorted out, we got ready for bed.

  “What if no one comes,” said Fliss when we were all in bed.

  “Of course people will come!” snapped Kenny. “People always love buying things.”

  “I hope so, because if we don’t raise money soon, the riding school will close for sure,” I said.

  “We’ve got to be positive!” said Frankie.

  “Well I’m positive,” said Rosie. “Positive that it’s time for our midnight feast!”

  We all whooped and grabbed our ‘horsey’ food supplies. I’d brought Wagon Wheels (you know, cowboys and all that), Fliss had brought apples, Rosie had brought Polo mints and Frankie had sliced up some carrots – all the things that horses like to eat as treats. Kenny had brought an enormous packet of chip-sticks and some Twiglets.

  “What have they got to do with horses?” asked Frankie.

  “The chip-sticks look a bit like hay and the Twiglets reminded me of horses’ legs!” Kenny replied.

  That made us all double over. We were shrieking so much, we didn’t hear the knock at the door.

  “Crikey, it’s so noisy, I thought you’d got one of Mrs McAllister’s horses in here with you!” laughed Mrs Thomas, poking her head round the door. “It’s time you lot were asleep. I don’t want to have to turn away crowds of people tomorrow because you’re not up in time for your sale. Goodnight. Sleep tight.” She closed the door and turned off the light. We waited a bit and then turned on our torches.

  “I hope there will be a lot of people,” I said.

  “Bound to be” reassured Frankie. “They’ll be coming to buy all Kenny’s football souvenirs. I heard them announcing it on the news.”

  The last thing I heard before falling asleep was Kenny trying to strangle Frankie.

  The next morning was a bit grey and overcast. Not the perfect day for an outdoor sale.

  “At least it’s not raining,” said Rosie, brightly.

  We got dressed as quickly as we could and hurried downstairs. There was a lovely smell of toast wafting up from the kitchen.

  “Breakfast’s ready, girls!” said Mr Thomas. “I’ve set up the tables outside for you. What a kind man I am!”

  “Thanks, Dad,” said Frankie, giving him a big kiss.

  We wolfed down our toast and hurried outside. The tables were just inside the garden gate. They were covered in pink material. “Wicked!” we all said.

  We brought down our things from Frankie’s room and put the bags on one of the tables.

  “Right, which table do you and Rosie want, Fliss?” Frankie asked her. If Fliss chose first, she couldn’t complain later. She chose the one nearest the gate.

  “Right then, Lyndz and Kenny, you put your things here and I’ll have this small table,” Frankie commanded.

  Kenny and I pulled out our posters and magazines. I took out the Blu-Tack I’d brought with me and stuck some of my posters round the front of the table. Kenny did the same with some of hers. Then we arranged the magazines on top. It actually looked very good.

  “What should we charge?” I asked Kenny.

  “£1 a poster, 50p a magazine,” she replied.

  “Don’t be stupid, you want to sell them don’t you?” said Frankie, who had been listening. “10p and 5p sounds about right. Maybe 25p for a book.”

  “What about my make-up and jewellery?” asked Fliss. “Some of it was quite expensive you know.”

  “Yes, but you’ve used it,” said Rosie. “I’m just going to see what people are prepared to pay. Any money is better than nothing.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Frankie. “I might do that too.”

  “Hey, Frankie, it’s ten o’clock!” yelled Kenny. “It’s time for the grand opening.”

  Frankie walked solemnly to the gate. “On behalf of the Sleepover Club,” she announced, “I declare this sale well and truly open!”

  We all cheered and Frankie very grandly swung open the garden gate. She wasn’t exactly knocked down by the rush to get in. In fact only my mum and Spike were there!

  “Well, doesn’t this look lovely!” Mum said.

  “Do you fancy a coffee, Patsy?” Frankie’s mum asked and whisked her off into the kitchen.

  “Charming!” I said. “I thought she might at least have bought something first.”

  Spike stayed outside with us, which would have been a disaster if it hadn’t been for Frankie’s toy elephant. He pulled it from her table and started sucking its ears. Then he started to dig up the garden with its trunk.

  “How much do you want for it?” I asked Frankie.

  “£1.50?”

  I looked in my purse. “I’ll give you £1,” I said.

  “OK. Done!”

  £1 was a small price to pay to keep my brother amused.

  We could hear people chattering on the footpath. “Quick, more customers!” whispered Frankie.

  We all rushed behind our tables and waited eagerly. But it was only Fliss’s mum and her step-dad, Andy.

  “There aren’t many people here are there, darling?” Fliss’s mum said to her. Like we really needed to hear that. Then she said, “Maybe you should have put up those posters after all.”

  We all looked at Fliss.

  “How about a cup of coffee, Nikky?” Frankie’s mum called from the kitchen.

  When her mum and Andy had gone inside, we all turned on Fliss.

  “What did your mum mean?” I asked.

  Fliss blushed and started stuttering, “Well, I – I did put a poster on our gate and one on the tree next door. B-but Mr Watson-Wade said it made the street look untidy, so I took them down.”

  “So you didn’t put up any then?” asked Kenny.

  “Well, no, but I haven’t seen any of yours either, so I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “NOT MATTERED?” yelled Frankie. “Of course it mattered. How could people find out about the sale if there weren’t any posters for them to read?”

  “Well, where did you put yours then?” Fliss asked Frankie.

  “On the gate, on the tree outside, on some lampposts and on a couple of bus shelters,” she snapped. “I put up one in my bedroom too. But I didn’t expect anyone to see th
at one.”

  “But we didn’t see any of the others either,” said Rosie quietly. “And there’s definitely not one on the gate now.”

  Frankie went to look. “I don’t believe it, they’ve gone!” she cried.

  No one could remember seeing any of our posters at all. But who would have wanted to take them down? And it was obvious that someone had, because nobody was coming to even look at our things.

  Our parents turned up of course, but they don’t count. And as soon as she saw them, Frankie’s mum took them into the kitchen anyway. Adam came and he stayed with us. But he looked so sad when no one turned up, it made us feel even worse.

  In the end we bought things from each other, just to make ourselves feel better. I bought another of Frankie’s toys, Fliss bought some of Rosie’s old jeans (just for going to the farm in), Rosie bought some of Fliss’s silver nail varnish and Frankie paid £1 for a whole pile of Kenny’s football posters and programmes.

  “What do you want those for?” Kenny asked her. “I didn’t think you liked football.”

  “I don’t,” replied Frankie. “I just need some paper to make a papier mâché model with!”

  “Oh no you don’t!” yelled Kenny, chasing her round the garden.

  We all cheered each time they ran past us. Eventually they collapsed, exhausted.

  “I’ll tell you what, Kenny,” gasped Frankie. “You can have your stupid posters back for £1.50.”

  “No way!”

  “Yes way – or the posters get turned to mush!”

  Kenny thought about it for about ten seconds. “OK,” she grumbled and handed over the money.

  Just as we heard the village clock striking twelve, two figures appeared at the gate. It was the M&Ms.

  “Oh dear, we haven’t missed some kind of sale, have we?” asked Emma Hughes innocently.

  “You really should have put up some posters to let people know you were having one,” laughed Emily Berryman.

  “I just hope no one is relying on you to raise money,” said Queen Emma. “We’d hate to think of you letting anyone down!”

  And with that the Gruesome Twosome ran cackling down the road.