Mega Sleepover 4

by Fiona Cummings

  “Yeah, well, maybe if Pilar hadn’t dropped us in it, we’d have got away with it!” I said angrily.

  Kenny’s eyes widened. “You mean, Pilar did see us, and told Mrs Weaver?”

  I nodded. “I reckon so. She was in the corridor when Mrs Weaver was bawling us out – didn’t you see her?”

  “No, I didn’t!” Kenny clenched her fists. “The nasty little toad! Well, we’ll just have to be more careful next time.”

  “What, you mean we’re still going to try and have a sleepover?” I asked.

  “’Course we are!” Kenny said in a determined voice as we entered our room, where Alana Banana was still snoring loudly. “We’re not going to let Pilar and her gang get the better of us, are we?”

  “Nope, I guess not,” I replied. But I couldn’t help wondering what Mrs Weaver would do if she caught us out of our room again at night.

  “So Pilar did see you!” Rosie exclaimed, as we ate our breakfast the following morning.

  “Yep, we reckon she dropped us right in it,” Kenny said furiously, mashing her Weetabix to a pulp. “So the question is, what’re we gonna do about it?”

  “Oh, never mind them,” said Lyndz. “What are we going to do about our sleepover?”

  “Well, I think we ought to wait a few days and then try again,” Kenny said.

  Fliss turned pale. “What if we get caught though? Mrs Weaver’ll go completely ballistic.”

  “So?” Kenny shrugged. “What can she do? She can’t put us in detention!”

  “She could stop us going to the beach every day,” Rosie pointed out.

  “She could make us sit in our rooms and do schoolwork,” Lyndz chimed in.

  “She could send us home on the next plane,” I added.

  “Oh, and she could ban us from going on any other school trip ever,” Fliss finished off.

  “All right, all right,” Kenny muttered, wrinkling her bright pink nose. “We’ll just have to make sure we don’t get caught then, won’t we?”

  As we went out of the canteen, Maria, Pilar, Isabella, Anna and Elena were just coming in, and they all grinned nastily at us.

  “What a sad thing your teacher catch you last night!” Maria giggled, and then they all started talking in Spanish.

  “It really bugs me when they do that!” Kenny said crossly, as we stalked past them with our noses in the air. “I wish I could understand what they’re saying!”

  “Well, I did try to teach you some Spanish, but you weren’t interested!” I pointed out.

  Kenny sighed. “I want to know how to say ‘Shut up, you’re totally getting on my nerves’, not ‘Do you want a carrot?’”

  “What’re we doing today?” Fliss asked. “Are we going to the beach again?”

  “Yeah, but just for the morning,” Rosie said. “It’s free time, so we can do what we want.”

  “Excellent!” said Lyndz. “I reckon we should keep right away from those Spanish girls and from Mrs Weaver all day!”

  We all thought that was a good idea, so when we got to the beach, we bagged a couple of parasols as far away from everyone else as we could, and spread out our towels underneath them.

  “I’ve got to keep my nose out of the sun,” Kenny said, arranging herself so that the bottom half of her body was in the sun and her face was in the shade. “It’s so red, it’s glowing!”

  “Yeah, you won’t need to use your bedside lamp if you want to read at night!” I remarked, lying face down on my towel.

  “Yee-argh!” I leapt up again as Kenny slapped some ice-cold sun cream on my back, and the others giggled. Although what had happened the night before had been a bit of a downer, we’d all cheered up again.

  “I don’t believe it!” Fliss suddenly screeched.

  “What?” We all sat up.

  “That Isabella’s got the same swimsuit on as me again!” Fliss howled, looking outraged.

  The Spanish girls were with their teacher quite a way down the beach from us, but we could still see that Isabella was wearing the same costume as Fliss – a bright blue one-piece with pink flowers on it.

  “It’s not funny!” Fliss groaned as we tried not to laugh.

  “Maybe you’d better go and ask her if she has loads of clothes, and likes fluffy toys!” Kenny said with a grin.

  “And weddings!” Rosie added.

  “She’s nothing like me at all!” Fliss sniffed. She was starting to get wound up, so we dropped it.

  After we’d sunbathed for a bit, we went down to the sea, and splashed around. We met up with some German girls who were staying at the holiday complex too, and they were brilliant. We didn’t do any serious swimming because we felt too lazy, but we had a great time.

  “I don’t know why anyone goes on holiday in England when they could come here!” I sighed, floating on my back in the warm water. “If we were at home now, we’d be running in and out of the freezing sea, waiting for the rain to stop!”

  “Hey, stop knocking England!” Rosie said. “It’s not so bad.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got Walkers cheese and onion crisps!” Lyndz pointed out. “And Buckingham Palace!”

  “We’ve got the best pop groups,” Fliss joined in.

  “And don’t forget Leicester City FC!” Kenny added.

  “OK, OK! I get your point, but you’ve got to admit, Spain’s got better weather!” I dived under the water, and tried to grab Kenny’s legs.

  Kenny jumped out of my grasp. “Last one back to the parasols has to kiss Ryan Scott!” she yelled, and we all legged it out of the sea, and up the beach. Guess who was last.

  “Oh, bad luck, Fliss,” Kenny said sarcastically, as we waited for her to catch us up. “You lost.”

  Fliss turned pink, but then she frowned. “Hey, what’s happened to my bag?”

  All of Fliss’s stuff was scattered across her towel, and her pink-and-white-striped beach bag was lying on its side.

  “Hey, d’you think someone’s been nicking our money?” Kenny gasped, grabbing her own bag.

  Fliss, who was quickly going through her things, shook her head. “No, it’s all here, my purse and everything. My bag must’ve just fallen over—” Then she stopped. “Hang on a minute. My sleepover diary’s gone!”

  “Are you sure?” Rosie asked, as Fliss rooted frantically through her belongings again.

  “Certain sure!” Fliss said, tipping her bag upside-down and shaking it. “I know I put it in when I packed it this morning!”

  We all searched the area around our parasols, picking up our towels and looking underneath, and checking our own bags, but the diary was nowhere to be seen.

  Fliss was gradually turning as white as a ghost. “Where can it be?” she wailed. “I’ve got to get it back! It’s got all our sleepover secrets in it!”

  “Just a minute,” Kenny said slowly, “you don’t think they’ve nicked it, do you?”

  “Who?” I asked, not realising for a second whom Kenny meant.

  Kenny pointed down the beach at Maria and the others. “I reckon it’s just the kind of thing they’d do! And they’ve had plenty of time while we were in the sea.”

  “I know they’re pretty gross, but I don’t think they’d go through our bags,” Lyndz said doubtfully.

  “Well, they wouldn’t have to, would they?” Kenny pointed out triumphantly. “If Fliss’s bag had fallen over and her stuff was lying there, all they’d have to do is pick the diary up!”

  Fliss was now looking more green than white. “B – but there’s everything about the Sleepover Club in there!” she stammered. “And – well…”

  “What?” Kenny asked grimly. “Spit it out, Fliss.”

  “There’s stuff about Mrs Weaver,” Fliss muttered, “and Ryan Scott.”

  “If they’ve nicked that diary, we’ll be in heaps of trouble when they read it!” I said urgently. “We’ve got to find out if they’ve got it or not – and fast!”

  “It’s not here!” Fliss wailed, standing in the middle of the wrecked bedroom.
We’d tipped out the entire contents of hers and Rosie’s and Lyndz’s bags, and we’d emptied the wardrobe. We’d even stripped the beds. But we hadn’t found a sausage.

  “What am I going to do?” Fliss moaned. “I’m dead if anyone reads that diary!”

  “We’re all dead,” Kenny pointed out. “Everyone’s going to know about our sleepovers.”

  “My membership card’s tucked inside it too,” Fliss muttered dismally.

  “Oh, great, we might as well just invite everyone in the whole world to join the Sleepover Club!” Kenny said crossly. “We’re not going to have any secrets left!”

  “Cool it, Kenny!” I said as Fliss bit her lip, looking upset. “We still don’t know where the diary is. Fliss might have dropped it somewhere.”

  “Yeah, but that means anyone could get their hands on it!” Lyndz said gloomily. “What if one of the kids from our school finds it?”

  Fliss turned pale. “If Ryan Scott reads my diary, I’m going home on the next plane!”

  “And what about Alana Banana?” Rosie said. “She might find it and keep it to show the M&Ms!”

  We all looked at each other in silent horror. Things were going from bad to worse. We had to get that diary back or the Sleepover Club would be finished, and Fliss would die of embarrassment every time she saw Ryan Scott.

  The sound of giggling behind us made us turn round. Maria, Pilar and the others were standing in the corridor, laughing and pointing at us.

  Kenny clenched her fists. “Right!” she announced. “I’m going to ask them straight out if they’ve got Fliss’s diary, and if they have, I’m going to make them give it back!”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Kenny!” I hissed, grabbing her arm as she lunged forward. “If they haven’t got it, they might go looking for it!”

  Kenny stopped in mid-charge. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “What do you look for?” Pilar called, as the other girls sniggered. “Something important?”

  “Mind your own business!” Fliss snapped.

  The Spanish girls went off, still laughing, and we all looked at one another.

  “So d’you think they’ve got it or not?” Lyndz asked.

  “I dunno,” Kenny said with a frown, “but if they have, I bet they’re going to make us sweat a bit before they give it back.”

  “Well, until we find the diary, everything’s on hold,” I said. “We can’t have a sleepover in case they tell Mrs Weaver what we’re planning. She’ll go off her head if she catches us again.”

  We all looked gloomy.

  “Well, I’m not sitting round here doing nothing!” Kenny raced over to the door.

  “Where’re you going?” Rosie asked, alarmed.

  “To search their room!” And Kenny dashed off down the corridor.

  “Kenny! Wait!” I yelled, but she ignored me.

  “What’s she playing at?” Fliss gasped, as we ran after her. “She’ll be in big trouble if she gets caught!”

  “The biggest,” I said grimly, skidding to a halt outside the Spanish girls’ room, just as Kenny closed the door behind her.

  “What’re you doing?” Rosie hissed, sticking her foot in it. “Get out of there!”

  “I’m only going to have a quick look.” Kenny hurried across the room, and started looking in the bedside lockers. “It’s not like I’m going to nick anything.”

  “How come they’ve got a room for five people?” Fliss grumbled, looking round her. “If we had this room, we could have sleepovers every night!”

  Suddenly Lyndz froze. “Someone’s coming!” she hissed.

  “Quick, under the beds!” Kenny ordered us.

  We all flung ourselves down onto the carpet, and each rolled under one of the beds. Rosie rolled under the same one as me, so I had to shove her out of the way. She’d only just hidden herself under the next bed, when the door opened, and the Spanish girls came in.

  We all lay there as still as statues, hardly daring to breathe. The girls were walking round the room, chatting in Spanish, and all I could see of them was their shoes. They kept coming right up to the beds, and then walking away again. At one point Maria’s trainers were only about a millimetre from my nose.

  Then, all of a sudden, they went out again and closed the door. I gave a sigh of relief, and rolled out from under the bed. The others did the same.

  “Right, now we’re getting out of here!” I said, glaring at Kenny and daring her to disagree.

  “Oh, we might as well have a quick look now we’re here—” Kenny began. But we didn’t give her a chance to finish. We surrounded her, and frog-marched her out of the room.

  “So what happens now?” Rosie asked, when we were safely outside.

  “Not a lot,” I said. “We can’t do anything until we find that diary, so we’d better get looking.”

  We spent most of that afternoon searching for the diary around the holiday complex. The threat of those Spanish girls, or Mrs Weaver, or Alana Banana, or Ryan Scott getting hold of it was hanging over us all the time. It was a real downer because none of us could relax and enjoy ourselves until we knew where the diary was.

  We didn’t have a chance to look for it the following day, though, because our group, along with some of the German and Danish kids, went on a day trip to Barcelona. Pilar, Maria and the rest of their gruesome gang didn’t come, so we got away from them for a while.

  Barcelona was excellent. There were loads of interesting buildings, including a really weird-looking cathedral, a palace, big gardens and parks, a harbour, and streets and streets of interesting shops. We also saw a ginormous statue of Christopher Columbus, which had a lift inside so that you could ride right up to his head and look out over the whole city. We all wanted to go up it, until Mrs Weaver told us that about twenty years ago his head had fallen off! Then we weren’t so keen.

  We were taken to all the cultural places first, and then we were allowed to go shopping. That was the best bit! The shops were radical, and we all went mad and bought loads of stuff. Fliss and Rosie both got fans, and we all bought castanets, as well as presents for our families.

  “That was ace!” Rosie sighed as we climbed back onto the minibus at the end of the day. “I love my castanets!”

  As soon as we sat down, we all got our castanets out, and started clicking them and shouting “Olé!”, until Mrs Weaver gave us a look from the front of the minibus.

  “What’s in that bag, Kenny?” Fliss asked curiously, pointing to a paper bag sticking out of Kenny’s pocket.

  Kenny put her hand in the bag, and pulled out a box of stinkbombs. We all stared at it.

  “Where did you get those?” Lyndz asked.

  “I nipped into a joke shop while you were looking at the fans.” Kenny grinned. “I just thought they might come in handy.”

  “What for?” Fliss looked blank.

  “Oh, get a life, Fliss!” Kenny said impatiently. “For those Spanish girls, of course. I reckon we should stinkbomb them every night until they give the diary back!”

  We all started to laugh.

  “Kenny, you’re not serious!” I raised my eyebrows.

  “’Course I am!” Kenny retorted. “I’m going to sneak down to their room tonight, and chuck a stinkbomb through their door!”

  That wiped the smiles off our faces.

  “You must be mad!” Fliss gasped. “It’s miles too risky!”

  “What if Mrs Weaver’s on the prowl and catches you?” Rosie pointed out.

  “It’s not worth the hassle, Kenny,” Lyndz advised her.

  “Oh yes it is!” Kenny looked stubborn. “I’m well fed up with them taking the mickey out of us all the time, and I’m going to do something about it!”

  “But they might not even have the diary!” Fliss wailed.

  Kenny shrugged. “Who cares about the diary? I just wanna teach them a lesson!” She looked round at us. “So, are you coming with me? Or are you all a bunch of wimps?”

  “Frankie!” Kenny leant over an
d shook my shoulder. I woke up with a start. “Time to go.”

  “OK,” I said reluctantly, pushing back the duvet. We’d all tried to talk Kenny out of her crazy idea, but she wasn’t having any of it. And we couldn’t let her go on her own, could we? The Sleepover Club had to stick together, even though we would all be in deepest doom for the next million years if Mrs W caught us red-handed.

  We went quietly over to the door. I was kind of wishing that Alana Banana would wake up, and then we wouldn’t be able to go. But she was dead to the world, as usual, snoring like a foghorn.

  Kenny turned off the corridor light, just to be on the safe side, and we tiptoed down to the others’ room. It was pitch black without the lights on. We had our torches with us, but we didn’t want to use them unless we had to, so we felt our way along the wall until we got to the right door.

  “Here we are,” Kenny whispered, her hand on the door handle. She flicked the torch on just to check, then quickly turned it off again. “Oh, rats, that’s number eight – Mrs Weaver’s room!”

  “Oh, nice one, Kenny!” I groaned.

  We hurried on to number seven. The others sat up in bed as we went in.

  “All set?” Kenny asked breezily.

  “Hang on a sec.” Rosie leant over and picked something up off Fliss’s bedside locker. “Guess what we’ve found!”

  “Fliss’s diary!” Kenny gasped. “Where was it?”

  “Under my bed,” Fliss muttered, looking highly embarrassed. “It must’ve fallen out of my bag.”

  “Oh, great!” I said crossly. “All that worrying for nothing!”

  “So we don’t have to go and let off the stinkbomb now, do we?” Lyndz pointed out, and I’ve got to admit, I felt pretty relieved.

  “Are you kidding?” Kenny said fiercely. “They threw our clothes into that tree, remember? Anyway, I spent 300 pesetas on these stinkbombs, and I’m not going to waste them! Now, come on!”

  Fliss, Rosie and Lyndz climbed out of bed reluctantly. They looked as nervous as I was feeling, but none of us was going to let Kenny down.

  Kenny opened the door, and Fliss gave a little squeal.

  “What’s the matter?” Kenny hissed, alarmed.