sleepoverclub.com

by Narinder Dhami

  To whom it may concern,

  I have a computer disk which belongs to Tom Collins, and I think you might just want it back as soon as possible.

  It will cost you a ransom of five pounds.

  Katie Shaw

  Our eyes nearly fell out of our heads. We just couldn’t believe what we were reading.

  “It’s a wind-up, right?” I stammered. “I mean, how could this Katie Shaw, whoever she is, have Tom’s disk?”

  “She can’t,” Rosie said. “We all know where the disk is.”

  “Safely tucked away in Kenny’s pocket,” Frankie chimed in.

  “Go on, Kenny,” Fliss urged. “Get the disk and show us!”

  Kenny almost fell over her feet in her eagerness to grab her coat, which she’d slung on to Frankie’s bed. Looking confident, she put her hand in her pocket. Then her face dropped. She put her hand in the other pocket, and her face dropped even further.

  “Kenny!” I gasped, feeling my heart sink right down to my toes. “Where is it?”

  “I dunno.” Looking increasingly frantic, Kenny searched through the pockets of her sweatpants. “I’m sure I had it when we left my house. Well, pretty sure…”

  I was so upset, I felt like crying. “Where can it be?” I muttered.

  Fliss put her arm round me. “Don’t worry, Lyndz, we’ll find it somehow,” she said comfortingly.

  “Yeah, sorry, Lyndz,” Kenny mumbled. She looked almost as upset as I was.

  “So do you think this Katie Shaw really has got the disk then?” Frankie asked. She was still staring at the email. “She knows it’s Tom’s. Maybe she’s read the label on it.”

  We all looked at each other.

  “I suppose she might have,” Rosie said at last.

  “Or she might be trying to get five quid out of us for nothing,” Kenny said, glaring at the screen. “This is blackmail!”

  “But how does Katie Shaw, whoever she is, know that we’ve lost the disk, if she hasn’t got it?” Frankie asked.

  “Yeah, she must have it,” I agreed.

  “Maybe we should ask for some proof,” Fliss suggested.

  “That’s a brilliant idea, Flissy.” Kenny slapped her on the back. “Quick, Frankie, write back and say we don’t believe she’s got the disk. She’s got to prove it to us.”

  Frankie quickly typed an answer.

  We don’t believe you’ve got the disk. You’ll have to give us some proof.

  Then she hit the Send button.

  “OK, well, we’re just going to have to wait for Katie Shaw to reply,” Kenny said grimly, folding her arms. I didn’t fancy Katie’s chances much if she had got the disk – Kenny looked like she was ready to eat someone for breakfast!

  “I can’t sit around waiting for a reply,” I wailed. “I’ll have no fingernails left!”

  “Maybe we should go and look for the disk,” Rosie suggested. “We could walk back the same route we came this morning.”

  “Yeah, good idea,” Frankie agreed, switching the computer off.

  I don’t really think any of us thought we’d find the disk, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing. So we all dashed down the stairs again, and out of the house. Frankie’s dad was just hosing down the car. He looked really surprised to see us.

  “Just going down the shop, Dad,” Frankie said quickly, “We’re out of – er – Coca-Cola.”

  “Oh really.” Frankie’s dad eyeballed us suspiciously. “What happened to those three big bottles we bought at the supermarket this morning?”

  “Is it the brown sort?” Kenny wanted to know.

  Frankie’s dad blinked. “Of course it is. What other sort is there?”

  “I can’t drink that,” Kenny said innocently. “I’m allergic to it. I have to have that new Coca-Cola. It’s – er – green.”

  “Green?” Mr Thomas’s eyebrows nearly shot off the top of his head.

  “Won’t be long, Dad,” Frankie called, as we raced off down the road.

  “Green Coca-Cola?” Fliss giggled. “Couldn’t you think of a better excuse than that, Kenny?”

  “Well, I didn’t see the rest of you helping Frankie out!” Kenny grumbled. “It was the best I could think of.”

  “Never mind that,” I said urgently. “Just keep your eyes peeled and see if you can spot that disk!”

  We walked slowly back to Kenny’s house the way we’d come that morning. The last time Kenny had shown me the disk was just after we’d left the Proudloves, so we went all the way back to Fliss’s. But we didn’t find anything. The disk had well and truly vanished.

  “We’d better go back to Frankie’s and see if Katie Shaw’s replied yet,” Fliss said at last.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Frankie yelled, stopping dead in the middle of the pavement. “Francesca Thomas saves the day yet again!”

  We all stared.

  “Look, Tom doesn’t need the disk,” Frankie gabbled excitedly. “He’s got the poster stored on his hard drive!”

  Fliss looked blank. “His what?”

  “The computer’s memory,” Frankie explained. “The disk Tom made was only a copy, so he can just take another copy off the hard drive. Simple!”

  “Great!” Kenny looked mightily relieved, and everyone started cheering and doing high fives. Except me.

  “Sorry, Frankie,” I sighed. “Tom said a few days ago that as soon as he’d made a copy, he was going to delete it because the poster took up too much space on the hard drive. He probably did it last night.”

  Everyone’s faces dropped again. Gloomily we trudged back to Frankie’s in silence. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to get that disk back – but I didn’t have five pounds to pay Katie Shaw. I didn’t even have five pence. I just hoped she didn’t really have it. But if she didn’t, then where could it be?

  Mr Thomas was vacuuming the inside of the car when we got back. He looked at us suspiciously.

  “Where is it then?” he asked.

  “What?” we chorused.

  Mr Thomas stared hard at us. “The green Coca-Cola.”

  “I drank it,” Kenny chirped up. Then she did this totally realistic burp. “Oh, excuse me!”

  Frankie’s dad watched us hurry into the house. “I hope you girls aren’t up to something us parents aren’t going to like,” he called after us.

  “Honestly, Dad!” Frankie called back, “Would we do such a thing?”

  “Yes,” said Mr Thomas.

  Frankie shut the door quickly behind us, and we all ran upstairs. “Why do our parents never trust us?” she grumbled, switching the computer on. “It really gets on my nerves!”

  “Quick, Frankie, hurry up and see if there’s a message,” I urged her. “Hic! Oh no, I’ve – hic – got hiccups!”

  “You’ve been drinking too much green Coca-Cola!” Kenny grinned, slapping me on the back.

  “Hic!” I tried to hold my breath. The others call me the Hiccup Queen, ‘cos I get them so often. “Are there any – hic – new messages, Frankie?”

  “Yeah, there’s one from Katie Shaw!” Frankie replied, clicking quickly on the mouse.

  The email popped open, and we all gathered round to read it.

  I’ve looked at the disk, and it’s got a poster on it for a band called Aztec. The poster’s decorated in purples, greens and golds, with all this fancy writing. NOW do you believe I’ve got it??????

  We stared at each other in silence.

  “She HAS got it!” I gasped. At least the shock had cured my hiccups! “What are we going to do now?”

  “I’ll show you!” Kenny replied furiously. “Move over, Frankie.”

  Kenny plonked herself down in front of the computer and began to type furiously.

  OK, game over, Katie Shaw, whoever you are. That disk isn’t yours, so you’re handling stolen goods! You’d better give it back right away or your life won’t be worth living…

  The Sleepover Club

  “Kenny, maybe that’s not the best thing to say�
��” Fliss began, but it was too late. Kenny had already hit the button, and sent it.

  “That’ll show her!” Kenny said with satisfaction. “You wait, we’ll get a grovelling email, offering to give us the disk back straight away.”

  “Look!” Rosie pointed at the screen. “She’s replied already!”

  Sure enough, a new email from Katie Shaw had popped straight into our inbox. Kenny could hardly click the mouse fast enough to open it up.

  The price has now gone up to six pounds. And it’s going up by a pound a day, every day.

  “WHAT!” Kenny shrieked, bouncing up and down angrily in her chair. “I don’t believe it!”

  “She’s got a nerve!” Frankie exclaimed furiously.

  “As well as our disk!” Rosie added gloomily.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked. “We don’t even know who she is.”

  Fliss cleared her throat. “Maybe we do,” she said.

  We were all moaning so much, it took a few seconds for what Fliss had said to sink in. Then we all pounced on her.

  “Fliss! Do you know who it is?” Kenny demanded.

  “I’m not certain sure,” Fliss said slowly. “But I’ve got an idea…”

  “Who?” Frankie and Rosie asked together.

  “Well, I’m not really sure—” Fliss began again.

  “FLISS!” we all yelled, “Just tell us!”

  “OK, there’s no need to shout.” Fliss looked offended. “I just wondered if it could be Catherine Shaw, you know, that girl at school.”

  “Catherine Shaw!” we all chorused together. We knew exactly who Fliss meant.

  “How would she know our email address?” I asked.

  “Everyone at school knows about our website, remember?” Fliss reminded me. “We did that assembly about it at school when we won the competition. It’d be easy for Catherine to look it up.”

  “But do people call her Katie?” Rosie asked.

  “No, most people call her ‘that big bully’!” Kenny replied. “You know what she’s like…”

  We all looked nervous. Catherine Shaw wasn’t just a bit of a bully, she was a pain in the neck as well. If she had our disk, even Kenny’d think twice about going after her…

  “There she is.” Kenny nudged me, and nodded across the playground.

  It was Monday morning, just before the bell rang, and we were trailing Catherine Shaw like detectives in a cop show. We’d already followed her to the shop on the corner, and seen her scoff two Twixes and a bag of Doritos. Now she was wandering round the playground, nicking sweets off some of the younger kids.

  “I’d forgotten how big she is,” Fliss muttered. She was actually shivering! “I hope it isn’t her who’s got it.”

  “Well, it was your idea, Flissy, and it’s the best one we’ve got so far,” Kenny retorted. “Now we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do.”

  “Well, we could ask her straight out if she’s got the disk,” Rosie suggested.

  “Any volunteers?” Frankie looked round at the rest of us. All our hands stayed firmly down, even Kenny’s.

  “Maybe we could try and get a look in her bag,” Kenny said, staring longingly at Catherine’s black rucksack.

  “Come on,” Frankie hissed, “she’s on the move again!”

  We all crept round the side of the school, keeping our eyes glued to Catherine. She hadn’t noticed us following her, so far…

  “What do you lot think you’re doing?” asked a gruff voice behind us. We all nearly jumped out of our skins. Guess who it was? The Terrible Twins, of course. Emily Berryman and Emma Hughes – our total worst enemies.

  “Take a hike, Berryman,” Kenny growled, deliberately copying Emily’s gruff voice. “This is none of your business!”

  “You’re up to something,” the Goblin went on suspiciously. “They’re up to something, aren’t they, Emma?”

  Emma Hughes, or the Queen as we call her, looked down her snooty nose at us.

  “Definitely,” she agreed. “Why are you spying on Catherine Shaw?”

  “We’re not,” said Frankie, Fliss, Kenny and I together, at exactly the same moment Rosie said, “So what if we are?” Which kind of gave the game away, a bit.

  “You ARE spying on Catherine Shaw!” the Queen said triumphantly. “Maybe we should go and tell her, Emma.”

  We glanced at each other in dismay. The M&Ms could ruin everything.

  “Go on then,” Kenny said breezily. “And if she doesn’t believe you, she’ll probably smack you one in the chops!”

  Emma and Emily’s faces both fell. They knew as well as we did that Catherine Shaw was the kind of person who thumped first and asked questions later. And the Queen and the Goblin are both mega-weedy types – even Fliss isn’t scared of them!

  “Come on, Emily.” The Queen linked arms with the Goblin, and they both stuck their noses in the air. “We’ll find out what they’re up to – and then we’ll drop them right in it with Catherine Shaw!”

  We glared at the M&Ms as they sauntered off.

  “You don’t think they could have the disk, do you?” Frankie asked in a low voice. “It’s just the sort of trick they’d love to pull over us.”

  Kenny frowned. “Nah, I don’t think so. They would’ve been all smug and I-know-something-you-don ‘t-know.”

  “Anyway, how could the Queen and the Goblin be sending us emails from a Katie Shaw?” Rosie wanted to know.

  “They could be using someone else’s email address,” Frankie suggested.

  That gobsmacked us a bit. We hadn’t thought of that.

  “Maybe we’d better keep an eye on them, as well as Catherine Shaw,” I said. “OUCH!”

  Ryan Scott had just come dashing round the corner, and banged right into me, sending me flying.

  “Ryan, you complete idiot!” Frankie said crossly, pulling me to my feet. “Why don’t you look where you’re going?”

  “EEK!” Fliss shrieked, as Ryan’s dozy mate, Danny McCloud, came racing after him and bumped right into her.

  We all glared at them.

  “What’re you girls doing lurking around here anyway?” Ryan demanded. “You’re up to something! They’re up to something, aren’t they, Danny?”

  “Yeah.” Danny nodded. “We saw you following Catherine Shaw to the sweet shop.”

  “Oh, shove off and leave us alone,” Kenny snapped.

  “Fliss’ll tell us, won’t you, Fliss?” Ryan grinned at her, and Fliss turned pink.

  “Um – er – well,” she stuttered, before Kenny clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Push off, Ryan,” Frankie ordered him. “And take your dopey friend with you.”

  “Who’s that?” Danny asked dozily.

  We all started giggling, as Ryan and Danny went off.

  “Hey, you don’t think it could be Ryan and Danny sending us those emails, do you?” Rosie asked. “You know how they like playing tricks on people.”

  “Yeah, you could be right,” Frankie agreed. “Like I said before, whoever it is could be using someone else’s email address.”

  “Maybe we’d better keep an eye on Ryan and Danny as well as the M&Ms, and Catherine Shaw,” I suggested.

  “Talking of Catherine Shaw…” Kenny nodded across the playground. “Look!”

  Catherine had decided to muscle in on a gang of boys playing football. She was bossing them around, and pushing them over every time they tried to tackle her and get the ball. The boys were too weedy to stop her, so they just let her go on and score a goal.

  “She’s chucked her rucksack down on that bench,” Kenny said. She had this glint in her eye which always meant she was about to do something completely barmy.

  “Kenny!” Fliss squeaked. “You’re not going to look in Catherine’s bag, are you?”

  “She might not be carrying the disk around with her,” Rosie pointed out.

  “Well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  Kenny started to sidle across the playground, keeping an eye
on Catherine as she did so. The rest of us followed, even though Fliss could hardly walk because her knees were knocking together so much.

  “Cover me!” Kenny whispered out of the side of her mouth, as if she was a New York cop or something. So the rest of us gathered round the bench, and tried to look casual. We did our best to hide Kenny, as she started rooting in the side pockets of Catherine’s rucksack.

  “Oi! What are you lot doing!”

  We all nearly died as Catherine Shaw came charging across the playground towards us. She had this look on her face that scared me to death, never mind Fliss!

  “What are you doing with my rucksack?” Catherine demanded, folding her arms and advancing menacingly towards us.

  “Nothing,” Kenny said quickly. I think she was the only one of us who could still speak.

  “I feel sick,” Fliss moaned.

  Catherine shot an uneasy glance at Fliss, then eyeballed Kenny.

  “What were you doing with my rucksack, McKenzie?”

  “I was just moving it aside so that Fliss could sit down,” Kenny replied. “She’s not feeling well.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick!” Fliss groaned. “Quick, give me that!” And she grabbed Catherine’s rucksack, and bent her head over it.

  “Don’t you dare!” Catherine howled furiously. She pulled the rucksack away from Fliss and stormed off, shooting us a poisonous glare as she did so.

  “Well done, Fliss.” Frankie slapped her on the back. “That was brilliant.”

  Fliss smiled weakly. “I really did feel sick when I thought Catherine Shaw was going to have a go at us!”

  “Did you see the disk when you had your head over the bag?” asked Kenny hopefully.

  Fliss shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “So we’re still no nearer to finding out if she’s got the disk,” Rosie said. “What are we going to do now?”

  It was a good question, but nobody seemed to have any answers.

  “Tom’ll have found out that the disk is missing by now,” I said worriedly, as we walked home at the end of the day. Everyone was coming round to my place to check if Katie Shaw had sent us any more emails, and to do some more work on the Aztec website (although none of us felt like it, much). “I bet he’s going crazy looking for it. I feel—”