Mega Sleepover 2

by Rose Impey

  But the good news was they didn’t actually say she couldn’t do it! They said if anyone answered the advert and, if it was someone they knew, they’d think about it.

  That was when Molly the Bomb exploded. “Is that it!” she yelled. “Is she going to get away with this? Are you going to let her off as easy as that? I don’t believe this!”

  “It’s nothing to do with you,” said Kenny. “Mind your own business.”

  “This is my business. If you go showing me up at school, it’s my business.”

  “Oh, go and boil your head,” said Kenny.

  But after that Molly was even more horrible to her and did everything she could to get Kenny into trouble and instead of just having a chalk line down the middle of the dressing table, she used a piece of rope to divide the room up and said Kenny couldn’t even step in her half of the room which is stupid because Molly’s got the door in her half.

  “I’m sick of you,” Kenny told her.

  “So what are you going to do about it?” said Molly, lounging on her bed.

  “I’m going to fix you. You just wait.”

  “Oh, yeah. You and whose army?”

  “Me and my Sleepover Club army,” thought Kenny. But she didn’t say anything. She thought she’d keep that as a surprise.

  “I hate my sister,” she told us the next morning on the way to school. “I’m going to sue her. Frankie, will you ask your mum and dad how I do it?”

  “I don’t think you can sue your sister just for being gruesome,” I told her.

  “Well, you ought to be able to. She’s going to be a criminal when she grows up and I’m sick of her practising on me.”

  “So what are you going to do?” said Rosie.

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  “Have you asked your mum and dad about the sleepover?” said Fliss.

  Kenny sighed again. “They said it’s too close to Christmas, but I’m not giving up.”

  Have you noticed how unfair it is around Christmas? I don’t know about your parents, but mine are always going out to parties with their friends, eating vol-au-vents and sausage rolls and having a great time, but the minute I ask to have a party, or have my friends round, they go on about how busy they are. And Kenny’s parents are just the same.

  There was only one weekend left before Christmas. We couldn’t bear to wait until after the holidays. Kenny begged her mum and dad on bended knees, pretty please, the whole works. No luck. So then she promised them all sorts of things, if they’d let her: she’d tidy her bedroom, stop biting her nails, even eat cabbage. When that didn’t work either, she threatened to run away. The trouble is Kenny’s done that loads of times. When she was little, every time she fell out with Molly, she used to write a note for her mum to say she was running away, then she’d just sneak upstairs and hide under her bed. So now her mum knows exactly where to find her.

  In the end Kenny was so desperate she did a really big thing. She told us it was the ultimate sacrifice and she was prepared to make it, for the Sleepover Club. That’s the kind of person Kenny is. That’s why she’s my all-time best friend.

  She agreed to wear a dress on Christmas Day. Oh, you may think that’s nothing, because I bet you wear dresses or skirts all the time, but it was really big for Kenny. Kenny lives and dies in her Leicester City football strip. Her mum tries everything to get her out of it, for at least one day a year. So she was really pleased. In fact, you’d have thought Kenny had given her a present.

  Kenny had to promise in front of the whole family and sign a piece of paper. But she did it. The sleepover was settled for Saturday night. And Molly was furious!

  “You mean to say I’ve got to give up my bed for those little gonks. It’s not fair. I never have friends round to stay.”

  “That’s because you haven’t got any friends,” said Kenny.

  “I have too. Anyway, how come she gets everything she wants? She’s so spoiled. I won’t do it. I won’t! You can’t make me.”

  But they did. Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee! One-nil to Kenny!

  Kenny couldn’t wait for school the next morning. She came rushing to find us with the good news. She was late because she’d been to the dentist with her mum. The rest of us were already in the hall, rehearsing for the Christmas Concert. Well, actually we were waiting for Mrs Weaver to get round to our part, so we were at the back of the hall, supposed to be practising our lines.

  “OK,” she said. “The sleepover’s on Saturday night. So it’s PBT for Monster-face.”

  “PBT?” said Fliss.

  “Pay back time for Molly,” I said. Sometimes she’s so slow.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Fliss.

  “Let’s start planning it,” said Rosie.

  “Someone slip back to the classroom and get a notebook,” said Fliss.

  I said, “What did your last servant die of?”

  “I’ll go,” said Lyndz. Lyndz likes to keep the peace.

  It didn’t matter about practising because we all knew our lines back to front and standing on our heads. No, I mean it. We’d been practising handstands at the back of the hall and reciting our lines at the same time, because it was boring, just waiting around. Mrs Weaver didn’t seem to mind as long as we kept quiet. She’d been rehearsing Alana Palmer and Regina Hill for over half an hour.

  Alana Palmer couldn’t remember any of her lines and Regina Hill kept changing hers. Regina Hill’s this weird new girl who’s just started in our class. She’s even taller than me. And she’s so stuck up. She’s nearly as bad as the M&Ms, our worst enemies. She even argues with the teacher. She was just making her lines up as she went along and they were different every time, so Alana never knew when to come in.

  Between them they were driving Mrs Weaver mad, but at least it gave us time to plan our sleepover. Lyndz handed the notebook to me. I always have to do the writing.

  “We could make Molly an apple pie bed,” said Rosie. “After we’ve used the bed for the sleepover, of course. Before we go home.”

  “Won’t that make a terrible mess?” said Fliss. “My mum’d have a fit.”

  “You don’t use apple pies, dumbo,” I said.

  “We just make the bed so Molly can’t get into it,” said Kenny.

  “What for?” said Fliss.

  “To annoy her, of course.”

  Fliss rolled her eyes; she still couldn’t see the point.

  “Well, you come up with something better, then,” I said.

  “We could make some fairy cakes with plastic flies in them,” said Lyndz suddenly.

  “Yeah, great,” said Rosie. “But where will we get the flies?”

  “Joke shop,” said Lyndz. “I’ve seen them.”

  “We could use real flies,” said Kenny. “And spiders…”

  “And slugs,” I said. “And worms…”

  “And woodlice…”

  “Oh, gross,” said Rosie.

  “Great,” said Kenny.

  “I don’t know,” said Fliss. “Flies carry germs. I would have thought you’d have known that, Kenny.”

  “I do know it. I still think it’s a good idea.”

  “Better stick to plastic,” said Rosie.

  “What about the spot mixture?” said Lyndz. “That really got her going.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve done that. We need something new. Something seriously nasty.”

  The trouble is we knew the really nasty things we’d like to have done would get us into big trouble. Like the time we drew five moustaches on Molly’s poster of the Spice Girls. They looked so funny, we nearly died laughing, but she didn’t; she went into orbit. We got a real telling off and we had to club together to buy her a new poster.

  We needed to think of things where we wouldn’t leave any evidence behind us. Things where it would be her word against ours. Even better, things where she wouldn’t even know for sure it was us. Hmmm. It needed some thinking about. And we’d only got two days before the sleepover.

  We didn’t have another chance to wo
rk on our list that day because, when we went back to the classroom, Mrs Weaver worked us twice as hard as usual to make up for all the time we’d spent not doing our work when we were in the hall. As if the Christmas Concert was our idea!

  At lunchtime, when we might have had time, we got into this argument about when we should give each other our Christmas presents. I hadn’t bought mine yet. I was still hoping to earn some more money. I knew I couldn’t do any car washing in our road; my mum and dad had put their foot down about that. But if Kenny’s mum and dad let her do some in their close I could help. She hadn’t heard a thing from any of the neighbours yet, which I thought was a bit strange, but we were still hopeful. So I wanted us to swop presents on the last day of term which would give us nearly a week more.

  “But it’s our last sleepover before Christmas,” said Fliss, whingeing again.

  “Well? It doesn’t have to be then,” I said.

  “But why not?”

  “I haven’t bought all your presents yet.” The real truth was, I hadn’t bought any.

  “You can get them on Saturday, before you come.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do,” said Rosie.

  Kenny and I didn’t want to admit we hadn’t even got the money to get them then.

  “I might not have time, anyway,” said Kenny. “I shall be busy getting ready.” The others all looked at her. “Tidying up and things.”

  Even I had to laugh. Kenny doesn’t know the meaning of tidying up.

  “It would be more special,” said Rosie, “to swap presents at the sleepover.”

  “Let’s vote on it,” said Fliss, bossing again.

  Three against two. We were outvoted. So that was how it was left. We just crossed our fingers, hoping that someone in Kenny’s close would book a carwash before Saturday.

  Kenny did everything she could. All week she’d been smiling and waving to the neighbours, trying to be nice and polite. One or two of them had given her these funny embarrassed smiles and sort of shaken their heads. It was Saturday morning before she found out why. She met Bert’s wife coming out of her gate next door.

  “You tell your mum and dad they didn’t need to send Molly round to apologise, my duck. We thought it was a clever idea of yours, trying to raise some money. We weren’t in the least bit offended. It’s a shame they won’t let you do it.”

  Kenny couldn’t believe her ears. No wonder no one in the close had rung her up. Molly had been round to every house and collected up the notices and told the neighbours that Kenny wasn’t allowed to wash their cars and that their mum and dad had sent her round to apologise about Kenny being such a nuisance! And, then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the horrible toad had torn our notices up into hundreds of pieces and flushed them down the toilet. When we found out we’d have liked to flush her down the toilet.

  Kenny rang to tell me all about it. “Frankie, don’t speak. Don’t say a word. You’re never going to believe this. My sister is unbelievable!”

  Afterwards we were both fizzing mad. Now she’d gone too far.

  “This means war,” said Kenny. “I’ll see you later, Frankie.”

  “Yeah. See you,” I said. Which I knew sounded pretty feeble but I couldn’t think what else to say. I was still in shock. And when I put down the phone I realised I was still too broke to buy any presents and now my last chance had gone and I’d have to go to the sleepover without any.

  Kenny had told us to arrive for the sleepover at about four o’clock. She’d persuaded her mum to let us come early because we wanted to get started on the cooking. You know…the plastic fly cakes! Kenny’s mum’s really good like that, she often lets us do some cooking. Usually she stays and does it with us, but this time we needed to be on our own.

  Kenny had persuaded her we could make fairy cakes with our eyes closed; we’d made them loads of times at school. So she’d put all the ingredients out on the worktop for us and said we could call out if we needed her. We dumped our bags in Kenny’s room and raced down to the kitchen and put aprons on.

  The house was full, because everyone was in, even Kenny’s dad was at home for once. He was sitting in the lounge watching the football. Emma had a friend round and they were up in the bathroom, dyeing Emma’s hair. Kenny’s mum was wrapping Christmas presents on the dining-room table and Molly was helping her. So we had the kitchen to ourselves, at least for the moment.

  Kenny closed the kitchen door and said, “OK. Let’s do this really quickly before anyone comes in. Frankie, you put the paper cases in the tin. Fliss, you whisk these eggs. Lyndz, turn the oven on. Rosie, weigh out the currants.”

  Rosie started to grin. “The plastic flies, you mean.”

  We all bit our lips to stop us from giggling. We didn’t want Lyndz to start hiccuping because we knew there’d be no stopping her and we needed to get on.

  Kenny put all the ingredients in the bowl and beat the mixture so hard it flew up in the air. When her arm started to ache she passed it round and we all had a go. It wasn’t a Christmas cake, but we all had a wish anyway. We didn’t tell each other what we’d wished for, but we could tell by the soppy grin on Fliss’s face what her wish was about. She wants to marry Ryan Scott, who is a really stoopid boy in our class. I despair of her sometimes.

  Then we all crowded round while Rosie poured the currants in.

  “Who’s got the you-know-whats?” whispered Kenny.

  Lyndz took a plastic bag out of her tracksuit pocket. She emptied it out on the worktop. Two plastic spiders fell out.

  “They’re not flies,” hissed Kenny.

  “They’d sold out of flies,” said Lyndz. “That’s all they’d got.”

  “They’re miles too big,” yelled Kenny.

  “Shhh,” I said, terrified her mum would come in. “We’ll cut the legs off. Where does your mum keep her scissors?”

  Kenny was still giving Lyndz a hard stare, so I went to a drawer and found a pair of scissors. They were pretty big but they would hardly cut butter. I could probably have chewed the legs off quicker. Kenny plopped a dollop of mixture in each of the paper cases and then I pushed the two plastic spiders into the mixture.

  “This is never going to work,” said Kenny. “They’ll probably climb to the top when they’re cooking and give the game away.”

  “They’re not climbing anywhere,” I said, “with no legs!” But, just in case, I gave the cakes another poke with my finger. Then I scraped round the bowl to get a bit more mixture and heaped the two cake cases higher. Kenny was just about to put the tray in the oven when Rosie said, “Shouldn’t we mark them, then we’ll know which ones the spiders are in?”

  “Good thinking, Batman,” I said. “What shall we use?”

  “We could put a cherry on those two,” said Fliss. “If your mum’s got any.”

  “That’s no good,” said Kenny. “Molly hates cherries. She’d never eat them.”

  “That’s even better,” I said. “We’ll put cherries on all the others.”

  “Mega-brain strikes again,” said Kenny, darting into the pantry and coming back with a tub of cherries. She stuck one on each of them, apart from the special ones. Thank goodness we’d put them in the oven and disposed of the leftover legs, and started to clear up, before Kenny’s dad put his face round the door.

  “Mmmm, something smells good. Any chance of a cuppa?” he said.

  “Okay,” said Kenny. “We’ll do it in a minute.”

  “No hurry. In fact, I’m happy to wait till the cakes are ready.”

  When they came out of the oven they looked and smelt scrummy. The good news was the spiders hadn’t climbed to the top. The bad news was Kenny hadn’t pressed the cherries down hard enough and two or three had fallen off. So then we had a bit of an argument about which ones they’d fallen off and whether we could still be sure which were the special ones. Luckily, thanks to my idea of putting an extra spoonful of mixture on top, the special cakes were noticeably bigger.

  Kenny made a cup of tea
for her mum and dad, while I arranged the cakes on a plate. We put Molly’s on a small Peter Rabbit plate, and Lyndz poured a glass of orange juice, specially for her, with some salt and pepper in it!

  By the time we took them through, Kenny’s mum had finished wrapping presents and Molly was sitting on the sofa watching the end of the match with her dad. Kenny gave them their drinks. We all crowded into the lounge and I offered the cake plate to her mum. And then disaster struck.

  Before I could offer her dad one, he helped himself to one off Molly’s plate.

  “You can’t eat that,” said Kenny, as if it was about to bite him. “It’s Molly’s,” she added quickly. “She doesn’t like cherries. We made two without, specially for her. “

  “That’s OK,” Molly said, handing him the plate. “You can have them both. I wouldn’t touch them anyway, knowing who made them.” And she gave Kenny a horrible look.

  “Never mind, peanut,” said her dad, winking at Kenny. “All the more for me.” And he took the plate and bit into one.

  “What the…” but he never finished his sentence because he must have bitten hard into one of the spiders and cracked a filling. He nearly went ballistic.

  Uh-oh. We really thought we were in for it. We all went so red that we looked like a bad case of sunburn, especially Fliss. But no one noticed. They were all more concerned with Kenny’s dad and what he could do about his tooth.

  “This is so typical. Why do these things have to happen on a Saturday afternoon? And so close to Christmas. When am I going to get it fixed in the next few days?”

  “I don’t understand how you can crack a filling on a fairy cake,” said her mum.

  Fortunately, just then Emma and her friend Hayley raced down to see what had happened and Emma dripped hair dye on the carpet so there was even more fuss about that. And then the football match finished in a draw. Big tragedy! Apparently it was a match Leicester needed to win and Kenny’s dad said that was the final straw. He sank back on the sofa, clutching his head. Even Kenny started behaving as if there’d been a national disaster.