Mega Sleepover 7

by Narinder Dhami

  We hadn’t heard anything from the Spanish girls for nearly two weeks now.

  “Maybe they were too busy getting ready for the trip,” I suggested. “Hey, here’s the coach!”

  Everyone in the classroom jumped out of their seats and rushed over to the windows, except the M&Ms. Typical. Meanwhile, Mrs Weaver had grabbed her clipboard and hurried outside.

  “There’s Maria!” I yelled, as the Spanish kids began to file off the coach, looking a bit tired and crumpled. Maria was at the front, wearing her Real Madrid football shirt as usual. I banged on the glass and waved. “MARIA!”

  Maria glanced over, but she didn’t wave back.

  “I guess she just didn’t see me,” I said, disappointed.

  “There’s Pilar!” Frankie began to bang on the glass too, but Pilar wasn’t taking any notice either. Neither were Isabella, Elena and Anna, who got off behind her.

  “Maybe they don’t like you any more!” remarked Emma Hughes with a spiteful grin, but we ignored her.

  We watched Mrs Weaver leading the Spanish kids and their two teachers into school, and then they came into our classroom.

  “Hey, Maria!” I shouted, trying to attract her attention, but I had to shut up when Mrs W. gave me one of her mega-gruesome glares.

  “Sit down, everyone, please!” she called. “Quietly!”

  Although we couldn’t say anything, we kept on grinning and giving Pilar, Maria and the others thumbs-up signs. But it was really strange because they weren’t doing anything back. In fact, they were acting as if they didn’t even know who we were. They were staring straight through us.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered to Frankie. “Why’re they being so funny?”

  Frankie shrugged. “Maybe they’re just tired after the flight,” she suggested.

  “What, too tired to smile at us?” I said.

  I stared hard at Maria until I caught her eye. You know what she did? She just stared right back at me. She didn’t smile. She didn’t wink. She didn’t do anything. It was really strange.

  There was definitely something very weird going on. And I was determined to find out exactly what it was…

  “And this is where you’ll be sleeping!” I threw open the door of my bedroom, and grinned at Maria. “My sister Molly the Monster’s gone to camp with her school, so you’ll be sharing with me. Cool, huh?”

  Maria didn’t say anything. Which wasn’t surprising really because she’d hardly said a word to me at all. We hadn’t had much time to chat at school because the home bell had rung about fifteen minutes after the coach had arrived, and then my mum turned up in the car to drive us home. I could see the other Sleepovers looking just as puzzled as I was, as they went off with their mum or dad and the Spanish girl who was staying with them. It was weird.

  I’d been mega-nice to Maria in the car when my mum took us home, but she’d hardly said a word to me. I’d told her all about the special sleepover at Rosie’s and even that hadn’t made any difference. She was fine when my mum spoke to her though! And that had really got right up my nose. I was getting seriously annoyed.

  “Come on,” I said, still trying to be nice. “Let’s go and kick a ball around in the garden or something.”

  “No, thanks.” Maria shrugged. “I want to unpack my suitcase.”

  “OK,” I said. “Do you want some help?”

  “Not from you!” Maria retorted rudely, and I almost choked with fury.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I not want you to help me!” Maria glared at me, and that just about did it. I was boiling.

  “You’re really starting to get on my nerves!” I hissed, clenching my fists. “What’s going on?”

  “Why you ask me what is going on?” Maria snapped. We were standing nose-to-nose now like a couple of heavyweight boxers. “You start it!”

  “Start what?” I asked, bewildered. I totally didn’t have a clue what she was going on about.

  Maria looked like she was about to say something, but then she just stuck her tongue out at me. If Molly the Monster had done that to me I’d have grabbed my pillow and whacked her round the head with it, but somehow I managed to stop myself. Instead I stomped out of the room, leaving Maria unpacking her suitcase.

  I just couldn’t understand what was going on. Up until a week or two ago we’d all been great mates. So what had gone wrong?

  When I got downstairs, I picked up the phone and called Frankie.

  “Hey, Franks, how’s it’s going?”

  “Gruesome!” Frankie groaned. “Pilar’s being a right pain!”

  “So’s Maria,” I agreed. “Did Pilar tell you why they’re acting like total morons?”

  “Nah, she won’t even talk to me!” Frankie said in disgust. “I just phoned Lyndz and she said Elena’s being just as weird!”

  “Right, I’ll phone Fliss and you phone Rosie,” I decided. “Somehow we’ve got to find out what’s going on, or the next few weeks are going to be a total disaster!”

  “Isabella’s driving me bananas!” Fliss complained when I got through to her. “She keeps on making nasty remarks about my teddy-bear collection – she says hers is much better!”

  “Never mind that!” I said impatiently. “Has she told you why they’re all being so weird?”

  “No,” Fliss replied. “I just phoned Rosie and she says that Anna won’t tell her either.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll find out at the sleepover tonight…”

  I said goodbye to Fliss, and put the phone down. I was beginning to wonder if the Grand Sleepover we’d planned so carefully was going to be quite so grand after all…

  “Er – shall we start the sleepover now?” Rosie asked, looking round at us.

  We all nodded silently. Rosie opened the French windows that led out of the Cartwrights’ living-room into the garden, and we all trudged gloomily after her. What a great evening this was going to be. Since we’d all arrived at Rosie’s place, no-one had said a word to each other. We’d all just sat on the sofas, the Sleepover Club on one and the Spanish girls on another, and we’d glared across the room at each other. Rosie was already looking pretty hassled, and I didn’t blame her. This was supposed to be her birthday sleepover, and by the look of it, it was going to be about as jolly as a three-hour maths test.

  “Oh, hello girls.” Rosie’s mum was laying out loads of food on a table which had been set up near the tent. “I bet you’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?”

  Nobody said anything. Mrs Cartwright took one look at our faces, blinked and then decided not to say anything.

  “Have a good time!” she called as she went back to the house.

  Yeah, right. We were really going to enjoy ourselves when everyone was walking around with their faces down to their knees. Well, it looked like it was up to me to get this party going a bit!

  “OK, what shall we do first?” I asked loudly, making everyone jump. “Shall we play International Gladiators?”

  “Nah, let’s eat!” said Lyndz.

  “We could give Rosie her presents first,” Frankie suggested.

  “No, let’s have makeovers first!” Fliss chimed in. “I’ve borrowed some make-up from my mum.”

  “Yes, I think makeover is a good idea!” Pilar said suddenly. She looked at the other Spanish girls, who nodded.

  “Yeah, OK,” I agreed. I’m definitely not into trying out hairstyles and make-up like Flissy is – I was just trying to be friendly.

  “We give you makeovers first!” Isabella announced, grabbing the make-up bag Fliss had just taken out of her rucksack. “We make you look beautiful!”

  Frankie had brought some make-up and nail varnish too, as well as brushes and combs, and Rosie ran into the house to get some mirrors. Then we started the makeovers. Maria was doing mine, and although I told her not to use too much make-up because I didn’t like it, it felt like she was using tons of it.

  “What are you doing, Maria?” I asked, trying to twist rou
nd a bit so that I could get a look at the others.

  “Keep still!” Maria grabbed my arm and pulled me round to face her again. “I cannot make it right if you move!”

  “Hey, that tickles!” I heard Frankie complaining. “What’s that, Pilar?”

  “I use lipliner and lipstick,” Pilar said. “Now stay quiet!”

  The other Spanish girls started giggling, and that made me a bit suspicious. Then we heard barking, and Adam came into the garden with three of his mates and his dog Jenny. Adam’s got cerebral palsy and he’s in a wheelchair. He can talk, sort of, but mostly he uses a computerised voicebox.

  “Hey Adam,” I called. “You all right?”

  Adam stopped in his chair and stared at us. Then he and his mates all started to roar with laughter.

  “Maria, what’ve you done?” I yelled, grabbing one of the mirrors.

  I had loads of black eyeliner slapped on all round my eyes and a big red mouth. I looked like Bobo the clown! And the others weren’t any better.

  “Look at me!” Frankie gasped. Pilar had drawn a pair of glasses and a fake moustache on her face with eyeliner!

  “My hair!” Fliss wailed, grabbing a mirror. “What’ve you done to my hair?” Isabella had backcombed it so that it was all frizzy and looked like a bird’s nest.

  “I look stupid!” Rosie spluttered. She had enough blusher on her cheeks to sink the Titanic, and her hair had been gelled into spikes which stuck up all over her head. She looked gruesome.

  “I look like I’ve got the measles!” Lyndz howled, glaring at Elena, who’d put little black spots of eyeliner pencil all over her face.

  “Right, that’s it!” I leapt to my feet, rubbing hard at the make-up with a tissue. “You lot are dead!”

  Maria and the others were rolling on the grass, crying with laughter.

  “It serve you right!” Isabella said triumphantly.

  “You should not send us those emails!” Pilar added. “Now we pay you back!”

  “What are you talking about?” I stared at them. “What emails?”

  “You know what we talk about!” Maria said scornfully. She put her hand in her bag and pulled out some papers. “These emails!”

  She shoved them into my hand and I read the one on top, which was dated a week or so ago.

  Dear Spanish girls

  Why don’t you learn how to talk English properly?

  Kenny, Frankie, Rosie, Lyndz and Fliss

  “You say other things too,” Elena said. “Nasty things about our country!”

  “Yes, we are proud to be Spanish!” Anna added fiercely.

  “We didn’t send these!” I said, showing them to the other Sleepovers. “No way!”

  “We’ve never seen them before!” Frankie backed me up, and the others nodded.

  Maria and the other girls obviously didn’t believe us. “So who send them then?” Maria asked.

  I looked at the others. “I bet I know who it was!” I hissed. “I bet it was—”

  “Kenny!” Maria called, and I spun round.

  “AARGH!”

  A cream doughnut hit me right in the middle of my face!

  Well, that was IT! I wasn’t in the mood to try and sort things out any more – this was WAR!

  “You shouldn’t have done that!” I spluttered as I wiped cream and sugar off my face while the Spanish girls roared with laughter. “You’re really going to get it now!”

  “Kenny, be careful!” said Fliss and Lyndz together, but I was too mad to listen. I grabbed a cheese and pickle roll off the table and threw it at Maria. She ducked, but it hit Pilar instead, and Branston pickle spilled out all over her jeans.

  “Hey!” Pilar shouted, “you dirty my jeans!” And she scooped some cream off the top of the trifle with a spoon, and flicked it at us. It hit Fliss right in the eye.

  “Ow!” Fliss wailed, and she lobbed a ham roll in the Spanish girls’ direction.

  Next second it had turned into a free-for-all as we all started grabbing food missiles and hurling them at each other.

  “Stop it!” Rosie yelled. “You’re ruining my birthday sleepover!”

  Then she got a sausage roll in the eye, and that made her so mad, she started to join in. It was like something out of a comedy film. Everyone was screaming and trying to dodge flying cakes and rolls, Jenny was barking madly and Adam and his friends were all watching us and laughing their heads off.

  I hadn’t managed to land a direct hit on Maria yet, so I spooned some strawberry jelly into a bowl, and flung it in her direction. I didn’t get Maria. But I did manage to get Rosie’s mum. Right in the middle of her face!

  “Well!” Mrs Cartwright stared furiously at us, trying to wipe strawberry jelly out of her eyes. She must have come out to see what all the noise was about, and we’d been so busy fighting, we hadn’t heard her. “What on earth is going on here?”

  “Er – we were having a food fight, Mum,” Rosie muttered sheepishly, while the rest of us shuffled our feet and tried to brush the crumbs out of our hair.

  “I can see that,” Mrs Cartwright replied in a freezing tone. “I think you’d better clear everything up straightaway. And then I’m going to ring your parents and you’re all going home.”

  “What about the sleepover?” Rosie wailed, but her mum just gave her a look that shut her up.

  “You started that!” I hissed at Maria when Mrs Cartwright had gone back into the house. “This is all your fault!”

  Maria shrugged. “You start it with all your nasty emails!”

  “We didn’t send them!” I began, but I could see it was no use. They just didn’t believe us.

  Rosie was looking really upset. “This has been my worst birthday ever!” she groaned. “And it isn’t even my birthday till Monday!”

  “Never mind, you’ve still got your prezzies to look forward to,” said Lyndz.

  “Mum’s so mad with me, I probably won’t get anything!” Rosie muttered.

  “What’re we going to do now?” Frankie asked as we began to pick up squashed cakes and rolls from the grass and put them into bin bags. The Spanish girls started clearing up too, but they kept well away from us, and they were whispering to each other and giving us filthy looks.

  “We’re just going to have to prove to them that it wasn’t us who sent those emails!” I said.

  “How?” asked Lyndz.

  “We need to find out who sent them,” I said. “And I’ve got a pretty good idea who it was too…”

  “Right, hands up everyone who thinks it was the gruesome M&Ms who sent those emails!” I announced.

  Everyone’s hand immediately went up, and I grinned.

  “Yeah, so do I!” I agreed. “So what’re we going to do about it?”

  It was the day after the not-so-Grand Sleepover, and Frankie, Lyndz, Fliss and Rosie were round at my place to discuss exactly what we were going to do. We’d all been well and truly roasted alive by our parents when we got home after the food fight, and Pilar and the others had been told off by their teacher, Miss Moreno. We’d also been told that we couldn’t have a sleepover next weekend. For once, we didn’t care that much though. It wouldn’t have been any fun with Maria and the rest of her Gruesome Gang!

  “I tried to talk to Elena last night,” said Lyndz, “but she was still in a right mood.”

  “Yeah, Anna was too,” Rosie agreed. “She even asked my mum if she could sleep in a different bedroom instead of sharing with me!”

  “Well, Isabella wouldn’t speak to me either,” Fliss chimed in. “And she snores!”

  “I got the big freeze from Pilar too,” Frankie said. “What about you, Kenny?”

  “I tried talking to Maria when we went to bed,” I said. “But she wouldn’t listen. She put her headphones on so she couldn’t hear me, and she had her Walkman on really loudly!”

  “They’re really mad with us,” said Rosie. “Those emails must have been pretty bad.”

  “I could murder the M&Ms!” I muttered. “They’re n
ot gonna get away with this!”

  “We’ll have to have another go at talking to Pilar and the others,” I said. “What time do they get back from Leicester?”

  “They should be back pretty soon,” Lyndz replied. Miss Moreno and Mr Cortez, the Spanish teachers, had come round in a minibus that morning and collected the pupils to take them to Leicester on a shopping trip. “Then they’re going to the park for a picnic.”

  “Right, let’s get over there then and tell them about the M&Ms!” I jumped to my feet. “We’ll make them believe us even if we have to sit on their heads and bounce up and down on them!”

  “Oh, right, like that can’t fail!” Frankie said sarcastically. “They’ll really want to be friends with us after that!”

  “Just keep cool, will you Kenny!” Fliss said nervously. “We don’t want to start another fight!”

  I gave her a shove. “That wasn’t my fault, it was Maria’s. You know me, I’m just not the fighting type!”

  The park wasn’t far away from my place, and we were allowed to go to it on our own, so we set off.

  “We ought to start thinking about making our fancy-dress costumes soon,” Lyndz remarked. “We’ve only got a week and a bit to get them ready.”

  We always have a fancy-dress competition at school on the last day of the summer term, which is really wicked. Even the teachers dress up, and there’s prizes for the best home-made costumes.

  “I was just going to wear my Leicester City football strip,” I began, but everyone else started groaning loudly.

  “Bor-ing, Kenny!” said Frankie. “That’s what you’ve worn for the last three years!”

  “My mum says she’ll hire a costume for me,” said Fliss. “It’ll be a lot easier than making it.”

  “Even more bor-ing!” the rest of us said together.

  “You’ve got to make it yourself or you can’t win a prize,” Lyndz added.

  “I think I might go as an alien,” Frankie said. “Then I can wear my cool new silver nail varnish.”

  “I could go as a clown,” I suggested. “Then I could get Maria to do my make-up!”

  The others started to laugh.

  “You’d probably frighten the kids in the Infants to death!” Fliss pointed out.