Anyway, we had some ups and some downs during the next few races. Lyndz and Frankie won the three-legged race which put us ahead, but then Anna evened things up by winning the obstacle race. Maria and Elena came second and third in the Potato Grab, but then Frankie won the egg and spoon and I was second in the hurdles. So by the time we got to the last race, the skipping race, we were on a dead heat with five prizes each.
“You’d better win this, Fliss!” I said in a determined voice.
Fliss looked a bit pale. “I’m not very good at skipping,” she muttered.
“You’re going to win this race if it kills you!” I told her.
“I feel sick!” Fliss moaned. “I don’t want to do it!”
“Hey, that’s an idea!” I bounced to my feet. “Fliss, go and tell Mrs W. you feel ill, and you don’t want to be in the race. Then Frankie can take your place – she’s the best skipper out of all of us! And she would have been in the race anyway if Ryan Scott hadn’t knocked her over in the heats.”
“Do I have to?” Frankie grumbled, looking less than keen.
“Yeah, you do!” I said firmly. What was going on here? Looked like I was trying to run this feud single-handed, because the others just didn’t seem interested…
Looking relieved, Fliss went off to speak to Mrs Weaver. Meanwhile I glanced over at Maria and the others. Maria was having a real go at Pilar in Spanish, waving her arms about and talking really loudly. I guessed that Maria was saying that Pilar had to win the race – but Pilar looked about as keen as Frankie did.
“OK, it’s all sorted.” Fliss came back. “Frankie’s in.”
“Oh, great,” Frankie muttered.
They all lined up for the skipping race. Maria looked well sick when she saw that Frankie had taken Fliss’s place, and she came storming over to me.
“Where is Fliss? She should be in this race!”
“Fliss isn’t very well,” I said coolly, “so Frankie’s doing it instead.”
“You make that up!” Maria snapped. “You know Fliss will not beat Pilar!”
“Prove it!” I retorted, glaring at her until Elena and Anna came over and dragged her away.
“On your marks!” called Mrs Weaver. “Get set!”
The whistle blew.
“Go for it, Frankie!” I yelled.
Pilar and Frankie sped off neck and neck. They both had long legs so they could take big strides, and they’d soon left the others behind. But they were still so close together, it was hard to tell which one of them was in the lead. First it looked like it was Frankie, then Pilar.
“COME ON, FRANKIE!” I shouted.
And then it happened. Pilar’s skipping rope suddenly hooked itself on to one of the gold earrings she was wearing. She skidded to a halt and gave a yell, trying desperately to untangle it.
“Go, Frankie!” I leapt to my feet gleefully. We had the race in the bag now!
Then I just couldn’t believe my eyes. Frankie stopped skipping and dashed over to Pilar! She started trying to help her untangle the rope, but it was well and truly stuck. A few seconds later, everyone else in the race skipped past them!
“Frankie!” I screamed, dancing up and down in frustration. “Go on! Don’t stop!”
But it was too late. Everyone else had already crossed the finishing-line!
“All right, Kenny, stop going on about it, will you!” Frankie snapped as she threw a handful of raffle tickets into the tombola drum. “It was no big deal!”
“No big deal!” I retorted. “You stopped to help Pilar, which meant we didn’t win the race! We could have walked it – and we’d have got their book tokens too!”
“Frankie was just trying to help Pilar,” Lyndz chimed in.
“Yeah, her ear was all red and sore afterwards, didn’t you see?” Rosie added.
“I think it was really nice of Frankie to stop and help,” Fliss said.
It was the day after Sports Day, and it was almost time for the Summer Fair to start. All the stalls had been set up on the sports field that morning, and there was a long queue of people at the gates, waiting to come in. We’d all really been looking forward to the fair, but after yesterday we weren’t getting on too well. We didn’t argue very often, but now the others were really bugging me. I knew they all wanted to get matey with the Spanish girls again, but there was no way I was up for that! Not while Maria was still keeping the war between us going.
Maria and the others were over on the cake stall with Lyndz’s mum, and they were all looking pretty sulky. I reckoned Maria was having exactly the same problem as me…
“If you and Maria would just sort things out, we could all be mates again!” Frankie said, throwing some more tickets into the drum.
“Well, she started it!” I retorted.
“You two are as bad as each other!” Frankie said. “You both need a kick up the behind!”
“Maria’s a pain!” I said crossly. “I wish Molly the Monster was back home instead of her!”
“Well, you’d better behave yourself today,” Fliss warned me, as Mrs Weaver walked round inspecting the stalls. “Mrs Weaver’s got her beady eye on you!”
“We’ve got some good prizes, haven’t we?” Lyndz looked at our stall. We had a mixture of cuddly toys, bath stuff, sweets and bottles of soft drink. “I love this Dalmatian!”
The stuffed Dalmatian was our best prize, and Frankie had sat him right at the front of the stall where everyone could see him. He was really big and made of soft white fur. I wasn’t into cuddly toys much, but even I wouldn’t have minded winning him! All the winning tickets ended in 0 or 5, and the Dalmatian was number 500.
“That should get a lot of people coming to our stall!” Frankie said.
“Hey, I’ve just had an idea!” I announced. “Why don’t we challenge Maria and that lot to see which of us makes more money on our stall?”
The others groaned. “No, Kenny!” they said together.
“Oh, well, if you want to be a bunch of wimps…” I muttered.
“Look, the caretaker’s opening the gates,” Lyndz said quickly. “And here comes Mrs Poole with the Mayoress!”
All the people queuing outside started to file in. They crowded round the little platform, which had been left there yesterday after Sports Day. Mrs Pontefract, the Mayoress, was chatting to Mrs Poole as she went up on to the platform to make a speech. Mrs Weaver had warned us that we weren’t allowed to sell a single ticket until she’d declared the fair open.
“Well, firstly let me say how very happy I am to be here,” declared Mrs Pontefract, looking at all the people clustered round the platform. She was wearing her robes and gold chain, but because she was very short and round, she looked like a Teletubby! Mrs Pontefract had been to our school a few times before, and whenever she made a speech she always went on and on, so none of us bothered listening.
“I wonder who’ll win the Dalmatian,” said Fliss, giving it a pat.
“I bet it’s still left over at the end,” I said. “The best prizes always are!”
“… and now I am happy to declare this Summer Fair open!” said the Mayoress, and everyone clapped. Then they all started rushing over to the stalls. Mrs Poole and Mrs Pontefract left the platform, and they started looking round the fair too.
“Hello, I want to buy some tickets,” said a familiar voice. We all looked round, and there was Isabella with her purse in her hand.
“That was quick!” said Fliss with a shy smile. “You’re our first customer, Isabella!”
“Hold on – you’re supposed to be helping Lyndz’s mum on the cake stall, aren’t you?” I asked, glaring at Isabella.
“Mrs Collins say I can come and buy some tickets.” Isabella pointed at the Dalmatian. “I want to win this!”
“Yeah, he’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Frankie said enthusiastically.
Isabella held out a pound coin. “Please can I have five tickets?”
“I suppose so,” I muttered, taking the money.
“
Isabella!” Maria slipped out from behind the cake stall and rushed over to her. She gave me an evil stare, and then began jabbering away in Spanish to Isabella. Even though we couldn’t understand what they were saying, it was obvious they were having an argument. I guessed that Maria didn’t want Isabella to buy any tickets from us!
Isabella wouldn’t take any notice though. She put her hand into the drum, and pulled out some folded tickets. She took three herself and gave two of them to Maria to open.
“Anything ending in 0 or 5 wins a prize!” Lyndz said helpfully, and I glanced at her, annoyed. I didn’t want Isabella to win anything!
Isabella said something in Spanish and threw her tickets in the bin by the side of the stall, looking disappointed. Meanwhile, Maria was looking at one of the two tickets she had in her hand with a big smile on her face.
“I win a prize!” She grinned smugly at me. “I have a number with 0 at the end!”
“Trust her!” I muttered to Frankie.
“I have number 500!” Maria announced, waving the ticket over her head.
“Yes! We win the dog!” Isabella shouted, beaming all over her face.
“No, you can’t have!” I gasped, and the other Sleepovers looked gobsmacked too. Our best prize couldn’t have been won by the first customer who bought a ticket! And there was no way I was letting Maria and Isabella have it!
“Yes! We win!” Maria and Isabella were celebrating, doing high fives, but I had an idea. Quickly I whipped the 500 ticket off the front of the Dalmatian and swopped it with the one on a can of Coca Cola, which had 225 on it. The other Sleepovers could hardly believe their eyes!
“Kenny, you can’t do that!” Fliss began, but I elbowed her in the ribs. “Ow!”
“Here’s your prize, Isabella,” I said casually. “A can of Coke!”
Maria and Isabella stared at me. “No, I win the dog!” Isabella said with a frown.
“No, I don’t think so!” I shook my head. “The Dalmatian’s number 225!”
Isabella and Maria both blinked as if they were seeing things. “No, it was 500!” Isabella said furiously. “You change it so we do not win!”
“I did not!” I said.
“You should let us have a free go!” Maria said, trying to grab some more tickets out of the tombola drum.
“No way!” I legged it round to the front of the stall, and tried to push her away, but Maria picked the drum up off the stall and held it tightly.
“Give it back!” I yelled, and we started to have a tug-of-war!
By now quite a lot of people were looking round at us to see what was going on. I was so mad I didn’t care, not even when I saw that Mrs Poole and the Mayoress were heading in our direction. Pilar and the other Spanish girls also dashed over from the cake stall to find out what was happening, and they started calling to Maria in Spanish.
“Kenny, stop it!” Frankie was saying, and so were the others, but I just pulled my end of the tombola drum even harder.
Unfortunately, the drum was a bit rickety and it couldn’t take the strain. It split in two, and Maria and I both fell backwards…
“What on earth’s going on here?” Mrs Poole began with a frown, but next second she and the Mayoress were both showered in hundreds of raffle tickets!
“Well?”
Mrs Poole sat at her desk the following morning and stared hard at the ten of us lined up in a row – me and the rest of the Sleepover Club as well as Maria and the Spanish girls. Usually Mrs P. was a bit of a pushover, and talked more about how sorry she was that we’d let her down, rather than just going ballistic. But this time she looked like she was going to tear us to bits.
“I was very ashamed of your behaviour in front of all our visitors, and the Mayoress too,” Mrs Poole went on sternly. “Poor Mrs Pontefract was picking raffle tickets out of her hat for at least ten minutes afterwards.”
I bit my lip, hoping I looked upset, but really I was trying not to laugh! We’d spent the rest of the Summer Fair on our hands and knees sweeping up the tombola tickets, and we’d had tellings-off from Mrs Weaver, the Mayoress and from Lyndz’s mum. Now it was Mrs Poole’s turn.
“There’d better be a good reason for such appalling behaviour,” Mrs Poole went on, looking hard at us, one by one, “or I’m afraid to say that none of you will be going on the class trip to the theme park next Monday.”
That wiped the smile off my face! I’d been looking forward to going to WonderLand for months, and now it was all Maria’s fault that I might not be going. Well, I suppose it was my fault a bit as well… Anyway, I knew I’d have to speak up and tell the truth, because I couldn’t let the others take the blame when they’d had nothing to do with it. So I cleared my throat.
“Er – Mrs Poole, I—”
“Mrs Poole, I tell you what happened,” Isabella interrupted me, and I glared at her. I reckoned Isabella was now going to drop me right in it by telling Mrs Poole all about how she’d won the Dalmatian and I’d switched the tickets round!
“I buy some tickets,” Isabella said in a loud voice. “I ask Maria to help me pull them out and she have her hand stuck in the tombola.”
Mrs Poole frowned. “So why were she and Kenny fighting over it?”
What’s going on? I wondered with a frown. Why wasn’t Isabella dropping me in it? I just couldn’t understand it.
“They weren’t fighting, Mrs Poole,” Frankie said quickly. “Kenny was just trying to pull Maria’s hand free.”
“Yes, and the tombola break,” Pilar added.
“And that’s when all the tickets flew out,” Lyndz finished off.
“We’re really sorry, Mrs Poole,” said Rosie.
Mrs Poole looked slightly less furious. “Is that what happened, Maria? Kenny?”
I glanced sideways at Maria. She looked pretty sulky, but Pilar was nudging her in the ribs.
“Yes, Mrs Poole,” she muttered.
“Yes, Mrs Poole,” I said, heaving a silent sigh of relief. It looked like I wasn’t going to be banned from the trip after all, but I just couldn’t understand why. Maria had had the perfect opportunity to get me into trouble big-time and she hadn’t taken it. Why not? Now that Isabella had helped me out too, I felt really bad that she’d hadn’t got the Dalmatian in the end. Maria had dropped the winning ticket in all the fuss after the tombola had broken.
“Well, if it was an accident, I think I can overlook it just this once,” said Mrs Poole. “But I want you all to spend this morning writing letters of apology to Mrs Pontefract. And I want them given to me by the end of the morning. Is that clear?”
We all nodded. We’d got off pretty lightly, considering we’d annoyed the Mayoress and the headteacher! And at least we were all still going on the class trip. We all filed out of Mrs Poole’s office trying not to grin at each other with relief.
“Whew, that was close!” I said to Frankie as soon as we were outside in the corridor. “I thought I was going to miss out on WonderLand!”
“Well, you were lucky Isabella thought fast and came up with a good excuse!” Frankie told me. “You owe her one!”
“Yeah, OK…” I muttered. Then I noticed the other Sleepovers staring hard at me. “What?”
“Isabella got you out of trouble,” said Fliss pointedly. “You could say thank you!”
I pulled a face. “Oh, all right then…”
“And maybe you and Maria can make friends now,” Lyndz added eagerly.
I didn’t say anything. I was beginning to feel a bit ashamed of myself for messing about with the tickets the day before. Maybe if I asked Mrs Poole nicely she’d let Isabella have the Dalmatian after all…
The Spanish girls were crowded round Maria, who still looked sulky, and they were having a go at her in Spanish. I reckoned they were telling her to make up with me. If she wanted to, well, so would I.
“Er – Isabella, thanks for coming up with that story for Mrs Poole,” I muttered. “It was really nice of you.”
Isabella grinned at me. “It
is OK!”
“And I’m really sorry about changing the ticket on the Dalmatian,” I went on. “I’ll tell Mrs Poole you won it fair and square, and maybe she’ll let you have it.”
For some reason Isabella stopped smiling and looked over at Maria. “Do you tell her or do I?” she asked sternly.
“Tell me what?” I asked, puzzled.
Maria was staring down at her feet. “I did not have the winning ticket,” she muttered sheepishly.
“What?” My mouth fell open. “But you had number 500!”
“No, it was not 500,” Maria said. “I just say I had it to make you angry! I knew you do not want to give Isabella your best prize!”
“What a stupid trick to pull!” I was so furious I could hardly speak. “I nearly lost out on the class trip because of you!”
“Well, you should not change the tickets!” Maria snapped.
“I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t told that fib in the first place!” I retorted.
“Oh, you’re both as bad as each other!” Frankie cut in. “Why don’t you just give it up and make friends?”
“Yes, and then we forget all about this!” Pilar added.
“I’ll be friends with Pilar, Elena, Anna and Isabella,” I said pointedly, “but I’m not going to be friends with her!”
“And I am friends with Frankie, Fliss, Rosie and Lyndz,” Maria said, “but I am not friends with her!”
“Fine!” I snapped.
“Fine!” agreed Maria.
And we turned on our heels and stalked off in opposite directions, leaving the others behind us.
“WonderLand, here we come!” I said as I climbed on to the coach behind Fliss. “This is going to be cool!”
We’d just had another weekend without a sleepover because of the Oldies still making a fuss about the food fight, so this trip to WonderLand would make up for that.
“We only just made it, though!” Frankie pointed out.
“Yeah, so don’t do anything crazy today, Kenny!” Fliss warned me.
“Me! Why should I be the one to do anything crazy?” I asked innocently, poking Fliss hard in the back. She squealed and nearly whacked Emma Hughes on the head with her rucksack as she went past her seat.
Mega Sleepover 7 Page 5