Mega Sleepover 7

by Narinder Dhami

  “Watch where you’re going, you idiot!” Emma snorted.

  “Yeah,” chimed in Emily Berryman, who was sitting next to her. “You could have taken Emma’s head off!”

  “That would have been an improvement!” I said sweetly, and the Terrible Twins both glared at me.

  Maria and Pilar were sitting behind the M&Ms, with Elena and Anna behind them, and Isabella was across the aisle on her own. Anyway, when I made that crack about Emma, I thought I saw Maria almost smile. But maybe I didn’t really. Maybe I imagined it… After all, we still weren’t speaking to each other, and the others had given up trying to make us. They couldn’t really be friends properly unless me and Maria were too, so the Spanish girls were still going round with the M&Ms.

  We all went further on down the coach, and sat down – me next to Lyndz, Fliss next to Rosie and Frankie on her own.

  “What have you got in your packed lunch?” Lyndz asked as soon as we sat down.

  “Two packets of cheese and onion crisps, two ham and tomato rolls, a Snickers, a Twix, a packet of chocolate Hob-Nobs and a strawberry milkshake,” I said.

  “I’ll swop you a packet of salt and vinegar for a cheese and onion,” Lyndz offered.

  “And I’ll swop a sausage roll for half your Hob-Nobs,” Fliss said.

  Anyway, swopping and changing our lunchboxes around took up lots of time, and by the time we arrived at WonderLand, we all had totally different lunches from the ones we’d set out with! Then we all stopped thinking about food for once, and started getting pretty excited instead. Fliss had been to WonderLand before, but none of the rest of us had. It looked pretty spectacular. The front was built like a huge castle, and you had to walk on a drawbridge over a moat to get in.

  “Wow! This is coo-ell!” I gasped as the coach pulled up in the car park next to all the others. “What’s the best ride, Flissy?”

  “I liked the riverboat ride,” Fliss said.

  “Oh, great big fat hairy deal!” I snorted. “I mean, what’s the scariest ride?”

  “The Mega-Loop!” Fliss gave a shudder. “You’re upside-down most of the time. I went on it with my mum and my brother, and my mum was sick when we got off!”

  “Right, we’re definitely going on that one then!” I jumped to my feet. “Come on, what’re we waiting for?”

  “Sit down, Kenny!” Lyndz grabbed my arm. “Mrs Weaver’s waiting to speak to us!”

  “Right, I want you all to listen carefully,” said Mrs Weaver, who was standing at the front of the coach. “We’ve talked about this already, but this is a reminder for those of you who don’t always act sensibly.”

  And she stared grimly down the coach at the Sleepover Club. What a cheek!

  “You are allowed to go round the theme park on your own, but stay with your friends at all times. Myself and the other teachers will be patrolling around, keeping an eye on things, and if you have any problems, you can always speak to the park stewards.”

  We were all fidgeting away in our seats with ants in our pants, waiting for Mrs Weaver to stop rabbiting on. As soon as she did, we all jumped up and pushed our way off the coach. Then Mrs W. led us over to one of the ticket offices, and we all got given a luminous pink wristband to wear that would let us go on all the rides.

  “Quick, let’s get away from the boring old teachers!” I hissed in Frankie’s ear as soon as we had gone over the drawbridge and we were inside. Everyone agreed, and we sneaked off while Mrs Weaver was still reminding everyone where we were meeting for lunch, and that we had to be on our best behaviour at all times.

  “Come on, let’s go on the Secret Garden ride.” That was Emma Hughes, wittering on behind us and being a bossy-boots as usual. “It doesn’t sound too scary!”

  “That ride look good.” Maria was pointing at a deadly-looking rollercoaster-type ride which towered high above our heads and twisted and turned like a corkscrew.

  “That’s the Mega-Loop!” Fliss whispered in my ear.

  The Queen turned green (hey, I’m a poet!). “No, I don’t want to,” she said firmly. “Come on!”

  I saw Maria pull a face at the others as they trailed off after the M&Ms.

  “Poor them!” said Lyndz. “They’re going to have a really gruesome time with the M&Ms!”

  “Serves Maria right!” I muttered, but secretly I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for her too. The M&Ms wouldn’t want to go on any of the cool rides!

  We took it in turns to choose what we wanted to go on. Rosie went first, and she chose the log flume. We all got sore throats because we screamed so much, and we all got soaked, especially me and Frankie ‘cos we’d bravely volunteered to sit at the front. But it was a roasting hot day, so we soon dried off!

  “Right, my turn now!” Lyndz said when we climbed off. “I want to go on the Jolly Roger!” That was a huge model of a pirate ship that swung up and down and side to side. It looked fab!

  “Look, the queue’s pretty small.” Frankie nudged me. “Come on!”

  We all charged over to join the end of the line. Just as we got there, three older boys we didn’t know jumped in and pushed their way in front of us.

  “Hey, get out of the way!” I yelled indignantly. “We were here first!”

  “No, you weren’t!” sniggered one of the boys, who had floppy dark hair and sticking-out ears. “Look, we’re in front of you!”

  “That’s because you pushed in!” Frankie pointed out.

  “So make us move then!” said one of the others, a tall skinny boy with ginger hair.

  “OK, I will!” I yelled. I charged forward, but I wasn’t moving because Fliss and Rosie had both grabbed hold of my arms.

  “Kenny, no!” Frankie hissed. “Mrs Weaver”ll go mad if you get into trouble again!”

  “Yeah, Kenny! Mrs Weaver’ll go mad!” mocked the third boy, who was short and stocky with a skinhead hair-cut.

  If looks could kill, those boys would have dropped down dead! But that was all I could do – look. I didn’t want to get into trouble again, and spoil the end of term.

  “All right,” I muttered, trying to cool myself down. The boys started sniggering and doing high fives because they’d got one over on us, and that really made me mad! But I just about managed to stop myself from kicking their butts!

  After the Jolly Roger ride, which was really good, it was my turn. I wanted to go on the Mega-Loop, of course! So we made our way over to it.

  It looked even bigger and scarier when you were standing right underneath it! The queue was a bit longer than for some of the other rides, but it wasn’t too bad. We went over to join the end of it – and you’ll never guess what happened! Those creeps appeared again right behind us and pushed in again! We were so shocked, none of us could do anything about it, even me! We just stood and stared at them while they killed themselves laughing.

  “Right, that’s it!” I clenched my fists. “You’re going to move this time or else!”

  “Who’s going to make us?” jeered Sticking-Out Ears.

  “We are!” Frankie told him.

  “Get off!” scoffed Ginger. “We’re not afraid of five wimpy little girls!”

  “What about ten girls?” said a familiar voice right behind us.

  Surprised, we all looked round. Maria and the others were standing behind us in the queue, staring hard at the three boys.

  “These are our friends,” said Pilar. “So now we are ten girls!”

  I stared at Maria. Then I moved next to her so that we were standing shoulder to shoulder. “Yeah, so you’d better move out of the way!” I said with a grin.

  “We’re not scared of ten girls!” said Ginger, although his two mates didn’t look quite so sure. “We’re not scared of a hundred girls!”

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea!” Frankie announced. “Why don’t we grab them and kiss them to death!”

  This time the three boys went quite pale.

  “Yeah, good one, Frankie!” Lyndz agreed. “Then their mates will really take the micke
y out of them!”

  “Now wait a minute—” Ginger began, starting to back away.

  “Let’s get them!” I yelled. “Come on – kissy kissy!”

  And we all rushed forward. The three boys panicked and ran for their lives, nearly tripping over in their eagerness to get away. We all had to hold each other up, we were laughing so much.

  “Did you see the look on their faces?” Rosie gasped.

  “They look like… like we going to beat them up!” Isabella giggled.

  “I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again in a hurry!” said Frankie.

  “Good – I would not like to kiss them!” Pilar laughed. “They are very ugly!”

  After we’d stopped laughing, Maria and I started shuffling our feet and looking a bit awkward. Everyone else was standing round waiting for us two to say something.

  “Thanks for helping us out,” I muttered at last.

  “Is OK.” Maria shrugged. “We want to go on Mega-Loop, and when we get here, we see you have problem.”

  “I thought the M&Ms didn’t want to go on the Mega-Loop,” Frankie said.

  “We say goodbye to M&Ms,” Maria muttered, looking even more embarrassed. “We – how you say – dump them!”

  “They annoy us very much!” said Pilar with a grin. “They not want to go on any good rides!”

  “Typical M&Ms!” I said. “They’re right wimps!”

  “Yes, you are right about them!” Maria said. “And we think maybe they did send those nasty emails!”

  “They not like you at all!” Isabella added.

  “Well, we don’t like them either!” I said firmly.

  “We forget everything now and have a good time, yes?” Maria looked at me.

  “You bet!” I said, and I meant it!

  Now that there was ten of us going on all the rides, everything was even better. The Mega-Loop was wicked! You got spun round upside-down so fast it made your teeth rattle inside your head! Fliss and Isabella both looked pretty green when we got off, and I felt just a little bit funny myself. After that we went into the Haunted House, and then to the Hall of Mirrors. That had those weird mirrors that give you really funny reflections, and we nearly died laughing when we looked at ourselves.

  Then it was time to go to the picnic area and meet the others for lunch. Boy, I wish you could’ve seen the M&Ms’ faces when the ten of us turned us laughing and chatting and being best mates. The Queen and the Goblin looked as if they were going to burst with rage!

  We all stuffed ourselves silly, and then Mrs Weaver and the other teachers rounded everybody up and we went to watch some of the afternoon shows. There was a show with animals doing tricks, and one with acrobats, and afterwards we were allowed to go shopping. I got a cool blue baseball cap with WonderLand is Wonderful! written on it.

  “I wish we didn’t have to go home,” Rosie said with a big yawn as we climbed on to the coach. “We didn’t get to go on all the rides.”

  “But at least Maria and Kenny made friends at last!” Fliss added as we all filed down the coach. I sat next to Maria, Frankie sat next to Pilar, Rosie and Anna sat together and so did Lyndz and Elena and Fliss and Isabella.

  “Hey, look at the M&Ms!” I nudged Maria. “They look like they’ve swallowed a wasp!”

  The M&Ms had just got on the coach, and they were glaring at us. They found seats as far away from us as possible, and then turned their backs on us.

  “I am glad we not have to be friends with them any more!” said Maria. “They are – how you say – a pain in the neck!”

  “Definitely!” I agreed.

  Although we were all pretty tired, the trip home was great. We showed each other what we’d bought, shared what was left of our packed lunches and played games.

  “That was my best day ever!” Rosie sighed as the coach pulled into the school playground. We were a bit late getting back and all the other kids had already gone home.

  “And tomorrow’s the last day of term – even better!” Frankie added. “Then it’s the summer holidays!”

  “It’s a real shame we can’t play any tricks tomorrow though,” I grumbled as we collected up our empty crisp packets and picked up our bags. “Mrs Poole’s a real meanie!”

  I was a bit surprised by what happened next. Maria stared at me with her mouth open as if I’d just told her the sky was about to fall on her head! She immediately jumped to her feet and began gabbling away in Spanish to Pilar, who was sitting behind her. Then the others started joining in.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” I asked.

  “I set a trick for your teacher!” Maria said breathlessly, looking worried. “In her table. When she opens the drawer, flour will fall out over her!”

  We all stared at her. “You set a trap for Mrs Weaver?” Frankie said, eyes wide. “Why?”

  “It was Emma’s idea,” Maria muttered, looking ashamed. “She say it will be good fun.”

  “Well, it’s too late to do anything about it now,” I said. “Anyway, Mrs W. won’t know who’s done it, so you’ll be OK.”

  “No, you not understand!” Pilar looked worried too. “Emma say we have to blame you!”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “She put two more bags of flour in your – how you say – locker, Kenny,” Pilar explained. “Then Mrs Weaver think it is all your fault!”

  “The nasty little ratbag!” I hissed furiously, bouncing right out of my seat. “Right, Emma Hughes is for it!”

  “Never mind that now, Kenny!” Frankie said. “It’s more important that we go into school and get rid of that booby-trap. Or you’re dead tomorrow when Mrs Weaver gets flour all over her!”

  “Yeah, she’ll go ballistic and so will Mrs Poole!” Lyndz agreed.

  “We get rid of it,” said Maria. “I go into school now and do it.”

  “I come with you,” Pilar told her.

  “Come on, girls.” Mrs Weaver was waiting impatiently at the front of the coach, glancing at her watch. “Off you go.”

  We looked up and realised that everyone else had got off and we were last. So we scrambled our stuff together, and hurried over to the door.

  “Right, we’re a bit late getting back, so hurry straight home or your parents might start getting worried.” And Mrs Weaver started ushering us over to the playground gate.

  “Miss, I have to go into school for something,” Maria began, but Mrs Weaver shook her head.

  “Sorry, Maria. Whatever it is it will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “But, Miss, I have to go into school!” Maria insisted.

  “And it’s still open, Mrs Weaver,” Frankie pointed out. “The caretaker hasn’t locked up yet.”

  “Yes, that’s because the cleaners are here, and we don’t want you getting in their way.” Mrs Weaver stood by the gate and watched as we all reluctantly filed out. “Now make sure you go straight home.”

  We didn’t have any choice. We walked down the road, staring gloomily at each other.

  “So what are we going to do NOW?” Frankie asked.

  “We’ve got to get into school somehow,” I said grimly, “or tomorrow I’m going to be in the biggest trouble ever!”

  “You might even get expelled!” Fliss wailed.

  “Oh, thanks a lot!” I snapped.

  “Shut up and let’s think about this!” Frankie said, taking charge as usual. “Look, we’ve got to go home first, or our parents are going to start climbing the walls.”

  “I have to come back later,” Maria decided. “In one hour, when the teachers go home.”

  “Is good idea,” Pilar agreed. “I come with you.”

  “I’m coming too,” I butted in, “’cos I’m the one who’s going to be in deepest doom if Mrs W. gets covered in flour!”

  “I’d better come as well then,” Frankie said. “Someone’s got to be there to control Kenny!”

  “Cheek!” I said indignantly.

  “I’m coming too then!” chorused Lyndz, Elena, Rosie and Anna toge
ther. Fliss and Isabella looked at each other, then they both nodded too.

  “We can’t all go!” I spluttered. “With ten of us creeping round the school, we’re bound to get caught!”

  “No, hang on, I’ve got an idea!” Frankie said thoughtfully. “We’ll split up!”

  “What difference will that make?” I asked impatiently.

  “We’ll split up and go into the school through different doors,” Frankie explained. “Then, if anyone gets caught, at least someone else has got a chance of making it to our classroom!”

  We all thought about that. It made sense.

  “OK, so we’ll meet back here in about an hour,” I said, checking my watch. “Then it’s Operation Flourbag!”

  “D’you think the school’ll still be open?” Lyndz asked.

  “I dunno,” I said doubtfully. “How long does cleaning a school take?”

  We all looked at each other. No-one had any idea.

  “We’ll just have to risk it,” said Lyndz.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “I just hope this plan works…” Because if it didn’t, the last day of term was going to be ruined, I was going to be history, and the Queen and the Goblin would have the biggest laugh ever at our expense…

  “Where are Pilar and Frankie?” I hissed, looking at my watch for the millionth time.

  Everyone else had met up outside the school gates right on time, except for those two, and now we were all getting edgy. We’d all told our parents that we had to go back to school to collect something we’d forgotten – none of them had minded, ’cos we were allowed to stay out longer anyway now that it was light in the evenings.

  “Let’s go without them,” Fliss suggested, her teeth chattering with nerves.

  “No, give them a few more minutes,” Lyndz said. “Look, the school’s still open.” We could see that some of the windows were still ajar, so it was obvious the caretaker hadn’t locked up yet.

  “The cleaners must still be in there.” I glanced impatiently up the road again, and there were Pilar and Frankie racing towards us. “At last!”