“So all you have to do Frankie…” said Lyndz meaningfully.
“…is persuade Mum and Dad to let us have the sleepover at my place, yes I know!” I sighed.
I knew that I would have to ask Mum and Dad that evening – and I was dreading it. I got myself in such a state that I couldn’t even eat my supper.
“What on earth’s the matter, Frankie?” asked Mum. “You’ll wear a hole in that plate if you push your food round on it much more.”
“It’s just… er… about the sleepover,” I stammered.
“I think we can forget about that now, Frankie,” Mum said calmly.
“Well no, the thing is, we need to have another one to finish our entry for the competition and we should have it here because we’ll need to check other web sites on the Internet,” I explained, but it all came out in a rush.
Dad put down his fork and looked at me.
“You seriously expect us to have your friends here again after last week’s shenanigans?” he asked.
“Yes, no, I don’t know,” I spluttered.
“Well I don’t know either, Frankie. We can’t risk all that chaos again,” Dad went on. “You almost broke the computer last time, if you remember. Fortunately for you, the keyboard wasn’t damaged in the fall.”
I looked down at my plate.
“Just wait a minute, Gwyn,” Mum said. “What happened wasn’t even Frankie’s fault. Kenny and Rosie told us that they were responsible. Besides, we’ve had worse sleepovers. I thought Fliss had killed Kenny at one, don’t you remember?”
We all started to laugh, thinking about that little performance.
“Frankie might not be able to have her friends here so much next year, with the baby and everything,” Mum continued, “so I think we should let her enjoy her sleepovers while she can.”
Dad shrugged his shoulders. Then he smiled, and I knew that he was going to give in. I rushed round and gave them both a big hug.
“You will keep those friends of yours under control though, won’t you, Frankie?” asked Dad.
“Sure will!” I shouted back as I rushed to the phone to give the others the good news.
Of course, then I only had a day to get everything ready for our sleepover. Choosing the photos for the Home Page was the hardest part. I found loads with us all together but I couldn’t find a good one of me by myself. I don’t know about you, but I always look a complete geek in photos. I aim to look all sophisticated and end up looking like Bart Simpson. But if I thought mine was bad, you ought to see have seen the ones the others had chosen. They made the Addams family look like the Spice Girls.
In fact, checking out each other’s photos was the first thing we did when everyone had arrived for the sleepover on Friday. We sat in the middle of my bedroom floor with the photos spread around us. Kenny had chosen a photograph of herself in her Leicester City strip – what else? – and Lyndz’s showed her in her riding gear. Rosie was looking funky in her jeans and baseball cap and Fliss, well Fliss was posing like some supermodel in what looked like a net curtain. We didn’t say anything though, because I don’t think any of us could face one of Fliss’s moods. My photo just showed me grinning and gawky with my great long legs looking silly in my shorts. The others all thought it looked good though.
We’d found lots of photographs of us all together. But on all of them, at least one of us seemed to be pulling a funny face. And the trouble with photographs is that they bring back so many memories too. So we couldn’t just look at them and pick out the one we wanted to use, we had to talk about where they were taken and what we had done – you know how it is. We eventually picked one out with us all in our Brownie uniforms. But when Mum called us for supper we hadn’t done anything about the Home Page design.
“Look guys,” I told the others when we were back upstairs after we’d eaten, “we’re going to have to get a move on with this. We’ve got to post it tomorrow, remember, and right now all we’ve got are a few photographs.”
“Why don’t we go on the Internet and have a look at some Home Pages?” suggested Rosie. “It’ll probably give us some inspiration.”
“Very good thinking, Batman,” I said approvingly.
I was just going to call down for Mum when Fliss said, “It’s OK, I know what the password is.”
I couldn’t believe it when she sat down at the computer, typed something in and ‘Hey Presto’ the Internet came on.
“You little sneak!” shouted Kenny.
“I can’t believe you actually peeped when we were here before,” Rosie turned on her accusingly.
“Look never mind about that now,” I said. “We’d better be quick before Mum and Dad catch us!”
Some of the Home Pages were really cool with moving logos and video clips. Lyndz was desperate for us to have something like that in ours but I had to remind her that we were running out of time and we’d have to make do with our photographs.
Kenny suddenly said, “Frankie, I think your mum is coming! She’ll go mad if she sees us on the Internet! We aren’t supposed to know the password!”
Panic or what! I fiddled about with the mouse, trying to log off as we heard the clomp-clomp-clomp up the stairs. I only just made it!
“Is everything all right, girls?” Mum asked, poking her head round the door just as the computer screen went blank. “I thought you wanted to go on the Internet.”
“M…maybe later,” I stammered. “We’d better get on and start typing everything up if we want to get the competition entry finished in time.”
“OK, just give me a shout when you need me,” Mum said, and went out again.
“Phew, that was close!” I sighed. “Mum and Dad would never trust me again if they thought I’d been logging on without them. Just don’t tell me the password, Fliss, because I don’t want to know.”
Fliss looked suitably shame-faced and shook her head.
“Right let’s get started on our entry,” I said. I typed:
WELCOME TO THE SLEEPOVER CLUB
“I’ll leave spaces where we’re going to put our photos,” I explained. “Like this.”
Hi my name’s Francesca Thomas but my friends call me Frankie. I like chocolate, kittens and the colour silver. I dislike spiders, cold mornings and maths homework. I LOVE sleepovers.
“Right who’s going to go next?” I asked.
Fliss began to type about herself while the rest of us decided what should go on the rest of the Home Page.
“We need to let people know what the Sleepover Club is all about,” I said. “We could describe our sleepover kit and say what kind of stuff we like to eat at our midnight feasts.”
“I’ve got a photo of us eating it too!” laughed Lyndz. “Look!”
We all giggled when we saw the photo of us with our mouths full of marshmallows. Then we began to write. I couldn’t believe how well we worked as a team. Whilst one person was typing things up on the computer, the rest of us were either doing illustrations or planning how everything should look on the finished design.
“It’s a pity we haven’t got a video of our International Gladiator games to put on the Home Page!” Kenny laughed. Rosie jumped on her back and they leapt around the room pretending to be on a show-jumping course. They galloped over the camp-bed, leapt over me and Fliss who were huddled together on the floor, and started to bounce on top of my bed. Of course, Mum and Dad just had to pick that moment to come into my room, didn’t they?
You should have seen the look on Dad’s face. I’m sure he thought they were fighting again. But he soon realised that they were just playing.
“How’s it going?” Mum asked. “Is the winning entry finished yet?”
“Nearly,” I replied. “We’ve just got to print everything out, glue in the photographs and illustrations and we’re done!”
“Well it looks as though we’ve got a few budding techno-journalists here,” laughed Mum.
“Just remember where it all began when you’re driving round in your Porsches w
ith buckets of money!” quipped Dad. “And remember that even computer whizz-kids need their beauty sleep. So when you’ve finished that it’s bed, OK?”
“Sure thing Dad,” I promised.
When Mum and Dad had gone, Lyndz started yawning. “I am getting kind of tired,” she admitted.
“And kind of hungry,” said Kenny, rubbing her tummy.
“OK, let’s just stick on the photos and drawings, and then we can have our midnight feast,” I told them. I printed everything out and turned off the computer. Then we settled down to work, being careful not to crease the paper or make it too sticky with glue. When it was finished we stood back and admired our handiwork. It looked really great.
“I’m sure we’re going to win, you know,” said Rosie confidently. “I can’t believe anyone’s entry will be better than ours.”
I didn’t want to think about that. I just wanted to get ready for bed and tuck into the food.
I moved our Home Page design on to the desk.
“Last one to the bathroom’s a pile of poo!” I yelled, shooting out of the door. The others scrambled after me and we all squashed ourselves through the door of the bathroom. It was kind of wild, washing and brushing our teeth like sardines. But of course we had other things on our mind – like food! As soon as we got back to my room, we delved into our sleepover bags.
“Chocs away!” yelled Kenny and poured her bag of midnight feast goodies on to my bed. Everyone else did the same and soon we were tucking into Chupa-Chup lollies, fun-size Mars bars and Milky Way stars.
“Does anyone fancy a drink?” asked Rosie, taking a giant bottle of Coke from her bag.
“Just be careful,” I warned. “Remember what happened last time!”
We each held out a plastic beaker and Rosie poured us all a drink.
“My fingers are covered in chocolate,” laughed Kenny. “I can hardly hold the cup. I’d better w…w…whheee!”
Before she could put down her cup it slipped out of her hands – all over the desk and all over our perfect Home Page competition entry. She tried to grab the papers out of the Coke, but her hands were too chocolatey. The rest of us could only watch in disbelief as all our hard work turned into a brown slimy mess.
“You’ve ruined our work!” I screamed when I found my voice. “I can’t believe you could have been so clumsy!”
“It’s taken us hours to finish that competition entry,” moaned Fliss. “We’ll never be able to do it all again.”
“Even the photos are ruined,” said Rosie sadly, taking the dripping pieces of paper from Kenny.
“Hic!” said Lyndz. She always gets hiccups when there’s any excitement.
“I’m sorry,” said Kenny in a small voice. “It really was an accident.”
I know that Kenny can be a bit of a clown sometimes, but I knew that even she wouldn’t deliberately mess up something we’d worked so hard on.
There was a knock at the door and Dad came in.
“What’s all the noise?” he asked wearily. “I thought you were going to bed.”
“We are,” I said quickly. “We’ve just had our midnight feast. We’ll be going to bed in a minute, promise!.”
Dad looked at me as though he didn’t quite believe me. But I didn’t want him to find out that we’d ruined our Home Page entry. I thought he’d never trust us to have another sleepover ever again. The others all crowded round the desk so that he couldn’t see all the Coke in a pool on top of it. Lyndz was still hiccupping, but she was trying to swallow them and somehow they sounded louder than ever.
“Try holding your breath Lyndsey,” Dad advised. “That’s supposed to work. Right you lot, I want to see you in those sleeping bags – now!”
We scrambled into our beds and Dad turned out the light.
“Sleep well,” he said. “And don’t even think about getting up again, because I’ll be listening.” With that he closed the door and went back to bed.
We counted to twenty-five, then flicked on the torches which we keep in our sleeping bags.
“Phew, that was close,” I said. At least Dad hadn’t clocked all the mess on the desk. I leapt out of bed and went to mop it up with a pile of tissues. Then I turned to the others.
“Right,” I whispered. “Who wants to win that competition?”
“Me!” they all shouted until I hissed at them to keep quiet. We hardly dared to breathe in case Dad had heard and was going to come storming in. Fortunately for us, he didn’t.
“OK, all I’ve got to do is print out our entry again,” I whispered. “We’ll have to find more photos and do the drawings again, but that shouldn’t take too long.”
I turned on the computer and the room was filled with an eerie green glow. I went through all my files, but I couldn’t find our Home Page entry anywhere. Then I was hit with an awful heavy feeling.
“I can’t find it,” I said in a small voice.
“What do you mean, you can’t find it?” said Fliss in surprise.
“I was in such a rush when I switched off the computer, I didn’t actually save it,” I muttered.
There was a horrible silence.
“I don’t believe it!” said Kenny in disgust. “You should save everything!”
“Look, Brain-Box, if you hadn’t spilt Coke all over our work, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” I hissed.
“All right you two, we haven’t got time to fall out,” said Lyndz quickly. “We’ll just have to type it out again. Hey guys, did you hear that? No hiccups. They’ve gone. Maybe I should hold my breath more often!”
“Maybe Kenny should too,” I growled.
Fliss meanwhile had started to sob.
“I’m so tired,” she moaned. “I can’t believe we’ve got to do it all again.”
“I know,” I said gently. “We’re all tired, but at least this time we’ll know what we’re doing. Look, I’ll type up my stuff on the computer first, then we’ll do everything in the same order as last time. Can everybody remember what they wrote?”
The others all nodded.
“OK, let’s get to it!” I said.
It was kind of weird working so late at night, especially as we could only work by torchlight. We daren’t put on the main light in case Mum or Dad noticed it. We did have a scare though when we heard Mum moving about. We all scrambled back into bed and held our breath. I’d left the computer on, and for an awful moment I thought that she might see the light under the door and come in. If she’d turned off the computer then we’d have been right back to square one. Fortunately she didn’t seem to notice it. So when we were sure that she had gone back to bed, we all got up again and carried on.
“I am so tired,” mumbled Lyndz, slumping over the computer keyboard. “All my words are coming out wrong.”
I looked at the screen, and saw that she’d written:
Mt namd iz Lymsey, bette knowm az Lynsx tp Mi frins. I lov horse ridig, eetin and playimn netbal I don’t lik mi tow younge broters. My favorit part Of our slepoves iz the midnigt fest.
“Hmm, I see what you mean!” I gave a small laugh which turned into a huge yawn. “I don’t think you’d better type any more, Lyndz. We’ve nearly finished anyway. If you go and sort out the photographs I’ll finish off here.”
I think it was about 1.30am when we were finally sticking all our drawings and photographs on to our new Home Page competition entry. We’d had to use Fliss’s photograph from the old soggy entry because she hadn’t brought a spare one. It was a bit sticky and Fliss of course moaned about it, but to be honest with you, we were past caring. We only had one competition entry form too and that had got a bit Coke-stained, so we had to dry it off over the radiator. It got a bit crinkled up, but as Rosie said, it didn’t matter what it looked like as long as we had one.
On the form there was space for just one name and address. And, as you know, that’s the kind of thing which usually sparks off huge arguments amongst the Sleepover Club. Not this time. We were just too tired for that.
“Y
ou put your name down Frankie,” suggested Kenny. “We’ve done all the work here so we might as well use this address.”
The others agreed. So I wrote everything down as neatly as I could, and breathed a sigh of relief that we’d finally finished.
I can’t tell you how great it felt to flop into bed. We were totally exhausted. Mum couldn’t believe it when she actually had to wake us up the next morning.
“Anybody’d think you’d been up all night!” she laughed. “You’re not usually as tired as this, even when you’ve been playing those wild games of yours. It must be old age creeping up on you!”
“Ha, ha!” I said, snuggling further down into my sleeping bag.
“Breakfast’ll be ready in ten minutes,” she called as she went out. “If you can manage to get up for it!”
“I guess we ought to get up!” I yawned.
“You bet!” shouted Lyndz, suddenly coming to life. “I’m really hungry after working all night.”
“Mmm, so am I, now you come to mention it,” laughed Rosie.
The only person who had real problems getting up was Kenny – as usual. She looked as though she could have stayed in bed all day. Unfortunately for her, she had her badminton class to go to.
We finally made it downstairs and were munching into our toast when Dad asked us if he could have a look at our Home Page entry before we posted it.
“Hmm, very impressive,” he said when he’d read it. “But why is the form all brown and crinkled?”
My heart was thumping, but I tried to look as cool as possible. “It got… a bit wet!” I spluttered.
“I won’t ask,” Dad said, looking at us all strangely, “because I’m not sure that I want to know!”
“Do you think we should present our entry in a folder or something?” asked Rosie after a while. “To make it stand out a bit?”
“They do always say that judges notice things which are presented a bit differently,” Mum said.
“I know!” shrieked Fliss, suddenly leaping up.
The Sleepover Club Surfs the Net Page 4