The Sleepover Club Sleep Out

by Narinder Dhami

  The activities room was really dark, but we didn’t dare put the light on. The others waited by the door, while I groped my way round the tables, trying to find our mask. Frankie was holding the door open, so there was a bit of light from the corridor, but not much.

  “Hurry up, Kenny,” Fliss was moaning, “if we get caught, Mrs Weaver’ll never let us go on another school trip ever again.”

  “Oh, great big fat hairy deal,” I muttered. I was feeling my way round the tables, and knocking things over, including a pot of glue. “Oh, rats! Now I’ve got glue all over my hand!”

  “Never mind that,” said Frankie. “Just get a move on!”

  I found the mask, and hurried back over to the door. “Got it!” I said triumphantly.

  Fliss took one look at the mask, and stepped behind Frankie.

  “Keep that thing away from me, Kenny!” she hissed, giving me a dirty look.

  “It’s that scary, huh?” I slipped the mask over my head. “Let’s see what it looks like when it’s on.”

  Lyndz had neatly cut out the big eyes, so that I could see through them. The others looked impressed (except Fliss, of course).

  “It’s brilliant!” said Frankie. “The M&Ms are going to wet themselves!”

  “Serves them right!” said Rosie.

  I took the mask off again, and put it under my arm.

  “Come on, then. What’s the quickest way to the Doll Gallery?”

  “We can take a short cut through the Costume Rooms,” said Fliss.

  So we tiptoed along the corridor to the Costume Rooms. We got lost a few times, because there were so many twists and turns, but eventually we made it. Frankie pushed the door open a little way, and then froze.

  “What’s biting you?” I began.

  “SSHHH!” Frankie hissed. “There’s someone in there!”

  “It’s a ghost!” moaned Fliss, clutching Lyndz’s arm.

  “Ow!” said Lyndz. “Let go, you’re hurting me!”

  “QUIET!” ordered Frankie, in a whisper that was louder than anyone. She let the door swing softly back into place. “Caroline Powell’s group’s in there, with her mum. We’ll have to go a different way.”

  I thought for a minute. It was lucky we’d been to the museum so many times before, and knew our way around.

  “We’ll have to double back, and cut through that room that’s got all the statues in it. Come on.”

  We hurried back down the corridor, and after a few false starts, we made it to the right room. Frankie pulled the door open just a bit, and checked that none of our class were sleeping inside, then we all went in. It was a big room, with a large window in the ceiling, and a light had been left on, although it wasn’t very bright. There were white stone statues of people and animals all round the room. Some were just heads, but others were really big, reaching almost to the ceiling.

  “I don’t like this,” said Fliss nervously, as we walked through the room towards the door on the opposite side. “They’re all staring at me.”

  “They’re statues, dummy,” I said. “They’re not real.”

  “They might be,” said Fliss. “They might come to life at night.”

  “Oh, grow up, Flissy,” I said impatiently “Anway, even if they did, what do you think they’re going to do?”

  “They’d probably go and find some clothes,” said Rosie, with a grin. “They look pretty cold.”

  That made Fliss giggle. “They could definitely do with some underwear,” she said, and the others started to giggle too.

  “Oh, grow up and shut up!” I sighed, reaching for the door. “Everyone ready?”

  Fliss was still giggling, so I gave her the evil eye until she stopped. Then we slipped out into the corridor.

  “Which way do we go now?” Rosie asked.

  “That way,” said Frankie, pointing right.

  “That way,” said Fliss at exactly the same moment, pointing left.

  We went right, because Frankie usually knows best. But we had to go quite a long way down the corridor before we got to the Doll Gallery.

  “This is it!” I said quietly, as we stopped in front of the doors. My heart was pounding with excitement. I’d waited a long time to get my revenge on the M&Ms, and now I was going to enjoy it. “I’m going to take a look inside, and find out where the M&Ms are.”

  “Be careful,” said Frankie.

  I laid the mask carefully on the floor, and put my face to the glass at the top of the door. I could just about see in. The room was quite dark, but someone had left their torch on, so I got a pretty good view. The dolls were in glass cases all around the walls, and there were six sleeping bags dotted in different places around the room. The M&Ms were in the perfect place, not far from the door where I was looking in. Best of all, Mrs Weaver was right over the other side of the room.

  “Ace!” I whispered to the others. “The M&Ms are right here, and Mrs Weaver’s miles away!”

  “I want to see!” said Fliss.

  “Me too,” said Rosie. “I want to watch the M&Ms faces when they see Kenny in the mask!”

  I shook my head. “No way,” I said. “They’ll see you for sure.”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Frankie. “We could go round the side, and look through the curtains.”

  There was a long row of windows at the side of the gallery, where the curtains had been drawn, but they didn’t quite meet.

  “Go on, then,” I hissed. “But make sure you don’t get spotted.”

  It was all right for me, I had the mask to hide behind, but I didn’t want the others to get caught.

  I waited till the others were in position at the side windows, and Frankie gave me a thumbs-up. Then I picked up the mask, and slid it over my head. I got it into position so that I could see through the cut-out eyes, and then I peered through the window at the top of the door. The M&Ms were only a few yards away. In fact, they were so close that I could hear Emma Hughes snoring.

  I took a deep breath, and tapped on the glass!

  At first, neither of the M&Ms woke up. So I tapped a little bit louder. I was a bit worried I might wake up someone else in the room first, but no-one stirred.

  Then Emma Hughes stopped snoring, and started to move about a bit inside her sleeping bag. I tapped again.

  Emma opened her eyes, and looked straight at me. I mean, she looked straight at the mummy mask peering in at her through the glass.

  Emma’s mouth fell open. She looked as if she was trying to scream, but she was so terrified, she couldn’t make a sound. I wanted to burst out laughing, but of course I couldn’t.

  I saw Emma grab Emily’s arm. Emily woke up, looked at me and let out a roar that must’ve woken everyone else in the museum up.

  “AAGGGH! IT’S THE MUMMY!!!”

  Oh, it was BRILLIANT! They both looked totally scared out of their skins, and Emma Hughes started crying. I wanted to stay and watch them a bit longer, but Mrs Weaver had woken up now, and was putting her dressing gown on. Time to leg it, if we knew what was good for us. I ducked down out of sight, just as Frankie and the others did the same at the other windows.

  “Did you see their faces!” Fliss whispered, red-faced from trying not to giggle.

  “That’s the best trick we’ve ever done!” said Lyndz.

  “And now we’ve got to get out of here,” I said urgently. “Mrs Weaver’s awake.”

  We were just about to make a run for it, when we heard Mrs Weaver talking inside the room.

  “Whatever’s the matter, Emma?” we heard her say.

  “It was the mummy, Miss!” Emily gasped. Emma was weeping too much to say anything. “It’s alive! It was looking through the window at us!”

  We all clutched at each other, and bit hard on our lips to stop ourselves laughing.

  “Oh really?” Mrs Weaver said in a grim voice. “We’ll see!”

  And then we heard her walk over to the door. Boy, did we stop laughing straightaway.

  “Leg it!” I hissed at the others
.

  We ran. We skidded off down the corridor at a hundred miles an hour. Luckily we made it round the corner before Mrs Weaver opened the door.

  “Who’s there?” we heard her say sharply. I prayed that she’d go back in, shut the door and tell the M&Ms that they’d dreamt it. But she didn’t. Next thing was, we heard her coming down the corridor after us!

  “We’ve got to get back to our sleeping bags!” Frankie said urgently. “Quick!” She opened the door of one of the galleries. “In here!”

  “This isn’t the room with the statues that we came through before,” I said.

  “Never mind, we’ll find our way back somehow.” Frankie pushed me inside, and the others followed.

  The room was in complete darkness.

  “Why didn’t we bring our torches!” said Rosie. “Where are we?”

  “Sssh!” said Lyndz. “I can hear Mrs Weaver going past!”

  We all held our breath. Mrs Weaver hurried past the room we were in, and turned the corner.

  “I bet she’s going to check up on all the other groups,” said Frankie. “We’ve got to get back to the Egyptian Room before she does!”

  “It’d help if we could see where we were,” I said. I stretched out a hand in the darkness – and it touched something furry. I managed not to scream, but I wasn’t far off.

  “What is it, Kenny?” asked Rosie, who’d heard me give a little yelp.

  “I touched something furry!” I gasped.

  “I’m scared!” Hiss moaned. “What is it?”

  “If I could see it, I’d tell you!” I snapped. I stretched out my hand again, and felt the furry thing. It was pretty gross feeling something like that in the dark, a bit like that game we play at sleepovers sometimes – you know the one, where someone’s blindfolded and you give them really gruesome objects, and they have to guess what they are. I gave Hiss some cold spaghetti once, and told her it was worms. She nearly passed out.

  Anyway, I forced myself to keep feeling the furry thing, and then I guessed what it was.

  “It’s a stuffed animal!” I said, relieved. “I think we’re in the animals gallery.”

  “Ugh! Gross!” said Fliss. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I think there’s a door on the other side,” said Frankie. “Hold hands so we can keep together, and I’ll see if I can find it.”

  We inched our way through the darkness, with Frankie at the front.

  “Here’s the door,” said Frankie, sounding mightily relieved. She pulled it open a little way, and checked the coast was clear. Next second, we were out in the dim light of another corridor.

  “Are we lost?” asked Lyndz anxiously.

  I tried to think. I knew the museum really well, but right now my brain just wouldn’t work.

  “I think we go this way,” I said, pointing down the corridor. And that was when we heard the noise again. Footsteps, coming towards us. Fliss squealed with fright, and the footsteps started to run.

  “Quick, in here!” Frankie opened the door of the nearest room, and bundled us all inside. Fliss’s knees were shaking so much, Rosie had to drag her in after the rest of us. This time the room was lit, and we could see it was full of broken old pots, that someone had put back together, like jigsaw puzzles.

  “That way!” I hissed frantically, pointing to a door on the other side of the room. We raced over to it on tiptoe. As Frankie pulled it open, we heard the door we’d just come in at start to open!

  This time Fliss was too terrified even to make a sound, and the rest of us weren’t far behind. We scuttled through the door, and Frankie pulled it shut. There was another gallery opposite us, and I reached for the door handle. I didn’t know which room it was, and I didn’t care. I just flung the door open.

  “Not in there!” gasped Rosie, leaping forward and pulling it shut. Before it closed, I saw why. It was the Science Room, and there were kids from our class in sleeping bags all over the floor.

  “What’s going on?” we heard someone say sleepily, as Rosie shut the door, and then we heard the sound of torches being switched on.

  “Everyone in the museum’s going to be awake at this rate!” I said through my teeth. “Frankie, do something!”

  Frankie looked as frantic as I was feeling, but she bravely set off down the corridor and we all followed. Behind us we heard the sounds of lights being switched on, and people talking.

  “Even if we do make it back to our room, Frankie’s mum’s bound to be awake,” Rosie groaned.

  “Maybe not,” Lyndz said hopefully. “The Egyptian room’s right over the other side of the building.”

  Frankie stopped outside yet another door, labelled “Flower Paintings”.

  “If we go through here, I think there’s a short cut back to the mummies,” she said. She didn’t sound too sure, but nobody was about to argue. We all bundled into the room, and closed the door behind us.

  It was a long room, with old paintings of flowers in big vases along the walls. There were loads of windows, and it was starting to get a bit lighter outside, so at least we could see where we were going now. The only problem was, there were six doors all along the room.

  “Which door is it?” asked Fliss through chattering teeth.

  Frankie looked at me, and I looked at Frankie. This was one of the rooms that Mrs Saunders hadn’t taken us into on this visit, so we had to try and remember from one of our other trips.

  “The one at the end of the room!” we both said together.

  “It comes out into another gallery with paintings in it, and that’s right opposite the Egyptian room,” Frankie added.

  The others all sighed with relief. We raced down the long room towards the very last door, and skidded to a halt. But as we got nearer, we could see that there was a sign on the door.

  THIS GALLERY IS CLOSED

  FOR RE-DECORATION

  We all groaned. Rosie reached out, and rattled the handle, but the door was locked.

  “What now?” squeaked Fliss. “There must be another way back!”

  “We’ll have to try one of the other doors,” Frankie panted. I’d never seen her look so wound up – she’s usually dead cool. Mind you, I wasn’t exactly having a laugh myself. I knew just how ballistic Mrs Weaver would go if she caught us!

  Frankie yanked open the door nearest to us, and we dived through into another gallery. It was full of those metal suits of armour, all standing up in long rows. Fliss clutched at my hand.

  “I hate these,” she muttered. “I always think there’s really people inside them.”

  Fliss is a bit of a wimp, but this time I knew what she meant. We were halfway along the corridor, when Fliss, who was still clutching my hand, dug her nails in. Hard.

  “Ow!” I tried to pull away from her, but Fliss was hanging onto me like a limpet. “What’s biting you?”

  “That – that suit of armour,” Fliss moaned. “It – it MOVED!”

  “Oh, don’t be so pathetic!” I snapped, but I couldn’t help looking hard at the suit of armour Fliss was pointing at. So did the others. And we all shuffled forward a bit, so that we were huddled close together.

  “It did!” Fliss was practically hysterical. “He lifted his hand up! I saw it!”

  “Fliss, it’s a suit of armour!” said Frankie. “There’s no-one inside it. Look.”

  She reached out, and touched the metal hand. It broke away from the metal arm, and fell to the polished floor with a resounding CRASH that must have woken everybody up for five miles around.

  That put the king in the cake. We ran for it. We hurtled out the other side of the gallery, and into the corridor, gasping for breath. Then we saw the sign on the door opposite.

  THE EGYPTIAN ROOM

  “We’ve made it!” I gasped. “Let’s hope your mum’s still asleep, Frankie.”

  “And that Mrs Weaver’s not waiting for us behind the door,” said Rosie.

  We pushed open the door, hardly daring to breathe. But, unbelievably, everything was exact
ly the same as we’d left it. And Frankie’s mum was still fast asleep in her sleeping bag on the other side of the room.

  “I don’t believe it!” muttered Fliss. “We did it!”

  Then we heard footsteps coming down the corridor. Mrs Weaver was obviously still on the warpath.

  “Move!” I hissed.

  We all dived into our sleeping-bags. Two seconds later, the door opened!

  We all shut our eyes at exactly the same moment that Mrs Weaver looked round the door. She shone her torch into the room, and then we all pretended to wake up.

  “Sorry to disturb you, girls,” said Mrs Weaver. “But someone’s been running around the museum playing tricks.”

  “Oh, really, Miss?” said Frankie, doing a great imitation of a yawn.

  “Is everything all right, Mrs Weaver?” Frankie’s mum had got out of her sleeping bag, and come across the room. “Has something happened?”

  “Someone’s been frightening the girls in my group with a mummy mask,” said Mrs Weaver grimly. “I almost caught them, but then I got lost around the galleries.”

  I glanced at Frankie. So Mrs Weaver had got lost too. That must’ve been why we made it back before her. Lucky or what?

  “Well, I don’t think it was any of us,” said Frankie’s mum, looking round. “We’re all here.”

  “So I see,” said Mrs Weaver, ‘I think I’ll go and check on Ryan Scott’s group.’ And she closed the door.

  “Come on, girls, let’s get back to sleep,” said Frankie’s mum, “or you’ll be dead tired in the morning.”

  We all snuggled down into our sleeping bags. But as soon as Mrs Thomas had gone back over to the other side of the room, we all started laughing and talking. We were just too hyped up to go to sleep right away.

  “I can’t believe we got back here before Mrs Weaver,” whispered Fliss. “We nearly didn’t make it!”

  “Thank goodness she got lost as well,” said Rosie, “or we’d have been nicked!”