Trick or Treat

by Jana Hunter

  2. Strand of hair

  3. A shred of fluff

  4. Red wax candle

  5. Nail (the other kind of nail)

  6. A teaspoon of rainwater

  7. A fingerprint from subject’s ‘love object’

  With a bit of know-how, it wouldn’t be too hard to get a nail clipping or a hair or two. Trouble was, how was I supposed to get a fingerprint from Molly’s ‘love object’?

  There had to be a way.

  I thought and thought about it the whole of Sunday. I thought about it as I searched and searched for Merlin (and didn’t find him). I thought about it as I scarfed down roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and a double helping of apple crumble. And I thought about it in bed. But, all I could think of was kidnapping Robin Hughes, and I didn’t fancy that. I mean, what would we do with him, when we got him?

  Then, just as I was about to fall asleep, it came to me! An idea so coo-ell, so ace and top, I nearly jumped out of bed.

  At school on Monday, I told Frankie about my brainwave.

  “Brillo!” Frankie gave me a high five. “Kenny, you’re a star.”

  “You said it,” I beamed. Frankie catches on quickly.

  At break the two of us put the first part of the ‘Love Potion Plan’ into action. It relied on the M&Ms’ love of meddling, so no problem there! But it also meant following the horrible pair, known as the Goblin and the Queen, into the girls’ toilets at break. (The things we do for the Sleepover Club!)

  We waited until the M&Ms were safely locked in the two end toilets. Then all we had to do was pretend to be having a private little chat, so that our enemies could accidentally-on-purpose overhear us.

  “Frankie…” I began in an extra loud whisper.

  “Yes, Kenny?” hissed Frankie.

  “You know, Robin Hughes is gonna die if he hears my sister Molly fancies him!”

  Frankie stifled a laugh. “Yeah. Robin mustn’t ever find out that Molly’s mad for him!”

  “Exactly.” I gave Frankie a huge wink. “It would ruin things Big Time for the Sleepover Club, if those two got together.”

  Stage One done. Cool as cucumbers, Frankie and I sauntered out of the girls’ toilets. It didn’t take long. We knew our trick had worked when the M&Ms went into one of their major heads-together whisperings in the corner of the playground. Those two love the chance to ruin things for the Sleepover Club.

  And just to prove it, they did something only the M&Ms could do. It was in Arts & Crafts. Our class was doing Hallowe’en collages to decorate the classroom walls. We had orange and black paper, beads, fabric scraps, lots of autumn leaves, acorns and stuff and gallons of glue. Everyone was busily cutting and sticking, when suddenly Frankie burst out, “Wow! Just what I need for my spell for Pepsi’s pups!”

  “What?”

  “Pearls!” Frankie pounced on an old string of fake pearls, which were tangled up with the ribbons and yarn. “The Baby Spell calls for pearls…”

  Baby Spell!

  Emma Hughes’ eyes nearly popped out her head. Wow! Did she and her stupid partner go into a major heads-together thing this time! But it wasn’t until clean-up time that we found out what they’d been up to. We were in the middle of cleaning up when Mrs Weaver said sternly, “Francesca Thomas, come out here.”

  The Goblin shot a look of triumph at the Queen. Frankie got up slowly and went over to Mrs Weaver’s desk. “Yes, Miss?”

  “I hope you haven’t been stealing school property, Francesca,” Mrs Weaver said severely. “You know how wrong that is.”

  Frankie flushed. “Yes, Miss…I mean, no Miss. I…”

  “Have you taken something, Francesca?”

  The class went dead silent. So silent you could probably hear my heart thumping in the stillness! But Frankie didn’t answer.

  Suddenly Mrs Weaver’s voice cut through the silence. “Francesca,” she ordered. “EMPTY YOUR POCKETS!”

  Lyndz whimpered. Rosie clasped her hands. And Frankie turned all colours of the sun. My best friend hung down her head, then started to empty her pockets. One by one, she took out her secret private stuff:

  One squirrel with a chipped tail (from miniature ornament collection)

  One silver moon earring

  One half-eaten packet of bubble gum

  One used paper hankie

  One dog biscuit with crumbs

  A bit of pocket fluff

  One 2p piece

  A scrap of pink ribbon

  Everyone craned their necks to inspect the evidence.

  “I-I just took this ribbon from the bin, Miss…” Miserably, Frankie held up the crumpled scrap of pink ribbon. “Someone had thrown it away, so I thought it was OK…”

  Mrs Weaver coughed. “Oh. Oh, I see.”

  Another long silence.

  “Miss, are these what you’re looking for, Miss?” I said finally, holding up the pearls that Frankie had put back in the collage box.

  The M&Ms gasped.

  Frankie threw me a grateful smile and Mrs Weaver turned the same colour as Frankie’s ribbon.

  “Oh! Oh, yes. Thank you, Laura.” Then smiling ever-so sweetly at Frankie, Mrs Weaver said, “All right, Francesca, you can sit down now.”

  Whew! Frankie was innocent. Nobody but the M&Ms could ever have thought different.

  Even so, it didn’t stop Frankie from feeling just awful.

  “It was as if I’d committed the major crime of the century,” she shuddered. “Standing up there, in front of the whole class…”

  “But you hadn’t done anything,” Lyndz comforted her. “And Mrs Weaver knew it.”

  “Those M&Ms…” muttered Rosie, shaking her head. “When will their meddling stop?”

  “Not yet, I hope!” I snorted.

  “Why? What d’you mean, Kenny?” asked Rosie, puzzled.

  “If I get my way, the M&Ms’ meddling is going to help save the Sleepover Club!”

  “Huh?”

  “Tell us, tell us!” begged Lyndz.

  I looked at Frankie. She looked at me. “Tell them Kenny! Tell them!”

  So we let the gang into our plan. How Frankie and I made sure the M&Ms overheard us. And how they were bound to set up Robin Hughes with Molly, just to foil us.

  “Once Molly thinks someone likes her, it won’t matter whether she thinks he’s the biggest nerd in the world, the flattery will go to her head. She’s sure to choose Chess Club to be near Robin Hughes,” I finished.

  “I know Robin Hughes,” announced Fliss importantly. “He lives round the corner.”

  “That could come in very useful,” I said thoughtfully.

  “But how will Molly fancying Robin Hughes help the Sleepover Club?” persisted Rosie, who could be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes.

  “Well, if she’s not going to swimming on Saturdays any more she won’t need Silly Jilly to sleep over.”

  “So…?”

  “So that means she won’t need to get our sleepovers stopped.”

  “She’ll be too busy with her new boyfriend to worry about ruining our club,” explained Frankie.

  “Excellent!” cheered Lyndz and Fliss.

  “Brillo!” Rosie had to agree.

  I huffed on my fingertips and rubbed them on my school sweatshirt. “Thank you, gang. How clever of you to notice!”

  Now all we had to do was wait. The M&Ms would take care of the next bit for us, for sure.

  Thank you, M&Ms…Thank you for helping us save our Sleepover Club!

  Fliss was in heaven. “Ooh, look at these!” she sighed. “And these, and these!”

  It was half term and we were in Harmony Heaven getting all the stuff for our spells. There were lotions and potions, mirrors, silver trinkets and tinkly glass wind chimes everywhere. The place was like Aladdin’s Cave.

  Rosie was sorting through the same basket of shells Fliss was sighing over. “You can almost see through this one,” she said.

  “Ooh! Perfumed candles!” gushed Fliss, rushing over to a glass shelf loa
ded with goodies.

  Frankie rolled her eyes. “How romantic!”

  Ignoring Frankie’s teasing, Fliss was now going mad on all the smelly stuff. “My mum would love these!” she said as she sniffed a packet of bath salts. “She says you should always take care of yourself and find time to wind down.”

  Just as I was thinking that Fliss’s houseproud mum needed more than bath salts to make her relax, Lyndz ran up. “Look!” she said excitedly. “A bottle of coloured sand. My spell says that all I have do is sprinkle sand on the ground, and write ‘Merrylegs’ in it!”

  “What for?”

  Lyndz thwacked Frankie. “To get my dream horse, Donkey Brain!”

  “Neeeeigh!” whinnied Frankie, remembering our last horsey game.

  “Brrrrr!” Lyndz snorted back, and she reared just like a horse.

  “Go for it, Merrylegs!” I cheered and Lyndz pawed the ground. But when she pretended to write ‘Merrylegs’ with her ‘hoof’, she knocked over a basket of novelty sponges and a plaster mermaid.

  We scrabbled on the floor, collecting seahorse and fish-shaped sponges, in total hysterics. But our laughter died a sudden death as the shopkeeper marched over. “Are you girls planning on making a purchase?” she demanded, waving her jangly bracelets in the air.

  “Er…”

  “We were…”

  “We were just horsing around,” Frankie finished, and before I could stop it, a snort of laughter had escaped from behind my hand.

  The shopkeeper swelled up. “Young lady, if you’re going to be rude…”

  “Sorry,” I cut in. “We’re really sorry. And…and I do want to buy something.” I stroked a red candle against my cheek. “I’d like this for my…Lu-u-rve Potion.”

  Uh-oh. Everyone got the giggles big time now. The only one who didn’t find it amusing was you-know-who.

  Shopkeepers hate kids.

  So, after we bought what we needed for our spells, we agreed to boycott her stupid shop just to show her.

  We did much better collecting pebbles in the White Swan pub’s driveway. The man who owned the place was dead friendly. “Make a wish for me,” he grinned. “To win the Lottery!”

  “No problem!”

  Things were going great. We had our candles, our shells, our sand and our pebbles. Now all we had to do was go to the Arboretum to collect twigs for wands.

  The Arboretum is this huge tree park smack bang in the middle of Leicester. It’s peaceful and green and has every kind of tree you can think of. We had no trouble finding the ones s’posed to have magical powers, hazel and rowan.

  “Look at this.” I rubbed the grey bark of a hazel tree. “You can tell it’s magic.”

  “Only take twigs from the ground,” cut in Frankie just as I was trying out a magic chant. Frankie collected signatures with her mum for ‘Save a Tree’ once and it’s made her a bit bossy about living things.

  “We care about the environment too, you know,” I protested.

  But my promise didn’t stop Fliss the-ever-nervous-one from going, “Watch out no one sees us.”

  “We’re not doing any harm,” Lyndz consoled her.

  “Heh, heh, heh!” I gave a wicked witch cackle. “That’s what you think!” And waving my hazel wand about, I chanted:

  “Eye of newt, slimy toad stew…

  Time to put a spell on you!”

  Cackling evilly, I chased the gang round the Arboretum threatening to turn them into frogs. It was well funny.

  The gang went mad, and Frankie went haywire as usual. She raced round the trees and slid on her bum down the grass slopes yelling, “A witch! A witch!” Rosie nearly wet herself.

  We were all shrieking and running like wild things, when suddenly Fliss stopped dead in her tracks.

  “L-look over there,” she panted, pointing to a boy the other side of the grass.

  “Where?” We looked.

  “It’s Robin Hughes!” Fliss gasped.

  We all looked at a tall skinny boy standing under a tree taking notes.

  “So that’s my future brother-in-law!” I joked.

  “Only if your spell works,” laughed Frankie.

  Robin Hughes, who was more like Harry Potter than Harry Potter himself, looked up from his notepad and blinked at us through his glasses.

  “Robin!” shouted out Fliss. “This is Molly’s sister. She’s got a message for you!”

  The poor boy went white.

  “You know, Molly who’s in the chess tournament?” I added.

  “D-do you mean M-Molly M-McKenzie?” Robin stuttered.

  “Yeah,” I said as I ran up to him. “Hasn’t your cousin Emma told you about her?”

  “Well…yes, actually,” said Robin, looking dead embarrassed.

  “My sister says she wants to know when it’s Chess Club. She really wants it to be Saturday.”

  “Oh,” said Robin looking relieved. “Tell her it’s going to be on Saturdays then.”

  Now it was my turn to feel relieved. If Chess Club was on Saturdays, the Sleepover Club might be out of danger!

  But just to make sure I said, “Molly really wants to see you.”

  Robin went red. “Really…?”

  There was an awkward silence. Then Robin seemed to screw up all his courage. In a sudden rush, he blurted out, “Tell her I’ll see her there!”

  (YES!)

  “OK.”

  “See ya, Robin!”

  “R-right.”

  Heh, heh, heh…Our little plot was working.

  “Let me clean the bath, Mum!” I grabbed the Ajax and Mum’s jaw dropped a mile.

  “Thank you, Kenny,” she said, trying to act like it was the most normal thing in the world for me to offer to clean the bath after Molly the Monster. (I don’t think so!)

  Mind you, Mum wasn’t the only one surprised at me lately. Believe it or not, in the last two days, I had sorted laundry, tidied Molly’s side of the bedside table (even though Molly throws away anything of mine that goes on to her side) and cleaned her yucky hairbrush.

  How else was I supposed to collect bits of Molly’s horrible grunge for my witchy spell? But even a magical person has limits. When I had to fish out a bit of her horrible toenail from the bath, I almost threw up.

  Molly the Monster had taken to having long, private baths ever since I gave her Robin’s message about Chess Club. She didn’t fancy him (yet!) but even a nerd showing interest in you is better than no one. So with Saturday looming, my gruesome sister was probably trying to decide which club she’d go to – swimming or chess. The suspense was killing me!

  But that wasn’t the only thing looming. Hallowe’en was next week. The thing was, we’d got fab stuff planned for our Hallowe’en sleepover, but so far we had nowhere to have it.

  Every parent had said a big fat “No”.

  See, the ugly rumour that our Sleepover Club was ‘trouble’ had spread. Jilly’s mum was friendly with Lyndz’s mum and the two of them had a real downer on us (all Silly Jilly’s doing, of course). They were forever on the phone, complaining about things the gang got up to at sleepovers. And as soon as the other mums got wind of this, they started being mardy about sleepovers too.

  True, with all my cleaning, my mum was definitely softening…But there was no way she’d go back on her word to ban sleepovers at our house. Not yet, anyway. When even Mrs Thomas gave a weak excuse, things looked desperate.

  So the Sleepover Club had a conference call.

  A conference call is where phone lines are linked up so different people can speak together at the same time. Here’s how it works with our gang.

  We’ve all got mobiles now, amazingly. First, I call Frankie on our home phone. Next, Frankie answers me and calls Lyndz on her mobile. Then Lyndz answers on her home phone and calls Fliss on her mobile. Fliss answers on her mobile and calls Rosie at home. Finally Rosie calls my mobile on her mobile. Hey presto! We’re linked in a big circle! We each hold a home phone at one ear and a mobile at the other and we talk! It’s de
ad cool!

  “We’ve got to stop that Jilly coming over to your house,” said Frankie into both her phones. “She’s winding all the mums up.”

  “Yeah,” Lyndz and I said together.

  “Lyndz, ask Fliss how her campaign to get Robin Hughes interested in Molly is going.”

  If the plan to get Molly preoccupied with Robin Hughes didn’t work, she’d carry on ruining our Sleepover Club. I could hear Lyndz talking to Fliss and I waited for her to give me Fliss’s answer.

  “Fliss says she ‘accidently-on-purpose’ bumped into Robin on his way home from school. She went on and on to him how nice Molly was.”

  “Yuck! How did he act?”

  “Just looked puzzled, Fliss says.”

  “Don’t blame him!”

  Frankie broke in. “All this romance is OK, but it doesn’t solve where we’ll have our sleepover for Hallowe’en.”

  “We must all be really, really nice, and get round our mums,” said Lyndz, who reckoned being ‘nice’ was the answer to everything.

  “Why don’t we tell each mum that she’s the only one making a fuss?” said Fliss (whose mum usually was the only one making a fuss).

  But Frankie came from a household of lawyers. “We could present our parents with a petition,” she suggested.

  “Won’t work on my mum,” Fliss moaned.

  “Well, being ultra nice will only make mine suspicious,” retorted Frankie.

  “Why don’t we try all our ideas?” suggested Rosie, and in the end that’s what we agreed to.

  A triple whammy.

  The Sleepover Club was in danger and we had to pull out all the stops to save it. I don’t mind telling you, I was worried. But that wasn’t the only thing getting to me…

  Merlin still hadn’t been found.

  Merlin my pet had been missing for days. I was in a right state. That’s why when I found The Evidence under my sister’s bed, I nearly went through the bedsprings with excitement.

  Here’s how it happened.

  I was under Molly’s bed, looking for dirty socks, cos Frankie reckoned toe jam would make my ‘Love Potion’ extra potent! Anyway, there I was, wondering why Molly kept chewed-up paper and shredded tissues under her bed, when I noticed a brown, lumpy pile. (Not what you’re thinking.) This was a secret stash of chocolate brazils piled up like rocks, one on top of the other. It was a mini-wall built so painstakingly, it looked like a fortification from a cartoon about knights.