Angie Bates - Sleepover Club Blitz

“No, I was not, Laura McKenzie!” said Lyndz angrily.

I stared at them open-mouthed. Had my friends gone raving mad?

OK, so I had a mushy True Romance moment, when Owen first walked in. But to hear them talk, you’d think he was like one of those old portraits where the eyes follow you all around the room!

“Owen can’t have been looking at ALL of you simultaneously. Unless he’s got like, some major eye defect!” I pointed out.

“Clean your ears out, Rosie Cartwright!” snapped Frankie. “I told you. He wasn’t looking at ALL of us. He was looking at ME.”

“And I told YOU!” Lyndz snarled. “The poor boy was just cringing, in case you lobbed something else at him.”

Kenny shook her head. “Guys, this is really stoopid.”

I puffed out my cheeks with relief. My mates were finally coming back to their senses! “I agree,” I said eagerly. “I mean, he’s a boy, right? He’s totally not worth all this—”

Kenny silenced me with an icy glare. “What I was going to say, before Rosie interrupted me,” she growled, “is that all we have to do is PROVE which one of us Owen likes best.”

“Oh, PERLEAZE!” I said. “Haven’t you guys got ANY pride?”

But obviously they hadn’t, because they instantly perked up.

“Kenz, you’re right,” said Frankie excitedly. “But who’ll be the judge? We’re going to need someone who’s not, you know, personally involved.”

“How about Rosie?” Lyndz suggested. “She’s not the romantic type, are you, Rosie?” she grinned. “She’s much too sensible.”

“That’s what you think,” I muttered to myself. But out loud I said, “Hey, don’t go dragging me into this, OK?”

But they totally ignored me. Kenny reached into her pocket and pulled out an old spelling book. She tossed it to me. “Here you are, Rosie Posie,” she said. “There’s some pages left. Keep score in that.”

“Keep score of what, bird-brain?” I demanded.

They stared at me.

“I don’t believe Rosie, sometimes. She wasn’t even listening,” Frankie complained.

“She’s so selfish,” agreed Fliss. “If it isn’t about her, she just doesn’t want to know.”

I waved my hands in front of their faces. “Hello! I’m still here, you know.” But they totally ignored me. “Hey! How come I’m selfish, anyway?” I said huffily. “It’s not me that’s scratching my friends’ eyes out over some stoopid boy.”

“Pleeease, Rosie,” Kenny coaxed. “We’ll make it easy for you.” She produced a stump of pencil. Then she leaned the spelling book against the wall and drew four roughly vertical lines down each of its spare pages.

“I’ll write our names on the left,” she explained. “Then I’ll label these columns. Erm – Column One for if Owen smiles at anyone. Column Two for if he actually says something to one of us.”

Frankie put on her fruity milkmaid voice. “And Column Three is for any like, special favours,” she giggled.

Fliss’s jaw dropped. “What kind of favours?”

“You know,” smirked Frankie. “If Owen shows he really, really likes one of us. A LOT!”

Fliss fanned herself with her hand. “Oooer,” she said.

“Cuckoo,” I told them. “You’re all completely cuckoo.”

“Oh, go on, Rosie,” everyone pleaded.

“You’ve only got to put ticks in boxes,” said Kenny. “We’re not asking you to donate a kidney.”

“We’d do it for you,” Lyndz added. “You know we would.”

Don’t you just hate it when your friends try to make you feel guilty?

“All right,” I sighed. “But when it goes horribly wrong, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“It’ll end in tears, my lovelies,” said Frankie in her sexy milkmaid’s voice. “NOT,” she added rudely.

After break, the Sleepover Club’s fascinating love-life was forced to take a back seat, because Miss Pearson made an unexpected announcement.

“For the next few weeks we’ll be doing a very special history project,” she beamed. “We’ll be studying the Second World War. More specifically, the Blitz.”

Everybody groaned.

“No-one cares about that stuff now, Miss,” Frankie complained. “If you ask me, it’s time everyone got over all that old war business and started looking to the future.” And she sneaked a little peep at dishy Owen!

He was nodding away, like he was in total agreement, but for all I knew a bee just flew into his ear.

I stuck up my hand.

“I agree with Frankie,” I said. Because I did, actually. “This is the twenty-first century. Children of today should be focussing on peace, not war.”

The other Sleepover girls clapped and cheered. At first I was chuffed that my mates were backing me up. Then I realised THEY were sneaking looks at Owen, too. They didn’t give two hoots about me. They were trying to impress their blue-eyed boy!

“Good point, Rosie,” said Miss Pearson cheerfully. “Except I’m not convinced that world peace comes about by ignoring huge historical events. Rather the reverse. We need to understand what happened, so we can make sure these things never happen again.”

“Oh, wah, wah, wah!” said Frankie loudly. And she flicked her hair over one eye, purely for Owen’s benefit.

Miss Pearson sensibly ignored her. “I can guarantee that you’ll find this project really enjoyable,” she went on. “It won’t just be about facts and dates, you know. It’ll be a hands-on experience.”

Frankie’s shoulders shook with phony laughter. “A hands-on experience of the Second World War!” she said scornfully. “How enjoyable is that!”

I’d slid so far down my chair, I was practically under the desk by this time. Frankie was totally embarrassing me! Personally, I don’t see why a girl has to make a berk of herself to get boys to notice her. And if he DOES find that kind of obvious behaviour attractive, then he’s simply not worth bothering with. That’s what Mum says, anyway.

After school the others pestered me for an update on their scores. Fliss screamed like she’d sat on a pin when she realised she was in the lead. Believe it or not, she’d actually got a tick in the “Special Favours” column. (It wasn’t for anything icky. Owen just gave up his seat for her at lunchtime!)

The others immediately got the sulks.

“I warned you this would happen,” I sighed. “If you ask me, we should stop this stoopid point-scoring business right now.”

But they wouldn’t hear of it.

You know what, though? I know this makes me sounds like a major headcase, but after being madly in love with Owen Cartwright for like, two whole hours, I’d totally gone off him.

It wasn’t just the depressing effect he was having on my normally sane and cheerful friends. It was Owen himself. He’d started to remind me spookily of somebody else. But I couldn’t think who.

Incidentally, I got a good look at Mr Heart-throb as we were hurrying out of the school gates, and guess what? His smile wasn’t nearly as mysterious and lovely as I’d thought. At close quarters, it was actually more of a creepy smirk.

Suddenly, I saw what should have been obvious from the start. Our point-scoring system was a waste of time. Because charismatic Owen Cartwright was already totally and helplessly in love.

With HIMSELF!

All at once, instead of being thrilled that we shared the same surname, it started to grate on me. Also, I’d found out that Owen was six months older than me. And it made me furious to think that this smirking boy had been a Cartwright for a whole six months before I came into the world!!!

But it wasn’t until I was drifting off to sleep that night that I finally figured out who it was that Owen Cartwright reminded me of.