Fiona Cummings - The 24 Hour Sleepover Club

My dad thinks he’s so funny, but I guess I do spend a long time gossiping on the phone.

I was going to ring you, Kenny. Do you think jeans and a crop top will be all right for the fair? And what are you going to wear for the picnic?

All I could hear at the other end of the line was a sort of sniffing.

That is you, isn’t it, Kenny?

This time there were a few gulps among the sniffs.

Have you got some kind of disease?

I can’t have the 24-hour sleepover , she sobbed.

What? Why?

Dad’s going to be away at some stupid conference and mum has promised to go and see my Aunty Mary in Norwich that weekend. I told Mum that we’d all stay here without them, but she went ballistic.

I wonder why? I laughed; then I had one of my brainwaves.

Hang on, Kenny. You can’t have it at your house, but what’s to stop me having the sleepover here?

Your parents?

Don’t be daft, Kenny. This is Frankie you’re speaking to, not Fliss. I’ll talk my parents round. Easy-peasy.

Frankie, you’re the best. See you tomorrow. And good luck!

Am I clever or am I clever?

Of course, once I’d promised I had to come up with the goods, didn’t I? So I went into the lounge where Mum and Dad were watching some boring television programme. I settled down on the settee between them and pretended that I was really interested in it, too.

“All right, Frankie, what do you want?” asked Dad.

“Well, I was just thinking,” I said, very innocently. “If you had a friend who had invited you and some of his mates round for a weekend… ”

“Y-es,” said my dad, suspiciously.

“And then he found that for some reason he couldn’t use his own home that particular weekend, I wouldn’t mind a bit if you all came here instead.”

Mum let out a loud laugh.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said.

“And I was wondering… ” I continued.

“You were wondering if you could invite your friends round here for your next sleepover. Right?” He’s very quick, my dad.

“It’s the 24-hour sleepover, actually,” I reminded them.

They both groaned.

“Not the fair, anything but the fair,” gasped Mum, pretending to collapse on the settee.

She loves it really, so does Dad. They went on more rides than we did last year.

“OK, OK. I think we can cope with the Fearless Five for 24 hours, don’t you?” my dad said.

“Thanks, Dad, you’re the greatest,” I said, planting a big kiss on his forehead. I gave Mum a big hug and a kiss too and danced up to my room. I still had to decide what to wear for the picnic.

I never actually got round to choosing my clothes for the picnic. Instead I made cute little Change of Sleepover Venue cards for the others.

Pretty neat or what?

We have so many sleepovers at each other’s houses now that we never mind where we go. But having this one at my place did have one major advantage.

“No Molly The Monster!” shouted Lyndz and Fliss together when I handed them their change of venue cards.

“Yeah, she’s in a real mood!” laughed Kenny. “It’s wicked!”

“I didn’t think she liked us coming to stay at your place,” said Rosie.

“No, she doesn’t, but she was looking forward to going to the fair. And now she can’t because she’s got to go to Norwich with Mum. One-nil!” shouted Kenny, leaping about as though Leicester City had just won the FA Cup!

“I see the babies are getting excited again,” said Emma Hughes, who just happened to be stalking past us. “Have their mummies promised to take them to the fair, then?” She put on a really stupid, babyish voice.

“They’ll have to remember to take some spare nappies,” laughed her side-kick, Emily Berryman. “We all know what happens to babies when they get over-excited.” They cackled like two constipated hyenas and ran away. It took me all my time to stop Kenny rushing after them. I hate to think what she would have done if I’d let her go.

“They’re not worth it, Kenny,” said Lyndz. “Try not to let them get to you.”

“I can’t help it,” seethed Kenny, who was bright red in the face. “They just wind me up. I swear that I’m going to get even with them.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said putting my arm round her shoulder. I’d heard the same thing since we were five and we hadn’t exactly managed to get one over them yet.

Still, Kenny was my best friend and it was always wise to humour her.

“We’ll think of something really gruesome,” I said. “And then they’ll be sorry they were born.”

The whistle went for the start of school. We tried to hop all the way inside but Mrs Poole, the headmistress, screwed up her face and frowned at us. One of her looks could turn milk sour at ten paces. As soon as we saw her we walked normally into our classroom, then exploded into laughter. Apart from Fliss, of course. She was the colour of boiled beetroot. She just hates being told off, or, in this case, just looked at!

At break time we went to the studio to practise one of our dance routines. But when we got there, a group of young girls were already clustered outside watching someone dancing. They were the same girls who we’d seen dancing in the playground the day before. We looked into the studio to see who they were watching. Wouldn’t you know it, the stupid M&Ms had got there first.

“I don’t believe it!” shouted Rosie. “They’re starting to spoil all our fun.”

“And they can’t even dance properly!” smirked Lyndz.

“Somebody told me that the last time they took their dancing exams, a six-year-old got better grades than they did!” laughed Fliss. “Maybe those little girls are coaching them!”

We all laughed.

Inside the studio, Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman were thrashing about like flies caught in a cobweb. The music they were dancing to was some seriously gruesome classical number. Mum and Dad listen to a lot of classical stuff, and I actually quite like some of it, but this sounded like a couple of cats in a liquidiser!

“Do you suppose they’re trying to do something from Swan Lake?” asked Rosie. “You know, dying swans and all that.”

“I don’t know about dying swans,” snorted Kenny. “They look like dead ducks to me!”

The M&Ms must have heard us screaming with laughter, because they suddenly stopped dancing and started to stare at us.

“Uh-oh!” said Fliss. “I think it’s time we went.”

“No way!” snorted Kenny. “We’ve as much right to be here as they have.”

Emma Hughes came over to the door. “Are you picking up a few tips?” she asked in her sickly-sweet voice. She was talking to us and the young girls. “I don’t think there’s any hope of any of you ever making the Royal Ballet School. The zoo might be interested in some fairy elephants though!”

We just laughed, but the little girls looked a bit upset.

“Well,” sneered Kenny. “I’d rather be with some intelligent animals in a zoo than with sad no-hopers like you!”

“You’re only jealous!” spat out Emily Berryman, who had come to join her friend at the studio door.

“Get a life!” we all shouted, and ran down the corridor.

After that, Get a life! became our way of greeting the M&Ms. And boy did they hate it! The joke did wear a bit thin after a while though. Then we turned our attention to the 24-hour sleepover again. I just couldn’t wait!