Narinder Dhami - Sleepover Girls Go Karting

Cover

Title Page Sleepover Girls Go Karting by Narinder Dhami

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Have you been invited to all these sleepovers?

Sleepover Kit List

Copyright

About the Publisher

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t we glue all the Watson-Wades’ windows and doors shut so they can’t get out? Or we could parachute on to their roof, and drop stinkbombs down the chimney. Or we could dress up in white sheets and haunt them?”

Frankie grinned, and poked me in the ribs with her elbow. “You’re always so full of good ideas, Kenny!” she said.

“You know me,” I said modestly. “If you want a good idea, I’m the main man!”

“Yeah, wasn’t it your idea to try and decorate my bedroom?” Rosie said thoughtfully “We got banned from having any more sleepovers for a while after that.”

“And it was your idea to have that stupid bet with the M&Ms when we went to Disneyland, Paris,” Fliss chimed in. “We nearly got trashed by our worst enemies!”

“Never mind, Kenny,” Lyndz said kindly. “You do have really good idea sometimes…”

Aah, that’s Lyndz all over. She wants to be nice to everybody .

“… It’s just that I can’t think of any at the moment!” she finished.

Yep, these guys are my best mates! With friends like these, who needs enemies? Only kidding. Our real enemies are the snotty old M&Ms, but you probably already know all about them , and they’re not in this story anyway, so we can forget all about them (hurrah!).

Anyway, let’s get on with it! I’ve got this really coo-ell story to tell you all about what we did at half-term. You’ll never believe what happened. We had a fab time and—

Hang on a minute. What do you mean, you don’t know who we are? You mean to say there’s at least one person in the world who hasn’t heard of the mega-fantastic, ultra-cool, completely class Sleepover Club???

Oh. Apparently there is one person who’s never heard of us. OK, for that person’s benefit, here’s the rundown. I suppose you can sort of guess why we’re called the Sleepover Club, can’t you? ’Cos we sleep over at each other’s houses, of course – duh! There’s me, Kenny (or you can call me Laura if you really want to wind me up), Frankie, Rosie, Lyndz and Fliss. You’ll figure us all out as we go along, I expect.

Anyway, it was half-term, and we were sitting in the Proudloves’ garden. That’s Fliss’s family, if you didn’t know. She used to be called Sidebotham, poor thing – but now her mum’s remarried, thank goodness! We were having a sleepover at Fliss’s that night. Mind you, we’d be lucky if we got any sleep. Fliss’s mum has just had twins called Joe and Hannah, and they cry a lot. That’s why the Proudloves’ neighbours, the Watson-Wades (or the Grumpies, as we call them) had been moaning. Mrs Proudlove was really getting ratty about it, which was winding Fliss up – and when Fliss is wound up, the rest of the Sleepover Club really know about it! So I was trying to think how we could get our revenge.

“We could climb over the fence and steal their fish!” I suggested with an evil grin. “That’d really annoy them.”

We all looked over into the Grumpies’ garden. They had a really posh pond with gold and silver fish in it, and lots of plants around the edge. I don’t know if you remember because it was ages ago, but when we had a sleepover at Fliss’s once, we burnt a whole load of toast and chucked it over the fence into the Watson-Wades’ pond to get rid of it! They were not pleased.

“And what would we do with the poor old fish?” Frankie asked. “And don’t say ‘eat them’!”

Frankie’s a veggie, remember?

“We’d be doing them a favour,” I pointed out. “We’d be saving them from the Watson-Wades!”

“Honestly, they’re so grumpy, it just isn’t true,” Fliss groaned.

“Who, the fish?” I joked. “They seem pretty laid back to me, just swimming around there!”

“Oh, ha ha, Kenny, very funny.” Fliss gave me a shove. “No, the Watson-Wades, of course. They moan all the time!”

“Yeah, it’s a real pain.” I winked at the others, who grinned. Fliss can moan for England herself if she puts her mind to it!

“I mean , babies cry,” Fliss went on. “That’s what they do!”

“And wet their nappies,” Frankie added.

“And worse!” Lyndz said. She should know – she’s got two baby brothers.

“Haven’t the Grumpies got a baby of their own anyway?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Fliss put on this really snooty voice. “Bruno Watson-Wade!”

“Your mum should go round and complain when he makes a noise, Fliss,” Frankie suggested.

“ Boring , Francesca Thomas!” I snorted. Frankie’s far too sensible – well, some of the time. “I still think we should dress up and haunt them. That’d soon shut them up!”

“The Grumpies must be pretty weedy if they moan about the sound of a couple of babies crying,” Rosie remarked. “It can’t be that bad .”

Right on cue, one of the twins started crying inside the house. A few seconds later the other one joined in. They were both yelling at the top of their lungs, and it sounded like ten cats screeching their heads off at the same time. It was pretty deafening.

“See?” Fliss yelled over the racket. “It’s not that bad , is it?”

“NO!” we all shouted back. I dunno about the others, but I was dying to put my hands over my ears!

Fliss’s mum appeared at the French windows.

“Fliss!” she yelled. “Could you come in and keep an eye on the pasta, while I see to the twins?”

“All right, Mum!” Fliss yelled back. So we all trooped inside and into the kitchen, where the spaghetti was boiling away on the cooker. Luckily, after a few minutes the screaming stopped.

“We can play with the babies after tea if you like,” Fliss offered.

“Yeah, good idea,” Rosie said eagerly. Frankie, Lyndz and me didn’t look that keen, though. Rosie hasn’t got any babies at home, that’s why she’s so up for it. But Frankie and Lyndz both have, and as for me, I’m just not that that interested. I only like people who can talk, and are toilet-trained.

“So what are we going to do with the rest of this half-term, then?” Frankie asked, taking charge as usual.

Everyone looked at each other.

“Have a couple more sleepovers,” Lyndz suggested. We’re not allowed to have sleepovers during the week in term-time, so we were making the most of the holiday by packing in as many as possible.

“Yes, but what else?” I asked impatiently. “I wanna do something exciting. Something interesting. Something I’ve never, ever done before…”

“Be sensible?” Rosie said, deadpan.

The others fell about. Rosie’s jokes can sometimes really get you where it hurts!

Right at that moment we heard the sound of the front door slam, and a few moments later Andy came into the kitchen. He’s not Fliss’s real dad, but he’s OK. Andy’s a plasterer and he’d just got in from work, so he was still in his dusty overalls.