Jana Hunter - Trick or Treat

Cover

Title Page

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Top Sleepover Tips

The Sleepover Kit List

Have you been Invited to all these Sleepovers?

Copyright

About the Publisher

Come in, quick. Sit down. I’ve got something to ask you, and it’s dead serious.

Have you got a sister? A crummy big sister? The kind who hates to see you having fun and always tries to ruin things for you? Have you ever wanted to put a spell on that jealous sister? You know, make her disappear, grow warts, or turn into smelly frog-slime and slither off down some deep well? I have, cos my sister Molly really messed up things for the Sleepover Club at Hallowe’en. And it wasn’t funny (not at first, anyway). Mind you, when Frankie did her witchy thing and scared everyone half to death it was a killer. The best. And when Rosie went haywire with the Curse of the Nerd’s Nose, that was something else.

But that wasn’t all.

There was Merlin (my pet rat) and his sneaky trail of rat’s droppings. There was the candlelight and the secret chants and all the dark, dark, mysterious goings-on. Then there was the trouble I got into for stealing bits of Molly…

Why she had to make such a fuss about a teeny weeny bit of belly-button fluff, goodness only knows! But that’s Molly for you. Always making a big deal. If only she was like my other sister, Emma. Emma’s my eldest sister and she’s all right, she is. Molly is different. Gruesome. Is it any wonder we call her Molly the Monster?

Look, I know I’m going on about Molly, but she nearly ruined our Sleepover Club, and that’s the most important thing in the world to me and my mates, as anyone knows.

Wait. D’you want to hear everything that happened? I bet you do. Okay, here goes… It started on a Friday night. (That’s our regular sleepover night, in case you don’t know.) It was right before Hallowe’en and the Sleepover Club was getting in the mood for a specially spellbinding time (spellbinding… get it? Spells, potions, witches and stuff). See, my four friends were due at my house any minute. We wanted to work on our trick-or-treat stuff before the dreaded M&Ms, Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman, beat us to it. The M&Ms are our biggest enemies at school and they were sure to have nasty tricks up their sleeves. The gang had some great sleepover things planned: costumes, tricks, witchy games and creepy ghost stories, all topped off with the most wicked midnight feast of black sweets. We had liquorice, Black Jacks, Wine Gums, Fruit Pastilles, jellybeans, Black Imps and best of all, black Jelly Babies! It was going to be the most coo-ell sleepover in history! But of course, Molly the Monster didn’t like that. Oh no. She had to create a scene the minute she heard about it.

“But Mu-um!” she whinged, stamping her silly foot. “Mum, you promised Jilly could sleep over next time we had swimming practice and it’s swimming practice tomorrow!”

Mum clapped her hand to her forehead. “Oh no!”

Of course Molly had to take advantage of the look on Mum’s face, by whining, “Kenny can’t have our bedroom tonight, Mum. You promised!”

“I just didn’t realise it fell on Kenny’s sleepover night.”

“She can have her baby sleepover tomorrow,” said Molly. “Saturday.”

“Saturdays are out while the Cuddington Ballroom Contests are on,” sighed Mum. “I’ve got customers booked up for the next four weeks.” (Mum does hairdressing at home, and while the Ballroom Contests were on she had glamorous grannies lining up to get their purple rinses and perms.)

“Our sleepover’s tonight. The gang’s already on their way,” I protested.

“Mum promised me,” Molly said in that annoying singsong voice she always gets when she thinks she’s got one over me. “And anyway Jilly’s on her way too… with her mum.”

“Too bad the Sleepover Club got in first!” I retorted.

“Too bad for you, Laura McKenzie.” Molly made a face at me. But she waited for Mum to leave the kitchen before she gave me one of her big, fat pokes. “Too bad cos I’m having my friend over to stay tonight no matter what. So you can forget your soppy Sleepover Club.”

That did it.

How dare she call the Sleepover Club soppy? Our Sleepover Club is the best, the most brilliant fun in the world, and nobody calls it names. For a start it’s got me, Kenny, in it (Laura McKenzie to people who want to get on the wrong side of me). But it’s also got my best mate Frankie (Francesca Thomas) in it, so that makes it fantabulous, cos Frankie’s a real laugh. Then there’s Lyndz (Lyndsey Collins) the soft-hearted giggly one, Fliss (Felicity Sidebotham) the sugar-and-spice one and Rosie Cartwright the most down-to-earth grown-up one. We’re the five most coo-ell girls in Cuddington School.

And we are not soppy!

That’s why when Molly called us that, I had to get my own back by pretending to sigh a huge great sigh. “What a shame there won’t be room for your dear little friend to sleep over…” I went. “I s’pose the only thing you can do is camp out in the garage.

’Course, you’ll have to share your sleeping bag with Merlin…” Molly hates my rat more than a double dose of poison. “I’m sure Merlin would love to nibble your toes.”

That got Molly’s back up, big time!

Molly went for me. I went for her. And in no time we were rolling about on the floor like those mad wrestlers you get on telly.

“Ooof!”

“Ouch!”

“Aaargggh!”

It was well good. And I was winning too, when Mum had to spoil it by coming back into the kitchen.

“Stop it you two! Stop it right now!”

“She started it…”

“You started it!”

“I don’t care who started it. Just stop it, or else!”

So because Mum sounded like she meant business this time, my dear sister and I did what she said, although Molly had to carry on making dorky faces at me behind Mum’s back.

“Now listen to me,” Mum ordered. “I’ve just been on the phone to Mrs Thomas, and she says since it’s an emergency the Sleepover Club can decamp over at Frankie’s tonight.”

“But everyone’s coming here!” I couldn’t bear to think of my spider and web decorations upstairs going to waste. “Mum, I’ve been decorating my room all afternoon.”

“I’m sorry, Kenny,” said Mum.

“So-rry,” mimicked Molly, being her usual super-annoying self. But before I had a chance to thump her, I saw something that would shut her up good and proper.

I saw it loom up out of the dark and float eerily up to the kitchen window, like something out of a horror movie. A sight so gruesome, so horrible, that it sent shivers all the way down to my size three trainers. It was big. It was green. And it had wicked red-rimmed eyes.

“Aaaargh!” screamed Molly, seeing it for herself. “It’s a witch!”

“A what?”

“A witch at the window!”

Sure it was a witch. But I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t shocked. Not me. I just opened my mouth and yelled at the top of my voice:

“Frankie!”