Читать книгу Sleepover Girls Go Camping - Fiona Cummings, Louis Catt - Страница 4

Don’t you just love children’s playgrounds? I do and I love the swings best of all. There’s nothing better than flying right up into the air and whooshing back. I think everyone should go on a swing once in a while, just to clear their heads. Grown-ups as well. Especially grown-ups.

My friends think I’m crazy. They say:

“Lyndz, anybody would think Ben was taking you to the playground, not the other way round.”

In case you’ve forgotten, Ben’s my four-year-old brother. He’s a bit wild. He’d much rather be bashing people over the head with his pretend sword than playing on the swings. Still, my baby brother, Spike, enjoys going to the playground, so I quite often take him. Not today though. Today I’m meeting the rest of the Sleepover Club. You can come too, if you like. In fact you’ve got to come, because I want to tell you all about our latest adventure. It was mega-cool.

You remember that we all belong to the same Brownie Pack, don’t you? Well, just over a month ago, Brown Owl told us about this special camp she was arranging during the summer holidays.

“It’s for those of you who’ll soon be going up to Guides,” she said.

“That’s us!” said Rosie and I together.

“There’s going to be a special four-day ‘under canvas’ camp at Foxton Glen at the beginning of August. It’s a fun way to get you used to the kind of things that Guides do,” Brown Owl continued.

“Cool!” shouted Kenny. “We can leave Brownies to the babies!”

“I heard that, Laura McKenzie!” said Brown Owl, scowling at Kenny.

Kenny scowled right back at her. If there’s one thing she hates it’s being called by her proper name. ‘Laura’ is way too girlie for her!

“What will we be doing at the camp?” asked Frankie, quickly changing the subject before Kenny got too out of control.

Frankie’s our sort of unofficial Sleepover Club leader. She’s so sensible you see.

“Well, you’ll be helping to put up your own tents for a start, then there’s abseiling, canoeing, a climbing wall, archery—”

“Wicked!” laughed Kenny. “It’s going to be cooler than a fridge full of Magnum ice creams!” She was so hyper, I thought she was going to start bouncing round the room at any minute.

I turned to Fliss, who was sitting next to me. “What’s she like!” I laughed. But then I saw Fliss’s face. She was not a happy bunny. “What’s up with you?” I said.

“I hate all those things,” she moaned. “You know, abseiling and stuff – it’s just not me!”

She was right there. Fliss is not really an outdoorsy kind of girl. Give her a bottle of nail varnish and a pile of magazines and she’s in heaven. Shinning down the side of a building on a rope – well, that’s more like Fliss’s idea of hell. She’s very clean is Fliss, and strictly one for her home comforts.

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Fliss. The rest of us were getting all excited about the idea of going away on this special camp and you could tell that she was starting to feel really left out. And that’s another thing about Fliss – she hates to be left out of anything.

“How much will it cost?” Rosie asked Brown Owl in her quiet voice.

The rest of us looked at each other worriedly. We know that Rosie’s a bit conscious about money since her father left home. But seeing as he coughed up for our trip to Spain, we hoped there’d be no reason why he shouldn’t do it again for the camp.

“Well, I’m just finalising details about that,” Brown Owl told her, “but it should be quite reasonable. We’re hoping that Brownies from the 12th Cuddington pack will be joining us. And the more people there are, the more people there’ll be to share the cost.”

“Oh great!” piped up a voice. “Our friends Regina and Amanda belong to 12th, don’t they, Emily?”

The voice belonged to the horrible Emma Hughes. She and Emily Berryman are our sworn enemies, the M&Ms. Just for one lovely moment I’d forgotten they were in the same Brownie pack as us. And because they’re the same age as the rest of us, they’ll be moving up to Guides soon, too. That meant that the Gruesome Twosome would be coming to the camp. Suddenly it didn’t seem quite so great after all.

“Now, could all those older Brownies who are interested in going to Foxton Glen please put up their hands. Just so I’ve got some idea of numbers,” said Brown Owl.

Kenny, Frankie, Rosie and I shot up our hands. So did the awful M&Ms and their friend Alana ‘Banana’ Palmer, plus a few more girls.

“Felicity, I don’t see your hand up,” said Snowy Owl, who is also Fliss’s auntie Jill.

Fliss did a real cherry. Even her blonde hair looked as though it was blushing.

“I, er – I’m not sure,” she stammered.

The M&Ms sniggered behind their hands.

“Oh Felicity, I’m sure you’ll love it,” Snowy Owl told her. “Besides, all your friends want to go. Won’t you feel left out if you miss all the fun?”

Smart move, Snowy Owl – if anything was going to make Fliss change her mind, that would do it! Fliss raised her hand very slowly.

“All right!” shouted Kenny, leaping to her feet. “It’ll be mega! Just think of all those sleepovers we can have!”

“I’ll have a letter ready for your parents by next week’s meeting, which will give details of the cost,” explained Brown Owl. “Then those of you who decide to go must bring your money the following week.”

Well, you can imagine what we were like for the next week, can’t you?

“This is painful!” sniffed Fliss on Saturday afternoon. We were in Frankie’s bedroom, talking about the camp, as usual. “I’m sick of you going on about that stupid camp. Can’t we talk about something else?”

“Like make-up?” I suggested.

“Or clothes?” asked Frankie.

“Or what about Ryan Scott?” asked Kenny, pretending to kiss Frankie’s teddy, Stanley.

“Shut up!” snapped Fliss.

“Maybe you shouldn’t come after all,” said Rosie. “But what would you do all by yourself while we’re away?”

Fliss looked really anxious, like she hadn’t thought about that. She paused for a moment and then said, “Well, what do you have to do at this camp? They don’t make you do loads of frightening things, do they?”

“No, of course they don’t,” Rosie reassured her. “Tiff used to be in the Guides and she said the camps are really wicked.”

Tiff is Rosie’s older sister.

“They make this mega-big camp fire,” she continued, “and everyone sits round it and sings. And sometimes you actually cook your food on the fire.”

That sounded a bit like a recipe for disaster for us – The Sleepover Club are hopeless when it comes to cooking – but it did sound like a laugh.

“What else do you do?” asked Fliss. “You can’t spend all your time round the fire.”

“There are nature trails and stuff,” Kenny told her. “And on the last night there’s a sort of concert and everyone has to perform in front of the others.”

We all stared at her in amazement.

“What are you looking at?” she snapped. “I’ve been asking Molly the Monster about it. She does have some uses. She went to Foxton Glen on an ‘under canvas’ camp last summer.”

It was a miracle that Kenny had managed to ask her sister Molly anything without World War III starting. To say that they don’t get on is like saying that Ronan Keating is gorgeous: it’s kind of stating the obvious.

“So it’s not all big and scary then?” asked Fliss. She definitely looked a zillion times brighter now.

“No way!” laughed Frankie. “Guides do the same kinds of things as Brownies, only they’re a bit more adventurous. And I bet you’ll be able to think of something really awesome to perform at the concert!”

Fliss grinned this big grin. “It does sound kind of cool,” she laughed. “I thought there might be one of those awful assault courses, and I’m dead scared of those. You know, crawling over those nets and through all that mud and everything. Urgh!” She did this big dramatic shiver. “But that’s just crazy, right? They won’t have one of those, will they? Because if they do, there’s absolutely no way that I’m going to this camp.”

We all looked at each other.

“What’s up with you lot?” asked Fliss.

“Nothing,” said Rosie and Frankie quickly.

“Assault course!” guffawed Kenny loudly. “I wish!”

“Hic!” I gulped. You can always rely on me to get hiccups when things get a bit awkward.

“Hey, Fliss, can you go down to the kitchen and get a glass of water for Lyndz?” asked Frankie. She started to knead my hand with her thumbs – a trick that usually cures my hiccups.

As soon as we were sure that Fliss was downstairs, we all started to talk at once.

“But there is an assault course at Foxton Glen, isn’t there?” asked Frankie.

“Yep and Tiff says it’s pretty awesome, too,” nodded Rosie.

“And isn’t there an Assault Course Challenge at the end of the camp?” asked Frankie again.

“There sure is,” confirmed Kenny. “Monster Features told me all about it. Teams race against each other and there’s a trophy for first prize and everything. Molly’s team came second, so we’ve got to win when we go.”

“But… hic… Fliss won’t go… hic… if she finds out… hic… about that,” I said between hiccups.

“Well we won’t tell her then, will we?” decided Kenny.

“We won’t tell who what?” asked Fliss rushing in with my glass of water. I took it from her and started to drink.

“We won’t, um, tell Brown Owl that Kenny snores,” said Frankie quickly.

As soon as she said that I took a big gulp of water and started to choke. Kenny started to slap me on the back – really hard.

“Yes, because someone who went to camp with Molly snored,” Kenny told Fliss, “and Brown Owl made them pitch their tent right in the middle of the wood, miles away from the others.”

Fliss’s eyes became enormous. “Seriously?” she asked anxiously. “I’d hate that. You won’t tell her about Kenny’s snoring, will you?”

“Of course we won’t!” Frankie reassured her.

“Um, Kenny, you can stop hitting me now,” I yelped. “I’m not choking anymore. And my hiccups have gone!”

That was the last time we spoke about the camp before the next Brownie meeting. We figured that if we didn’t mention it at all, then Fliss wouldn’t find out about the assault course at Foxton Glen. She’d sounded deadly serious about not going if there was one, and it would be awful to go away without her. The Sleepover Club tends to do everything together, and having a sleepover without one of us there would feel too weird. It was going to be a real challenge to keep the assault course a secret from Fliss, but of course it was crucial that she didn’t find out.