Читать книгу The Sleepover Club Down Under - Narinder Dhami - Страница 5

No-one said anything at first, not even Kenny. But I guessed that the others were thinking exactly the same thing as me – that Rosie had gone completely nuts!

Meanwhile Rosie was frowning at us.

“Didn’t you hear me?” she began. “I said—”

“Oh, we heard what you said all right,” Kenny interrupted her. “We just don’t believe it, that’s all!”

“Yeah, nice try, Rosie,” I added. “You really had us going there – for about two seconds!”

Rosie turned red. “I’m not winding you up,” she snapped. “I really did see Brad Martin!”

“So what did you do? Ask him where his surfboard was?” Fliss asked sarcastically.

“Oh, give up, Rosie!” Kenny snorted. “Nobody believes you!”

“You must’ve made a mistake,” Lyndz said kindly.

Rosie looked absolutely furious, and that was what made me stop and think. I mean, Rosie likes the odd wind-up, but she’d never tried to pull anything like this before.

“OK, Rosie, tell us exactly what happened,” I said, glaring at Kenny and the others to make sure they got the message. Kenny rolled her eyes as if to say You’re as barmy as she is! But she didn’t say anything out loud.

“Well, Mum’s car broke down in Riverside Avenue,” Rosie explained, “and she went to the phonebox to call the AA. I was sitting in the car, and I saw Brad go past—”

Kenny couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Oh, pull the other one – it’s got ten million bells on it!” she exclaimed.

“Are you sure it was Brad, Rosie?” I asked. “It could have been someone who looked like him.”

“No, it was him,” Rosie replied immediately, “I know it was!”

She sounded pretty convincing. I looked at Fliss and Lyndz. They were both looking doubtful, as if they didn’t know what to believe. Meanwhile, Kenny was still certain that it was a wind-up.

“OK, so what was he wearing?” she asked.

“Jeans, a black fleece and a black baseball cap,” Rosie snapped.

Kenny pounced straight away. “If he was wearing a baseball cap, how do you know it was Brad?” she pointed out triumphantly.

“I got a good look at his face as he walked towards the car,” Rosie retorted.

We all looked at each other. Rosie was obviously convinced that she had seen Brad Martin.

“Why didn’t you get out and run after him?” Kenny asked suspiciously.

“Because my mum was coming back by then, and she stopped me,” Rosie said sulkily.

“Oh!” Fliss squealed all of a sudden.

“What is it?” we all chorused.

“Well, what if—?” Fliss stopped. “No, he couldn’t be!”

“Couldn’t what?” we all repeated impatiently.

“Well…” Fliss hopped from one foot to the other. “I suppose he might be…”

“MIGHT BE WHAT?” the rest of us repeated. I was beginning to feel like Polly the Parrot!

“Well, we were saying before that Brad must be staying nearby if he’s in the panto,” Fliss finally managed to get the words out. “Maybe he’s staying in Cuddington!”

Rosie nearly fainted away on the spot. “He can’t be! Can he?”

“Yes! That must be it!” Lyndz agreed, looking excited.

“But if he is in Cuddington, where would he be staying?” I asked doubtfully.

Before anyone could reply, Fliss’s mum came in with a cup of tea and a magazine.

“Still here, girls?” she asked brightly. “I thought you were going upstairs to Fliss’s room.”

“We are.” I jumped to my feet, dragging Kenny with me. “Come on, you lot.”

We all legged it upstairs and into Fliss’s bedroom. Once we were inside, Fliss closed the door and we all piled on to the bed and started whispering to each other. We were getting really excited by this time, although Kenny still wasn’t totally convinced.

“Do you really think Brad’s in Cuddington?” Lyndz asked.

“I know he is!” Rosie replied.

“Maybe we should go and look for him,” I suggested.

“I’ll die if I see him!” Fliss added.

“Why are we whispering?” Kenny wanted to know.

“In case anyone else finds out!” I told her. “This is one big secret!”

Kenny frowned. “Hey, hang on a minute,” she said. “If Rosie’s seen Brad in Cuddington, how come no-one else has?”

“What do you mean?” Fliss asked.

“Well, other people must have seen him too,” Kenny pointed out, “and no-one at school’s mentioned it. It’d be all over the place in five minutes flat if they had!”

“The panto only started a week or two ago,” Fliss pointed out. “He might only just have moved in.”

“Yeah, we’ll get the latest when we go back to school on Monday,” I said. “Someone else might have seen him – we just haven’t heard about it yet.”

“Well, if Brad is here, where would he be staying?” Kenny wasn’t giving in that easily. “There aren’t any really posh hotels in Cuddington.”

That threw us a bit.

“He might be staying at Buckingham House,” Rosie suggested.

Kenny burst out laughing. “What, with Mrs Windsor? He’d have to be desperate!”

Buckingham House is a B&B in Cuddington, and it’s probably the poshest guest house in the village. But the lady who runs it, Mrs Windsor, is a right old snob – I reckon she called it Buckingham House because she thinks she’s the queen of Cuddington!

“I’ve got it!” Fliss suddenly bounced off the bed. “Why don’t we ring the theatre? They’ll be able to tell us where Brad’s staying!”

“Good idea.” Kenny jumped up too. “Give me the phone!”

Fliss has just got her own girly pink phone in her bedroom and she’s dead proud of it. Anyway, Kenny grabbed the receiver, and Fliss went to get the phone book, but she started moaning when she came back.

“It’s my phone, Kenny. I ought to make the call!”

Kenny raised her eyebrows at her. “Can you do a posh grown-up voice?”

“No,” Fliss muttered.

“OK, here goes.” Kenny tapped in the number of the theatre, and we all waited, holding our breath until we heard the phone being picked up at the other end. Kenny immediately pinched her nose with her fingers, and said, “Hello? Who is this please?” in this really posh voice.

“It’s the doorman at the theatre!” she hissed at us, covering the mouthpiece. Then she pinched her nose again and said grandly, “This is Brad Martin’s aunt speaking. I need to get in touch with him, so kindly tell me where he lives!”

Meanwhile the rest of us were rolling around on Fliss’s bed, stuffing our hands in our mouths to stop ourselves from laughing.

“I see,” Kenny said after a moment or two. “Well, thank you very much.” And she put the phone down.

“Did he give you the address?” I asked eagerly.

“Is Brad staying in Cuddington?” Rosie chimed in.

“Or is he in Leicester?” Lyndz asked.

“Don’t keep us in suspense, Kenny!” Fliss begged.

“The doorman said I was about the tenth person to ring today trying to find out where Brad was staying, and to stop pestering him!” Kenny said.

Our faces fell.

“So how can we find out?” Rosie asked.

“Well, we can’t do anything now,” I pointed out. “Anyway, aren’t we supposed to be having a sleepover?”

But it turned out that the sleepover was pretty much a wash-out after that, because all we did was talk about whether or not Brad could really be staying in Cuddington. We had a sort of half-hearted pillow fight and we had a midnight feast and we wrote in our diaries and we did all the kinds of things we normally do, but we weren’t really interested. There was only one thing we wanted to know. Where was Brad Martin? By this time, I think we were all convinced that Rosie had seen him – even Kenny!

It was only when we were in our sleeping bags on Fliss’s floor that I started to have second thoughts. We’d just sung our sleepover song, and everyone was getting a bit drowsy.

“Maybe I didn’t see Brad after all,” Rosie said suddenly in a low voice. “Maybe it was someone else…”

But I don’t think anyone heard her except me.

Wait until you hear what happened when we got to school on Monday morning. It was really weird!

We all met up in the playground as usual, and we were still going on about Brad Martin, and where he might be staying in Cuddington. We’d spent most of Sunday on the phone to each other too, discussing the very same thing, until our parents put their feet down. My dad had said that he’d gag me if I didn’t shut up about it!

“I reckon we should go over to Buckingham House after school and check it out,” Kenny suggested as we all sat down on the playground wall. “We might see Brad leaving for the theatre.”

“Don’t let Mrs Windsor catch us though,” Fliss said, looking alarmed.

“Why?” Kenny said with a grin. “Are you scared of her, Flissy?”

Fliss blushed. “A bit,” she muttered

“Well, she can’t stop us hanging around outside her house,” I said firmly. “It’s a public footpath!”

“Yeah, and if Brad’s there, we’ll soon find out!” Kenny added, and we all cheered. Except Rosie.

“Um – maybe it wasn’t Brad,” Rosie muttered, looking embarrassed. “Maybe I got it wrong after all…”

“Well, there’s no harm in trying to find out, is there?” I said quickly, not wanting Rosie to feel bad about it.

“I’ve brought my autograph book,” Lyndz added. “It’ll be nice to get a proper autograph in it, I’ve only got you lot so far!”

“Flippin’ cheek!” Kenny snorted. Then she winked at us. “Sssh! Don’t say anything about Brad in front of the Gruesome Twosome!”

The M&Ms, Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman, were walking across the playground in our general direction. They’re in our class, but that’s about all we’ve got in common with them – we’re not snooty, stuck-up snobs! Nobody likes them except Alana ‘Banana’ Palmer, and that’s because she’s just about the doziest person in Cuddington Primary. But the weird thing was that today, the M&Ms were being followed across the playground by a huge crowd of kids, tagging along behind them as if they were the bee’s knees.

I frowned. “Why are all those kids following the Queen and the Goblin?”

“Maybe Emma’s been nice to someone at last,” Kenny suggested. “That’d draw a crowd!”

The M&Ms were looking well smug. They saw us sitting on the wall and grinned at each other in that incredibly sly way they have.

“We know something you don’t know!” Emily Berryman (the Goblin) chanted in her gruff voice.

“I know lots of things you don’t know, Emily,” Kenny retorted. “That’s because you’re really, really thick!”

We started giggling, and so did the whole crowd of kids. The Goblin turned purple and the Queen stuck her nose in the air like she always does.

“Oh, you think you’re so clever, Kenny!” Emma Hughes sniffed. “Well, we do know something you don’t know and we’re not going to tell you, so there!”

“Hey, Kenny,” said Alana Banana, strolling up next to the Queen. “Did you know that Emily saw that surfer guy from South Beach in Cuddington yesterday?”

I glanced at the others. So the Goblin had seen him too! That was why all those kids were following her. It was true – Brad was in Cuddington!

“You mean Brad Martin,” I said as coolly as I could.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Alana agreed.

The Goblin was now the colour of an aubergine. “What did you tell them for, Alana?” she howled.

“Everyone else knows.” Alana Banana pointed at the crowd of kids behind them. “You said you wanted to tell everyone.”

“Yes, but not them!” Emma Hughes snapped, looking as if she was about to rip Alana Banana’s head off.

“Bet you didn’t really see him anyway!” called someone in the crowd.

“Yeah, it’s a wind-up, isn’t it, Emily?” added Ryan Scott. He was with his mate Danny McCloud, who’s also in our class.

“Well, I saw him too—” Rosie began. “OW!”

I didn’t see what happened, but I guessed Kenny had elbowed her to shut her up. After all, why should we help the Gruesome Twosome out?

“I did see him!” the Goblin snapped.

“Well, did you get his autograph?” Danny demanded.

“No, I couldn’t,” Emily muttered. “I was in the car with my dad, and he wouldn’t stop. But it was definitely Brad Martin, and he was wearing a black fleece, jeans and a black baseball cap!”

“Never mind, Em.” The Queen linked arms with the Goblin, and threw us another haughty stare. “We’ll soon find out where he’s staying, and when we’ve got his autograph, everyone will have to believe you!”

Then the M&Ms swanned off again. The crowd of kids still scurried after them though, trying to find out if it was a wind-up or not.

“Did you hear that?” Fliss gasped. “Emily described Brad wearing exactly the same clothes as Rosie did! It must have been him!”

“I knew it was!” Rosie said triumphantly.

Kenny was frowning. “Yeah, but the question is – how are we going to find out where Brad’s staying before the M&Ms do?”