Читать книгу Best Friends! - Rose Impey - Страница 5

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Fliss was so excited when we accepted her invitations it made us all feel pretty mean. She must have asked fifty times what kind of food we liked to eat and did two of us mind sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor. “Because I’ve only got two beds, but Mum’s bought these cool new duvet covers. They’re the most fantastic colour…”

I could see Kenny rolling her eyes and mouthing, “Pink!”

I thought it would be a bit of a miracle if we actually got Kenny there on the Friday, but in the end we all made it.

As my mum and dad dropped us off they said, “Have a great time.”

“And try to get some sleep,” Mum added.

I told her, “That’s why it’s called a sleepover, Mum, because that’s what you do!”

“If only it worked like that,” Mum sighed, which just goes to show that sometimes mums know more than you think!

From the moment Nicky opened the door and we got our first glimpse of Fliss’s house, we all started to worry.

If Fliss is a pink person, her mum, Nicky, is pale cream. Don’t get me wrong, Nicky’s great, we love her to bits – now we know her. But when she asked us to take off our shoes before we came in and check our bags were clean before we put them down on the carpet we knew we’d have to be on our best behaviour.

She led us straight through to her shiny cream kitchen where she’d set out this tea party. The table was covered with little cakes and jellies and miniature sandwiches and rolls, and there were balloons and streamers and candles, like it was this full-on birthday party or something, just for the four of us! Fliss’s younger brother, Callum, was there, of course, staring at us like we were three aliens who’d come to tea. But Kenny did that cross-eyed thing she does which soon stopped him.

You could see Nicky was feeling pretty nervous and it was making all of us nervous too. We’re not exactly clumsy types but we kept nudging each other as we reached for the same sandwich.

“Ooops, sorry,” Lyndz said.

“No, my fault,” I insisted.

Then Kenny knocked her drink over! It was like it was in slow motion: the juice flew up in the air but Kenny followed it with her cup and did this brilliant save, managing to catch every drop. It was such a great party trick we all felt like cheering. But Nicky clearly didn’t realise how fast Kenny’s reflexes are, because she looked like she might faint with the tension.

Then Lyndz slurped her drink, which she often does. But the room was so quiet the slurp sounded like it was on loudspeaker. We couldn’t wait to finish tea and escape upstairs to Fliss’s bedroom. But when we finally did – can you believe it – Nicky came with us!

She sat on Fliss’s bed, smiling. “Why don’t you show your friends round a bit,” she suggested. So Fliss gave us a guided tour of her wardrobes – yes, she has two! Then her drawers with all her clothes colour coordinated

“These are my second best tops and T-shirts,” she said, “but these…” she added, opening another cupboard, “are my very best. For special occasions only.” They were neatly folded like they have them in the shops. Some were still in plastic covers to keep them perfectly clean.

We all knew Fliss was mad about clothes, but until then we hadn’t realised it was like a religion with her. I could see Kenny looking for the nearest exit and when Nicky suggested to Fliss we might want to play some games next, I thought I might join her.

I had a horrible feeling Nicky might have made us a Pin the Tail on the Donkey and we’d spend the whole night pretending to have a really, spiffing, jolly time. Even Fliss was feeling embarrassed by now.

“Actually, Mum,” she said, “I think we might just sit and… talk for a bit.”

“OK,” Nicky said, brightly, but just went on sitting there!

Fliss screwed her face up and said, “Mu-u um…” until Nicky finally got the hint.

“I’ll just leave you to it then, shall I?” she said, closing the door.

We’d all just let out our breath for the first time since we arrived when she was suddenly back. “But let me know if there’s anything you need. I could bring you a drink in half an hour when you’re ready for bed.”

Half an hour! She had to be joking.

“We’ll let you know, Mum,” Fliss said between gritted teeth, firmly closing the door behind her.

Even after we heard Nicky’s footsteps going downstairs we went on sitting there, feeling really awkward. And then a terrible thing happened: Fliss burst into tears.

“Oh, it’s been horrible, hasn’t it?” she sobbed. “You’ve all hated it. You’ll never come again. You won’t be my friends any more. I don’t blame you; nobody likes me!”

This was far worse than anything that had happened so far. Kenny and I didn’t know what to do. But good old Lyndz went and sat beside Fliss and put her arm round her.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s been… lovely. We don’t know each other very well yet; it’s bound to be a bit awkward the first time.”

Kenny and I tried not to look like we were thinking: you can say that again.

And then Lyndz’s next suggestion had us both ready to bolt.

“I know a little game we could play,” she said.

“What kind of game?” Kenny asked suspiciously.

“We’ll need a pen and a sheet of paper each. We fold the paper into a fan and we put our name on it,” Lyndz told us.

“Then what?” I asked, equally suspiciously.

“We pass the fan round and everyone has to write something nice on it, something they like about us. They’re called friendship fans…” Lyndz trailed off. She was looking at me, sort of appealingly.

In the end I just shrugged and said, “OK, why not?”

I didn’t look at Kenny. I knew she’d have plenty of reasons why not if I gave her half a chance. But afterwards even Kenny had to admit it was actually a fun thing to do, because everyone had something nice or funny or surprising written about them.

Everyone told Lyndz what a good laugh and a great person she was and how we even loved her smiley knees, which she has a thing about – and her hiccups, which she gets all the time!

I’m not being bigheaded, but I got lots of comments about being a good leader and having all the best ideas and being the person everyone would want with them if they were ever stranded on a desert island – you know the kind of stuff.

But most surprising were the things Fliss and Kenny wrote about each other.

Kenny said she thought Fliss was a bit of a genius when it came to colours and clothes and things. And while she didn’t give a stuff about them most of the time herself it would probably be good to have Fliss’s talent – in case you ever needed it.

And Fliss wrote how Kenny was her all-time hero. She said she thought Kenny was the bravest, most fearless person she’d ever met and she really wanted to be more like her, instead of being scared of everything. She said she couldn’t believe someone like Kenny would want to be friends with someone like her.

When Kenny heard that she went very…pink and did what she always does when she’s embarrassed: started pulling ridiculous faces and behaving like an idiot until she had us all rolling around on the floor in hysterics.

That completely broke the ice. Then things just got better and better and the sleepover really got going.