Читать книгу Mega Sleepover 6: Winter Collection - Sue Mongredien, Fiona Cummings, Louis Catt - Страница 7

Well, the next thing that happened was that I went home and found out that my parents had been abducted by aliens – and even better, the aliens had taken my gross sisters too!

Nah, not really. Just checking to see if you’re paying attention, or if you’re skimming through to get to the best bits. Sneaky, eh? Mind you, I’m the biggest skimmer in our class. Sometimes you just want to skip ahead to see what’s going to happen at the end, don’t you? I can’t stand waiting!

Anyway, no aliens in this story unfortunately. No, the next thing that really happened was that after being dragged around a few boring clothes shops by Fliss, we all went back to our own homes.

Saturday tea-time means chips and everything in our house. YUM! My favourite tea – I’m a champion chip-eater. Even better, Emma (oldest sister – OK but a bit bossy) is going through this teenage “Don’t want to get fat, don’t want to get spots” phase at the moment so she isn’t touching anything remotely greasy. You know what that means, don’t you? All the more for ME! I’ve got her so sussed that if she even looks at a chip, all I have to do is say, “Terrible for your skin, Em,” and she’ll back away as if it’s going to infect her with the plague, just by sitting there on a plate. Fantastic!

Of course, Molly (other sister – and horrible pig I have to share a bedroom with) still shovels them down her neck like the Cuddington Potato Famine has broken out, worse luck. And she wonders why I call her Molly the Monster… Plus, she’s skinny as anything and hasn’t got a spot near her, so I can’t use my Emma tactics on her. YET!

Anyway, I decided I might as well start on the Kenny-Goes-Snowboarding campaign straight away.

“Mum, you know for Christmas this year…” I started saying through a mouthful of sausage and tomato ketchup.

Mum raised her eyebrows. “Yes…” she said.

“I sense our daughter is about to put in a request for something,” Dad said, clapping a hand to his forehead. “I just get that feeling…”

I ignored him. “Well, you know we always go to Grandma’s, or Granny Mack’s for Christmas?”

“Yes…” Mum said in a suspicious what-does-Kenny-want-this-time? kind of voice.

“Spit it out, love,” Dad said.

“Well, what do you think about going abroad this year? Going on holiday? Maybe somewhere snowy,” I said, crossing my fingers under the table so tightly I nearly cut my blood supply off.

“Laura, what are you getting at?” Mum said. “What’s all this about?”

“I just thought it would be nice to do something different,” I said casually, shrugging as if I hadn’t really thought about it. (Yeah, right!)

“She wants to go snowboarding, Mum,” Molly the Monster said smugly. “I heard her talking to Frankie about it on the phone.”

“Shut up!” I said crossly, kicking her. “Mind your own business!”

“What’s snowboarding?” Mum asked, looking puzzled.

“It’s like skateboarding but without snow,” Dad said. “Kind of.” He didn’t look very impressed. “Andrew McCarthy broke his leg doing it – he’s still on crutches because of it.”

“Oh, it’s not dangerous,” I said breezily. “You could always go skiing if you didn’t want to snowboard.”

“I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation,” Mum said, putting her knife and fork down. “What makes you think we can afford a holiday at the moment anyway? Because I’ll tell you now – we can’t.”

“PLEEEEEASE,” I said, going down on my hands and knees in front of them and making my eyes go as puppy-dog as they could. “Please, please, please – you don’t have to buy me a Christmas present or anything if you say we can go!”

“Who said you were getting anything anyway?” my dad said – joking, I hope.

“Oh, go on, Mum,” I said, trying to ignore my dad. “You’d say yes if you luuurrrved me…”

“I’m saying no because we love you – because we don’t want our little girl to break her leg!” Mum said. “Now eat your tea before it gets cold.”

I scowled. Little girl – ugh!! Sometimes I can’t wait to be old. It’s so unfair that parents get to decide everything all the time.

“Don’t cry, little girl,” Molly said sarcastically, pulling a horrible face at me. “Ahhh, diddums!”

I whacked her one. “You’ll be crying in a minute,” I warned her.

“Girls, if you keep fighting, we won’t be going anywhere – not even to Grandma’s,” Dad warned.

I sulked and stabbed a chip, wishing it was Molly I was plunging a fork into. GRRR! Sometimes she is just…

“How about one of those indoor places?” Emma said suddenly. “Maybe you could go there for a day instead – there’s meant to be one around here somewhere.”

“Not the same,” I growled, through a mouthful of chip, too cross with my mean parents to be interested.

“Suit yourself,” she said, shrugging. “Little sister.”

I had a moan about it to the others at school on Monday.

“I can’t believe they won’t even think about taking us on holiday,” I said mournfully. “Why do parents have to be so boring?”

“I’d rather go and lie on a beach for my holiday,” Fliss said, wrinkling her nose up. “I agree with them – I wouldn’t want to go, either. All that cold snow, ugh! You wouldn’t get much of a tan.”

“Christmas would be weird in another country anyway,” said Lyndz. “I like being at home with everyone around. Waking up in my own bed on Christmas morning, you know.”

“And it would cost a bomb, all of you going away,” Rosie pointed out.

“I can’t exactly imagine your dad snowboarding either,” Frankie said, with a laugh. “His glasses would come flying off and he’d crash straight into something!”

“But I’d love it,” I said, wistfully. “I’d really, really love it. There must be a way round it somehow…”

“Oh, no,” Rosie teased. “Kenny’s got her thinking head on – and you know what that means!”

“She’ll be building her own snow mountain in the village!” Lyndz said, giggling.

“And pushing Molly down head-first,” Frankie said. “I’ll help you, Kenz!”

I sniffed. No-one was taking this very seriously! “You may scoff,” I said grandly. “But you wait – I’ll get my snow one way or another!”

On my way home that night, I got thinking. If they weren’t bothered, I was! What could I do?

As I was kicking my shoes off in the hall, I spotted Emma’s skateboard. Aha! Snowboard, skateboard – well, it would be a start, anyway. Now all I needed was some snow – and a slope!

Well, snow was out of the question; it had been as clear as anything all day with no sign of any snow-clouds. Hmmm.

And then I had another brilliant idea. The stairs!

I stood at the top with the skateboard and took a deep breath. Well, here goes! I said to myself. I got on the board and pushed myself off and…

WOOOOAAAHHHHHÜ I hurtled down the stairs, bump, bump, bump – crack. OUCH!

Results – one cracked head. One furious sister.

One cross mum saying it was my own fault.

One mad dad saying stairboarding was banned for life in his house.

I’m telling you – don’t bother. Far too much aggro for about five seconds of excitement!

The only thing to do was to go back to Mega Sports to get some advice from Nick. He was the one person who could help me in my hour of need – and this time, I’d make sure I didn’t stink the shop out, either!

Next day at school, as soon as Mrs Weaver said it was home time, I charged out of the classroom like Roadrunner with ants in his pants. ACTION!

The others cornered me as I was taking off my bike lock in the staff car park. The five of us usually hang around together after school a bit, waiting for our mums to pick us up – or we walk or cycle part of the way back home together.

“What’s the big hurry, Kenz?” Frankie asked curiously.

“Mum says I can go to Mega Sports before I go home today,” I said, strapping my helmet on. “I want to talk to that Nick bloke again.”

“Oh, yeah,” Rosie said, all sarcastic. “I see. We see, don’t we, girls?”

“Kenny, you’re going all red,” Fliss said smugly. “Over a boy!”

“He’s not a boy, he’s a man,” I said. Bad thing to say, Kenny! As soon as the words were out of my mouth, they all started giggling.

“Ooh, he’s a real man!” Lyndz said, laughing so hard that she was holding her tummy and bending over.

“Shut UP!” I yelled, getting on my bike quickly. I couldn’t stand much more of this!

“Well, now you’ve got a boyfriend, don’t forget about your friends – us,” Frankie said, sounding a bit put out.

“He is not my boyfriend!” I shouted. “For the last time…”

“Ooh, has Laura got a boyfriend?” someone cooed in a sickly kind of voice. “Who would go out with her? He must be blind!”

“Or mad!” another voice simpered.

Oh, great. That was all I needed. We’d made so much noise, the M&Ms had heard us!

(If you don’t know – the M&Ms are Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman. They’re our sworn enemies and just totally vile girls that should be put down for the good of the human race. But you’ll see that for yourself, before too long anyway.)

“Don’t call me Laura,” I said through gritted teeth, as they walked over, giggling stupidly. “And get out of my way before I run you over!”

“Oh, I am scared,” said Emily, or Goblin-features as we sometimes call her. “Look, Em, I’m just shaking in fear of Laura.”

“Right, you asked for it, Berryman!” I said, and charged my bike straight for her. She squealed and dodged out of the way just before I got to her. Rats!

“I’ll get my brother on to you if you lay a finger on me!” she yelled after me, sounding a bit shocked.

“Ooh, puh-leeeze don’t scare me!” I shouted back, grinning to myself. “Bye, you lot!” I called out to the others. And with that, I shot off, pedalling as fast as I could.