Читать книгу Mega Sleepover 6: Winter Collection - Sue Mongredien, Fiona Cummings, Louis Catt - Страница 9

I’ve got to admit, I was a bit freaked out by Frankie’s odd behaviour. It was like there was some other girl dressed up as Frankie, she was acting so out of character. Frankie is usually fun, fun, fun – not fuss, fuss, fuss. We leave all the fussing to Fliss! So as soon as we got to Brownies that night, I gathered the rest of the Sleepover lot together when Frankie was talking to Brown Owl about something.

“Emergency cheer-up sleepover required for Francesca Thomas,” I said urgently. “She needs some laughs, badly! Look at her – she’s gone all stressed out about her mum!”

“Dr McKenzie prescribes again,” Fliss teased.

“Yeah, too right,” I said. “I’m prescribing her a sleepover tomorrow night with lots of sweets and stupid games – what do you reckon?”

“Let’s do it,” Lyndz agreed. “We could have it at my house, if you want. We haven’t had one there for ages. I’ll check with Mum tonight if it’s OK.”

“Cool!” I said, turning a cartwheel. “And we all have to bring lots of exciting ideas for things we can do to cheer Frankie up.”

“No prizes for guessing what yours will be,” Rosie groaned. “Or are you into something else today?”

“No, still got a one-track mind,” I said cheerily – and then I suddenly remembered the indoor snowboarding centre again. Maybe what Frankie really needed was a day away from home, having fun on the slopes. YES! What a fantastic idea. Oh, who was I trying to kid? I needed it too! BADLY!

Sleepovers are always good at Lyndz’s house. I mean, they’re ace everywhere but somehow they seem to be especially ace at Lyndz’s house. This is why:

Lyndz’s mum has the wickedest dressing-up clothes in the world so we get to play lots of cool games in them.

We take Lyndz’s bed down and all sleep on the floor in a line in our sleeping bags.

There’s always lots of yummy food – and big portions too, ’cos Lyndz has got four brothers.

Lyndz’s dog Buster usually sleeps in with us and joins in all our games.

Her mum and dad let us stay up really really late (as long as we don’t wake up the baby…).

Sleepovers are just the best bit of the week. For a start, they’re often on Fridays so it’s the beginning of the weekend. No school – YEEEAHH! And even better – this week I had some megadocious news to tell everyone. After tons of begging and please-ing and promises to do lots of chores (yeah, right!), I’d talked my parents into… Oh, well I won’t say it now. You’ll have to wait and see, like the others did!

It’s so hard keeping your mouth shut when you’ve got a secret though, isn’t it? I’m the worst person in the world – I always manage to blab it out, I just can’t wait! But this time, I really tried to save it for the sleepover. I wanted to spring it on everyone as a surprise.

Lyndz’s mum picked us up from school at three-thirty. “Hello, girls!” she said warmly as we ran out of the school gates. “Looking forward to the weekend?”

“Yeah!” we all shouted, squeezing into the car.

Sleepovers are always different, but usually the first thing we do is change out of our yucky school uniforms and play a few rounds of International Gladiators to work up an appetite for the sweets. This week, as soon as we were all in our jeans and T-shirts, Lyndz picked up a sleeping bag.

“Squishy-poo fighting first,” she announced. “We haven’t played that for ages!”

What did you say? You don’t know what squishy-poo fights are all about? It’s one of our favourite things – even Fliss loves it! What you do is, you stuff your sleeping bags full of clothes and pillows so they are like giant, long, squishy cushions, and then you whack each other with them. Anyone falling over is out – and the winner is the last one on their feet! The problem is, you get so giggly doing it, it makes you get all weak – and before you know it, you’ve fallen in a heap!

We all raced to fill our squishy-poos. The rule is, as soon as you’ve stuffed your sleeping bag, you’re allowed to start whacking.

“Aaargh!”

“Ooof!”

“Squishy-poo to you, too!”

In the end, it was just me and Rosie left, whacking away between fits of giggles. And then – doink! Rosie got me so hard on my left side that it winded me completely and I crashed on to the floor. “Mercy!” I gasped.

“I am the champion!” yelled Rosie, jumping Up and down and waving her squishy-poo around.

I had a quick look at Frankie, who was acting a bit quiet. Still worrying about her mum, I guessed. “Let’s play Zombie next,” I suggested – one of Frankie’s favourite games. “It’s a dark and spooky night, and there’s a Zombie on the prowl…”

“Good idea,” said Lyndz, jumping up and drawing the curtains.

“Oh, no,” said Fliss with a shudder. “Do we have to?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Ibble, obble, black bobble, ibble, obble, out!” I counted round everyone’s fists. “Frankie, you’re the Zombie!”

She gave a blood-curdling growl. “I’ll give you five minutes!” she warned and left the room.

Lyndz switched the light off and Fliss gave a whimper. You’re meant to play Zombie in a whole house ’cos you need lots of hiding places, but Lyndz’s room is just about big enough. We all scurried about in the dark, trying to find somewhere to hide from the Zombie. I squashed myself under Lyndz’s desk – I had no idea where the others had got to. It had suddenly gone very quiet…

“Time’s up! The Zombie is on the prowl!” Frankie called in a spooky voice. And then – crrreeeeak! She pushed the door open slowly and did a Zombie shuffle into the room. “Zombie… zombie… zombie…” she moaned hoarsely, feeling her way around the room.

I felt my skin prickling. Even though I knew it was only Frankie, I was still going all tingly and scared.

“I’m coming to get you,” she whispered, and I shivered as I tried to work out where she was.

“Zombie… zombie… zombie…” she groaned in this creepy voice. Then there was a squawk from Lyndz. Caught! Now there were two Zombies!

“Zombie… zombie… zombie…” the pair of them moaned. I could feel my arms go all goosepimply as they shuffled closer. It’s such a scary game!!

I scrunched myself up tight under the desk as I heard Frankie go past. Then, as Lyndz followed, I couldn’t resist it – I shot an arm out and grabbed her ankle!

“AAAAAAAAAARGH!” she screamed, completely freaked out. “Who was that?”

“It’s the Zombie-eater!” I boomed – and then everyone started screaming!

Fliss ran over and put the light on. “I hate that game!” she said.

“We hadn’t even finished it!” Rosie complained. “I had a wicked hiding place, as well.”

There was a knock at the door, and Fliss nearly jumped out of her skin.

“It’s only me,” said Lyndz’s mum, opening the door. “It sounds like there are some scary things happening in Lyndsey’s bedroom – you might need a treat to calm yourselves down!”

She handed Fliss a box of Magnums and winked.

Fliss smiled weakly at her. “Thank you, Mrs Collins,” she said, sounding relieved.

It wasn’t until I’d taken a huge bite of Magnum that I remembered. I’d been so distracted by all the squishy-pooing and zombie-ing, I’d forgotten all about my amazing secret surprise.

I choked on my mouthful, trying to swallow it as fast as I could. “Hey, I’ve got something to tell you,” I said excitedly, through a chunk of ice cream. “Guess WHAT?”

“You’re entering the World Talking While Eating Championships?” Rosie suggested.

“You’ve decided never ever to scare me again?” Lyndz tried. “I hope?”

“No, I know,” Fliss moaned. “You want us to run away to Switzerland together or something. I can tell by your face.”

“Wrong, wrong and wrong,” I said, smugly. “Although Fliss is kind of on the right track.”

“I knew it!” she groaned.

“We don’t have to run away to Switzerland to go snowboarding though,” I said triumphantly. “There’s an indoor skiing and snowboarding centre in Tolbury – only about half an hour away in the car. Emma told me. How about us all going there for a day’s snowboarding?”

I was practically bursting with excitement. “Well? What do you think? Mum and Dad have agreed to take us and everything!”

“Wow!” said Lyndz. “Really?”

“It sounds a bit dangerous to me,” Fliss said, nibbling daintily at her Magnum. “I don’t know if my mum would let me.”

“It’s not dangerous – you have a lesson and they teach you how to do it!” I said. “Honestly, Fliss, you’re with an instructor all the time!”

She pursed her lips up and I could see she wasn’t convinced. “You’d be good, anyway,” I said to her. “What are you worried about? You’re really good at sport!”

OK, so I was buttering her up a bit. But Fliss isn’t bad at sport – she’s quite OK at running and things like that, so it wasn’t totally false of me. All right, so snowboarding was a bit different – so what?

“Do you think so?” she said, sounding pleased. “Really?”

“Yeah!” I said. “And you can ride a bike, can’t you? So you must have good balance!”

“I suppose so,” she said. Then she went a bit pink. “And I do like those fleecy tops they wear – I saw a thing about it in one of Andy’s magazines…”

Good old Fliss! You can always count on her to say yes to something if it means an excuse to go shopping for a new outfit!

“What about the rest of you?” I said. One down, three to go…

“It sounds wicked!” said Lyndz. “Is it real snow?”

“Yeah, it is!” I said, grinning. “Real, white, wet, slippery snow! They make it with these mega snow-machines.”

“Cool!” she said. “When you kept going on about it, I thought it was going to be something you could only do abroad – but if you can do it here… sounds brilliant!”

Two down…

“Rosie, what about you?” I asked.

Uh-oh. Rosie wasn’t looking so easy to convince.

“How much is it going to cost?” she said cautiously. “Only it’s coming up to Christmas and I don’t know if Mum’s got much cash to spare right now.”

“It’s not that much,” I said quickly. “I’m sure you could ask for it as part of your Christmas present anyway – that would save her going shopping for it, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll see what she says,” she said, but I could tell she was feeling as excited as Lyndz underneath. “But hopefully yeah, count me in too! Sleepover Club on the slopes!”

“What do you reckon, Frankie?” I said anxiously. Frankie was the only one who hadn’t said anything yet. “Won’t be a proper Sleepover thing without you…”

She pulled a bit of a face. “It sounds ace and normally I’d go like a shot, but I don’t know whether I can leave Mum at the moment.”

I thought back to the way Frankie’s mum had rolled her eyes about Frankie’s ‘helping’. Somehow I didn’t think Frankie’s mum would have a problem with Frankie going at all!

“She might like having the house to herself for the day,” I said, trying to be tactful about it. “Give her a chance to really relax in peace.”

“Maybe,” said Frankie. “I’ll ask.”

I jumped in the air. “Whoopeeee!” I said. “We’re off! We can have a sleepover at ours on a Friday night and then go on the Saturday! It’s just gonna be sooo excellent!”

“Even better – we can really rub it in with the M&Ms next week,” Lyndz said with a wicked giggle. “They’ll be sick as anything!”

“They’ll hate us for it!” Fliss said, beaming broadly. “I can’t wait to see their faces! We’re going snowboarding, we’re going snowboarding!”

Frankie leapt to her feet and pretended to snowboard along Lyndz’s bedroom floor. “Look out, everyone – here I come!” she yelled. “Neeeyyyooooowww!”

I grinned to myself. My best mate bouncing around like a nutter again was the best thing I’d seen in ages!