Rose Impey
Contents
Half Title Title Page Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Copyright About the Publisher
Hey, pssst. It’s me, Frankie – over here, in the bushes. Don’t look round! And whatever you do, don’t look up! Meet me the other side of the dog park in five. I’ll be the one in the sunglasses and the mad hat. And come alone – this is for your ears only!
Sorry about the cloak and dagger stuff, but this time it’s serious. This time we almost got arrested. And we still might – if this rescue operation goes wrong. I’m dreading it. You know what I’m like about heights!
Anyway, let’s find somewhere to sit while we’re waiting for the others and I’ll tell you the whole gory story…
Now, where shall I start? I probably need to go way back, before the Sleepover Club even existed and tell you how we all came to be best friends – and sworn enemies of the gruesome M&Ms.
In the very beginning there were just two of us: Me, Francesca Theresa Thomas – Frankie to all my friends (which of course means you) – and my best mate Kenny. Her real name’s Laura McKenzie, but everyone calls her Kenny – if they know what’s good for them! We met at playschool when we were three years old. Kenny came flying down the slide and smashed right into the back of me. I was so mad, until I saw her cheeky grin and heard her say, “Hey, soz, didn’t see you there,” which was pretty unbelievable, because even then I was big for my age. But I couldn’t stay angry with Kenny for long and it’s been like that ever since.
Sometimes in drama lessons we do this exercise where we have to describe a character we’re playing as if they’re a piece of fruit or… a piece of furniture. For example, if I were a piece of furniture, I’d be this a-mazing chair I once saw in a museum. It looked Egyptian; it was like a huge throne, with carved wooden legs with cats’ heads on them. It wasn’t what you’d call comfortable, but dead cool. I would kill to have it in my bedroom.
Kenny would be a chair too, but one of those office chairs. You know, the type that goes up and down and round in circles and given the slightest encouragement charges across the room at forty miles an hour skittling everything in its path. It would be blue and white, which are Leicester City Football Club colours, because Kenny is their biggest fan. And it would probably be waving a scarf and cheering!
We met Lyndz, Lyndsey Collins, when we were five and went to Cuddington County Primary School. If Lyndz were a chair she’d be soft and cozy, the most comfy armchair in the world. Imagine your favourite place to cuddle up and watch TV, or read a book – that’s Lyndz.
I know everyone says threes don’t work – someone’s bound to end up left out and feeling jealous – but Lyndz doesn’t have a jealous bone in her body so we all got on just fine. In class, if ever we had to work in pairs, Lyndz would choose some Billy-no-mates to work with. Lyndz has this big heart, so big you could probably float the whole of Leicester on it.
One of the people she sometimes took pity on was Fliss, full name: Felicity Diana Sidebotham. Fliss is definitely not a chair. She’d be more like one of those fancy curved dressing tables. You know the kind, with pink curtains underneath and frills and tassels. Fliss is a very pink person.
It’s hard to imagine now, but in those days she was a bit of a Felicity-no-mates. She was a bit shy and a bit girly for Kenny’s taste. But when the M&Ms started their Campaign of Terror, well, we had to do something, didn’t we?
The M&Ms’ real names are Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman – sometimes known as The Queen and the Goblin or The Gruesome Twosome. The M&Ms would have been our enemies, even if they’d never done anything to us, just because they’re the most disgusting, sneaky, stuck up goody-goodies in the entire history of the universe and beyond. And, no, I’m not exaggerating!
If the M&Ms were pieces of furniture they’d probably be matching gold mirrors, like the one in Snow White. If you asked them, “Who is the fairest of us all?” they’d scream back at you, “We are, of course, you idiot!”
One of the most irritating things about the M&Ms is that they always have to be top of everything and bosses of the class. If there’s ever a competition with a prize to win, somehow they always manage to win it.
But worse than that: their idea of fun is to pick on people who can’t stick up for themselves. And one of those people was Fliss.
Fliss really cares about her appearance and – how can I put this – well, she’s pretty vain. So, when the M&Ms stuck chewing gum in her long blonde hair, squirted tomato ketchup – accidentally on purpose – down her designer T-shirt and put hamster droppings in the pocket of her new, very expensive Bennetton jacket… and then squashed them, Fliss almost had a nervous breakdown.
As if all that wasn’t enough, they started to give her the Smile Treatment. Believe me, there is nothing more unpleasant than being smiled at by those two muppets. Whenever Fliss glanced up from her work one of them was already looking in her direction, smiling. She’d nudge the other one and they’d both smile, as if to say, “Wait till you see what we’ve got planned for you!”
In no time Fliss was a complete designer bag of nerves. Her mum, Nicky, told us later she’d been having trouble getting Fliss to school for weeks. She’d even threatened to run away which was a big thing for Fliss, because camping is on her list of Least Favourite Things to do Before I Die.
Anyway, when Lyndz found her crying one day in the toilets at school she came straight back and told us.
“I think we should let Fliss sit with us in class,” she said. “I feel sooo…”
“…sorry for her,” Kenny and I joined in. That could be Lyndz’s theme tune.
“Well, I do,” she insisted.
At first, we weren’t exactly sympathetic, because as Kenny said, “It doesn’t take a lot to get Fliss crying.” But once we’d heard the full list of things those two gonks had been up to, even Kenny said, “OK, now I feel sorry for her.”
So for the next week the four of us sat together in lessons and it was OK. If any bits of bother broke out between Kenny and Fliss, Lyndz launched one of her international peace-keeping missions. In fact everything seemed fine until Fliss turned up to school with the invitations. I bet you can guess what colour those were!
Lyndz opened hers first and broke out into a big smile, so then I opened mine. I thought it would just be an invitation to tea, but it was for tea… and to sleep over… at Fliss’s house… all four of us.
Lyndz looked pretty pleased; I was… surprised; Kenny was trying not to choke. I mean, we’d never really done anything like that before. Kenny had slept at my house once or twice, and I’d stayed once at Lyndz’s when my parents went to a conference, but we’d never had a proper sleepover – not all of us together.
As Kenny said later, “We don’t really know Fliss yet.”
We’d never even been to her house. We weren’t sure we were ready for this. But Lyndz said, “I think we should go. It’ll be… nice.”
“It’ll be pink,” Kenny muttered.
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Lyndz persisted.
“It’ll be frilly,” Kenny argued.
They both turned and looked at me. “What do you think, Frankie?”
If I’m absolutely honest, which is what my parents always encourage me to be, because they’re lawyers and they think honesty is more important than anything else in life, I’d probably have to admit I was on Kenny’s side. I don’t like change much. I thought we were fine as we were, just the three of us. It wasn’t that I had anything against Fliss joining our gang, I didn’t want anyone to join.
The others were waiting for me to give the casting vote, but before I could the M&Ms came round the corner and saw the invitations in our hands.
“Oooh, someone’s having a party,” Emma Hughes said in her silly, simpery voice.
“It wouldn’t be Flossy Slidebottom, would it?” Emily Berryman asked.
“She must be desperate for friends if she’s got to ask this lot,” Emma sneered.
“At least she’s got some friends,” I snapped back at them.
“Not just partners in crime,” Kenny backed me up.
The M&Ms grinned at each other like they’d won some points for how easily they could wind us up.
“Well, have a wonderful time,” Emma Hughes simpered as they disappeared down the corridor.
“Oh, we will!” I called after them.
“Don’t you worry,” Kenny added. “We’ll have a ball!”
“We’ll have the best time ever,” I shouted even louder.
After they’d gone Lyndz stood there, trying not to smile.
“I take it we’re going then,” she said.
It does seem really funny now to think it was because of the M&Ms that the four of us came to be friends and start the whole Sleepover Club in the first place. It’s what my gran calls poetic justice.
“Sometimes,” she says, “really good things can come – even out of the most unlikely places!”
