by Lorna Read

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

The End

Have you been Invited to all these Sleepovers?

Sleepover Kit List

Copyright

About the Publisher

Uh-oh, I can see Frankie looking at me. Well, looking’s hardly the word. She’s glaring like Fliss’s neighbour, Mr Watson-Wade – Mr Grumpy, as we call him – does, when he thinks we’ve thrown crisp packets into his pond.

I know what that look means. It means I’ve got to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, cross my heart a billion, trillion, zillion times and hope to die before Andy – that’s Fliss’s mum’s boyfriend – discovers that his guitar is really a cardboard cut-out and my brother Stuart discovers why his saxophone won’t make a sound any more!

I’m a Libran and everybody knows Librans don’t like telling lies. We’re the ones who believe everybody should play fair. We’re always trying to keep the peace – but ‘peace’ is a dirty word in our house at the moment. At least, since Saturday night.

It wasn’t all our fault. It was partly Dad’s, for not converting the attic properly.

He’s always doing weird things to our house, like moving the doors around and building extra rooms. I shouldn’t be surprised to wake up one day and find out he’s double-glazed me!

I’m Lyndz, by the way. That’s short for Lyndsey Marianne Collins. I’m one of the five members of the Sleepover Club.

The others are Laura McKenzie, known as Kenny. She’s Frankie’s best friend. There’s Francesca Thomas, Frankie for short, and Fliss. Fliss’s full name is Felicity Sidebotham (please don’t laugh, it’s not fair. Anyway, she pronounces it Side-both-am).

The last person to join our gang was Rosie, alias Rosie Maria Cartwright. It was my idea that she should be allowed to join, because she was new to the area, and new to school, and didn’t know anyone.

Well, we had to rescue her from the dreaded M&Ms, didn’t we? Just imagine if she’d got into the clutches of our worst enemies! The Goblin – that’s Emily Berryman, one of the M&Ms – might have twitched her stupid splodgy nose and turned her into a toad or something.

Quick! I’ve just noticed Frankie isn’t looking. Let’s run out into the garden and hide in the shed, otherwise she’ll want to tell you everything as usual, and I won’t get a turn.

Mum calls our shed the summerhouse, now that Dad’s fixed a completely gross verandah on the front, with a wonky railing. Mum’s put some old chairs in and painted them streaky blue. Mediterranean blue, she calls it. It looks more like what happened in Rosie’s living room when it was being painted and Jenny, her dog, wagged her tail all over the wet wall.

Right. Now listen up, as my Canadian cousin Ryan would say. He sent us a tape with his voice on at Christmas and “listen up” was his fave expression. “Hey, listen up, the snow’s fifteen feet deep outside our door.” Well, if the snow was that thick all round the house, the only sound you’d hear would be from up above, anyway. You’d be walking round lop-sided, with one ear raised to the ceiling, listening up for the rescue helicopters!

But it’s me who needs rescuing right now, so stop slurping that Slush-Puppy and popping that bubble-gum and I’ll tell you what you really want to know.

Oh no, I’ve done it now! Tell me what you want, what you really, really want… That’s a bit of Wannabe, by the Spice Girls. And that, unfortunately, is where the whole thing began.

Oops! I’ve got hiccups now and when I hic, I really, really hic. It’s your fault. You shouldn’t have made me laugh. What you’ve got to do for me now is press your thumbs very hard into the palm of my hand while I hold my breath.

There, it’s worked. Not a hic in sight (or sound). As I was saying, we – the Sleepovers, that is – are crazy about the Spice Girls at the moment. In a few weeks or months, we might be crazy about somebody else, but right now, Spice is nice as far we we’re concerned.

Sometimes we sneak into the studio at school when it’s empty at dinnertime. We love to dance, and sometimes Dishy Dave the caretaker plays the piano for us. He’s really good. He plays all these pop songs by ear. Well, with his fingers, actually. Oh no, don’t make me hiccup again! We asked him if he knew any Spice Girls songs and he did. He said he really likes them, too, and he’d got their video.

He asked us what our favourite Spice song was and we had a big argument. Fliss and I love Mama. Kenny’s fave is Wannabe and Rosie and Frankie think Love Thing is brilliant. Dave decided Mama was the easiest for him to play, because it’s slow.

The studio’s got mirrors on the walls so that dancers and gymnasts can watch themselves performing. We all struck Spice Girl poses and sang the words. Kenny can sing quite loud, though she often goes flat. Fliss and Rosie have got soft, whispery voices, but at least they’re in tune.

Frankie sounds like a crow with laryngitis. No wonder she wrote in her Sleepover diary a while back that she’d given up wanting to be a pop star when she grew up and wanted to drive a taxi instead!

As for me, I think I’m a good singer. Yes, I know I sound as if I’m boasting, but I was given a solo to sing in the Nativity show last Christmas and Mrs Weaver would never have given it to me if she thought I sounded like Mary and Joseph’s donkey. (Frankie does.)

Dave thought we were good. “That’s great! You sound just like them,” he said. “There’s five of you, too, just like the five Spice Girls. You should start a group,” he said.

So, really, if we’re blaming anybody, we should blame Dishy Dave for getting the ball rolling, the cookie crumbling, the group grouping …

Okay, okay. I know I’m rambling. Please don’t fall asleep, though. I haven’t got a Sleepover planned for tonight. In fact, after last Friday, I don’t think my parents are going to allow one here ever again!!!

Right from the start, it was intended to be our thing. ‘Girl Power’, as the Spice Girls would say. The last thing we wanted was to get mixed up with a gang of horrible, smelly boys, even if some of them were my own brothers.

You should get a whiff of Tom’s room. He’s my second oldest brother, aged 14. Old socks and stale crisps. Steve, who’s sixteen and my oldest brother, smells of zit cream and stinky feet, because he hates having baths.

I once made a sign for Tom’s door. It had a skull and crossbones on it and under it I wrote, NASAL DEATH AREA. He took it down and ripped it up, leaving all the family noses in mortal danger once more.

Fliss and Rosie have got brothers, too, so a few weeks ago I decided to try and find out if all brothers smell, or if it’s just my personal misfortune. Fliss said that Callum, her seven-year-old brother, smells like stink bombs. My little brother Ben smells of wee, and as for baby Spike – well, he often smells of worse, when his nappy needs changing!

Rosie’s got the perfect brother. Although Adam’s got cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair, he’s fanatical about his appearance. He loves taking showers and having his hair moussed and gelled and the best prezzie you can give him is a really nice spray cologne. I wish my brothers would catch the habit!

It’s not as if nobody ever gives Tom and Stuart any smellies. They’re always getting them for Christmas and birthdays, but the minute they put them on, the scent mutates into Dead Rat or something.

Not that they often use their smellies on themselves. They do stupid things with them instead, like the time Stuart decided our cats’ litter tray ponged and wasted a whole bottle of Dad’s Aramis, trying to freshen it up.

Unfortunately, right in the middle of his spraying activities, Toffee came bounding through the cat flap and caught a full blast. Fudge and Truffle, our other two cats, treated him like an alien and wouldn’t go near him for days, and Buster, our dog, got a sneezing attack whenever Toffee sat next to him.

Anyway, back to that afternoon three weeks ago, which is when it all began…

The bell for the end of dinnertime had rung and we all said a reluctant goodbye to our reflections in the mirror and started to walk back to our classroom.

Fliss was the last one to leave the studio, of course. She just had to pout at herself and toss her ponytail one last time. She gave a high kick through the studio door and lost her balance and nearly fell over. As she tottered around with her arms whirling like windmills, who should stroll past but the lurv of her life, Ryan Scott.

“Hi there, Fliss. They’ll never have you in the Riverdance team,” he said, sniggering.

You should have seen her blush. It was just as if someone had thrown tomato ketchup in her face! Frankie gave me a big nudge and I nearly fell over, too.

“Drunk again, Lyndsey,” said Ryan.

“Oh, run off and play on the Ml, won’t you?” said Frankie, in her best “you’re being really bo-ring” voice.

He shrugged and did a big slide round the corner of the corridor, with his hands in his pockets. I was hoping Mrs Lynch would be coming round the corner and he’d go wham, straight into her, but no such luck.

Mrs Lynch is our school secretary and she’s seriously bad-tempered, not like Mrs Poole, our Head. She’s a sweetie, unless you do something really bad, and then she can get you expelled!

“Why did you have to be nasty to him? He’ll think we don’t like him now!” Fliss complained.

“I think you’re a very sad person, Fliss,” Frankie told her, and a row was all set to break out, until Kenny changed the subject. Thank goodness she did. Who wants to talk about boring boys? Especially big-headed posers like Ryan Scott!

What Kenny said was all set to change our lives, though none of us knew it at the time.

“Do you think Dave meant it?” she asked us.

Rosie frowned. “Meant what?”

“About us being like the Spice Girls.”

“I hope so!” said Fliss.

“Stoo-pid!” said Frankie.

“Why does it matter?” I asked Kenny.

“The competition!” Kenny said.

We all stared at her. Then I suddenly remembered. I don’t watch much telly. I’m not as mad about it as the rest of the club, especially Fliss, who eats, drinks and sleeps Friends and has all the episodes on video – she’s the saddest thing on earth! One thing I do enjoy, though, is seeing people make complete twits of themselves on Stars in Their Eyes, where they have to look and sound like a famous singer.

The other day Mrs Poole announced in Assembly that the school was going to raise some money to send some needy kids in a children’s home on holiday.

“The staff and I have had a discussion and we’ve come up with something we thought you’d all enjoy,” she told us. “Every class is going to enter an act in Cuddington Primary’s version of Stars in Their Eyes. There’ll be class heats first and we want all of you to have a go. The winning act from every class will get a prize, and they’ll perform in the charity show. The ticket money will go to the children’s home.”

We didn’t think any more about it, as none of us are particularly talented, though Fliss thinks she looks and sings like Madonna and Frankie plays pretty mean piano.

But it looked as if Frankie had thought of something now, and the rest of us were desperate to find out what it was.

The door of our classroom was closing as we got to it. I grabbed the handle to stop the others from entering, while I thought quickly.

“Six o’clock at my place, folks,” I told everyone. “Mum’s got yoga tonight and Dad’ll be in the workshop. He’s trying to finish this really gross pot for Auntie Cath’s birthday. I don’t know what she’ll ever use it for.”

My dad really fancies himself as an arty potter, but his efforts are always wobbly and lopsided, or bits drop off them. They are totally useless, though he thinks they’re works of art which should be worth millions of pounds and displayed in museums throughout the world.

“A spaghetti jar?” suggested practical Fliss.

“A potty?” Rosie giggled.

“That’s what your dad is – a potty potter,” Frankie said.

We all laughed loudly, even me, though it was my dad Frankie was insulting.

Then Mrs Weaver yelled, “When you girls feel like joining us, the class can start.”

So we had to go in and pretend to be interested in caddis fly larvae.

As we were drawing them in our Nature Study books, Frankie made hers look like my baby brother Spike, swaddled in an enormous nappy. I tried so hard not to laugh when she passed it to me under the desk that I got the hiccups.

Mrs Weaver sent Alana Banana, of all people, to get me a glass of water, but my hand shook so much as I hiccuped, that the water shot all over the back of Emma Hughes, one of the M&Ms.

That put the king in the cake all right! She’s one of our worst enemies and the sight of water dripping down her neck inside her collar made us have hysterics. We just collapsed with our heads on our desks and sobbed.

But it stopped my hiccups, so it was a good thing for me, if not for Emma, who hissed, “I’ll get you for this, Lyndsey Collins! You’ve really got it coming!”

Now, a threat from the M&Ms spells real doom. I had no doubt in my mind that Emma and her crony Emily meant to do something to get back at me.

But what…?

I laid the news on Mum as soon as I got home.

“No way. You can’t have all your friends round tonight,” she said.

“But why not?” I wailed. “I’ve invited them now. It’s not fair!”

“I’ve got some of my friends coming this evening. I might be an old wrinkly, but I do have friends, you know, and I’m going to be far too busy entertaining them to cater for you lot as well,” she insisted.

“I thought it was your yoga night and we wouldn’t be in the way,” I said.

“It’s been cancelled. The teacher’s on holiday.”

I put on my sweetest, most pleading face. “Please, Mum… They’ll have eaten already by the time they get here. And we won’t take up any space. We’ll go straight up to my room and disappear. We’re having a summit conference,” I told her importantly.

“The summit of stupidity, if you ask me!” snorted Tom, who would happen to walk into the kitchen right then.

“It is not!” I said angrily.

“‘Tis.”

“‘Tisn’t!”

“Oh, stop being babyish, you two,” said Mum. “Look, if you want to see your friends tonight, Lyndsey, just make sure they bring their own crisps and biscuits, and keep out of the lounge at all costs. Okay?”

“Thanks, Mum!” I said, giving her a hug.

Frankie’s dad brought her, Kenny and Rosie over. Shortly afterwards, Andy, Fliss’s mum’s boyfriend, dropped Fliss off.

I’d already done a phone around about the food situation, and raided some of the emergency rations Mum keeps in the spare fridge, which sits next to the huge freezer in the garage.

I’d found a big tub of my favourite ice-cream, two packets of chocolate biscuits and a bumper crisp selection pack. Don’t ask me why there were crisps in the fridge. I guess Mum was being hassled by Ben and Spike and just shoved them anywhere to get rid of them. The crisps, I mean, not my little brothers.

Frankie’s dad brought in a six-pack of Cokes. Fliss had some bananas and a bottle of diet lemonade so I knew she had to be on one of her healthy eating kicks again. Rosie had some Jaffa Cakes. Kenny was carrying a weird looking cake. It was sort of pinky orange.

“Ugh! What’s that?” I asked her.

“Molly made it at school. It’s supposed to be carrot cake,” she explained. Molly is Kenny’s twelve-year-old sister.

“It’s bound to be horrible,” Fliss said. “She wouldn’t have let you have it if it hadn’t been. You know how much she hates us. She’s probably trying to poison us so she’ll never have to move out of the bedroom again.”

Molly and Kenny share a room and every time we spend the night there, she has to move in with Emma, Kenny’s oldest sister. Both of them hate having to share, and Molly’s always nasty about which of her possessions we mustn’t touch or go anywhere near. Last time we had a sleepover at Kenny’s, Molly was so strict about her precious Spanish costume doll that, after she’d gone, I took its knickers off and made it a little nappy out of some pieces of toilet paper held together with a safety pin.

She can’t have discovered it yet, otherwise she’d have gone ballistic and I’d have heard all about it from Kenny.

I made everyone take off their shoes before going in my room. We always kick our shoes off, anyway, and my room’s too small for loads of shoes. There’s no space to put anything and Dad still hasn’t made me the new bedroom in the attic he’s been promising me for over a year.

I took the cake off Kenny and looked for somewhere to put it, where it wouldn’t get damaged. My dressing table was far too full of stuff, so in the end I put the cake down on the floor, between the bottom of the bed and the window. Big mistake.

Meanwhile, everyone was cramming themselves on to my bed and on the carpet. There was no room for Rosie till we’d closed the door and she could sit with her back to it. That was great, because it meant no nosy brothers could get in.

Frankie remained standing. It was obvious she wanted to organise everything as usual.

“I’ve got this great idea,” she announced.

We all groaned. This was one of Frankie’s stock phrases, and it always led to trouble of some sort.

She ignored us. “How many Spice Girls are there?” she asked.

“Five, of course,” said Rosie.

“How many of us are there?”

“Five,” said Kenny, frowning.

Frankie grinned. Then she ripped open a crisp packet noisily and started cramming the contents into her mouth.

I sighed. Frankie loved ‘keeping us in suspenders’, as she put it.

“Come on,” I said. “Give us a clue.”

“Mm-mm-mm-mm,” she muttered through her munching.

“What?” we asked her.

She gave a big gulp and licked her crumby lips.

“Stars in Their Eyes,” she replied. “School version, of course. Why don’t we go in for it as the Spice Girls?”

“Yeah! Fantastic! Can I be Baby Spice?” yelled Fliss.

She took a flying leap off the end of the bed. There was a squelchy sound. Then silence. Then an awful scream. She’d landed right in Molly’s carrot cake and squashed it all over the carpet. Fliss is very fussy, just like her mother. She absolutely hates getting in a mess. When we saw bits of creamy orange sponge squidging between her bare toes, we all collapsed.

“Oh no, oh no, I think I’m going to wet myself,” giggled Rosie, which made us all laugh even more.

Then I heard Mum coming up the stairs.

“Girls, girls, what’s going on up here? Is everything all right?” she called out.

“Yes, yes,” I panted, between hoots of laughter. “Fliss just put her foot in it, that’s all!”

Luckily for us, the doorbell rang. Mum dashed down the stairs to answer it, giving me a chance to get a sponge from the bathroom and do some cleaning up.

When we’d all calmed down, we got down to some serious snacking and talking.

“Who’s going to be who, then?” asked Kenny.

“I think you should be Sporty Spice,” Frankie told her.

Although we all like sports and all play netball, Kenny is seriously sports mad. She never wears anything but jeans and sportswear. Tonight, she was wearing jeans and a Leicester City Football Club sweatshirt. They’re her favourite team. My dad and grandad are mad about them, too, and sometimes we all go to matches together.

We all agreed that Kenny was perfect for Sporty Spice and, to save arguments, we agreed that Fliss could be Baby Spice. She has the right colour of hair, after all.

It was a bit difficult choosing Ginger Spice, because none of us has got ginger hair. But my mum has a big trunk full of dressing up clothes, amongst which is a red wig she bought to wear at a fancy dress party. I felt sure she’d let me borrow it. So I became Ginger Spice.

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