by Angie Bates

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Have you been invited to all these sleepovers?

Sleepover kit List

Copyright

About the Publisher

Oops – sorry! Didn’t hurt you, did I? I didn’t see you coming round the corner.

These snowflakes glue themselves to your eyelashes. They make everything look dead blurred. Also, don’t laugh, but I was kind of pretending I was looking through a veil. You know, a snowy white bride’s veil?

Frankie says I’ve got weddings on the brain, since Mum and Andy announced their engagement. “That’s a joke,” I told her. “Coming from Miss Frankie ‘I’ve-got-a-new-baby-sister’ Thomas!”

It’s true. Ever since her baby sister was born, Frankie hasn’t stopped rabbiting on about her. Mind you, she is the cutest thing. Frankie says she coos in her crib just like a sweet little pigeon!

Look, I’m just on my way to meet Frankie and the others in the school playground. Yes, I do know it’s Sunday! It’s for a really special occasion. And I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Why don’t you come with me? That way I can update you on our latest, most radical sleepover yet: Sleepover 2000. (I can’t believe I’m saying that, can you?!)

Seriously, I’m quite chilled about the millennium now. But for the first few days, I was truly spooked. I just couldn’t picture myself actually living in the year 2000. I mean, that’s practically the FUTURE!

Don’t tell the others, OK, but when I went to bed on New Year’s Eve, I was seriously scared I’d wake up and see alien spaceships buzzing over the rooftops.

But next morning, when I looked out of my window, there was good old Cuddington, looking disappointingly average! And gradually my millennium worries died down.

At least, they did until I found out where Sleepover 2000 was going to be held. That’s right. MY house!

I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I mean, the first sleepover of the new millennium has got to be truly awesome. Everyone’s going to remember it for ever and ever. And that’s a mega responsibility for anyone, right?

Only with a mum like mine, it’s more of a mega impossibility.

Don’t get me wrong. Mum’s the best. But when she was little, she didn’t really have that many friends. So every time my mates come round, she goes right over the top trying to make them feel at home. She tries so hard, it gets me all churned up inside.

Plus, a nice home means a lot to Mum. So she’s always in a flap in case someone spills their Coke or drops crumbs or whatever.

Unfortunately, at New Year, Mum went just a teeny bit too far. What with the party and her engagement and everything, she was totally stressed out. Then Frankie’s mum went into labour, right in the middle of MY mum’s party!!! The thought of someone having a baby on her nice new carpet practically sent Mum into orbit.

So you can imagine how I felt about hosting the most important sleepover in history, with Mum fluffing around us the whole time.

I worked myself into a major froth. What made it worse was that there was no-one I could talk to. I couldn’t tell the others. They think my mum’s a headcase as it is. And I definitely couldn’t tell Mum.

Then Andy, my soon-to-be-proper step-dad, found me having a cry on the stairs. I told him I didn’t feel well. “I think I’m going down with this, like, evil millennium bug everyone’s been on about,” I sniffled.

But Andy is such a star. After he finally winkled the truth out of me, he totally put my mind at rest. “I’ll have a tactful word. Don’t give it a second thought, princess,” he promised. “Sleepover 2000 is sorted, OK!” And he gave me a huge clean tissue, so I could give my nose a proper blow.

Mind you, when the Big Day came, it looked like old Andy had let me down. Because—

Oops! There I go again, rushing ahead of myself. I’m such a butterfly. I almost left out the most important part of the story. Which is what happened on our first day back at school.

Have you noticed how bad things mostly happen when you’re in a great mood? I mean, not only had I finally got over my sleepover jitters, but I was feeling really bubbly and excited. All five of us were.

And then Mrs Weaver had to go and put a total hex on our plans!!!

I know this sounds sad, but I was really relieved when it was time to go back to school. After our decorations come down, the Christmas holidays always seem to run out of steam. Mum and I end up watching daft TV programmes about what to do with those unwanted gifts.

Actually, we could have used some tips on wanted gifts. Andy was driving us up the wall with the fancy new digital camcorder Mum got him. Mum complained that she couldn’t sneeze without him recording it on tape! So with one thing and another, I was quite looking forward to getting back to normal school routine.

You’ll never guess what Frankie was talking about when I walked into the classroom. Oh, you guessed!! It turned out her new baby sister still didn’t have a name.

“Isn’t that really bad luck?” I said.

Frankie scowled. “Not nearly such bad luck as those gross names Mum keeps coming up with. I mean, Angelica! Perlease!”

“Is your mum a Rugrats fan?” giggled Lyndz.

“Well, that’s nothing,” said Frankie dramatically. “Wait till you hear Dad’s top favourite.” She mimed being sick. “EMILY!” she choked.

The five of us went into a collective shudder. Actually, Emily is a really sweet name. Unfortunately, it’s also the name of one of the Sleepover Club’s biggest enemies, Emily Berryman.

She and Emma Hughes go around in this, like, deadly duo. For obvious reasons, we call them the M&Ms. They’re always plotting against us.

Just then we had to go into assembly. Every time I looked up, there were the M&Ms, sneaking poisonous little glances at us. They looked exactly like those Siamese cats in The Lady and the Tramp!

But after a while I forgot about them. Because 1) Ryan Scott flashed me this really cute smile!! Honestly, he is such a dish – and 2) Believe it or not, assembly got really interesting!!!

Mrs Poole had found an old photograph someone had taken of Cuddington villagers at the beginning of the nineteenth century. She’d had a poster-sized blow-up made of it, to show everyone.

Well, OK, if it’s not your village, it probably isn’t that exciting. But there was something dead touching about seeing all those long-ago villagers in some long-ago Leicestershire meadow. I think the photographer must have interrupted them in the middle of a picnic.

You could just make out one of those really old-fashioned jugs, which Mrs Poole said probably held local cider. You could also see part of a checked tablecloth, half a loaf of bread, and a lump of pork pie.

The photographer had arranged everyone in rows. Grown-ups at the back. Kids at the front. All of them had poker-stiff backs and grim expressions. Even the babies looked stern under their little frilly bonnets!

Mrs Poole explained that in those days, hardly anyone owned a camera.

“This is a tremendously big deal for them. It isn’t like some holiday snap you throw away. The photographer is capturing a moment of real history”

I expect you’ve guessed that our headmistress was leading up to a really big announcement. Isn’t it funny how you can tell? It turned out the Parish Council had arranged to have a special millennial photograph taken of today’s Cuddingtonians in our school playground!

“So I hope you’ll all come along on the last Sunday in January to take your place in history,” Mrs Poole wound up.

When we got out into the corridor, everyone was buzzing, discussing what we’d wear for the photograph, so future generations would realise how cool we were.

“It’s got to be my Leicester City scarf,” said Kenny promptly.

Lyndz giggled. “Oooh, won’t you be really cold?”

“I’m wearing my silver jacket. No question,” said Frankie. She has this weird thing about silver. I’m surprised she doesn’t wear silver knickers.

“I don’t know what I’ll wear,” moaned Rosie.

Me neither. It dawned on me, that I didn’t have anything in my whole wardrobe you could truly call millennial.

Yippee! Time to go shopping, I thought.

We’d only been back in our class about five minutes when Mrs Weaver brought us down to earth with a bump.

But first I ought to explain that before we broke up for the Christmas holidays, we’d been given a special assignment. We were MEANT to get together with our group over the holidays and brainstorm ideas for whatto put in this kind of home-grown Millennium Dome our school was planning.

Well, we’d done the getting together part! Several times. But what with new babies, parties and future weddings, we kind of forgot the homework part.

Everyone else in our class started pulling out long lists and spidergrams and balsa-wood models and I don’t know what.

The M&Ms had put together this really slick presentation. They actually gave a TALK to the whole class without Mrs Weaver asking them to! How creepy is that!!!

One of them had obviously got a whizzy new computer for Christmas, because they’d printed off this, like, mega posh document, listing the most important points in their talk in case we forgot them. Then they strutted round the class, making a big hairy deal out of handing everyone their personal copy. “That way we can have a proper class discussion,” smirked Emma, sounding about forty-five years old.

“Yeah, right!” muttered Frankie.

I sat on my hands, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me. The others looked vaguely round the room. Well, except Kenny. She was busy making a paper aeroplane out of you know what!

Actually, I don’t think Mrs Weaver had a very nice Christmas. Because when she realised we hadn’t done our homework, she went into a total Cruella DeVil act.

“You’ll never get anywhere with this kind of sloppy attitude!” she fumed. “Everyone else in this class did as I asked. As a result, they have all earned the right to work on their favourite zones. But you girls will have to put up with whatever is left over!”

Can you guess what “whatever” turned out to be?

Ecology.

But if we thought this was bad, Mrs Weaver’s next words totally sent us into shock.

“I’m giving you one final chance,” she said. “But if you girls don’t come up with some really inspiring ideas for your zone by next Monday, you’ll be VERY sorry indeed.

“We stared at her, like Dalmatian puppies about to be turned into fur coats. We couldn’t believe our ears. That meant we’d have to spend our sacred sleepover weekend doing homework!

The M&Ms were loving every minute of it. They could afford to. All their sucking-up totally paid off. They’d landed the all-time coolest zone – the Media Zone. See what I mean? Those girls come up smelling of roses every time!

It was a really horrible morning. And it got even worse. At break time, Mrs Weaver made us all go outside, even though it was cold enough to freeze your eyeballs. We huddled together miserably in our usual corner of the playground and Kenny shared out some Cheesy Wotsits.

Lyndz looked a bit puzzled. “Why are we so upset?” she asked at last. “I thought ecology was a good thing. I mean, it’s about saving the planet, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah. Ecology is cool and fab and totally groovy,” snarled Kenny. “That’s why everyone else was falling over themselves to do it.”

She glared at the sky, which was filling rapidly with dirty yellow clouds. “Great! It’s going to snow,” she moaned.

My heart sank. Snow after Christmas has absolutely no point and should be banned.

Frankie collapsed dramatically against the wall. She pulls that kind of stunt all the time. She tells us she’s practising for when she’s a world-famous actress.

“This sleepover is doomed for ever,” she groaned. “I mean, ecology is about recycling, right? Cans and old newspapers and stuff? How depressing is THAT?”

Kenny cheered up. “Hey! We could do something about blood and guts. That’s ecology too.”

Rosie gulped. “For vampires maybe,” she said.

“I thought ecology was, like, mud and Nature,” I said.

The others gave me really funny looks. I hate it when they do that. It makes me feel totally stupid.

“OK, so what are those things, then?” I said sulkily. “You know, those tiny invisible things that live in mud?”

Kenny giggled. “Fliss, you’re such a wally! Like we’re not in enough trouble. And now you want us to fill an entire zone with invisible mud creatures!”

Everyone cracked up. Including me, I have to admit. Kenny’s such a laugh. And I bet you can guess what happened next, can’t you? That’s right!

Before you could say “hiccups”, Lyndz was hiccuping away like a fruit machine. Lyndz is always getting hiccups. She drives us crazy.

We started thumping her on the back. “It’s OK. They’ll go off, hic, in a minute,” she gasped. “Look, why can’t we do something about, hic, horses?” Lyndz is totally nuts about horses.

“Animals only count if they’re endangered,” said Kenny in a snooty voice.

“I can’t believe Mrs Weaver actually expects us to sacrifice our sleepover for ecology,” Frankie wailed. “I mean, ecology is so-o sad.”

“Not as sad as we’ll look if we don’t come up with something good by Monday,” Rosie pointed out.

“Yeah,” agreed Lyndz. “The, hic, honour of the entire Sleepover Club is at, hic, hic, stake.”

At this point I noticed a tiny flake of snow come circling down. Then another. And another. For some reason those little lonely snowflakes made me feel really helpless.

Frankie was right. Our sleepover was doomed.

I don’t feel very well, I thought. In fact, now I came to think about it, my skin felt funny. Hot and kind of sore. My head hurt too.

Well, if that doesn’t put the king in the cake, I thought miserably. I’m getting that bug after all. That evil millennium flu bug.

The first week of term was totally depressing. It didn’t even SNOW properly. There was just this really biting wind. And sometimes sleet battered our classroom windows. But on Friday morning, it finally snowed its little socks off!

By lunchtime all the school dustbins had acquired tall frothy hats. Frankie said they looked like giant cappuccinos.

In the afternoon, Mrs Weaver let us skive off to the school library, supposedly to do research for our Ecology Zone. We were still gloomily opening books and shutting them again when Mrs Poole sent a message round, saying the school was closing early because of the bad weather.

“Excellent,” said Frankie. “Hope it snows next week too. Then I’ll get to see my baby sister loads.” Her face lit up. “Did I tell you how she—”

“YES!” we yelled.

“Ssh!” hissed Miss Mellone. “This is a library, not a circus!”

“Like we hadn’t noticed,” muttered Rosie.

“Isn’t it weird,” said Kenny thoughtfully. “I hate snow, but I lurve getting snowed in.”

“Me too,” said Lyndz. “Don’t you love it when they do that Snow Line, and the radio presenter reads out the names of all the schools which are closed, and you hear the magic words ‘Cuddington School’?”

“Yeah! And look at it this way,” said Rosie. “This means we get a longer sleepover. If it’s all right with your mum, Fliss,” she added awkwardly.

I crossed my fingers behind my back. “Oh, Mum won’t mind,” I swanked.

“Great,” moaned Frankie. “An extra hour’s brain-ache, reading our exciting ecology books. NOT!”

The school library was just about to close, so we each grabbed a book and hoped for the best. Lyndz chose a book on horses (surprise, surprise). Kenny found one about the human body, which she said looked “promising”. “Gory” is the word I’d use. Kenny wants to be a doctor like her dad. She gets a real kick out of going into disgusting medical details and watching her friends squirm! My book showed all the weird little things you can see in an ordinary rain puddle. Well, if you’ve got a microscope! I was going to prove the existence of my mysterious mud creatures if it killed me.

I hate going out in ice and snow, don’t you? It makes me dead nervous and wobbly, like I’m going to fall on my face and knock my teeth out. And as I tottered down our road, a whole hour earlier than usual, I started feeling wobbly on the inside too.

Suppose Andy’s “tactful word” only made things worse? Mum’s dead sensitive. You can’t predict what’s going to set her off.

“Please don’t let her embarrass me in front of my friends,” I prayed. “I’ll never ask for another thing.”

But when I turned my key, Mum was on the other side of the door with a big grin on her face. I could see she was bursting to tell me something.

“Is it OK if everyone comes early, Mum?” I asked.

She nodded brightly. “Everything’s been ready for hours.”

My tummy turned over. “Ready?” I stuttered. “But Andy—?”

Mum’s expression went all soft and gooey. “Bless him. He was so sweet. He explained that he loves me just the way I am, but that me being so house-proud sometimes puts a bit of a strain on you all.”

I swallowed. “But—”

“He made me see I’ve got to learn to be more relaxed,” said Mum. “More fun to be with.”

“More fun?” I said in dismay.

“Anyway, I was wondering what I could do to make this a really extra-special year 2000 sleepover for you all, when I heard this man on the car radio,” Mum burbled. “And then I had my brainwave.”

“Brainwave?” I echoed. Brainstorm, more like.

Mum wagged her finger. “You’re not getting another word out of me until your friends get here. Just keep out of my hair, while I do the finishing touches.”

I went upstairs in a daze. It was like a bad dream. Andy’s tactful advice had only made my try-hard mum try harder than ever! What is she up to down there? I wondered nervously. Redecorating the house?

Just then, I saw the other members of the Sleepover Club out of the window, happily galumphing into view.

Boy, I had to move FAST! I raced down the stairs two at a time, and got the door open a split second before Frankie leaned on the door chimes.

“There’s a problem,” I gasped. “You see, my mum—”

“Don’t worry,” grinned Rosie. “Boots off already. Look!” She wiggled her toes in their woolly socks.

“And mine nearly are,” said Lyndz, hopping on one foot. “Don’t worry. Your mum’s carpets are safe with us.”

“We’ll leave our coats in the porch,” said Kenny, “so they won’t drip where they shouldn’t.”

“You don’t understand!” I wailed. “It isn’t a carpet-type problem. It’s more of a total—”

I was going to say “disaster”. But before I could warn my friends they were about to be zapped by my mother’s extra-special year 2000 brainwave, Mum appeared.

“Hi everyone,” she sang. “Great to see you all! I wonder if you’d just mind putting all those snowy boots and coats back on and coming round to the back of the house instead?”

Everyone’s mouths fell open. No-one said a word. But I knew what they were thinking. I was thinking the exact same thing. My mum had totally lost the plot!

Carefully not meeting my eye, Frankie and the others put their snowy boots and coats back on, and squelched out of our front porch without a word.

“Go with them, Fliss. That bolt on the back gate is a bit tricky,” said Mum. Honestly, she was beaming so brightly you could have used her for a Belisha beacon.

I threw on my coat and crunched after them, wondering if it was possible for a person to die of shame.

One of our neighbours had a bonfire going. I could smell smoke and something I couldn’t quite put a name to.

I unbolted the back gate, and wouldn’t you know? I managed to pinch my finger. It really hurt. Great, that’s all I need, I thought – a thumping great blood blister. I held the gate open with one hand and sucked the other hand miserably. Everyone trudged past into our sparkling white garden.

But as they disappeared round the corner, I heard gasps of astonishment.

“Coo-ell!” shouted Lyndz.

“Hey, Fliss!” yelled Kenny. “What a wicked surprise!”

I followed them. It was a surprise all right.

Fairy lights twinkled on the snowy patio. Wispy blue smoke rose into the evening air.

The barbecue, I thought in a daze. That’s what I could smell. It had reached exactly the right red-hot stage for cooking too – something Mum doesn’t always get right. Foil-wrapped goodies were roasting on the bars, alongside sizzling sausages and burgers.

Mum was handing round steaming mugs. “It should be vodka,” she teased. “But I thought your parents might not approve.”

When Kenny looked up from her mug, she had a blob of cream on her nose. “Heaven,” she whispered. “I’m in hot chocolate heaven.”

Mum had thought of absolutely everything. She’d even set up a big spotty parasol to keep off the snow. The table was laid with cutlery, pretty paper plates, and even more goodies.

Mum put her arm round me. “This man on the radio said that in Siberia it’s perfectly normal to have winter picnics. So I thought, if the Russians can do it, why can’t we?” Her voice trailed off. “You don’t mind having a picnic in the snow, do you?”

“Mind!” shrieked Kenny. “This is ACE!”

“It’s magic!” chortled Rosie.

“Outrageous,” agreed Lyndz.

Frankie didn’t say a word. She stared around our back garden as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But being Frankie, I knew it was bound to be something dead sarky.

Suddenly she started fumbling in her bag. She fished out a canary-yellow camera, one of those funky Polaroid ones.

“Mrs Sidebotham,” she said, in her most polite voice. “Would you take a picture of us, please? I want to remember this awesome sleepover my whole life!”

When I was little, every time I got the teensiest bit excited about anything, Granny Sidebotham (that’s my real dad’s mum) used to say, “Mark my words. There’ll be tears before bedtime.”

What a thing to say to a little kid! Like, “Don’t ever have fun, Felicity, or something bad will happen!”

Well, it’s a good thing Gran wasn’t invited to our snow picnic, because, not counting Christmas, it has to be the MOST fun I ever had in winter!

We stuffed our faces till our buttons practically popped off. But even after the food was gone, our fairy-lit garden felt so incredibly magic, no-one could bear to go back indoors.

It had practically stopped snowing by this time. Just an occasional, totally perfect snowflake drifted down. Lyndz stuck out her tongue and tasted one. “I wish we could stay out here all night,” she said.

“Andy would have to thaw us with his blowtorch in the morning,” I shivered.

The temperature was so far below zero by this time, Mum’s picnicking Siberians would have been completely at home.

Suddenly Kenny had the bright idea of putting on all the clothes she’d brought with her! We all rushed inside, and soon we were all throwing on every garment we could find. It was like that dressing up-race we had on Sports Day in the Infants. (Which I always lost, incidentally. Not because I was bad at sports. I was ace, thanks very much! More because I was the only kid who took the dressing-up part really seriously!)

I think Mum still felt bad about her New Year freak-out, because she kept herself totally under control while we piled on the layers, even though it meant us dripping melted snow all over her clean kitchen floor.

“That’s better,” sighed Lyndz, when we were back outside. “Nice and toasty again.”

The only problem was that all the extra clothes made our arms totally stick out at the sides. We were all moving dead stiffly.

“We look like robots,” Lyndz giggled.

“Or Teletubbies,” suggested Rosie. And she went into this hysterical Teletubby impersonation. Soon we were all waddling about, talking in silly baby voices like Tinky Winky and La La and whatever.

“Hey, we can be the Snowtubbies,” I said suddenly.

This made Lyndz laugh so hard she had a complete choking fit, which probably makes her the only hiccupping Snowtubby in history. Mind you, her hiccups stopped in record time when Kenny threatened to stuff a big handful of snow down her neck! Now all we had to do was get Lyndz out of her major sulk! Eventually Rosie persuaded her to make snow angels with us.

Oh, if you’re interested in having a go, here’s the Sleepover Club’s Three-Step Guide to snow-angel making!

FIRST, you fall backwards gracefully into a snowdrift, OK? Oh, yeah! TOP TIP. Pick a patch of snow without a prickly bush underneath. Frankie didn’t. So her first attempt wasn’t as graceful as it could have been. It also hurt a LOT!!!

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