EMERGENCY
SLEEPOVER

by Fiona Cummings

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Have you been invited to all these sleepovers?

Sleepover Kit List

Copyright

About the Publisher

Hiya! You look a bit pale. Are you sure you’re all right? No medical problems I can help you with? No aches or pains, bumps or bruises? Are you sure now, because Dr Kenny is at your service. Hey, don’t look at me like that. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospital recently. Well not that much time, actually, but enough to know that I absolutely definitely still want to be a doctor. No, I haven’t been ill or anything. But Rosie has. Well not ill exactly… Look, you’d better sit down and I’ll tell you everything.

OK, well, the whole thing started a few weeks ago when we were round at Rosie’s for a sleepover. It was this really warm evening and we were getting pretty wild, as you do. Now you know what Rosie’s house is like, don’t you – it’s kind of big and ramshackle and needs doing up. Rosie’s always freaking out because her father keeps promising to come back and make a start on it, but he never does. He was pretty mean if you ask me, moving his family to this stonking great wreck of a house and then upping sticks and moving in with his new girlfriend as soon as they get here. Still, Rosie’s mum seems happy enough and so do Adam and Tiff, her brother and sister. It’s just Rosie who gets all wound up about it sometimes.

Anyway, there we were chasing around outside Rosie’s house, and Fliss – who else? – was being really boring.

“We shouldn’t be messing about round here,” she whined. “Mrs Cartwright told us not to. It’s dangerous!”

Now it was true that Rosie’s mum had warned us hundreds of times not to play round the back of the house because there was loads of rotten old junk on the patio area. You know the kind of thing – a cruddy old bedstead with springs poking out of it, rotten planks of wood, hundreds of rusty nails, you get the picture. But the trouble was that even though we knew we weren’t supposed to play there, it somehow drew us like a magnet.

But Fliss is such a goody-goody. She always does everything adults tell her. I mean, that’s not normal is it? So what can a girl do but rise to the challenge?

“Come on Fliss, live dangerously!” I mocked, climbing on top of the rusting heap of junk. “What do you think’s going to happen? Do you think the rubbish is going to leap up and BITE you?”

As I yelled that, I jumped up, and a load of old manky pipes came clattering down behind me.

“I think you ought to be careful Kenny,” warned Frankie. “It does look kind of dangerous over there.”

That’s typical of Frankie these days! Not too long ago she’d have been up on that pile of rubbish herself. But now? Oh no, she’s gone all responsible, hasn’t she? Just because she’s got Izzy her baby sister to think about. I mean, Izzy’s not even with her half the time, but Frankie still thinks she’s got to set some kind of example. Crazy if you ask me. And kind of boring. Now don’t get me wrong, she can still be kind of wild sometimes. It’s just that on this particular evening she definitely had her serious head on.

“Oh come on, you guys! What’s the matter with you?” I yelled exasperatedly. “I’m only trying to have some fun. You remember what that is, don’t you?”

The others were all standing at the bottom of the junk heap looking up at me.

“What about you Lyndz?” I asked. “You always like a laugh, don’t you?”

Lyndz has four brothers, so she knows how to hold her own. And she’s usually up for most things too.

“Nah,” she shook her head. “I think I’ll give it a miss, thanks.”

What a load of wimps! The only person who looked kind of intrigued was Rosie herself.

“Come on then Rosie-Posie!” I teased. “Let’s see what you’re made of!”

I climbed higher up the pile of junk and stared at her defiantly. “Don’t tell me you’re chicken as well,” I goaded her.

Rosie flashed her eyes at me and fixed her mouth in an expression of determination. She was just about to put her foot on the bottom of the pile when Lyndz said:

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Rosie. I’ve just heard your Tiff come in the gate. She’d be furious if she saw you.”

“Yeah, she’ll tell your mum and then we’ll all be in deep doom,” reasoned Frankie.

I was fed up with the others interfering. So I started to cluck and flap my arms about. But it was pretty tough keeping my balance, because I could feel all the rubbish shifting beneath me whenever I tried to move my feet. Rosie looked round, but there was no sign of Tiff – just Fliss and the others looking at her anxiously.

“Come on Rosie, don’t be a wimp. It’s ace up here!” I called, throwing my arms wide. The bedstead creaked ominously beneath me.

Rosie looked at me and grinned.

“Don’t do it Rosie. Please!” whispered Fliss.

But it was too late. Rosie took a step back and tried to run up the pile of rubbish. Even I’d taken it a bit steady at first. But Rosie had a devilish look in her eyes. She wanted to prove to everybody that she wasn’t chickening out of a challenge. The trouble was that the more she tried to run up the junk, the more it moved about and started to swallow her up. I’ll always remember how scared she looked.

“Here, Rosie – take my hand!” I called, bending down to try to grab hold of her. But I couldn’t quite reach her. She reached up as far as she could, but then she lost her balance completely and went crashing down from the junk heap. It was horrible. She just sort of crumpled up and thudded to the ground, hitting her head on the concrete slabs of the patio.

It was just the worst sound ever. I’ll never forget that CRACK! But worse than that was all the blood that started to ooze out of her head. I’d never seen anything like it, and I spend my life watching stuff like Casualty on the TV. This was a zillion times worse than anything I’d ever seen on that programme.

It must have taken a minute to happen, but it felt like an hour. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. I was vaguely aware of the others screaming and crying, but it was like it was background noise or something. It was only when Fliss started wailing, “You’ve killed her, you’ve killed her!” that I was finally brought back to my senses.

“Don’t be stupid!” I told her in my calmest doctor’s voice. “She’s just had a fall.”

I bent down and put my ear to her mouth. She was still breathing, thank goodness. But her eyes were closed and she seemed completely out of it.

“Go and call for an ambulance!” I shouted, and Frankie ran inside.

Just at that minute Tiff and Spud came round the corner.

“What’s all this screaming?” complained Tiff, sounding all superior. “I thought Mum told you not to play here!”

Then she saw Rosie lying in a pool of blood and started screaming herself.

“Oh no! Oh no! What’s happened?” She bent down and looked as though she was going to try to make Rosie sit up or something.

“Don’t move her!” I told her sharply. “I think she’s got her foot caught, and if we try to move her we might cause more damage. We should leave it to the ambulance people.”

I couldn’t believe how calm I sounded. Because inside I was a trembling mess who just wanted to throw up.

“Rosie! My baby!” Mrs Cartwright, Rosie’s mum, pushed her way through. She knelt beside Rosie and started to stroke her hair. “It’s all right my precious, the ambulance is on its way. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I felt terrible. This had all been my fault.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

Rosie’s mum looked up at me. She looked like she was about to ask what had happened, but then she just shook her head.

“The ambulance will be here soon, Kenny. Do you think you could ring your father and ask him to come and pick the rest of you up?”

I nodded and ran into the house. Trembling, I dialled my home number. When Dad answered I just lost it completely. I never ever cry. I think the shock must have got to me.

“Can you come and fetch us from Rosie’s?” I sobbed. “There’s been a terrible accident and Rosie’s going to hospital and it’s all my fault!”

“You just stay there Kenny, I’m on my way,” he told me calmly.

Outside I could hear the screeching of a siren. I ran to the gate and started waving frantically so the ambulance would know where to stop. The paramedics were really calm. They grabbed their bag and asked me what had happened. I explained about Rosie falling and hitting her head.

“Now you just stay calm, she’s going to be fine!” they reassured me as I showed them where Rosie was lying. “There’s always a lot of blood in head injury cases. And they usually look a lot worse than they are.”

Everyone stood right back to let the paramedics through. One of them checked Rosie over and talked to her in a reassuring way, even though she was still unconscious. The other one dealt with her ankle. He had to cut it free. It was all swollen and twisted – gross!

When they were ready they lifted her on to a stretcher and put a mask over her face. It was dead frightening seeing her being wheeled away like that.

Just as they got to the front gate, Dad arrived. He put a comforting arm around Mrs Cartwright’s shoulders.

“She’ll have the best of care at Queen Mary’s Hospital,” he reassured her. “Try not to worry. Is there anything we can do to help? What about Tiff and Adam, will they be all right?”

Mrs Cartwright nodded. “Adam’s round at his father’s anyway, and Tiff’s going to go round there too, aren’t you?” She looked at Tiff, who raised her eyes then nodded sulkily.

“Give me a ring when you’ve got any news of Rosie,” Dad called to her as the ambulance doors closed.

Then the ambulance sped off with its siren blaring.

“Right you lot, look sharp and get your stuff together,” Dad said. “Kenny’s mum has called all your parents, so they’re expecting you back. Hey, come on now, cheer up! I know you’ve all had a shock, but I’m sure Rosie’s going to be fine. She’s going to the right place to be looked after.”

We all went up to Rosie’s bedroom to collect our sleepover stuff. It felt kind of weird being there without her. I guess we were all thinking the same thing because none of us spoke. It was only when we were in the car that Fliss broke the silence.

“I knew that something awful was going to happen!” she sobbed. “I tried to tell you Kenny, but you wouldn’t listen, as usual. Well Rosie’s dead and it’s all your fault!”

I felt just terrible. It didn’t matter how much Dad reassured everybody that Rosie most certainly wasn’t dead and would be just fine. I couldn’t help blaming myself for what had happened. And you could tell that the others blamed me too. They didn’t say anything, they just wouldn’t look at me when they got out of the car. Even Frankie, and she’s my best mate.

“Come on love, I’m sure everything’s going to be fine,” Dad tried to reassure me when we got home.

“But you didn’t see her, Dad!” I protested. “She was all white. And there was so much blood!”

“Well, that’s something you’re going to have to get used to if you’re going to become a doctor,” he said.

“But you don’t understand. It was all my fault! What if I’ve caused her some permanent damage?”

“It’s not like you to get so wound up. You must be very upset,” Dad said gently.

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes again. I wiped them away angrily I hated crying, but somehow I just couldn’t help it. “Look love, there’s no point worrying,” Dad told me. “We’ll just have to wait for Rosie’s mum to ring.”

I swear to you that waiting for that phone to ring was the worst time in my life. I’ll tell you how bad I felt – I couldn’t even kick a football about, and that’s BAD. And it didn’t help that my horrible sister, Molly the Monster, kept winding me up.

“I knew your stupid wild ways would get you into trouble one day,” she said. “I’m just sorry it’s not you in hospital!”

“Why don’t you just shut your mouth before I put my fist down your throat?” I snarled.

“Oooh, temper temper!” she mocked. “I think one injury’s quite enough for one day, even for you!”

I think I would have thumped her anyway if the phone hadn’t rung. I ran to answer it, but Dad had got there first.

“Hello Karen. How’s the patient? Good… Oh, that is good news… Ooh dear, that will be painful… Well, yes, that’s very wise… Oh yes, I’m sure they would. Yes, yes – I’ll tell her. Send our best wishes to Rosie, won’t you? Bye.”

“Well?” I asked anxiously.

“She’s fine,” Dad smiled, “apart from a badly sprained ankle and a bit of a headache. They’re keeping her in hospital for observation because she was unconscious, but she should be back home in a couple of days’ time.”

“Can I…?”

“Yes, you can go and see her. Rosie’s been asking for you all.”

“Right then! What are we waiting for?” I rushed to the door.

“Not so fast, young lady,” Dad pulled me back. “It’s way past visiting time now. You can go tomorrow afternoon. But what you can do now is ring your friends. I’m sure they’re all anxious to know how Rosie is. But make it quick, OK?”

Frankie and Lyndz were both really relieved to hear that Rosie was all right and said that they’d come to the hospital with me the next day. But Fliss just couldn’t resist having a go at me again.

“Well that’s no thanks to you!” she spat when I told her the news. “Mum said that she was lucky not to be paralysed after your antics.”

Fliss’s mum is a real prophet of doom – like mother, like daughter… She didn’t even want Fliss to come to the hospital with the rest of us, in case she picked up some terrible disease! But I shamed Fliss into it by saying she’d look a real misery-guts if she didn’t come.

So three o’clock the next afternoon found us outside the main entrance of Queen Mary’s Hospital.

“I hate the way hospitals smell,” moaned Frankie. “Although I didn’t mind it so much when I went to visit Mum after she’d had Izzy.”

“I hate hospitals, full stop!” Fliss whimpered. “In fact I think I might just wait out here.”

I glared at her, and the others flapped until she agreed to come in with us.

“I’m going to go to the hospital shop to buy Rosie some sweets,” said Lyndz.

“I’ll come with you,” Frankie told her. “I’m going to buy her a magazine to read.”

I’d already bought her a puzzle book and Fliss had brought some nail varnish to cheer her up. But we went to the shop with the others anyway because we couldn’t bear the thought of just talking to each other.

I don’t know if you’ve been into many hospitals, but it seems to me that they make it as confusing as possible for you to find your way to the wards. There were hundreds of corridors to walk down. And just when we thought we’d found the Children’s Ward, we had to go up another flight of stairs.

“I’ll never find my way out of here!” grumbled Fliss.

Eventually we got to a huge set of double doors covered by a painting of a jungle scene. This just had to be the Children’s Ward. Unless they’d started treating gorillas on the quiet!

We burst through the doors – and who should be the first person we saw? Rosie! All trussed up like something out of a horror movie. She had a great big bandage covering the top of her head and her foot looked really swollen. That had a bandage round it too, and was raised up on a sort of pulley thing.

“You look terrible!” said Fliss, plonking herself down on the chair next to the bed.

“Charming!” laughed Rosie. “I thought I was looking pretty stylish actually!”

The rest of us cracked up and handed over our presents.

“You’re too kind, guys!” Rosie grinned. “I ought to get myself into hospital more often.”

“I’m sure it can be arranged!” I told her in a silly voice.

I looked up and saw Fliss looking at me accusingly. My good mood at seeing Rosie suddenly disappeared.

“All right!” I snapped. “I’m sorry, Rosie. I didn’t mean to make you fall.”

“That’s OK!” Rosie smiled. “It was an accident.”

“You’re honoured!” laughed Frankie. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Kenny apologise before!”

“Give over!” I protested, and pushed her gently.

I couldn’t believe it when she fell off the edge of the bed and thudded on to the floor.

“Look what you’ve done now!” squealed Fliss. “You’re dangerous, Kenny!”

I went hot and cold.

“Oh my head,” Frankie moaned. “My head hurts!”

“Quick get a nurse!” Rosie suggested.

Lyndz was just about to go and find one when Frankie leapt up and started laughing.

“Fooled you!” she shrieked.

“That wasn’t funny,” I grumbled. “You nearly had me in hospital with a heart attack!”

“Well if you had one, you wouldn’t want to be in this ward,” said Rosie quietly.

“Why? What’s up with it?” we asked.

“Well, the nurses are great,” Rosie explained. “But the day-room hasn’t got much equipment. The TV’s broken and they’re still waiting for a replacement. There are hardly any books or toys. It must be really miserable if you have to stay in for a long time.”

“That’s terrible!” Lyndz sounded shocked. “Can’t the hospital do something?”

“Mum said that there probably wasn’t enough money,” Rosie continued. “But there is an appeal fund to raise money for the Children’s Ward. There’s a chart over there telling you how much they’ve collected.”

I went over to check it out. It was one of those charts shaped like a test-tube. So far they’d coloured in half of it, which meant they still had a long way to go to reach their target.

“It’ll need more than your pocket money to put this place right!” piped up a voice behind me. “Unless you’re Posh Spice in disguise – which I doubt!”

It was a really frail-looking boy, with skin so white you could almost see through it.

“Hi, I’m Jake,” he said.

“I’m Kenny,” I replied.

“Have you come to see the pretty one, then?” He jerked his head over towards Rosie’s bed.

“Yep, that’s right. What are you in for?”

Jake told me that there was something wrong with his blood and he was waiting for an operation. It sounded pretty serious, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it so I didn’t push it. Apparently he spends a lot of time in Queen Mary’s and has lessons there and everything. I always thought that if you were in hospital, it was a good way of escaping school, but they have special teachers who come round.

“It’s a bit rough here with no telly and not many books or anything. You feel like you’re killing time a bit,” he told me sadly. Then he brightened up. “I’d rather be playing football. One day I’m going to play for the best team in the world!”

“Leicester City, right?” I pointed proudly to my shirt.

“Leicester City? Get real! I mean Manchester United, of course!”

Well, I wasn’t going to let him get away with that now, was I?! Half an hour later we were still discussing players and the best games we’d ever seen.

“I hate to break this up…” A big cheery nurse came over to us. “But it’s time for your medication, Jake.”

“I’d better go,” he shrugged. “Remember to hand in your pocket money for the appeal! See you around!”

He headed down to his bed at the other end of the ward shouting, “Up the Reds!”

I went back over to Rosie’s bed.

“Good of you to join us!” smirked Frankie.

“I was only chatting to Jake!” I said.

“Ooh, Jake!” the others giggled.

“Leave it out!” I grinned. “We were talking about football, actually.”

“I think Jake’s pretty ill, you know,” said Rosie seriously. “He told me he virtually lives here. It must be awful spending all your time here with nothing to do.”

I looked over at the appeal poster again.

“We could try to raise some money ourselves,” I suggested.

But before the others could reply, the nurse came over to take Rosie’s temperature. As soon as she saw her, Fliss flew out of her chair like a scalded cat.

“Right, we should go now!” she said, giving Rosie a quick hug. “It’s about time we left you in peace.”

And she zapped out of the double doors so fast you could almost smell burning rubber!

“She’s been really twitchy since she got here,” Rosie pointed out. “Poor Fliss, it was good of her to come when she hates hospitals so much.”

“Well, I guess we’d better go too!” grinned Frankie.

We hugged Rosie and asked her to let us know when she would be home. I looked down towards Jake’s bed so I could wave goodbye to him, but the curtains were pulled around it. I just felt really, really sad as I walked out, and I was determined to do something to help.

But first we had another problem to face: Fliss had disappeared. She wasn’t outside the Children’s Ward and she wasn’t in any of the toilets, because Lyndz checked.

“Maybe she’s gone outside to get some air,” Frankie suggested.

We wound our way back down the stairs and through all the corridors. And with every step we felt more and more uneasy. Fliss wasn’t good at directions at the best of times. And in a hospital I figured she’d be more hopeless than usual!

Our suspicions were confirmed when we got outside the main entrance and she wasn’t there. There was no sign of her.

What we had here was a catastrophe of galactic proportions. Fliss was lost. Not only that, but she was lost in the place she hated most in the world!

“What are we going to do?” asked Lyndz anxiously. “We can’t just leave Fliss here!”

“We should split up,” Frankie suggested. “We’ll each take a different part of the hospital and meet back here in fifteen minutes. Isn’t that when your Dad said he’d pick us up, Lyndz?”

“Erm, he said ten past four. Will that be in fifteen minutes?” she asked, her eyes glazing over as she looked at her watch. Lyndz is very ditzy when it comes to telling the time!

“Right. I’ll take this corridor here; you take that one down there, Lyndz; and Kenny – you retrace our steps back to the Children’s Ward, OK?” Frankie ordered.

“Yes sir!” Lyndz and I both saluted and we all set off in different directions.

I went all the way back up to the Children’s Ward but there was still no sign of Fliss. I even checked out three other wards and asked the nurses if they’d seen her, but nobody had. I just hoped that she’d be with Frankie and Lyndz when I got to the Main Entrance again. But she wasn’t. And what’s more, Lyndz wasn’t there either!

“I should have known not to let Lyndz go anywhere by herself when she’s so hopeless at telling the time!” grumbled Frankie.

“What are we going to tell her father?” I wondered.

“It’s too late to think of anything,” moaned Frankie. “Here he is now!”

Lyndz’s dad’s big van pulled up in front of us.

“Hop in, girls!” he called out as he stopped in front of us. “Look sharp – I’m blocking the way of this ambulance!”

Frankie and I piled in, wondering how we were going to tell him about the other two. When just then, we saw them steaming out of the door of the Accident and Emergency department.

“Wouldn’t you look at those two eejits!” exclaimed Mr Collins when he saw them. “I can’t stop there for them with this ambulance behind me. I’ll have to go round again!”

You ought to have seen their faces when they saw us driving past. It was class!

When we did manage to pick them up, Fliss was as white as a sheet and whimpering. All we could get out of her was that she’d seen some terrible things and she never wanted to set foot in a hospital again. She swore that she’d seen someone being operated on, but I told her that was rubbish. Still, I was dead jealous that she’d seen more exciting things than me. And when we asked Lyndz how she’d found her, she said she’d just stumbled upon her by accident.

“Quite fitting that it was in the Accident and Emergency department then, wasn’t it?” chortled her dad.

Fliss was still going on about getting lost in hospital when we went to visit Rosie at home the following week. Rosie hobbled to the door on crutches.

“Hey, cool!” I marvelled.

“I don’t know about cool,” said Rosie. “It takes me about half an hour just to get upstairs!”

“I bet you’re glad to be home, though,” said Fliss.

“You bet I am!” she agreed. “I just feel so bad for all the kids who spend a lot of time in hospital. It is pretty grim in there.”

“Why don’t we raise money for the appeal?” I suggested. It had kind of been playing on my mind ever since we visited Rosie in hospital.

“How?” asked Lyndz.

“I dunno,” I admitted, shrugging my shoulders.

We’re not always very successful with our attempts at fundraising, as you probably know. Then I had a brilliant idea.

“We could sit in baths of baked beans and get people to give us money for it!” I yelled, leaping out of my chair.

“Oh, yuck!” the others chorused.

“No way!” said Fliss emphatically.

“OK, I could sit in a bath of baked beans then,” I volunteered. “I’d give loads of money if I saw someone doing that!”

“No, Kenny!” said Frankie firmly. “And sit down, won’t you? You’re going to damage Rosie’s foot the way you’re jumping around.”

I sat down.

“I know,” said Fliss. “How about a sponsored walk or something?”

“Bo-ring!” the rest of us sang.

“I was only trying to help!” Fliss sniffed. “You come up with some suggestions then!”

“I have done,” I reminded her. “I can sit in a bath of baked beans!”

“NO, Kenny!” the others shouted.

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