by Narinder Dhami

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

Hi. It’s me. What do you mean, who? Rosie, of course! OK, so I sound a bit miserable, and I’ll tell you why. At the moment I’ve got two big problems: 1) I’m sitting on a lump of ice and it’s freezing my bottom off, and 2)—

“Come on, Rosie-Posie, get up!” Kenny yelled, skating towards me at about a hundred miles an hour. I gasped, and scrambled to my feet quickly to get out of the way, but Kenny just dug her blades into the ice and came to a stop about two centimetres from my nose. What a show-off. I began to wobble from one side to the other, then my legs slowly started moving apart, and I couldn’t stop them. I did the splits like Bambi does in the film, and sat down on the ice again.

“Nice one, Rosie!” Frankie said, skating smoothly up to me. “You didn’t tell us you could do tricks!”

“Oh, ha ha,” I muttered, rubbing my sore behind, “I’d laugh if that was the slightest bit funny.”

“Oh, come on, Rosie, don’t be such a sad case!” Kenny grabbed hold of one of my arms, Frankie took the other and between them they pulled me to my feet. “What’s biting you? You’ve been in a right mood all afternoon!”

Before I could say anything, Fliss and Lyndz skated over. You remember everyone in the Sleepover Club, don’t you? You should do, by now! There’s me, Kenny, Frankie, Fliss and Lyndz. We take it in turns to have sleepovers every week at each other’s houses, and it was my turn tonight. That was my second problem…

I guess you remember what happened. When we moved to Cuddington, my dad bought this massive house, and we were all going to live in it like a happy-ever-after family – that’s my mum and dad, me, my sister Tiffany, my brother Adam and our dog Jenny. The house needed loads doing to it, but my dad’s a builder, so that was all right. Anyway, he started pulling off all the old wallpaper and taking up the carpets and knocking down walls, then he suddenly decided he’d had enough, and he went off to live with his girlfriend. Since then he keeps promising that he’s going to fix the house for us, but he’s hardly done anything. I love my dad to bits, but he drives me mad.

“Look out!” Kenny screeched as Fliss and Lyndz headed straight towards us. Fliss wasn’t very good at stopping, and because she and Lyndz were holding hands, she was dragging Lyndz along with her. Alarmed, Kenny and Frankie let go of my arms again, and I collapsed in a heap. Unfortunately, I grabbed at the hood of Kenny’s Leicester City FC sweatshirt as I fell, and pulled her down on to the ice next to me. Fliss and Lyndz managed to avoid us, but not Frankie, and the three of them landed in an untidy pile right on top of me and Kenny.

“Oi! Get off!” Kenny roared, “you’re suffocating us!”

Frankie, Lyndz and Fliss could hardly move, they were laughing so much. It was all right for them. They weren’t at the bottom of the heap like I was.

“Are you girls all right?” called Frankie’s mum from the side of the rink.

Frankie gave her a thumbs-up as we all climbed to our feet.

“I’m going to be black and blue after this,” I grumbled. Ice-skating just wasn’t my thing. But then, nothing ever goes right for me…

“Oh, come on, Rosie, it’s a good laugh!” Frankie said with a grin.

“You’ll soon get better after you’ve been a few more times,” Lyndz said kindly.

Fliss stared at me suspiciously. “What’s the matter, Rosie? You’ve got a right face on you.”

“That’s what I said,” Kenny chimed in. “So what’s the story?”

I felt a bit embarrassed and shuffled my feet, but that was a mistake because I nearly fell over again.

“It’s my dad,” I mumbled. “He promised he was going to decorate my bedroom this week, and he didn’t.”

“Well, great big fat hairy deal!” Kenny shrugged. “So what’s new? You’ve been waiting for him to do it for months!”

Frankie and Lyndz both elbowed Kenny in the ribs so hard that she nearly fell over, and I glared at her.

“I know,” I snapped. I guess I don’t like anyone else criticising my dad, even though he gets on my nerves. But it’s true. My bedroom’s a tip, and it’s been like that for ever. When I first met the others, I didn’t even want them to come round to our house and see just what a mess it is. “But he promised me he’d do it before the sleepover tonight. We even went out and bought all the wallpaper and paint last week-end.”

“You didn’t say anything about that,” Lyndz remarked.

I had a horrible big fat lump in my throat. “I wanted it to be a surprise when you slept over,” I muttered.

“So why hasn’t he done it?” Fliss asked sympathetically.

“He’s gone on holiday with his girlfriend,” I said, and the others groaned.

“What, again?” Kenny said, raising her eyebrows. “Your dad’s the Holiday King!”

“I know.” I couldn’t argue with that. “He’s gone to Majorca for a week with her. He says he’ll do my bedroom when he gets back…”

The others just looked at me. They didn’t say anything, but I knew what they were thinking. I was thinking exactly the same thing myself. Some hope.

“Girls, what are you doing standing around?” Mrs Thomas was waving to us from the seats at the side of the rink. “If you’ve had enough, we might as well go.”

“Another ten minutes, Mum,” Frankie called back. Then she turned to the rest of us. “Come on, let’s go round another couple of times.”

“I think I’ll give it a miss,” I said gloomily. I knew I was being a pain in the bottom – I’d fallen over so many times, I had a pain in the bottom – but I was really fed up about my bedroom. I’d been dying to get it finished before the sleepover tonight. But it was still all bare walls, no carpet and hardly any furniture. I was sick of it.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Kenny grabbed my arm. “Come on, let’s play trains!”

“What?” I said. “Aren’t we a bit too old for that?”

“Funny. Listen, we all line up and hold on to each other’s waists,” Kenny explained. “I’ll go at the front, and pull you along.”

“OK, but don’t go too fast,” Fliss said nervously.

“Lyndz, you stand behind Rosie so that she’s got something soft to fall on!” Frankie said with a grin.

“Thanks a lot!” Lyndz retorted.

So we all lined up behind Kenny – me, then Lyndz, then Fliss and Frankie at the end. Then we all set off round the rink, hanging on to each other. At least this way I didn’t have to do any skating, because Kenny was towing us all along.

“Hey, did anyone see Designer Rooms last night?” Kenny called over her shoulder as we skimmed round the edge of the rink. “It was brilliant! One of the rooms looked worse than it did before they re-decorated it!”

“Kenny!” Fliss hissed from behind me.

Kenny ignored her. “Then, when they brought the woman who owns the house to see it when it was finished, she burst into tears! She said she’d never seen anything so horrible in all her life!”

“Honestly, Kenny,” Fliss snapped. “If your brain was as big as your mouth, you might have a bit more common sense!”

Kenny turned round, an injured look on her face. “What?”

“I don’t think Rosie wants to talk about Designer Rooms, Kenny,” Frankie called from the end of the line. “You know, it’s all about decorating?”

“Oh yeah, sorry, Rosie,” Kenny said over her shoulder. “But it was a real laugh!”

That was when I had my really cool idea.

“Hey, I’ve just had a really cool idea!” I gasped. “Why don’t I write to the Designer Rooms programme and ask them if they could come and decorate my bedroom?”

“No chance,” Kenny called back. “They said last night that they were getting thousands of letters from people who wanted to be on the programme, and not to send any more.”

“Oh, rats!” That was just about my last hope of getting my bedroom decorated gone down the drain…

“Can’t your mum do it for you?” Lyndz asked.

“She’s pretty busy with her college work,” I muttered. “She hasn’t got time.”

“Well, what about your grandparents or someone like that?” Frankie persisted.

“There isn’t anyone,” I snapped. I knew the others were only trying to help, but they were really making me feel worse. I was stuck with my disgusting bedroom, and that was that.

Kenny suddenly came to a dead stop right in front of us. “Hey! Extra-special, double-brilliant, triple-coo-ell Kenny brainwave!” she yelled. “Why don’t we decorate Rosie’s bedroom tonight at the sleepover?”

No-one had a chance to say anything just then. We all crashed slap-bang into Kenny, one after the other, and keeled over like a row of dominoes.

“I think it’s a wicked idea, Kenny!” I said eagerly, as we sat at the side of the rink, taking our skates off. “Do you really think we can do it?”

“'Course we can!” Kenny said, shrugging her shoulders. “We’ve all watched Designer Rooms loads of times, haven’t we? How hard can it be to slap a bit of paint around?”

Then Kenny and I noticed that Frankie, Fliss and Lyndz were looking a bit sick.

“What’s up with you bunch of wimps?” Kenny asked crossly. “Poor old Rosie needs our help. Now are you up for this or not?”

“Kenny, I don’t know much about decorating,” Frankie said with a frown. “But I know it isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“I thought you were helping your mum and dad get the spare room ready for the baby,” Kenny pointed out. (You haven’t forgotten that Frankie’s mum’s pregnant, have you? Frankie’s wanted a brother or sister for ages, so it’s mega-cool.)

“Yeah, I am,” Frankie retorted. “That’s how I know decorating’s not easy. My dad did the wallpapering yesterday, and he didn’t make the paste thick enough. When we went in there this morning, half the paper had fallen off the walls!”

“Frankie’s right,” Lyndz chimed in. “You know my dad does a lot of DIY, and he’s pretty good at it. But things are always going wrong – once he knocked himself out with a hammer!”

Kenny gave a snort of disgust. “You lot have got no sense of adventure! What about you, Flissy?”

Fliss wrinkled her nose. “Decorating’s really messy, isn’t it?” she said. “I don’t want to get paint all over me.”

My heart sank. Kenny and I couldn’t do the decorating on our own. If the others wouldn’t join in, that was the end of that.

“Oh, never mind,” I muttered in a bit of a trembly voice. “I suppose I’ll just have to wait till my dad gets back from Majorca…”

“No way José!” Kenny patted me sympathetically on the shoulder, and then glared round at the others. “Look, don’t be weeds all of your life, you lot! Are you going to help me and Rosie out or not?”

We all looked at each other.

“Oh, all right,” Frankie said at last, and Lyndz and Fliss nodded too.

“Thanks, guys!” I said, relieved.

“Don’t thank us till you’ve seen the finished result!” Frankie warned me, but Kenny thumped her on the back.

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Frankie!” she said. “Rosie’s bedroom’s going to look a million times better than anything on Designer Rooms!”

I grinned round at the others. My bedroom was going to be decorated at last! I could hardly believe it.

“How are we going to do it without someone hearing us?” Lyndz asked doubtfully. “We’re bound to make a noise.”

“Oh, get off!” Kenny scoffed, rolling her eyes. “We’re only sticking up wallpaper and doing a bit of painting! We’ll be dead quiet.”

“Anyway, Adam and Tiffany are both away this week-end,” I added. My brother Adam, who’s in a wheelchair because he’s got cerebral palsy, goes to a special school, and he’d gone on an adventure week-end with some of the other pupils. My big sister Tiff had arranged to stay overnight with her best mate, who was having a party. “So it’s just me and Mum. And you know she doesn’t bother much if we make a bit of a row.”

“What are we going to wear?” Fliss asked anxiously. “I’m not painting in my brand-new pyjamas!”

“I’ll lend you some old clothes,” I said quickly. We were going straight to my house from the ice rink, and the others had brought their sleepover kits with them.

“Come on, girls.” Mrs Thomas came over to hurry us up. “I promised Rosie’s mum I’d have you there by five.” She glanced round at us. “You lot look like you’re plotting something. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Mrs Thomas,” we all said innocently. That’s the trouble with Frankie’s mum. She’s just a bit too sharp.

“I hope not,” Mrs Thomas said briskly, “because when you start putting your heads together like that, it usually means trouble!”

I couldn’t help starting to worry then. Just a bit. I mean, I’d never done any kind of decorating before. The only thing I’d ever painted were pictures at school (and I wasn’t too hot at that either). Still, I told myself, Frankie and Lyndz knew what to do because they’d helped their parents lots of times. And as Kenny said, how hard could slapping a bit of paint around be?

“You want to go to bed now?” My mum stared at us in amazement. “But it’s only half-past eight!”

“But we’re dead tired, Mrs Cartwright!” Kenny said pathetically, and we all started yawning and rubbing our eyes.

“All right, all right, spare me the amateur dramatics!” my mum said, shaking her head. “Off you go – and whatever you’re up to, don’t make too much noise about it. I’ve got an essay to write.”

“Excellent!” I said in a low voice to Kenny. “That means she’ll be working in the study – and that’s right over the other side of the house.”

We all piled into the living-room so that the others could grab their sleepover bags. Since we’d got back from the ice rink, we’d done all the usual sleepover-type things. We’d had tea, and, because it was Saturday, we’d watched Gladiators, and then we’d played our own Gladiator games. Kenny had come up with a new one. Two people stood on one leg on chairs facing each other, and then they whacked each other with cushions until one fell off. It was really radical.

Although we were having a laugh, as usual, I could hardly wait to get upstairs and get started on my bedroom. I reckoned I’d put up with it looking gross for too long already.

“Come on then!” Kenny yelled, slinging her sleepover bag over her shoulder. We all charged up the stairs and burst into my bedroom, giggling and pushing each other out of the way. As soon as we were inside, everyone stopped and stared. The walls were plaster, the woodwork was scraped bare, and there was a pile of stuff lying in the corner.

“What’s all that?” Kenny asked.

“That’s my dad’s decorating gear,” I explained. “He left it here.”

“So we’ve got everything we need – excellent!” Kenny went over to have a look, and picked up a roll of wallpaper. “Hey, Frankie, check this out – this is cool!”

The wallpaper I’d chosen was a lilac colour with little silver flowers on it, and I’d matched it with a darker purple paint for the woodwork. (Dad had been talking about a silvery-grey carpet too, but he hadn’t got it yet. Typical.) I couldn’t wait to see what everything looked like together.

“Come on, then, let’s get started!” Kenny said, grabbing a packet of wallpaper paste.

“Hold on a sec, Kenny!” said Frankie. “We need to decide who’s going to do what.”

“And we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do first,” Lyndz added.

“And we need to change our clothes,” Fliss said firmly.

“Oh, you lot are so bor-ing!” Kenny moaned, putting the wallpaper down. “Give us some old clothes then, Rosie.”

I went over to my big wardrobe, and pulled out an old pair of leggings and a sweatshirt for myself. I didn’t have anything much for the others though – until I remembered my old bag of dressing-up clothes which was pushed right to the back. I dragged it out and put it in the middle of the room.

“Oh, wow!” said Frankie, putting her hand into the bag and pulling out a big hat with flowers all over it. “This is brilliant!”

Fliss peered into the bag, and let out an ear-shattering scream. “There’s—there’s a head in there!”

“Calm down, Fliss!” Lyndz said quickly. “It’s just a wig!” She grabbed hold of the long dark hair and pulled it out. “Rosie, what is all this stuff?”

“It’s my dressing-up clothes,” I explained. “I used to play with them when I was little.”

Kenny groaned. “We’re going to look like right wallies doing the decorating in dressing-up clothes!” Then her eyes lit up as she pounced on a pair of outsized bright blue dungarees that used to belong to my mum. “Cool! I’ll have these!”

A few minutes later everyone was ready. Fliss had found a gold and black evening dress which was about ten sizes too big for her, and she was wearing the long black wig as well. Kenny had put the dungarees on, although they were miles too long for her and she kept tripping over the ends. Lyndz was wrapped in my dad’s old dressing-gown, and Frankie was wearing our Tiff’s old school blazer and the flowery hat. I was feeling a bit left out in my boring sweatshirt and leggings, so I looked in the bag, found a pink woolly hat and put that on.

“I reckon we’re the coolest gang of decorators ever!” Kenny said, as she walked over to pick up a roll of wallpaper and tripped over her dungaree bottoms for the fourth time.

“We’d better get started,” Lyndz said. “We’ve wasted loads of time already.”

“D’you think we’ll finish it all tonight?” I asked doubtfully. My bedroom’s really big, and I was beginning to wonder if we’d bitten off more than we could chew.

“Yeah, ’course!” said Kenny, at exactly the same moment as Frankie and Lyndz said, “No chance!”

“We’ll finish it!” Kenny insisted, ripping the cellophane off the wallpaper. “Hey, look at this, guys!” She held up the wallpaper, and let it unroll down to the floor really fast. Unfortunately, Fliss’s foot was in the way.

“Ow! Ow! My toe!” Fliss squealed, hopping round the room, doubled up in agony. “I’m going to kill you, Kenny!”

“Well, I don’t care if we don’t finish it,” I said, glancing round at the mess. “It can’t look any worse than it does now!”

You know what? I was dead wrong.

“So what do we do first then?” I asked. No-one answered. Instead, everyone stared at Lyndz, who turned pink.

“What are you all looking at?”

“You! You’re the expert!” Kenny told her.

“Oh. Well…” Lyndz frowned and looked round the room. “First we’ve got to paint the woodwork, and let that dry before we start the wallpapering.”

Kenny pulled a face. “Oh, knickers to that! I want to wallpaper – I’m not into boring old paint!”

“Why don’t Lyndz and Frankie paint one side of the room, and me, you and Fliss can start papering on the other?” I suggested.

“Good one!” Kenny said immediately. “That OK with you, Flissy?”

“What?” Fliss hadn’t heard a word because she was too busy admiring her dress and wig in my mirror.

“I said, do you want to help me and Rosie with the wallpapering?” Kenny repeated loudly, rolling her eyes at me.

“Yeah, OK,” Fliss nodded, parading up and down like a supermodel. “I think I look good with black hair, what do you reckon?”

Kenny groaned, and picked up a bucket and a packet of wallpaper paste. “This isn’t a fashion show, Fliss! Come and help me mix up the paste.”

While Kenny and Fliss went to the bathroom to get some water, Lyndz and Frankie found some brushes, and began to lever the lid off the tin of purple paint. Meanwhile, I set up the pasting table. I was beginning to get pretty excited – things were really starting to happen!

You could say that again. When Kenny and Fliss came back from the bathroom carrying the bucket, Kenny had bits of paste in her hair, and Fliss’s wig was looking pretty sticky too.

“I told you not to stir it so hard!” Fliss was saying crossly.

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