Rosie kept dropping things too. She couldn’t dance two steps without offloading something. While she was picking up one thing she’d drop two, then three… In the end she just threw everything down in a pile and plonked herself on top. “I give up.”
“Me too,” said Frankie, unrolling her sleeping bag right there on the pavement as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “It’s way past my bedtime.” Then, cool as a cucumber, she climbed into her sleeping bag, pulled her pointy hat down to her nose, and pretended to go to sleep.
I told you Frankie was a laugh, didn’t I?
Everyone cracked up and poor Lyndz was almost wetting herself. “Oh, stop, stop…” she gasped, clutching her stomach.
“Hey!” Frankie-the-witch stuck her long nose over the edge of her sleeping bag. “Can’t a person get some sleep round here?”
That did it. On a silent signal, we unrolled our sleeping bags and laid them out on the pavement, alongside Frankie. All of us except Fliss, Chief Inspector of the Dirt Patrol, that is.
“You’ll catch a disease,” she predicted darkly.
“Good. Then Molly will be in deep doom forever,” I said, pretending to wash my face and brush my teeth before settling down for the night. “It’s Molly’s fault we’ve been thrown out on to the streets, anyway. I think we should get the papers to come and take a photo, then she’d really get it.”
“Yeah,” giggled Lyndz. “I can see the headlines now: “Sleepover Club Is Streets Ahead.”
We laughed, but Fliss was still in a flap, going on about us ruining our clothes. She’s the only one in our gang who’s into clothes and icky romantic stuff, probably because of her Barbie-doll looks. “Get up, ple-ease,” she tried in the end. “I bet dogs have weed on that pavement…”
“Not at this luxury hotel,” said Rosie, who was making a night table out of her flattened bag by neatly laying out her hairbrush, headband, toilet bag and diary.
“It’s not a hotel.”
“’Tis to us.”
“Well, I’m not stopping,” announced Fliss. “And you’ll be sorry if you do!” And with that she grabbed her sleepover kit, and marched off down the street with her nose in the air.
“She’ll be back,” said Frankie without moving. Actually Frankie hadn’t moved since she’d rolled over and pretended to be asleep. “Fliss can’t bear to miss a sleepover.”
“Maybe she’s gone to tell the papers,” I offered hopefully.
“Tell her mum, more like.”
But Fliss wasn’t doing either. In fact, she hadn’t gone very far at all.
We went on wondering where she was for a bit, but there’s only so much time you can waste worrying at a sleepover. So soon we were telling jokes and sharing black sweets, there on the pavement, as if it was the most normal sleepover in the world. And we got so carried away by our street camp-out that by the time the ghost appeared, Fliss was the last thing on our minds.
“Whhhhoooo-ooooo…”
“Omigosh it’s…!”
“Hooo-whhooooo…”
“Quick!”
“Run!”
And in a crazy jumble of sleeping bags, trapped feet and panic, the four of us did the Sack Race of the Century right up to Frankie’s front doorstep, screaming loud enough to wake the dead.
Which only goes to prove, you can’t keep a Sleepover girl down.
Fliss may be the world’s most finicky fusspot but she can still play a wicked ghost when she wants to. Frankie said it was the moans that made her so spooky, but I reckon it was the sleeping bag over the head. You should’ve heard our screams as we tried to bunny-hop our way over to Frankie’s. Reckon the whole of Cuddington did. All the dogs in the neighbourhood went mad, barking and howling, especially Pepsi, Frankie’s dog. Frankie’s mum said we nearly gave her a heart attack.
Hey, have you ever noticed how screaming makes you starving hungry? It does, you know, because after the Sack Race of the Century everyone was ready for Round Two of the sleepover feast.
Luckily we had masses of stuff.
As well as all the sweets, we had almost-black sausages on sticks, Marmite sandwiches, black grape squash and Fliss’s Black Forest cake. We laid everything out in the middle of Frankie’s bedroom floor and made a magic circle round the edge of it with her stone collection. It looked dead good. Then we did a little witch dance around it, holding hands and chanting, “Feast, Feast, Feast…”
Pepsi went barmy, especially when Frankie held her paws so she could dance with us on her back legs.
“Ta-daa!” went Rosie. “It’s Pepsi the doggie dance star!”
“Woof, woof!”
“Take a bow, Pepsi,” said Frankie and Pepsi actually bent her daft black head.
“Woof! Woof, woof!” She loved it.
After that we got down to some serious eating. When we’d demolished the lot, we flopped on the floor, stuffed, and told each other Hallowe’en jokes. They were daft, but they made you laugh. Here are some of my favourites:
Question: Why does a witch ride a broomstick?
Answer: Because a vacuum cleaner’s too heavy.
Question: What’s a witch’s favourite computer programme?
Answer: Spellcheck
Question: What big, green and smells?
Answer: A witch’s nose.
Good, aren’t they? My very very best, favourite was:
Lovestruck witch to handsome prince: What do I have to give you to make you kiss me?
Prince: Chloroform!
That one cracked us all up.
Lyndz laughed so much she got the hiccups. “Hic! What a lovely surprise for the handsome prince when he came round!”
“Talking of surprises…” I said. “That reminds me.”
“What?”
“Molly’s in for a massive surprise tonight.”
“What is it?”
“Tell us!”
I giggled. “A huge hairy spider, hiding in her pyjamas.”
“Wicked!”
“Serves her right!”
Frankie put her witch mask back on. (She’d only taken it off so she could eat.) “Heh, heh heh. There came a big spider, that sat down beside her…” she cackled.
“A spider in your pyjamas is so creepy,” shuddered Fliss dramatically. “I’d just die!”
“A spider won’t stop Molly messing up our sleepovers,” Rosie pointed out. Told you Rosie was dead practical and down-to-earth. “We’ve got to do more than that to stop her.”
“Rosie’s