“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