Sleepover Girls in the Ring. Fiona Cummings

is great!” I laughed, taking hold of the doughnuts. “It beats those poxy kids’ games any day of the week!”

      I tossed one of the doughnuts into the air a couple of times. Easy-peasy. A bit of sugar sprinkled on to the carpet, but nothing major. I picked up another one and started to throw that as well. When I was comfortable with that, I grabbed the third one and tried to juggle with that too. A doughnut fell to the floor. I tried again. One landed on the sofa.

      “OK Kenny, you can do this!” I told myself.

      I grabbed the doughnuts and slowly, slowly threw them into the air. And do you know what? I actually started to juggle with them. I couldn’t believe it!

      “Hey guys, look at me!” I yelled.

      Lyndz stopped to watch, and let go of Frankie’s legs. THUD! Franks tumbled on to the carpet. That kind of made me lose my concentration, so I bumped into Rosie and dropped one of the doughnuts. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if Fliss hadn’t chosen just that moment to come through the door.

      “Whaddayadoing?” she shrieked. Then – SQUELCH. She trod on the doughnut.

      Well, you would not believe the amount of jam that spurted out of it and shot across the carpet in a red streak. I mean, when you eat a doughnut there never seems to be that much jam in the middle, does there?

      Fliss kind of yelped, then went white.

      “Mum’s going to kill us!” she squealed.

      “It’s not that bad,” I reassured her, and scooped up the jam with my finger.

      Unfortunately, the trail of jam now looked worse than ever against the cream carpet.

      “I think I can hear someone coming!” hissed Rosie.

      I quickly grabbed the other two doughnuts, shoved one in my mouth and the other in the back pocket of my jeans.

      “Baaborginagaig!” I commanded, although my mouth was so stuffed with doughnut I couldn’t make myself understood.

      The others looked at me blankly. I got down on the floor and did a handstand to show them what I meant, balancing over the jammy stain so that if Fliss’s mum did come in she wouldn’t see it.

      “Gotcha! You mean you want us to carry on doing handstands and stuff, don’t you?” Frankie grasped at last. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”

      But I was upside down with a mouthful of doughnut, wasn’t I? Not a great place to be in, all in all… I started to splutter, I started to cough, then I started to choke.

      “Are you OK, Kenny?” Rosie asked. “You don’t look too good!”

      “Come on Kenny, deep breaths!” Lyndz slapped me hard on the back.

      I gasped and coughed and the remains of the doughnut sprayed out all over the lounge – and all over Fliss’s mum, who had come in to see what all the noise was about.

      It was hard to tell what her first reaction was going to be. She went kind of red, then very, very white. I thought she was going to cry, or maybe collapse with shock. But none of us was prepared for the ear-splitting shriek that eventually burst from her lips.

      “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! N-O-O-O-W-W!”

      Well, we weren’t going to argue with that! We left the house running, grabbing any old shoes on the way out of the door. We ran down the path and on to the pavement, only stopping when we were well out of sight. Gasping, we exchanged shoes so that somehow we ended up with the right pairs.

      “Poor Fliss!” said Frankie at last. “Do you think she’s going to be all right?”

      “I hope so,” I murmured.

      But I think we all knew then that “The Jam Doughnut Incident” was going to have serious consequences for the Sleepover Club.

      

      It was pretty obvious to my parents that something was wrong when I arrived home from Fliss’s so early. Plus, Dad was already standing in the hall holding the phone receiver about a mile from his ear. I could hear someone screaming and yelling on the other end. No prizes for guessing who that was! Mum reluctantly took the receiver from Dad and leant against the hall table.

      “Hello Nikky, it’s Valerie. I think you’d better start from the beginning.”

      The sobs from the other end of the phone quietened a little, and Mum went into her patient-listening mode. I crept up the stairs and sat down near the top. I kind of wanted to know what Fliss’s mum was saying, but I daren’t really go any closer.

      After what felt like about six hours, Mum finally put the phone down and had a muted conversation with Dad. Then she called upstairs angrily:

      “Laura McKenzie! Get yourself down here, now!”

      Oh-oh. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

      As I walked into the lounge, Molly shuffled out, smirking.

      “You’re for it now, dog-breath!” she goaded.

      I didn’t even feel like punching her.

      “Sit down!” Both my parents had their “this-is-very-serious” expressions on.

      “That was Fliss’s mum on the phone,” Mum began, like I couldn’t guess that for myself. “She is very upset…” BLAH BLAH BLAH… “we’re very disappointed in you…” BLAH BLAH BLAH… “thought we could trust you but you’re obviously still acting like a toddler…”