Kenny pounced straight away. “If he was wearing a baseball cap, how do you know it was Brad?” she pointed out triumphantly.
“I got a good look at his face as he walked towards the car,” Rosie retorted.
We all looked at each other. Rosie was obviously convinced that she had seen Brad Martin.
“Why didn’t you get out and run after him?” Kenny asked suspiciously.
“Because my mum was coming back by then, and she stopped me,” Rosie said sulkily.
“Oh!” Fliss squealed all of a sudden.
“What is it?” we all chorused.
“Well, what if—?” Fliss stopped. “No, he couldn’t be!”
“Couldn’t what?” we all repeated impatiently.
“Well…” Fliss hopped from one foot to the other. “I suppose he might be…”
“MIGHT BE WHAT?” the rest of us repeated. I was beginning to feel like Polly the Parrot!
“Well, we were saying before that Brad must be staying nearby if he’s in the panto,” Fliss finally managed to get the words out. “Maybe he’s staying in Cuddington!”
Rosie nearly fainted away on the spot. “He can’t be! Can he?”
“Yes! That must be it!” Lyndz agreed, looking excited.
“But if he is in Cuddington, where would he be staying?” I asked doubtfully.
Before anyone could reply, Fliss’s mum came in with a cup of tea and a magazine.
“Still here, girls?” she asked brightly. “I thought you were going upstairs to Fliss’s room.”
“We are.” I jumped to my feet, dragging Kenny with me. “Come on, you lot.”
We all legged it upstairs and into Fliss’s bedroom. Once we were inside, Fliss closed the door and we all piled on to the bed and started whispering to each other. We were getting really excited by this time, although Kenny still wasn’t totally convinced.
“Do you really think Brad’s in Cuddington?” Lyndz asked.
“I know he is!” Rosie replied.
“Maybe we should go and look for him,” I suggested.
“I’ll die if I see him!” Fliss added.
“Why are we whispering?” Kenny wanted to know.
“In case anyone else finds out!” I told her. “This is one big secret!”
Kenny frowned. “Hey, hang on a minute,” she said. “If Rosie’s seen Brad in Cuddington, how come no-one else has?”
“What do you mean?” Fliss asked.
“Well, other people must have seen him too,” Kenny pointed out, “and no-one at school’s mentioned it. It’d be all over the place in five minutes flat if they had!”
“The panto only started a week or two ago,” Fliss pointed out. “He might only just have moved in.”
“Yeah, we’ll get the latest when we go back to school on Monday,” I said. “Someone else might have seen him – we just haven’t heard about it yet.”
“Well, if Brad is here, where would he be staying?” Kenny wasn’t giving in that easily. “There aren’t any really posh hotels in Cuddington.”
That threw us a bit.
“He might be staying at Buckingham House,” Rosie suggested.
Kenny burst out laughing. “What, with Mrs Windsor? He’d have to be desperate!”
Buckingham House is a B&B in Cuddington, and it’s probably the poshest guest house in the village. But the lady who runs it, Mrs Windsor, is a right old snob – I reckon she called it Buckingham House because she thinks she’s the queen of Cuddington!
“I’ve got it!” Fliss suddenly bounced off the bed. “Why don’t we ring the theatre? They’ll be able to tell us where Brad’s staying!”
“Good idea.” Kenny jumped up too. “Give me the phone!”
Fliss has just got her own girly pink phone in her bedroom and she’s dead proud of it. Anyway, Kenny grabbed the receiver, and Fliss went to get the phone book, but she started moaning when she came back.
“It’s my phone, Kenny. I ought to make the call!”
Kenny raised her eyebrows at her. “Can you do a posh grown-up voice?”
“No,” Fliss muttered.
“OK, here goes.” Kenny tapped in the number of the theatre, and we all waited, holding our breath until we heard the phone being picked up at the other end. Kenny immediately pinched her nose with her fingers, and said, “Hello? Who is this please?” in this really posh voice.
“It’s the doorman at the theatre!” she hissed at us, covering the mouthpiece. Then she pinched her nose again and said grandly, “This is Brad Martin’s aunt speaking. I need to get in touch with him, so kindly tell me where he lives!”
Meanwhile the rest of us were rolling around on Fliss’s bed, stuffing our hands in our mouths to stop ourselves from laughing.
“I see,” Kenny said after a moment or two. “Well, thank you very much.” And she put the phone down.
“Did he give you the address?” I asked eagerly.
“Is Brad staying in Cuddington?” Rosie chimed in.
“Or is he in Leicester?” Lyndz asked.
“Don’t keep us in suspense, Kenny!” Fliss begged.
“The doorman said I was about the tenth person to ring today trying to find out where Brad was staying, and to stop pestering him!” Kenny said.
Our faces fell.
“So how can we find out?” Rosie asked.
“Well, we can’t do anything now,” I pointed out. “Anyway, aren’t we supposed to be having a sleepover?”
But it turned out that the sleepover was pretty much a wash-out after that, because all we did was talk about whether or not Brad could really be staying in Cuddington. We had a sort of half-hearted pillow fight and we had a midnight feast and we wrote in our diaries and we did all the kinds of things we normally do, but we weren’t really interested. There was only one thing we wanted to know. Where was Brad Martin? By this time, I think we were all convinced that Rosie had seen him – even Kenny!
It was only when we were in our sleeping bags on Fliss’s floor that I started to have second thoughts. We’d just sung our sleepover song, and everyone was getting a bit drowsy.
“Maybe I didn’t see Brad after all,” Rosie said suddenly in a low voice. “Maybe it was someone else…”
But I don’t think anyone heard her except me.
Wait until you hear what happened when we got to school on Monday morning. It was really weird!
We all met up in the playground as usual, and we were still going on about Brad Martin, and where he might be staying in Cuddington. We’d spent most of Sunday on the phone to each other too, discussing the very same thing, until our parents put their feet down. My dad had said that he’d gag me if I didn’t shut up about it!
“I reckon we should go over to Buckingham House after school and check it out,” Kenny suggested as we all sat down on the playground wall. “We might see Brad leaving for the theatre.”
“Don’t let Mrs Windsor catch