The other day Mrs Poole announced in Assembly that the school was going to raise some money to send some needy kids in a children’s home on holiday.
“The staff and I have had a discussion and we’ve come up with something we thought you’d all enjoy,” she told us. “Every class is going to enter an act in Cuddington Primary’s version of Stars in Their Eyes. There’ll be class heats first and we want all of you to have a go. The winning act from every class will get a prize, and they’ll perform in the charity show. The ticket money will go to the children’s home.”
We didn’t think any more about it, as none of us are particularly talented, though Fliss thinks she looks and sings like Madonna and Frankie plays pretty mean piano.
But it looked as if Frankie had thought of something now, and the rest of us were desperate to find out what it was.
The door of our classroom was closing as we got to it. I grabbed the handle to stop the others from entering, while I thought quickly.
“Six o’clock at my place, folks,” I told everyone. “Mum’s got yoga tonight and Dad’ll be in the workshop. He’s trying to finish this really gross pot for Auntie Cath’s birthday. I don’t know what she’ll ever use it for.”
My dad really fancies himself as an arty potter, but his efforts are always wobbly and lopsided, or bits drop off them. They are totally useless, though he thinks they’re works of art which should be worth millions of pounds and displayed in museums throughout the world.
“A spaghetti jar?” suggested practical Fliss.
“A potty?” Rosie giggled.
“That’s what your dad is - a potty potter,” Frankie said.
We all laughed loudly, even me, though it was my dad Frankie was insulting.
Then Mrs Weaver yelled, “When you girls feel like joining us, the class can start.”
So we had to go in and pretend to be interested in caddis fly larvae.
As we were drawing them in our Nature Study books, Frankie made hers look like my baby brother Spike, swaddled in an enormous nappy. I tried so hard not to laugh when she passed it to me under the desk that I got the hiccups.
Mrs Weaver sent Alana Banana, of all people, to get me a glass of water, but my hand shook so much as I hiccuped, that the water shot all over the back of Emma Hughes, one of the M&Ms.
That put the king in the cake all right! She’s one of our worst enemies and the sight of water dripping down her neck inside her collar made us have hysterics. We just collapsed with our heads on our desks and sobbed.
But it stopped my hiccups, so it was a good thing for me, if not for Emma, who hissed, “I’ll get you for this, Lyndsey Collins! You’ve really got it coming!”
Now, a threat from the M&Ms spells real doom. I had no doubt in my mind that Emma and her crony Emily meant to do something to get back at me.
But what…?
I laid the news on Mum as soon as I got home.
“No way. You can’t have all your friends round tonight,” she said.
“But why not?” I wailed. “I’ve invited them now. It’s not fair!”
“I’ve got some of my friends coming this evening. I might be an old wrinkly, but I do have friends, you know, and I’m going to be far too busy entertaining them to cater for you lot as well,” she insisted.
“I thought it was your yoga night and we wouldn’t be in the way,” I said.
“It’s been cancelled. The teacher’s on holiday.”
I put on my sweetest, most pleading face. “Please, Mum… They’ll have eaten already by the time they get here. And we won’t take up any space. We’ll go straight up to my room and disappear. We’re having a summit conference,” I told her importantly.
“The summit of stupidity, if you ask me!” snorted Tom, who would happen to walk into the kitchen right then.
“It is not!” I said angrily.
“Tis.”
“‘Tisn’t!”
“Oh, stop being babyish, you two,” said Mum. “Look, if you want to see your friends tonight, Lyndsey, just make sure they bring their own crisps and biscuits, and keep out of the lounge at all costs. Okay?”
“Thanks, Mum!” I said, giving her a hug.
Frankie’s dad brought her, Kenny and Rosie over. Shortly afterwards, Andy, Fliss’s mum’s boyfriend, dropped Fliss off.
I’d already done a phone around about the food situation, and raided some of the emergency rations Mum keeps in the spare fridge, which sits next to the huge freezer in the garage.
I’d found a big tub of my favourite ice-cream, two packets of chocolate biscuits and a bumper crisp selection pack. Don’t ask me why there were crisps in the fridge. I guess Mum was being hassled by Ben and Spike and just shoved them anywhere to get rid of them. The crisps, I mean, not my little brothers.
Frankie’s dad brought in a six-pack of Cokes. Fliss had some bananas and a bottle of diet lemonade so I knew she had to be on one of her healthy eating kicks again. Rosie had some Jaffa Cakes. Kenny was carrying a weird looking cake. It was sort of pinky orange.
“Ugh! What’s that?” I asked her.
“Molly made it at school. It’s supposed to be carrot cake,” she explained. Molly is Kenny’s twelve-year-old sister.
“It’s bound to be horrible,” Fliss said. “She wouldn’t have let you have it if it hadn’t been. You know how much she hates us. She’s probably trying to poison us so she’ll never have to move out of the bedroom again.”
Molly and Kenny share a room and every time we spend the night there, she has to move in with Emma, Kenny’s oldest sister. Both of them hate having to share, and Molly’s always nasty about which of her possessions we mustn’t touch or go anywhere near. Last time we had a sleepover at Kenny’s, Molly was so strict about her precious Spanish costume doll that, after she’d gone, I took its knickers off and made it a little nappy out of some pieces of toilet paper held together with a safety pin.
She can’t have discovered it yet, otherwise she’d have gone ballistic and I’d have heard all about it from Kenny.
I made everyone take off their shoes before going in my room. We always kick our shoes off, anyway, and my room’s too small for loads of shoes. There’s no space to put anything and Dad still hasn’t made me the new bedroom in the attic he’s been promising me for over a year.
I took the cake off Kenny and looked for somewhere to put it, where it wouldn’t get damaged. My dressing table was far too full of stuff, so in the end I put the cake down on the floor, between the bottom of the bed and the window. Big mistake.
Meanwhile, everyone was cramming themselves on to my bed and on the carpet. There was no room for Rosie till we’d closed the door and she could sit with her back to it. That was great, because it meant no nosy brothers could get in.
Frankie remained standing. It was obvious she wanted to organise everything as usual.
“I’ve