“Zombie… zombie… zombie…” the pair of them moaned. I could feel my arms go all goosepimply as they shuffled closer. It’s such a scary game!!
I scrunched myself up tight under the desk as I heard Frankie go past. Then, as Lyndz followed, I couldn’t resist it – I shot an arm out and grabbed her ankle!
“AAAAAAAAAARGH!” she screamed, completely freaked out. “Who was that?”
“It’s the Zombie-eater!” I boomed – and then everyone started screaming!
Fliss ran over and put the light on. “I hate that game!” she said.
“We hadn’t even finished it!” Rosie complained. “I had a wicked hiding place, as well.”
There was a knock at the door, and Fliss nearly jumped out of her skin.
“It’s only me,” said Lyndz’s mum, opening the door. “It sounds like there are some scary things happening in Lyndsey’s bedroom – you might need a treat to calm yourselves down!”
She handed Fliss a box of Magnums and winked.
Fliss smiled weakly at her. “Thank you, Mrs Collins,” she said, sounding relieved.
It wasn’t until I’d taken a huge bite of Magnum that I remembered. I’d been so distracted by all the squishy-pooing and zombie-ing, I’d forgotten all about my amazing secret surprise.
I choked on my mouthful, trying to swallow it as fast as I could. “Hey, I’ve got something to tell you,” I said excitedly, through a chunk of ice cream. “Guess WHAT?”
“You’re entering the World Talking While Eating Championships?” Rosie suggested.
“You’ve decided never ever to scare me again?” Lyndz tried. “I hope?”
“No, I know,” Fliss moaned. “You want us to run away to Switzerland together or something. I can tell by your face.”
“Wrong, wrong and wrong,” I said, smugly. “Although Fliss is kind of on the right track.”
“I knew it!” she groaned.
“We don’t have to run away to Switzerland to go snowboarding though,” I said triumphantly. “There’s an indoor skiing and snowboarding centre in Tolbury – only about half an hour away in the car. Emma told me. How about us all going there for a day’s snowboarding?”
I was practically bursting with excitement. “Well? What do you think? Mum and Dad have agreed to take us and everything!”
“Wow!” said Lyndz. “Really?”
“It sounds a bit dangerous to me,” Fliss said, nibbling daintily at her Magnum. “I don’t know if my mum would let me.”
“It’s not dangerous – you have a lesson and they teach you how to do it!” I said. “Honestly, Fliss, you’re with an instructor all the time!”
She pursed her lips up and I could see she wasn’t convinced. “You’d be good, anyway,” I said to her. “What are you worried about? You’re really good at sport!”
OK, so I was buttering her up a bit. But Fliss isn’t bad at sport – she’s quite OK at running and things like that, so it wasn’t totally false of me. All right, so snowboarding was a bit different – so what?
“Do you think so?” she said, sounding pleased. “Really?”
“Yeah!” I said. “And you can ride a bike, can’t you? So you must have good balance!”
“I suppose so,” she said. Then she went a bit pink. “And I do like those fleecy tops they wear – I saw a thing about it in one of Andy’s magazines…”
Good old Fliss! You can always count on her to say yes to something if it means an excuse to go shopping for a new outfit!
“What about the rest of you?” I said. One down, three to go…
“It sounds wicked!” said Lyndz. “Is it real snow?”
“Yeah, it is!” I said, grinning. “Real, white, wet, slippery snow! They make it with these mega snow-machines.”
“Cool!” she said. “When you kept going on about it, I thought it was going to be something you could only do abroad – but if you can do it here… sounds brilliant!”
Two down…
“Rosie, what about you?” I asked.
Uh-oh. Rosie wasn’t looking so easy to convince.
“How much is it going to cost?” she said cautiously. “Only it’s coming up to Christmas and I don’t know if Mum’s got much cash to spare right now.”
“It’s not that much,” I said quickly. “I’m sure you could ask for it as part of your Christmas present anyway – that would save her going shopping for it, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll see what she says,” she said, but I could tell she was feeling as excited as Lyndz underneath. “But hopefully yeah, count me in too! Sleepover Club on the slopes!”
“What do you reckon, Frankie?” I said anxiously. Frankie was the only one who hadn’t said anything yet. “Won’t be a proper Sleepover thing without you…”
She pulled a bit of a face. “It sounds ace and normally I’d go like a shot, but I don’t know whether I can leave Mum at the moment.”
I thought back to the way Frankie’s mum had rolled her eyes about Frankie’s ‘helping’. Somehow I didn’t think Frankie’s mum would have a problem with Frankie going at all!
“She might like having the house to herself for the day,” I said, trying to be tactful about it. “Give her a chance to really relax in peace.”
“Maybe,” said Frankie. “I’ll ask.”
I jumped in the air. “Whoopeeee!” I said. “We’re off! We can have a sleepover at ours on a Friday night and then go on the Saturday! It’s just gonna be sooo excellent!”
“Even better – we can really rub it in with the M&Ms next week,” Lyndz said with a wicked giggle. “They’ll be sick as anything!”
“They’ll hate us for it!” Fliss said, beaming broadly. “I can’t wait to see their faces! We’re going snowboarding, we’re going snowboarding!”
Frankie leapt to her feet and pretended to snowboard along Lyndz’s bedroom floor. “Look out, everyone – here I come!” she yelled. “Neeeyyyooooowww!”
I grinned to myself. My best mate bouncing around like a nutter again was the best thing I’d seen in ages!
The whole of the next week was just unbearable. Like I said, I hate having to wait for anything – and this time it practically killed me! First of all, before we could all get really excited about going, the others had to check with their parents that it was OK for them all to come. Lyndz’s parents said yes right away. Then Rosie’s. Fliss’s mum was a bit worried about the whole thing, so I had to get my mum to phone her and reassure her that everything was going to be OK and her precious daughter wasn’t about to break her neck on the slopes.
Then Frankie rang. “Hi!” I said. “What did your parents say about the snowboarding trip?”
There was this awful silence. “Well,” she started