“Here’s your prize, Isabella,” I said casually. “A can of Coke!”
Maria and Isabella stared at me. “No, I win the dog!” Isabella said with a frown.
“No, I don’t think so!” I shook my head. “The Dalmatian’s number 225!”
Isabella and Maria both blinked as if they were seeing things. “No, it was 500!” Isabella said furiously. “You change it so we do not win!”
“I did not!” I said.
“You should let us have a free go!” Maria said, trying to grab some more tickets out of the tombola drum.
“No way!” I legged it round to the front of the stall, and tried to push her away, but Maria picked the drum up off the stall and held it tightly.
“Give it back!” I yelled, and we started to have a tug-of-war!
By now quite a lot of people were looking round at us to see what was going on. I was so mad I didn’t care, not even when I saw that Mrs Poole and the Mayoress were heading in our direction. Pilar and the other Spanish girls also dashed over from the cake stall to find out what was happening, and they started calling to Maria in Spanish.
“Kenny, stop it!” Frankie was saying, and so were the others, but I just pulled my end of the tombola drum even harder.
Unfortunately, the drum was a bit rickety and it couldn’t take the strain. It split in two, and Maria and I both fell backwards…
“What on earth’s going on here?” Mrs Poole began with a frown, but next second she and the Mayoress were both showered in hundreds of raffle tickets!
“Well?”
Mrs Poole sat at her desk the following morning and stared hard at the ten of us lined up in a row – me and the rest of the Sleepover Club as well as Maria and the Spanish girls. Usually Mrs P. was a bit of a pushover, and talked more about how sorry she was that we’d let her down, rather than just going ballistic. But this time she looked like she was going to tear us to bits.
“I was very ashamed of your behaviour in front of all our visitors, and the Mayoress too,” Mrs Poole went on sternly. “Poor Mrs Pontefract was picking raffle tickets out of her hat for at least ten minutes afterwards.”
I bit my lip, hoping I looked upset, but really I was trying not to laugh! We’d spent the rest of the Summer Fair on our hands and knees sweeping up the tombola tickets, and we’d had tellings-off from Mrs Weaver, the Mayoress and from Lyndz’s mum. Now it was Mrs Poole’s turn.
“There’d better be a good reason for such appalling behaviour,” Mrs Poole went on, looking hard at us, one by one, “or I’m afraid to say that none of you will be going on the class trip to the theme park next Monday.”
That wiped the smile off my face! I’d been looking forward to going to WonderLand for months, and now it was all Maria’s fault that I might not be going. Well, I suppose it was my fault a bit as well… Anyway, I knew I’d have to speak up and tell the truth, because I couldn’t let the others take the blame when they’d had nothing to do with it. So I cleared my throat.
“Er – Mrs Poole, I—”
“Mrs Poole, I tell you what happened,” Isabella interrupted me, and I glared at her. I reckoned Isabella was now going to drop me right in it by telling Mrs Poole all about how she’d won the Dalmatian and I’d switched the tickets round!
“I buy some tickets,” Isabella said in a loud voice. “I ask Maria to help me pull them out and she have her hand stuck in the tombola.”
Mrs Poole frowned. “So why were she and Kenny fighting over it?”
What’s going on? I wondered with a frown. Why wasn’t Isabella dropping me in it? I just couldn’t understand it.
“They weren’t fighting, Mrs Poole,” Frankie said quickly. “Kenny was just trying to pull Maria’s hand free.”
“Yes, and the tombola break,” Pilar added.
“And that’s when all the tickets flew out,” Lyndz finished off.
“We’re really sorry, Mrs Poole,” said Rosie.
Mrs Poole looked slightly less furious. “Is that what happened, Maria? Kenny?”
I glanced sideways at Maria. She looked pretty sulky, but Pilar was nudging her in the ribs.
“Yes, Mrs Poole,” she muttered.
“Yes, Mrs Poole,” I said, heaving a silent sigh of relief. It looked like I wasn’t going to be banned from the trip after all, but I just couldn’t understand why. Maria had had the perfect opportunity to get me into trouble big-time and she hadn’t taken it. Why not? Now that Isabella had helped me out too, I felt really bad that she’d hadn’t got the Dalmatian in the end. Maria had dropped the winning ticket in all the fuss after the tombola had broken.
“Well, if it was an accident, I think I can overlook it just this once,” said Mrs Poole. “But I want you all to spend this morning writing letters of apology to Mrs Pontefract. And I want them given to me by the end of the morning. Is that clear?”
We all nodded. We’d got off pretty lightly, considering we’d annoyed the Mayoress and the headteacher! And at least we were all still going on the class trip. We all filed out of Mrs Poole’s office trying not to grin at each other with relief.
“Whew, that was close!” I said to Frankie as soon as we were outside in the corridor. “I thought I was going to miss out on WonderLand!”
“Well, you were lucky Isabella thought fast and came up with a good excuse!” Frankie told me. “You owe her one!”
“Yeah, OK…” I muttered. Then I noticed the other Sleepovers staring hard at me. “What?”
“Isabella got you out of trouble,” said Fliss pointedly. “You could say thank you!”
I pulled a face. “Oh, all right then…”
“And maybe you and Maria can make friends now,” Lyndz added eagerly.
I didn’t say anything. I was beginning to feel a bit ashamed of myself for messing about with the tickets the day before. Maybe if I asked Mrs Poole nicely she’d let Isabella have the Dalmatian after all…
The Spanish girls were crowded round Maria, who still looked sulky, and they were having a go at her in Spanish. I reckoned they were telling her to make up with me. If she wanted to, well, so would I.
“Er – Isabella, thanks for coming up with that story for Mrs Poole,” I muttered. “It was really nice of you.”
Isabella grinned at me. “It is OK!”
“And I’m really sorry about changing the ticket on the Dalmatian,” I went on. “I’ll tell Mrs Poole you won it fair and square, and maybe she’ll let you have it.”
For some reason Isabella stopped smiling and looked over at Maria. “Do you tell her or do I?” she asked sternly.
“Tell me what?” I asked, puzzled.
Maria was staring down at her feet. “I did not have the winning ticket,” she muttered sheepishly.
“What?” My mouth fell open. “But you had number 500!”
“No, it was not 500,” Maria said. “I just say I had it to make you angry! I knew you do not want to give Isabella