“Oh, hello girls.” Rosie’s mum was laying out loads of food on a table which had been set up near the tent. “I bet you’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?”
Nobody said anything. Mrs Cartwright took one look at our faces, blinked and then decided not to say anything.
“Have a good time!” she called as she went back to the house.
Yeah, right. We were really going to enjoy ourselves when everyone was walking around with their faces down to their knees. Well, it looked like it was up to me to get this party going a bit!
“OK, what shall we do first?” I asked loudly, making everyone jump. “Shall we play International Gladiators?”
“Nah, let’s eat!” said Lyndz.
“We could give Rosie her presents first,” Frankie suggested.
“No, let’s have makeovers first!” Fliss chimed in. “I’ve borrowed some make-up from my mum.”
“Yes, I think makeover is a good idea!” Pilar said suddenly. She looked at the other Spanish girls, who nodded.
“Yeah, OK,” I agreed. I’m definitely not into trying out hairstyles and make-up like Flissy is – I was just trying to be friendly.
“We give you makeovers first!” Isabella announced, grabbing the make-up bag Fliss had just taken out of her rucksack. “We make you look beautiful!”
Frankie had brought some make-up and nail varnish too, as well as brushes and combs, and Rosie ran into the house to get some mirrors. Then we started the makeovers. Maria was doing mine, and although I told her not to use too much make-up because I didn’t like it, it felt like she was using tons of it.
“What are you doing, Maria?” I asked, trying to twist round a bit so that I could get a look at the others.
“Keep still!” Maria grabbed my arm and pulled me round to face her again. “I cannot make it right if you move!”
“Hey, that tickles!” I heard Frankie complaining. “What’s that, Pilar?”
“I use lipliner and lipstick,” Pilar said. “Now stay quiet!”
The other Spanish girls started giggling, and that made me a bit suspicious. Then we heard barking, and Adam came into the garden with three of his mates and his dog Jenny. Adam’s got cerebral palsy and he’s in a wheelchair. He can talk, sort of, but mostly he uses a computerised voicebox.
“Hey Adam,” I called. “You all right?”
Adam stopped in his chair and stared at us. Then he and his mates all started to roar with laughter.
“Maria, what’ve you done?” I yelled, grabbing one of the mirrors.
I had loads of black eyeliner slapped on all round my eyes and a big red mouth. I looked like Bobo the clown! And the others weren’t any better.
“Look at me!” Frankie gasped. Pilar had drawn a pair of glasses and a fake moustache on her face with eyeliner!
“My hair!” Fliss wailed, grabbing a mirror. “What’ve you done to my hair?” Isabella had backcombed it so that it was all frizzy and looked like a bird’s nest.
“I look stupid!” Rosie spluttered. She had enough blusher on her cheeks to sink the Titanic, and her hair had been gelled into spikes which stuck up all over her head. She looked gruesome.
“I look like I’ve got the measles!” Lyndz howled, glaring at Elena, who’d put little black spots of eyeliner pencil all over her face.
“Right, that’s it!” I leapt to my feet, rubbing hard at the make-up with a tissue. “You lot are dead!”
Maria and the others were rolling on the grass, crying with laughter.
“It serve you right!” Isabella said triumphantly.
“You should not send us those emails!” Pilar added. “Now we pay you back!”
“What are you talking about?” I stared at them. “What emails?”
“You know what we talk about!” Maria said scornfully. She put her hand in her bag and pulled out some papers. “These emails!”
She shoved them into my hand and I read the one on top, which was dated a week or so ago.
Dear Spanish girls
Why don’t you learn how to talk English properly?
Kenny, Frankie, Rosie, Lyndz and Fliss
“You say other things too,” Elena said. “Nasty things about our country!”
“Yes, we are proud to be Spanish!” Anna added fiercely.
“We didn’t send these!” I said, showing them to the other Sleepovers. “No way!”
“We’ve never seen them before!” Frankie backed me up, and the others nodded.
Maria and the other girls obviously didn’t believe us. “So who send them then?” Maria asked.
I looked at the others. “I bet I know who it was!” I hissed. “I bet it was—”
“Kenny!” Maria called, and I spun round.
“AARGH!”
A cream doughnut hit me right in the middle of my face!
Well, that was IT! I wasn’t in the mood to try and sort things out any more – this was WAR!
“You shouldn’t have done that!” I spluttered as I wiped cream and sugar off my face while the Spanish girls roared with laughter. “You’re really going to get it now!”
“Kenny, be careful!” said Fliss and Lyndz together, but I was too mad to listen. I grabbed a cheese and pickle roll off the table and threw it at Maria. She ducked, but it hit Pilar instead, and Branston pickle spilled out all over her jeans.
“Hey!” Pilar shouted, “you dirty my jeans!” And she scooped some cream off the top of the trifle with a spoon, and flicked it at us. It hit Fliss right in the eye.
“Ow!” Fliss wailed, and she lobbed a ham roll in the Spanish girls’ direction.
Next second it had turned into a free-for-all as we all started grabbing food missiles and hurling them at each other.
“Stop it!” Rosie yelled. “You’re ruining my birthday sleepover!”
Then she got a sausage roll in the eye, and that made her so mad, she started to join in. It was like something out of a comedy film. Everyone was screaming and trying to dodge flying cakes and rolls, Jenny was barking madly and Adam and his friends were all watching us and laughing their heads off.
I hadn’t managed to land a direct hit on Maria yet, so I spooned some strawberry jelly into a bowl, and flung it in her direction. I didn’t get Maria. But I did manage to get Rosie’s mum. Right in the middle of her face!
“Well!” Mrs Cartwright stared furiously at us, trying to wipe strawberry jelly out of her eyes. She must have come out to see what all the noise was about, and we’d been so busy fighting, we hadn’t heard her. “What on earth is going on here?”
“Er – we were having a food fight, Mum,” Rosie muttered sheepishly, while the rest of us shuffled our feet and tried to brush the crumbs out of our hair.
“I can see that,” Mrs Cartwright replied in a freezing tone.