Sleepover Club 2000

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Kenny giggled. “Fliss, you’re such a wally! Like we’re not in enough trouble. And now you want us to fill an entire zone with invisible mud creatures!”

Everyone cracked up. Including me, I have to admit. Kenny’s such a laugh. And I bet you can guess what happened next, can’t you? That’s right!

Before you could say “hiccups”, Lyndz was hiccuping away like a fruit machine. Lyndz is always getting hiccups. She drives us crazy.

We started thumping her on the back. “It’s OK. They’ll go off, hic, in a minute,” she gasped. “Look, why can’t we do something about, hic, horses?” Lyndz is totally nuts about horses.

“Animals only count if they’re endangered,” said Kenny in a snooty voice.

“I can’t believe Mrs Weaver actually expects us to sacrifice our sleepover for ecology,” Frankie wailed. “I mean, ecology is so-o sad.”

“Not as sad as we’ll look if we don’t come up with something good by Monday,” Rosie pointed out.

“Yeah,” agreed Lyndz. “The, hic, honour of the entire Sleepover Club is at, hic, hic, stake.”

At this point I noticed a tiny flake of snow come circling down. Then another. And another. For some reason those little lonely snowflakes made me feel really helpless.

Frankie was right. Our sleepover was doomed.

I don’t feel very well, I thought. In fact, now I came to think about it, my skin felt funny. Hot and kind of sore. My head hurt too.

Well, if that doesn’t put the king in the cake, I thought miserably. I’m getting that bug after all. That evil millennium flu bug.

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The first week of term was totally depressing. It didn’t even SNOW properly. There was just this really biting wind. And sometimes sleet battered our classroom windows. But on Friday morning, it finally snowed its little socks off!

By lunchtime all the school dustbins had acquired tall frothy hats. Frankie said they looked like giant cappuccinos.

In the afternoon, Mrs Weaver let us skive off to the school library, supposedly to do research for our Ecology Zone. We were still gloomily opening books and shutting them again when Mrs Poole sent a message round, saying the school was closing early because of the bad weather.

“Excellent,” said Frankie. “Hope it snows next week too. Then I’ll get to see my baby sister loads.” Her face lit up. “Did I tell you how she—”

“YES!” we yelled.

“Ssh!” hissed Miss Mellone. “This is a library, not a circus!”

“Like we hadn’t noticed,” muttered Rosie.

“Isn’t it weird,” said Kenny thoughtfully. “I hate snow, but I lurve getting snowed in.”

“Me too,” said Lyndz. “Don’t you love it when they do that Snow Line, and the radio presenter reads out the names of all the schools which are closed, and you hear the magic words ‘Cuddington School’?”

“Yeah! And look at it this way,” said Rosie. “This means we get a longer sleepover. If it’s all right with your mum, Fliss,” she added awkwardly.

I crossed my fingers behind my back. “Oh, Mum won’t mind,” I swanked.

“Great,” moaned Frankie. “An extra hour’s brain-ache, reading our exciting ecology books. NOT!”

The school library was just about to close, so we each grabbed a book and hoped for the best. Lyndz chose a book on horses (surprise, surprise). Kenny found one about the human body, which she said looked “promising”. “Gory” is the word I’d use. Kenny wants to be a doctor like her dad. She gets a real kick out of going into disgusting medical details and watching her friends squirm! My book showed all the weird little things you can see in an ordinary rain puddle. Well, if you’ve got a microscope! I was going to prove the existence of my mysterious mud creatures if it killed me.

I hate going out in ice and snow, don’t you? It makes me dead nervous and wobbly, like I’m going to fall on my face and knock my teeth out. And as I tottered down our road, a whole hour earlier than usual, I started feeling wobbly on the inside too.

Suppose Andy’s “tactful word” only made things worse? Mum’s dead sensitive. You can’t predict what’s going to set her off.

“Please don’t let her embarrass me in front of my friends,” I prayed. “I’ll never ask for another thing.”

But when I turned my key, Mum was on the other side of the door with a big grin on her face. I could see she was bursting to tell me something.

“Is it OK if everyone comes early, Mum?” I asked.

She nodded brightly. “Everything’s been ready for hours.”

My tummy turned over. “Ready?” I stuttered. “But Andy—?”

Mum’s expression went all soft and gooey. “Bless him. He was so sweet. He explained that he loves me just the way I am, but that me being so house-proud sometimes puts a bit of a strain on you all.”

I swallowed. “But—”

“He made me see I’ve got to learn to be more relaxed,” said Mum. “More fun to be with.”

“More fun?” I said in dismay.

“Anyway, I was wondering what I could do to make this a really extra-special year 2000 sleepover for you all, when I heard this man on the car radio,” Mum burbled. “And then I had my brainwave.”

“Brainwave?” I echoed. Brainstorm, more like.

Mum wagged her finger. “You’re not getting another word out of me until your friends get here. Just keep out of my hair, while I do the finishing touches.”

I went upstairs in a daze. It was like a bad dream. Andy’s tactful advice had only made my try-hard mum try harder than ever! What is she up to down there? I wondered nervously. Redecorating the house?

Just then, I saw the other members of the Sleepover Club out of the window, happily galumphing into view.

Boy, I had to move FAST! I raced down the stairs two at a time, and got the door open a split second before Frankie leaned on the door chimes.

“There’s a problem,” I gasped. “You see, my mum—”

“Don’t worry,” grinned Rosie. “Boots off already. Look!” She wiggled her toes in their woolly socks.

“And mine nearly are,” said Lyndz, hopping on one foot. “Don’t worry. Your mum’s carpets are safe with us.”

“We’ll leave our coats in the porch,” said Kenny, “so they won’t drip where they shouldn’t.”

“You don’t understand!” I wailed. “It isn’t a carpet-type problem. It’s more of a total—”

I was going to say “disaster”. But before I could warn my friends they were about to be zapped by my mother’s extra-special year 2000 brainwave, Mum appeared.

“Hi everyone,” she sang. “Great to see you all! I wonder if you’d just mind putting all those snowy boots and coats back on and coming round to the back of the house instead?”

Everyone’s mouths fell open. No-one said a word. But I knew what they were thinking. I was thinking the exact same thing. My mum had totally lost the plot!

Carefully not meeting my eye, Frankie and the others put their snowy boots and coats back on, and squelched out of our front porch without a word.

“Go with them, Fliss. That bolt on the back gate is a bit tricky,” said Mum. Honestly, she was beaming so brightly you could have used her for a Belisha beacon.

I threw on my coat and crunched after them, wondering if it was possible for a person to die of shame.

One of our neighbours had a bonfire going. I could smell smoke and something I couldn’t quite put a name to.

I unbolted the back gate, and wouldn’t you know? I managed to pinch my finger. It really hurt. Great, that’s all I need, I thought – a thumping great blood blister. I held the gate open with one hand and sucked the other hand miserably. Everyone trudged past into our sparkling white garden.

But as they disappeared round the corner, I heard gasps of astonishment.

“Coo-ell!” shouted Lyndz.

“Hey, Fliss!” yelled Kenny. “What a wicked surprise!”

I followed them. It was a surprise all right.

Fairy lights twinkled on the snowy patio. Wispy blue smoke rose into the evening air.

The barbecue, I thought in a daze. That’s what I could smell. It had reached exactly the right red-hot stage for cooking too – something Mum doesn’t always get right. Foil-wrapped goodies were roasting on the bars, alongside sizzling sausages and burgers.

Mum was handing round steaming mugs. “It should be vodka,” she teased. “But I thought your parents might not approve.”

When Kenny looked up from her mug, she had a blob of cream on her nose. “Heaven,” she whispered. “I’m in hot chocolate heaven.”

Mum had thought of absolutely everything. She’d even set up a big spotty parasol to keep off the snow. The table was laid with cutlery, pretty paper plates, and even more goodies.

Mum put her arm round me. “This man on the radio said that in Siberia it’s perfectly normal to have winter picnics. So I thought, if the Russians can do it, why can’t we?” Her voice trailed off. “You don’t mind having a picnic in the snow, do you?”

“Mind!” shrieked Kenny. “This is ACE!”

“It’s magic!” chortled Rosie.

“Outrageous,” agreed Lyndz.

Frankie didn’t say a word. She stared around our back garden as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. But being Frankie, I knew it was bound to be something dead sarky.

Suddenly she started fumbling in her bag. She fished out a canary-yellow camera, one of those funky Polaroid ones.

“Mrs Sidebotham,” she said, in her most polite voice. “Would you take a picture of us, please? I want to remember this awesome sleepover my whole life!”

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When I was little, every time I got the teensiest bit excited about anything, Granny Sidebotham (that’s my real dad’s mum) used to say, “Mark my words. There’ll be tears before bedtime.”

What a thing to say to a little kid! Like, “Don’t ever have fun, Felicity, or something bad will happen!”

Well, it’s a good thing Gran wasn’t invited to our snow picnic, because, not counting Christmas, it has to be the MOST fun I ever had in winter!

We stuffed our faces till our buttons practically popped off. But even after the food was gone, our fairy-lit garden felt so incredibly magic, no-one could bear to go back indoors.

It had practically stopped snowing by this time. Just an occasional, totally perfect snowflake drifted down. Lyndz stuck out her tongue and tasted one. “I wish we could stay out here all night,” she said.

“Andy would have to thaw us with his blowtorch in the morning,” I shivered.

The temperature was so far below zero by this time, Mum’s picnicking Siberians would have been completely at home.

Suddenly Kenny had the bright idea of putting on all the clothes she’d brought with her! We all rushed inside, and soon we were all throwing on every garment we could find. It was like that dressing up-race we had on Sports Day in the Infants. (Which I always lost, incidentally. Not because I was bad at sports. I was ace, thanks very much! More because I was the only kid who took the dressing-up part really seriously!)

I think Mum still felt bad about her New Year freak-out, because she kept herself totally under control while we piled on the layers, even though it meant us dripping melted snow all over her clean kitchen floor.

“That’s better,” sighed Lyndz, when we were back outside. “Nice and toasty again.”

The only problem was that all the extra clothes made our arms totally stick out at the sides. We were all moving dead stiffly.

“We look like robots,” Lyndz giggled.

“Or Teletubbies,” suggested Rosie. And she went into this hysterical Teletubby impersonation. Soon we were all waddling about, talking in silly baby voices like Tinky Winky and La La and whatever.

“Hey, we can be the Snowtubbies,” I said suddenly.

This made Lyndz laugh so hard she had a complete choking fit, which probably makes her the only hiccupping Snowtubby in history. Mind you, her hiccups stopped in record time when Kenny threatened to stuff a big handful of snow down her neck! Now all we had to do was get Lyndz out of her major sulk! Eventually Rosie persuaded her to make snow angels with us.

Oh, if you’re interested in having a go, here’s the Sleepover Club’s Three-Step Guide to snow-angel making!

FIRST, you fall backwards gracefully into a snowdrift, OK? Oh, yeah! TOP TIP. Pick a patch of snow without a prickly bush underneath. Frankie didn’t. So her first attempt wasn’t as graceful as it could have been. It also hurt a LOT!!!