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“Oh, yes! It’s the best!” Fliss hurried out to the hall, and came back with a cake tin.
For once Fliss wasn’t exaggerating. The cake was mega brilliant! It had two sorts of green swirled together, and there were jelly worms popping out of the icing and jelly spiders crouching round the bottom. We all ooohed and aaahed, and told Fliss how clever she was. Fliss smiled from ear to ear.
“I had some jelly worms left over,” she said. “Here – I thought they might be useful.”
“Great! We can put them in the slime,” I said. “Where’s your pizza, Lyndz?”
Lyndz grinned. “Wait and see!” she said.
“That’s not fair!” Rosie said. “We’ve seen Fliss’s cake!”
Lyndz just went on grinning and shook her head.
We couldn’t hassle her any more because just then Mum came into the kitchen. “Are you lot still in here?” she said. “I need to get something ready for Dad – he’s rushing in before his meeting—” She stopped when she saw the cake. “Goodness! That is clever!” Fliss blushed, and looked really pleased with herself again.
“It’s nothing,” she said in the sort of voice that means “Yes, I am very clever and I know I am!”
“It’s OK, Mum,” I said. “All we’ve got to do is bung the slime in the fridge and then we’ll go upstairs.”
“Fine,” Mum said. “But don’t forget—”
“Not to spoil anything of Emma’s!” I finished her sentence for her.
We finished our stuff in the kitchen and galloped up the stairs to Emma’s room.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s make ourselves some space here. Emma’s away all weekend, so she’ll never know. We can put everything back tomorrow.”
“Isn’t that spoiling things?” Fliss asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s moving things. If we move everything against the wall we can really spread out tonight. The way it is now we couldn’t swing a cat.”
Fliss giggled. “Poor cat!”
“I can swing a teddy!” Frankie said, and she whirled Emma’s white bear round her head.
Crash! Emma’s bedside lamp leapt off the table, and Rosie, Lyndz, Fliss and I cackled with laughter.
“Ooops!” Frankie got down on her hands and knees and picked it up again. “Maybe you were right, Kenny! There isn’t any room to swing anything!”
We heaved and shoved and pushed the furniture right up against the walls, and piled Emma’s clothes and shoes on one of the beds. Then we looked round.
“Wow!” Lyndz was dead impressed. “There’s room to swing dozens of cats in here now!”
“Whoopee!” Frankie grabbed the white teddy again and swung it madly round her head. “Room to swing a teddy!”
Lyndz snatched up a green frog, and Rosie and Fliss fought over a fluffy bunny. Fliss won, so Rosie pounced on a pink giraffe. I found a squashy elephant… and we swung them all round and round and round!
“Room to swing a jungle!” I yelled, and I let the elephant fly… and the elephant hit Rosie, and Rosie fell over onto Fliss, and Fliss whacked Lyndz with her fluffy bunny and Lyndz sent her green frog zooming across the room and—
Crash! The bedside lamp went flying for a second time.
This time the lamp broke. Seriously broke. Doom! The bottom bit was made of pink china (it was typical of Emma to have everything in prissy pink!) and the pink china was now in bits. The shade was bent too.
We went rather quiet for a moment as we looked at the wreckage.
“Sorry,” Lyndz said.
“We’re all to blame,” Frankie said, and I nodded.
“If it’s anyone’s fault it’s the frog’s,” Rosie said, and Frankie giggled. “Ground that frog!”
“Stop its pocket money!” I said.
“We could try and mend it,” Fliss said. She was picking up the pieces. “Have you got any of that Super Glue stuff?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There might be some in the kitchen. But Emma’s bound to notice.”
“Let’s try anyway,” Lyndz said.
“Mum’ll still be cooking,” I said. “We can go and look for the glue later. Anyway, there’s no hurry. Emma’s not back until Sunday night.”
Down in the hall the telephone began to ring. Someone – or something! – must have heard what I’d just said, because two minutes later Molly came thundering up the stairs and stuck her head round the door. “Emma’s got to come home tonight,” she said with a great big silly grin on her face. “Jade’s house has been burgled, and Emma can’t stay after all!”
Molly looked round Emma’s room at all the piled up furniture. “Ha! Looks like you’ll be in big trouble now!” And she flounced out.
Emma coming home? We stared at each other.
Fliss put on her drama queen face. “I knew it!” she said, and she waved her arms. “It’s because it’s Friday 13th! Everything’s bound to go wrong!”
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“I’m going to ask Mum if it’s true,” I said, once I’d got over the shock. “The monster might have made it up – it’s just the low-down kind of trick she likes to play.”
As it turned out it was true – but it wasn’t quite as bad as Molly had made it sound. Emma couldn’t stay the night, but she and Jade had gone out to have a pizza, and Dad was going to collect her on the way back from his meeting.
“It’s going to be quite late, so Emma may as well sleep in your room with Molly tonight,” Mum said.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief – inside. Outside I just nodded. “OK,” I said.
Mum gave me a suspicious sort of look. “I hope you haven’t been making a mess up there,” she said. “Molly says you’ve been moving furniture.”
“We only moved things a little,” I said. “And we do that in my room.”
“Fine.” Mum went on stirring something in a saucepan. “Molly and I are eating with Dad, so you lot can do your feasting on green cake afterwards in peace.”
“Thanks, Mum, you’re the best,” I said, and gave her a hug.
I was going back up the stairs when I heard Dad coming in. I gave a quick wave over the banisters, and then shot back into Emma’s room to tell the others not to panic – yet!
“We can sort the room out in the morning,” I said.
Fliss was peering out of the window. “I’m sure I heard a strange noise,” she said. “Do you think there’s someone down there?” She was looking twitchy again.
“I expect it’s Dad,” I said. “He’s just come home.”
“Oh,” Fliss said, but she didn’t sound very convinced.
“Let’s go and see!” Frankie said, and she made a face at me behind Fliss’s back, and mouthed, “Blood trail!”
“Oh no!” Fliss squeaked. “We ought to stay inside!”
“It’ll be OK with all of us,” Lyndz said, and she grinned. “What burglar would take on the Sleepover Club?”
Even Fliss smiled a little. “I still don’t think we shou—” she began, but she didn’t sound so certain.
“Come on!” Lyndz grabbed her hand. “We can make sure it’s all clear down there while it’s still light! We’ll check out the bushes!”
“Only a mini burglar could hide in your garden,” Rosie said.
“That’s it!” I said. “The burglar’s only sixty centimetres tall – and that’s why no one’s found him yet!”
We were halfway down the stairs when Frankie suddenly stopped. “Sssh!” she said. “We sound like a herd of elephants! From now on we’ve got to go on tiptoe!”
“Tippytoe! Tippytoe! Hunting burglars! Here we go!” giggled Lyndz, and we got in a line and tiptoed down the rest of the stairs and out of the front door. (We made sure we left it on the latch this time. Frankie and I weren’t taking any more chances!)
It was beginning to get dark as we crept round the side of the house. Frankie was in front, then me, then Lyndz, then Rosie, and then Fliss.
“Tippytoe! Tippytoe! Tippytoe!” sang Lyndz, and we all tiptoed in time down the path, until—
“Look!” Frankie did her mega-thrill, over-the-top acting voice and stopped dead on the path.
We all crashed into each other, and somehow Fliss ended up at the front – so she saw the trail of blood before Lyndz or Rosie. And she screamed…
I think the rest of us were as frightened by Fliss’s scream as she was frightened by the blood. I know my heart gave a huge walloping leap inside my chest, and I heard Lyndz gasp beside me. When someone really truly screams for real, it’s not a nice noise at all – it’s really scary! And then Fliss turned and she ran back into the house, and of course we all tore after her.
If it had been me I think I’d have headed straight for the grown-ups, but Fliss didn’t – luckily for us. She zoomed up to Emma’s room, and when we got there she was shaking all over and trying to stuff her pyjamas into her bag.
“Fliss, what are you doing?” I asked.
She looked up, and her face was a horrible colour – completely grey-green. “I want to go home,” she said. “I saw blood all over your path! I want my mum! I’m scared!”
I looked at Frankie, and Frankie looked at me. “I’m really sorry, Fliss,” I said. “It wasn’t blood – it was just raspberry juice from Frankie’s pudding.”
“It melted when we were shut outside,” Frankie said. “And it seemed a pity to waste it all – so we trailed it round the path.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t blood?” Fliss still looked like a frightened rabbit, but at least she’d stopped shaking. She’d stopped trying to pack her pyjamas, too.
I suddenly remembered what Dad had told me about people who’d had a terrible fright. You should keep them warm, and if there’s no chance of them having any kind of internal injury, you should give them a warm drink.
“Hang on!” I said. “Frankie, put my duvet round Fliss!” and I rushed off downstairs.
Molly and Mum were just finishing eating, and Dad had made a pot of tea. Just the thing!
“Can I take a cup of tea up to Fliss?” I said. “She’s – she’s a bit cold.”
“I thought I heard you go outside,” Mum said. “Don’t go out again, though – it’s getting dark now.”
I wondered why they hadn’t heard Fliss scream. The noise was still ringing inside my head. Probably Molly had been bleating on about some boring thing she was doing at school – or maybe they thought it was on the TV. I could hear it mumbling away in the sitting room.
I poured out the tea, shoved in a big spoonful of sugar, and got out of the door as fast as I could before anyone asked me any awkward questions.
Upstairs, Fliss was much better. She was wrapped up in my duvet, and Lyndz was fussing round her in just the way Fliss likes best. She drank the tea, and her face went back to its normal colour.
“It’s a good thing we didn’t have time to make a body!” Frankie said cheerfully. “Fliss would have had a hundred fits then!”
“Mum says I’m very sensitive,” Fliss said, sounding really pleased about it. Then she shivered again. “The blood did look real, though!”
“I never got a chance to see it properly,” Rosie said in a disappointed voice, and that made us all laugh.
There was a knock on the door. “Kitchen’s clear!” Dad said, and we heard him stomping off into my parent’s room. I guessed he was going to get ready for his meeting.
“I say it’s food time!” shouted Lyndz. “Can I go down and put my pizza in the oven first? You lot stay up here for two minutes – I don’t want anyone seeing it until it’s ready!”
We counted one hundred and twenty hippopotamuses to give Lyndz time to sort out her pizza, and then we couldn’t wait any longer. We rushed downstairs to sort out our ghoulish grub. Fliss still seemed to be suffering from shock, and she jumped a mile when Rosie dropped a spoon. I wished she’d get back to normal soon. I was feeling a little guilty that we’d scared her half to death!
When Lyndz finally pulled the pizza out of the oven we all gasped again. Usually Frankie is the one who makes pizzas – her dad is famous for them – and Lyndz’s pizza wasn’t fab in the way Frankie’s are. But it was fabulously gross. For a start it was green – a muddy, been buried for ages sort of green. It was folded over in half, so the two edges looked a bit like horrible ghoulish lips… and there were fingers sticking out! Horrible, drooping, floppy, shiny pink fingers, with oozy blood dribbling out between each of them. (Actually they were sausages, but they really looked like fingers.)
We all shouted yuck! together – it was so brilliant!
We carried all the food upstairs; during sleepovers, we always eat our food in the bedroom – it’s much more fun. The green slime wibbled and wobbled like mad; I’d filled the bowl rather full, but we just about managed not to spill it. At least, not much of it – a little slimed its way out when Rosie tried to open the door with one hand and hold the bowl with the other. It looked as if a large slug had been trying to ooze its way into Emma’s room!
We put the food on the floor, snuggled into our sleeping bags and turned the lights off. Then we pulled out our torches. Have you ever eaten like that? It’s awesome! Although you don’t always see when things get spilt.
“Let’s put our horror tape on!” Frankie suggested.
“Great idea,” I said.
We had to put the light back on to see what we were doing with the stereo, but we turned it off again after I’d pressed Play.
The tape had only been on for a second when Fliss jumped up. “I want the light back on,” she said, scrambling through all the food to the light switch. Then she turned the tape off. “It’s HORRIBLE!” she said, shivering.
Sometimes I think Fliss is the biggest wimp I’ve ever met. We tried everything we could think of, but there was no way we could persuade her to let us put the tape on in the dark. She said she didn’t mind the torches, but no tape. If we wanted the tape she wanted the light on. In the end we gave in. We didn’t play the tape.
The food was some of the best ever. Rosie’s grey spaghetti was kind of chewy, but it didn’t matter. Lyndz said it was a bowl of horror worms and we could only eat them by sucking them up! We took it in turn slurping them out of the bowl and we slurped the slime as well. It was wicked! The pizza didn’t just look awesome, it tasted scrummy, too. We’d saved the cake for the very last. Fliss began to smile a lot more when we got near the time to cut the cake!
“We should each cut a slice and wish,” she said. “Then maybe we won’t have any more bad luck.”
We all agreed that was a great idea, and I handed Fliss the knife. “You go first,” I said, and Fliss held it over the green jelly-worm icing.
