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She pointed. Just in front of the woman selling ice-creams, there did appear to be someone who looked suspiciously like Molly. And she was sitting with a couple of girls I recognised from her class.
“Come on!” I urged Frankie, and I started picking my way through the crowds towards them.
“Are you going to have a word with her?” asked Frankie, following me.
“Yeah, you could say that!” I smirked.
I’d had this great plan. I was going to embarrass her in front of the whole circus, and particularly in front of her stupid mates. It was obvious that Molly still hadn’t spotted me, so I got down on all fours and crawled along the empty row of seats at the back of her. And as I crawled, I planned what to do. Making her jump wouldn’t be enough. I’d have to do something really loud to attract the maximum attention.
Then it hit me. What is Molly always boring us at home with? You’ve guessed it. When I was immediately behind her I stood up and yelled at the top of my voice:
“EDWARD MARSH!”
The whole place went silent. Then a voice piped up.
“Yes! Who wants me?”
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Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I hadn’t actually expected Edward Marsh to be there, I’d just wanted to embarrass Molly by shouting out his name!!
Someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“I said, who wants me?” the same boy’s voice addressed me coolly.
I turned round – and found my face covered in ice-cream.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” smirked this blond creep of a boy, holding a more than slightly splodged cone. “It must have slipped!”
Molly was sitting back on her seat again and was spluttering with laughter. “Ignore my stupid sister, Edward,” she said, flashing a creepy smile at the boy. “She must have a personality disorder!”
“At least I’ve got a personality!” I snarled back, wiping ice-cream off my cheeks.
“Who was that boy?” squealed Fliss when we came back again. “Babe or what? Er, Kenny – did you know you had ice-cream on your face?”
That was the last thing I needed, everybody thinking Molly had got some dreamboat boyfriend.
“He’s a moron!” I snapped. “Just like my stupid sister.”
I was seething inside, and my face was still sticky from the ice-cream. I wished I’d never come to this stupid circus in the first place.
I held that thought for precisely thirty seconds, because once the performers started doing their stuff again, I was totally entranced. There were people spinning plates and people on stilts and people who combined the two. There were unicyclists who went up and down ramps, and one who even rode on the tightrope!
But the most amazing were the trapeze artists. They were so elegant and graceful, but all the time you knew that one false move and they could be dead. We all cheered like mad when they came down and took their bow, even Fliss, and she hadn’t seen any of their act because she’d had her hands in front of her eyes all the time.
But I think my favourite act was the clowns. They were just sooo funny. We all still had tears streaming down our faces as we were driving home.
“That was the best birthday ever!” grinned Lyndz.
“No kidding!” I agreed. “It’s going to take some beating!”
“Well don’t forget you’ve the tea party to look forward to tomorrow!” Fliss chimed in.
The rest of us looked at each other.
“How much excitement can we handle?”
Frankie mumbled under her breath.
I was home before Molly, because apparently Edward precious Marsh’s parents had taken Molly and the other girls out for a pizza.
I was asleep before Molly came in, and I got up before she did in the morning so I didn’t have to go over the whole Edward Marsh at the circus thing. Although I was sure that she would have told Mum and Dad all about it anyway.
It seemed ages to wait until going to Fliss’s for tea, so I decided to practise a few circus skills. I mean, juggling a few balls couldn’t be that difficult, surely? Well, let me tell you, it’s a lot more difficult than it looks. I started messing about with two tennis balls, just throwing them from hand to hand. Easy-peasy. Then I tried to add a third. It was impossible. I dropped them, I threw them all at the same time, I just couldn’t get the hang of it at all. I was getting really frustrated by the time Mum called me in for lunch.
“You’d better not eat too much if Nikky’s put on a spread for tea,” Mum told me.
“Are you kidding?” I scoffed. “Fliss’s mum will have made a few sandwiches cut into pretty little shapes and some fairy cakes. I wouldn’t even feel full if I ate everything she put out on the table!”
“Let’s hope there’s ice-cream, though,” said Dad dryly. “You like ice-cream, don’t you Laura?”
Mum, Dad, Molly and my older sister Emma all started to laugh. I don’t know what I was madder about – the others making fun of me or Dad using my horrible name. At least they weren’t going to give me a lecture about my behaviour though, which was a result.
“Just try to behave this afternoon, Kenny,” Mum said firmly as she dropped me at Fliss’s. “Nikky’s a bit delicate now that she’s pregnant, and you know what happens when she gets upset.”
Yeah, she goes into a five-star tizz, that’s what – and we didn’t want that at all. Especially as she’s expecting twins. She might go into a ten-star tizz!
So there I was on my best behaviour, and everything seemed to be going well. We all managed to smile and be polite, even when Fliss’s mum made us take off our shoes the minute we walked through the door. We even grinned and entered into the party spirit when she made us play silly children’s games like we were three or something. I mean, it was dead embarrassing sitting there playing Pass the Parcel and Musical Statues. And you couldn’t really tell whether Fliss’s mum was having a laugh or whether she was practising for future birthday parties with the little baby twins. I wasn’t wrong about the tea either.
“Another little sandwich, Kenny?” Fliss’s mum asked, fluttering in front of me with a plate. “Or how about a fairy cake?”
What I really fancied was a jam doughnut, and I’d seen a plate of them on the side. Fliss’s mum must have read my mind because she went to pick up the plate. But then she put it down again.
“No, I think these might be too much after all that other food. We don’t want you being sick, do we?” She gave a little giggle. “Now, are you going to go and play quietly to let your tea settle? No running about, please.”
We all trooped out of the kitchen and into the lounge.
“Will the fun never start?” I whispered in Frankie’s ear.
“Right, what should we do?” said Fliss.
We all sat on the floor in a circle.
“I bet those kids in the circus aren’t just sitting around now,” I said wistfully. “I bet they’re walking the tightrope or something.”
“Yeah, wasn’t that cool!” Frankie agreed. “Wouldn’t it be ace to be able to do something like that? You could impress people wherever you went!”
We were in full discussion about the circus when Fliss’s mum popped her head round the door. She beamed when she saw us sitting down. She probably thought we were playing ‘ring-a-ring-a-rosies’ or something.
“I’m just going upstairs to change the beds. Andy and Callum should be back from the park soon. You will be all right, won’t you?”
“Yes Mum!” Fliss sighed. “I think we’ll manage.”
Her mum pulled a face, then closed the door behind her.
“We could always practise a few circus skills,” I suggested.
Fliss looked horrified.
“I don’t mean tightrope-walking or plate-spinning with your mum’s best china, you idiot!” I said hastily. “What about juggling, or acrobatics? They’re nice and quiet, aren’t they?”
Fliss still didn’t look too sure.
“We’ll be dead quiet, honestly,” I reassured her. “Your mum will never know.”
“Has she got any wool or anything?” suggested Frankie. “We could practise juggling with that and it’ll be silent if we drop it.”
Fliss went upstairs to look for some wool, and the rest of us crept about downstairs. I went into the kitchen, and what should I see first? Yep, the jam doughnuts. My first thought was that I could sneak one to eat – but then I had a brainwave! They were ball-shaped, weren’t they? Perfect for juggling! And they didn’t have that much sugar on them, so they wouldn’t make too much mess if we dropped them. And we could scoff them down before Fliss’s mum reappeared. I mean, she’d obviously bought them for us to eat anyway. Sorted!
I took them back into the lounge, and Rosie appeared with a couple of those plastic plates you take on picnics, a broom and a mop.
“I thought I could practise plate-spinning with these,” she explained. “They won’t break when they fall. Good, eh?”
In the middle of the room, Frankie was trying to walk on her hands, with Lyndz holding her feet.
“’S not as easy as it looks, y’know,” she said in an upside-down garbled voice.
“This is great!” I laughed, taking hold of the doughnuts. “It beats those poxy kids’ games any day of the week!”
I tossed one of the doughnuts into the air a couple of times. Easy-peasy. A bit of sugar sprinkled on to the carpet, but nothing major. I picked up another one and started to throw that as well. When I was comfortable with that, I grabbed the third one and tried to juggle with that too. A doughnut fell to the floor. I tried again. One landed on the sofa.
“OK Kenny, you can do this!” I told myself.
I grabbed the doughnuts and slowly, slowly threw them into the air. And do you know what? I actually started to juggle with them. I couldn’t believe it!
“Hey guys, look at me!” I yelled.
Lyndz stopped to watch, and let go of Frankie’s legs. THUD! Franks tumbled on to the carpet. That kind of made me lose my concentration, so I bumped into Rosie and dropped one of the doughnuts. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if Fliss hadn’t chosen just that moment to come through the door.
“Whaddayadoing?” she shrieked. Then – SQUELCH. She trod on the doughnut.
Well, you would not believe the amount of jam that spurted out of it and shot across the carpet in a red streak. I mean, when you eat a doughnut there never seems to be that much jam in the middle, does there?
Fliss kind of yelped, then went white.
“Mum’s going to kill us!” she squealed.
“It’s not that bad,” I reassured her, and scooped up the jam with my finger.
Unfortunately, the trail of jam now looked worse than ever against the cream carpet.
“I think I can hear someone coming!” hissed Rosie.
I quickly grabbed the other two doughnuts, shoved one in my mouth and the other in the back pocket of my jeans.
“Baaborginagaig!” I commanded, although my mouth was so stuffed with doughnut I couldn’t make myself understood.
The others looked at me blankly. I got down on the floor and did a handstand to show them what I meant, balancing over the jammy stain so that if Fliss’s mum did come in she wouldn’t see it.
“Gotcha! You mean you want us to carry on doing handstands and stuff, don’t you?” Frankie grasped at last. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”
But I was upside down with a mouthful of doughnut, wasn’t I? Not a great place to be in, all in all… I started to splutter, I started to cough, then I started to choke.
“Are you OK, Kenny?” Rosie asked. “You don’t look too good!”
“Come on Kenny, deep breaths!” Lyndz slapped me hard on the back.
I gasped and coughed and the remains of the doughnut sprayed out all over the lounge – and all over Fliss’s mum, who had come in to see what all the noise was about.
It was hard to tell what her first reaction was going to be. She went kind of red, then very, very white. I thought she was going to cry, or maybe collapse with shock. But none of us was prepared for the ear-splitting shriek that eventually burst from her lips.
“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! N-O-O-O-W-W!”
Well, we weren’t going to argue with that! We left the house running, grabbing any old shoes on the way out of the door. We ran down the path and on to the pavement, only stopping when we were well out of sight. Gasping, we exchanged shoes so that somehow we ended up with the right pairs.
“Poor Fliss!” said Frankie at last. “Do you think she’s going to be all right?”
“I hope so,” I murmured.
But I think we all knew then that “The Jam Doughnut Incident” was going to have serious consequences for the Sleepover Club.
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It was pretty obvious to my parents that something was wrong when I arrived home from Fliss’s so early. Plus, Dad was already standing in the hall holding the phone receiver about a mile from his ear. I could hear someone screaming and yelling on the other end. No prizes for guessing who that was! Mum reluctantly took the receiver from Dad and leant against the hall table.
“Hello Nikky, it’s Valerie. I think you’d better start from the beginning.”
The sobs from the other end of the phone quietened a little, and Mum went into her patient-listening mode. I crept up the stairs and sat down near the top. I kind of wanted to know what Fliss’s mum was saying, but I daren’t really go any closer.
After what felt like about six hours, Mum finally put the phone down and had a muted conversation with Dad. Then she called upstairs angrily:
“Laura McKenzie! Get yourself down here, now!”
Oh-oh. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.
As I walked into the lounge, Molly shuffled out, smirking.
“You’re for it now, dog-breath!” she goaded.
