Sleepover Girls Go Wild!

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“Look, we’re there!” I said hastily, to distract her. “Come on, everyone!”

And so we forgot about snakes’ eating habits for a while. But boy, if we’d known what we’d started, we would have turned round and gone home then and there.

Animal World was all based around this one big house called Clifford Towers, with animal enclosures in the grounds and a teashop and gift shop. There were deer out in the fields around the house, and there was even a moat!

We ran around all morning like crazy. The apes in the Monkey House, swinging through trees on ropes and chattering among themselves were just like a bunch of old men. The otters in their pool, spinning around and swimming like Olympic champions were totally ACE. And the Bird House was full of the most incredible tweeting and whirring of brightly coloured wings – and I could understand how Rosie wanted to fly.

Now Dad had popped off to the gift shop to find a present for Mum, and we were left on our own in front of the Spider House, with strict instructions to meet him for lunch at one at the cafeteria.

“So,” said Kenny, flexing her fingers with a wolfish grin. “Who’s going in, then?”

“No WAY!” I said anxiously. “Not me.”

“What if a million spiders were chasing you, would you go in then?” asked Rosie curiously. What a question!

“I don’t suppose they’ll be as bad as snakes,” said Fliss reluctantly.

“Come on!” said Kenny. “Frankie, don’t be such a wimp!”

“Yes, come on Frankie,” coaxed Lyndz. “They’ll be behind glass and everything, it’ll be fine!”

I fixed everyone with a ferocious glare. “Not in a squillion YEARS,” I said firmly.

Kenny started to cluck, ever so softly. “Cluck… cluck… cluck…”

“Kenny, don’t start!” I warned her.

“Cluck… CLUCK!”

Arachnophobia or not, if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s being called a chicken. I took the most HUMUNGOUS breath.

“OK, OK! Let’s do it – fast!”

With a whoop, we all charged through the doors before I had a chance to change my mind.

Everything was very dark. Suddenly, I felt totally twitchy, thinking of all those beady little spider eyes watching me, all those horrible hairy legs flexing, ready to—

“AiEEEEEE!” I yelled. Something was tickling my neck! “THERE’S A TARANTULA ON ME!”

“WAAAAHH!” screamed the others.

And we all tumbled out of the other side of the Spider House as fast as our legs would carry us!

“Wha… what…” began Kenny, panting. Even she had got spooked!

“I… I…” I was having difficulty breathing, leaning against a bit of fencing. “I… felt it, I felt a spider on me!”

“Uurrrghh!” screeched Rosie and Lyndz, clutching each other and giggling hysterically.

“Er, where’s Fliss?” said Kenny, getting her breath back.

We looked round at the Spider House.

“Do you think that spider got her?” said Lyndz fearfully.

We held our breath, imagining Fliss with a spider’s fangs sunk into her neck – when out she strolled, like she had all the time in the world.

We gawped at her.

“What…” Even Kenny was having difficulty believing her eyes. “Fliss?”

I found my voice at last. “Fliss, why didn’t you come running out with us all? Didn’t you hear me scream?”

Fliss grinned, pink with delight. “Oh yes. I heard it. I never thought tickling the back of your neck would produce such amazing results, though!”

There was a moment of stunned silence – and then we all jumped on her.

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“Man, that was a seriously good joke,” said Kenny admiringly, as we lay back on the grass verge with our ice-creams. “Imagine old Flissy coming up with a joke like that! You even had me going there for a second.”

“More than a second!” spluttered Lyndz. “Kenz, you were peeing your pants!”

“I’m pretty good at practical jokes, aren’t I?” beamed Fliss. “There was this one time…”

And off she went, rambling on about an April Fool trick she’d pulled when she’d swapped the sugar for the salt at the breakfast table and made her little brother Callum cry. Oh-oh! It was never a good idea to congratulate Fliss on anything. One sniff of a compliment and she was OFF!

But good old Kenny came to the rescue, as only Kenny knows how.

“Yeah, well,” she said, interrupting Fliss in the middle of her story. “Making a little kid cry isn’t much to be proud of, is it?”

And Fliss shut up instantly. Re-SULT!

I hadn’t been that impressed with Fliss’s so-called “joke”, to be honest. Well, how would you have felt if you thought your worst nightmare was coming true? And what if I’d had a heart condition?

Suddenly I had a wicked idea.

“So it’s the Snake House next, is it?” I asked casually.

I watched Fliss’s face with interest. I never knew a face could go from pink to green so fast.

“After all,” I added, “as I went in the Spider House, the least you can do is go in the Snake House, Fliss.”

Rosie caught on. “It’s only fair, Fliss,” she said. “You gave Frankie a serious fright in there. Maybe you should let her do the same to you!”

“Oh no!” squealed Fliss. “Not those horrible slimy things!”

I jumped to my feet. “Come on,” I said coaxingly. “I’m not going to play a trick, honest. I just think we should see them, that’s all.”

Somehow, we got Fliss to the Snake House. And double somehow, we got her through the doors. There was loads of heavy tropical foliage in there, airy glass cages with plaques that read things like “Boa Constrictor, Brazil” and “Boomslang, East Africa” – and snakes coiled up in the branches. I didn’t need to play a trick on Fliss. Just seeing her face was revenge enough!

Kenny fanned herself. “Blimey, it’s hot in here, isn’t it?”

“That’s because the snakes need to keep warm,” said a voice behind us. We swung round, to see a man with lots of curly brown hair grinning at us. His Animal World badge said “Jack”, so I guess that was his name. “They are cold-blooded, you see.”

“Cold-blooded and murderous,” Rosie whispered naughtily in Fliss’s ear.

Fliss looked like she was about to run for it. I soooo love Rosie!

“You mean like, evil?” asked Kenny, looking all keen at the idea.

“No!” Jack grinned, taking off his gloves. “Cold-blooded means they don’t have an inside radiator like you guys. When they get cold, these snakes can freeze solid!”

“Best thing for them,” muttered Fliss.

“What do you do here?” asked Lyndz shyly.

“I’m a snake handler,” said Jack.

He sounded dead casual, but – man! What a scary job! I think we all gulped more than a teensy bit!

“You handle them?” gasped Fliss, taking a step back from him as if he was covered in gruesome snake slime.

Jack shrugged. “It’s no big deal, honest,” he said. “They aren’t interested in eating me!”

Kenny looked enthusiastic. “What are they interested in eating, then? I heard they ate live animals.”

Lyndz gasped and looked distressed, but Jack didn’t notice.

“Yeah,” he said cheerfully. “In their natural habitat, the big ones eat wild pigs and goats and things, when they can catch them. You’d be surprised! But we feed them more regularly on smaller mammals here, like rats and rabbits.”

“Not rabbits!” said Lyndz furiously, stepping out from beside me. “That’s horrible!”

Jack looked at Lyndz sympathetically. “Not to the snakes, it isn’t,” he said. “They need to eat, just like you and I do.”

“But—” Lyndz started to say.

“Cool!” Kenny butted in, oblivious to how upset Lyndz was. “So do they eat them reeeeally slowly, or swallow them in one—”