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When we saw each other at Brownies on Thursday, we finally showed each other the cards we had been working on for the Artist’s Badge. Mine was by far the worst, but that was no surprise. The others were good, but as soon as we saw all our cards together, it was obvious who would be holding the sleepover.
For the Artist’s Badge we could design any kind of card. Frankie, Fliss, Lyndz and I had just made ordinary birthday cards. Rosie had made a special ‘Happy Tenth Birthday Sleepover Club’ card, complete with a badge.
Coo-ell!
“Wow, Rosie. That’s brilliant!” I said.
“You’re bound to win! Yours is the best card by miles,” said Frankie.
“Thanks very much!” said Fliss.
Frankie ignored her.
“Why don’t we just agree that the tenth birthday sleepover will be at Rosie’s place?”
Lyndz and I nodded. But Fliss wasn’t having that.
“You said that we would ask the Tester to judge the cards,” she moaned. “So that’s what we should do. She might like something different.”
“Like yours you mean?” I asked.
“Maybe,” said Fliss.
When we saw who was testing us for our Artist’s Badge, we realised why Fliss had been so keen to wait for her opinion. It was Sally Davies, Snowy Owl’s best friend. And as I’m sure you remember, Snowy Owl is none other than Fliss’s auntie, Jill!
We’d had to do other things for the badge, besides our card. We’d had to design a pattern in three colours and paint or draw a picture. As well as the card, I’d made a bookmark. (I’d painted fluorescent squiggles on it with some of Molly’s special paint. She wasn’t very happy about that. One-nil!)
Sally looked at all our things separately, then all the Brownies who were taking the badge had to sit at a table together and draw a vase of flowers. I went for the big and colourful look, the others copied what they saw. But that’s art isn’t it? Everybody looks at things differently.
Sally seemed pleased with everybody’s work. She complimented me on my ‘bold’ style, which sent Frankie into hysterics. When Sally had signed all our forms to say that we had gained the Artist’s Badge, Frankie explained about our cards and about the competition we were holding.
“Would you just tell us which card is the best?” she asked.
We’d laid them all out on the table, so it wasn’t obvious who had made each one. Although of course she had seen them before and could probably remember.
“I’m not sure that picking out one from the rest is a good idea girls,” said Snowy Owl. “You know that everybody’s work is as valuable as everybody else’s.”
We all rolled our eyes to the ceiling.
“No really Auntie Jill, we want Sally to choose,” explained Fliss. “We can’t decide where to hold our next sleepover, and whoever made the best card gets to hold it at her house. So you see, we really need her help.”
Frankie and I nearly cracked up when she said ‘Auntie Jill’ in that sweet way of hers. She was obviously trying to influence Sally’s decision.
“Alright then,” said Sally, picking up all the cards and looking at them very carefully. “I think you’ve all done a fantastic job. But I have to say that this one really stands out because it’s so different.”
She picked up Rosie’s card.
“Putting the badge on there was a very clever idea.”
We all patted Rosie on the back. All except Fliss, who scowled at Snowy Owl.
So we finally knew that our tenth birthday sleepover was going to be held at Rosie’s house, and that was pretty cool. Not only does she have a humungous house with about a million rooms, but her mum is really great, really young and trendy and a real laugh. The best bit though, is that we can actually write on Rosie’s bedroom walls!
I really thought that once we knew where the birthday sleepover was going to be held all our problems were over. How wrong can you be! They were only just beginning!
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You know the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, where the guy has two completely different personalities? Well that was Rosie as soon as she knew that the birthday sleepover was going to be at her place. She was like some power-crazed monster. No one had ever seen her like that before. And I’m certainly not in a hurry to see her like that again.
We all met up at the shops in Cuddington on the Saturday after Brownies. They’re easy for us all to get to, apart from Lyndz who lives a little bit further out than the rest of us. And our parents are quite happy for us to go there by ourselves. You know what parents are like! Always worrying about something. But at least they know we’re safe there. Apart from the threat of Fliss driving us all crazy by telling us about some great earrings she’s just seen, and the cool nail varnish she ‘just has to have’. P-lease!
We always meet on the same bench outside the newsagents. Rosie was the last to arrive. When she did appear, she was carrying a mountain of paper.
“What on earth have you got there?” asked Lyndz.
“Plans for the sleepover. Is next Saturday alright?” asked Rosie, flopping down next to us.
“Now, let me just consult my diary,” I said, pretending to flick through some imaginary pages. “Let me see. Next Saturday you say? Hmm. I think I can squeeze you in!”
“Sounds good to me!” said Lyndz.
“Fine by me,” agreed Frankie.
“So we’ve got a week to sort the presents out!” said Fliss. The rest of us groaned.
From the pile she was carrying, Rosie pulled out four invitations. Pinned to each one was a copy of the badge she’d made for Brownies.
“Cool!” we all gasped.
“Adam did these on the computer for me. I thought it would be nice if we could all wear one for the sleepover,” she seemed very pleased with herself. “All you’ve got to do is cut them out and make them into a badge. Is that OK?”
“Yep, I think even we can manage that!” I laughed, pulling a face at Frankie.
“Now,” said Rosie, reading from one of her larger sheets of paper. “What I thought was: arrive at 5pm, put things in my room until 5.15pm, games outside until 6.15pm, make-up and hair, (possibly a fashion show if we can fit it in) until 7pm, food until 7.45pm, Twister until 8.15pm, then disco until mum sends us to bed, which she says will be about 10pm – if we’re lucky! Washing and undressing until 10.30pm, giving out presents until 11pm, then midnight feast. Everybody OK with that?”
We were all sitting round with our jaws scraping the pavement. Was this girl for real? This was more like a military exercise than a sleepover. It was supposed to be fun for goodness sake!
“Erm, Rosie, I think you’ve forgotten one thing,” I said very seriously.
“No, I can’t have. I was up all night planning this. What have I forgotten?” she said, furiously reading through her timetable.
“What about toilet breaks?” I giggled. “I mean what if we need to go to the loo in the middle of the outdoor games? Should you plan for us to all to go together just to be on the safe side? Then we won’t mess up your timetable.”
“Like at school you mean?” Rosie looked very thoughtful. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll see where I can fit it in.” The rest of us cracked up. Even Fliss knew that I was joking and Fliss has a sense of humour the size of a pea.
“And I’m not sure about the beginning bit,” said Lyndz. Rosie flicked through her notes. “You mean ‘arrive at 5pm put things in my room at 5.15pm?’ What’s wrong with that?”
“Well what if one of us is late? Or it takes us longer to get our stuff sorted out?” asked Lyndz.
“Yes and where are we going to put the presents so the others can’t see them?” asked Fliss.
“Oh no!” gasped Rosie. “I’ve got to do some more planning. But you can’t be late. You just can’t be. It’ll mess everything up if you are!” She looked as though she was going to cry.
“Don’t you think you’re taking this a bit seriously?” asked Frankie gently.
“I just want it all to be perfect, what’s wrong with that?” snapped Rosie. “It’s not just any old sleepover. It’s our tenth birthday sleepover and I want to make sure we’ll all remember it.”
She was certainly right about that. I don’t think any of us will ever forget it!
“Is there anything you want us to bring?” I asked. “Stopwatches, so we don’t run over time? Running shoes so we can sprint from one thing to another?”
“Party clothes? Balloons? Cuddly toy?” asked Frankie.
“What about the cake?” asked Fliss. “We’ve got to have a cake.”
Rosie began to search frantically through all her sheets of paper.
“The cake!” she shrieked. “How could I forget about the cake?”
It was a bit sad really, seeing her get so upset.
“Don’t worry. We could buy one,” I suggested.
“We’ve no money,” Lyndz reminded me.
“Well let’s make one then!” Frankie said.
Now the Sleepover Club are not exactly the greatest bakers in the world. In fact, we are a total disaster in the kitchen.
“Is that a good idea?” asked Fliss. Her mum never lets her loose in their gleaming white kitchen. Not after we nearly burnt the place down anyway.
“Sure it is!” said Lyndz very confidently. “My mum’s a mean cook. She’ll give us a hand. She likes getting the chance to do stuff like that. She’s always complaining that my brothers aren’t interested in anything domestic. And neither am I, usually.”
“We’ll have to do it before next Saturday,” Rosie reminded her. “Is that OK?”
“No probs,” said Lyndz. “I’ll ask mum when I get back this afternoon and give you a ring. You can all come over to my place and we’ll have a girlie afternoon in the kitchen!”
Now I don’t know about you, but cooking isn’t really my thing. Eating, yes. Cooking, no way. But what could I do? I couldn’t let my friends down now, could I? So when Lyndz rang that evening to say that we could all go there on the Friday before the sleepover to bake the cake, well how could I refuse?
Anyway, before that I had other things on my mind – like what to give Fliss for her stupid sleepover birthday present!
I know that this sounds really mean, but I really resented having to spend my pocket money on something which Fliss would like for five minutes and then throw away. She’s like that is Fliss. She has to have all the latest fashions she sees in magazines, then when the next thing comes along, she forgets how desperate she was for this skirt, or that pair of trainers, and she wants something else. Frankie reckons that I’m jealous, but it’s not that. I’ll be quite happy wearing my Leicester City football shirt until I die. I don’t like frills and sequins like Fliss. And I don’t really care how I look.
I know it sounds really petty, but I didn’t want to buy her the earrings that she liked, just because she’d hinted that she wanted them. That would have felt like she’d won. I was determined to give her something different. And I wanted to make it myself, just to prove that I could.
I rummaged about under my bed. I was bound to find something useful there. I found piles of old football magazines, a couple of stinky socks which didn’t match, a baby’s dummy (I have no idea where that came from) and a length of clear plastic tubing. I couldn’t remember where I’d found the tubing, it was just something that I thought might come in useful one day!
I didn’t think Fliss would be very impressed by hand puppets made out of the socks. And I wasn’t going to sacrifice my football magazines for anybody. I picked up the tubing. It was so long that I could use it as a skipping rope. It was ages since I’d skipped. It was pretty cool!
“Watch it! You’ll go through the floor!” snarled Molly-the-Monster as she came into the room. “What is that anyway?”
“Plastic tubing,” I said showing it to her.
She wrapped it around her waist, then draped it around her neck.
“What do you want it for?” she asked, looking at herself in the mirror.
“Dunno. Something,” I shrugged.
“If you decide you don’t want it, I’ll have it,” she said, and slammed the door behind her as she went out.
That settled it. If Molly thought that the tubing was worth having, then I was going to keep it for Fliss’s present.
I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it though. I had some glitter left from the card I’d made for my Artist’s Badge. I held the tubing so there was only a short length, and poured some glitter into it. It looked brilliant, even if I say so myself. It was exactly the kind of thing that Fliss loves. So that’s when I decided to make her some glittery bracelets for her present.
When I had finished, I was well pleased with my efforts. Even Fliss should be kind of impressed. And no way would she ever suspect me of making the bracelets.
So then there was a long boring week until the Friday when we all met up again at Lyndz’s for the great birthday cake bake. And what an event that turned out to be.
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If I’m honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the cooking party at Lyndz’s. I enjoy being with the others and everything. And Lyndz’s mum is great. It’s just cooking! You know what I’m saying?
Frankie had organised which cake ingredients we should each take to Lyndz’s. I had the huge responsibility of providing the flour.
“You do know that it’s self-raising flour we need, don’t you Kenny?” Frankie asked over the phone.
“You mean it can lift itself off the shelf, all by itself?” I asked really innocently.
“You are joking, right?” she asked.
“Of course I am, dummy!” I laughed. “I may not be into baking, but I think I know what kind of flour we need for a cake!”
So, on Friday afternoon, I arrived at Lyndz’s armed with a bag of flour. I thought that at least if things got really bad, I could make flour bombs with it. Although I don’t think Lyndz’s mum would have been too thrilled about that.
I was the last to arrive. The others were already in the kitchen with their hair tied back and their pinnies on. Aw, sweet!
“Here she is! Our vital ingredient!” laughed Lyndz’s mum when she saw me.
“That’s me!” I said. “You can’t do anything without Laura McKenzie!”
I put the bag of flour down on the work surface next to the butter, the sugar, the icing sugar and the eggs.
“Have you got an apron?” Lyndz’s mum asked me. The others spluttered with laughter.
“Kenny? Wearing an apron? You must be joking!”
“I hope you don’t spoil your football shirt,” said Lyndz’s mum seriously.
