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“No way,” said Fliss.
“No chance,” Rosie added.
“It looks more like a giraffe,” Kenny remarked.
“Oh, great,” I said crossly, crushing my model flat. “Don’t hold back, will you?”
“Your horse looks like it’s been run over by a steamroller, Frankie,” Mrs Weaver said, coming towards us. She raised her eyebrows at the squashed heap of clay in front of me. “What have you been doing for the last hour?”
“Sorry, Miss,” I said quickly. “I just couldn’t get it right.” As my grandma always says, if at first you don’t succeed – give up.
Mrs Weaver glanced at the clock. “Well, you’ve got about ten seconds left before we tidy up, so it’s not worth starting again.” Then she looked at us. We were all wearing overalls, but our hands were caked in clay, plus Lyndz had some in her hair and Kenny still had bits stuck on her face. “I think you’d better go and clean yourselves up too.”
We lobbed our leftover clay into the clay bin, and ran for the sink in the corner. Fliss got there first.
“Ow! Stop pushing!” she complained, as we all tried to elbow our way in front of her.
“Hurry up or I’ll shove a lump of clay down your neck!” Kenny warned.
Fliss jumped round, looking alarmed, and Kenny dodged smartly in front of her and began washing her hands.
“Oh, very funny!” Fliss sniffed.
“At least it wasn’t ice cubes this time!” I pointed out, and we all cracked up, even Fliss. We hadn’t forgotten about the sleepover when we’d tried to make a crazy video to send to You’ve Been Framed. It certainly starred the Sleepover Club, but not quite the way we had intended! The oldies hadn’t forgotten it either, they still went on about it sometimes.
“So what exciting plans have you got for the sleepover at yours tonight, Rosie?” Lyndz asked.
“Well, I thought we could have a fashion show,” Rosie suggested eagerly.
And that’s when Kenny dropped her bombshell.
“Bor-ing!” she said immediately. The rest of us are really into clothes, but Kenny thinks dressing up means wearing her Leicester City football strip. With boots. “Can’t we do something else?”
“Like what?” Rosie asked, looking offended. You know how prickly she can be sometimes.
Kenny shrugged. “I dunno… Something different. We always seem to do the same old things at sleepovers these days.”
We all stared at her with our mouths open.
“Are you saying our sleepovers are no fun any more?” Fliss gasped, outraged.
“Nah, ’course not!” Kenny reached for a paper towel. “Sleepovers are still cool! It’d just be even cooler if we did something different sometimes.”
“Like what?” I asked. “And don’t say we could play football.”
“Well, why not?” Kenny said, and the rest of us groaned loudly. “OK, but what about having a sleepover somewhere else? We only ever go to each other’s houses.”
“What’s wrong with coming to my house tonight?” Rosie began indignantly.
“Nothing, Rosie-posie!” Kenny interrupted, flicking some water at her. It was a great shot. It hit Rosie right in the eye, and she squealed. “But don’t you remember what a brilliant time we had when we slept over at the museum?”
We had to admit, she had a point.
“Well, what did you have in mind?” I asked. “A sleepover in Sainsbury’s, or what?”
“Ha ha, very funny, Francesca,” Kenny began, trying to annoy me by using my full name, but right at that moment Mrs Weaver yelled over the noise: “Everyone in their seats now, please! I’ve got something very important to tell you.”
We all scuttled back to our seats in silence. Kenny’s remark had kind of thrown everyone, including me. Did we always do the same things at our sleepovers? Well, maybe we did, but we still had a great time. At least, I thought we did… No, I knew we did. If Kenny found them boring, it was her problem.
Mrs Weaver was waiting impatiently, glaring at Ryan Scott and Danny McCloud who were still chucking bits of clay at each other.
“Right, I want to tell you about a rather exciting trip that the school has arranged for this year group,” she said, picking up a pile of papers from her desk. “And I have a letter for you to take home to your parents explaining all about it.”
Nobody looked very thrilled. Have you ever noticed that what teachers think is exciting and what we think is exciting are never the same thing?
“The trip will be to the Costa Brava in Spain for one week,” Mrs Weaver went on.
There was a moment’s breathless silence, and then the whole classroom erupted.
“A trip to Spain!” Fliss squealed. “That’ll be brilliant!”
“I’m going!” Kenny said in a determined voice. “I don’t care what I have to do to get my parents to say yes. I’ll even be nice to Molly the Monster, sister from Hell, if I have to!”
“I reckon my mum’ll let me go.” Lyndz beamed all over her face. “Are you up for it, Frankie?”
“Are you kidding?” I gasped. My mum and dad are really boring when it comes to holidays. All we ever do is go to Scotland, or visit my gran in Nottingham or my grandad in Wales. Really interesting and exotic – not! “I’ve never been abroad before, and I really want to go!”
Suddenly Kenny bounced out of her seat with excitement. “Hey, we’ll be able to have a sleepover in Spain! That’ll be even more cool than the sleepover at the museum!”
Well, that just about did it. We were almost wetting ourselves with excitement. Well, not quite all of us. Rosie wasn’t looking very thrilled. In fact, she’d turned a funny pea-green colour.
“What’s biting you, Rosie?” I asked.
“Kenny, will you sit down, please!” Mrs Weaver called. “And be quiet, everyone, so I can give you some more information about the trip before the home bell.”
We all stared hard at Rosie, but we didn’t get a chance to find out what the problem was because Mrs Weaver was giving us one of her looks.
“We’re lucky because we’ve managed to book places at a very special holiday complex,” she continued. “It has a swimming pool, all the usual activities, and it’s right on the Costa Brava coast near the beach. But what makes this place different is that it’s also an exchange centre where school children can come from all over Europe to meet each other…”
Mrs Weaver went droning on about how this was a great chance for us to make friends with kids from other European countries and learn all about each other’s cultures and languages etc, etc, but nobody was listening. We were all too busy grinning at each other and making thumbs-up signs. It sounded totally brilliant. Spain, sun, sea, sand and the Sleepover Club! It was an ace combination. So I just couldn’t understand why Rosie looked like someone was forcing her to spend a wet weekend in Birmingham with the M&Ms.
“Unfortunately, places are strictly limited, and only fifteen of you will be able to go.” Mrs Weaver added, handing round the letters as the bell rang. “So if you’re interested, you’d better bring your consent forms and the deposit to me first thing on Monday morning. Have a good weekend.”
“What about you, Rosie?” Fliss asked anxiously as we picked up our bags. “You are going to come, aren’t you?”
“’Course she is!” Kenny interrupted, flinging her arm round Rosie’s shoulders. “We can’t have a sleepover in Spain unless we’re all there, can we?”
Rosie looked even more miserable. “I don’t think I’ll be able to. There’s no way my mum can afford it.”
We glanced at each other in horror. It just wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t all go.
“Well, what about your dad?” Kenny suggested. “You’re always moaning about how he keeps going off on holiday with his girlfriend, even though he’s promised to take you. I bet he’d be willing to pay for it.”
“I don’t want to ask him,” Rosie muttered, and she turned and hurried out of the classroom before any of us could stop her.
“Well, that’s going to ruin everything,” I said angrily. Of course, the rest of us could still go, but we wouldn’t be able to have a proper sleepover without Rosie, would we?
“Maybe we can talk her into asking her dad at the sleepover tonight,” Lyndz suggested, and we all nodded. We had to do something, and fast, otherwise our dream of a sleepover in Spain would be over before it had even started.
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“Mum!” I yelled as soon as I got home. “Can I go to Spain?”
My mum was working on the computer in her study, and she raised her eyebrows as I charged in, waving the letter.
“Did you say Spain, Frankie?”
“Yeah, there’s a school trip to the Costa Brava!” I gave her the letter, and hopped impatiently from one foot to the other while she read it. “So, can I go?”
“Well, it does look quite interesting,” my mum said thoughtfully. “It says here you’ll get the chance to meet other kids from all over Europe, and learn about each other’s cultures.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I muttered. Bor-ing! That wasn’t what I was interested in. “What d’you reckon then, Mum? Can I go?”
My mum looked at me over the top of her glasses. “I suppose so, if your dad agrees.”
“Yes!” I gave her a big hug. “Thanks, Mum!”
“What about the others? Are they going too?”
“Yep.” I didn’t say anything about Rosie getting her knickers in a twist, because I was pretty sure we’d be able to talk her into asking her dad for the money.
“The poor old Spanish don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for,” my mum remarked, turning back to the computer.
I rushed out into the hall, grabbed the phone and punched in Kenny’s number. I’d be seeing her in an hour or two at Rosie’s, but I couldn’t wait that long to break my good news.
“Hello?”
It sounded like Kenny at the other end of the line, so I started singing loudly: “Oh, this year I’m off to sunny Spain! Y viva España!”
There was a moment’s silence.
“I think it’s Kenny you want to talk to,” Molly the Monster said in a freezing tone. I heard her slam the receiver onto the table and stomp off down the hall. A few seconds later Kenny picked up the phone. She was killing herself laughing.
“What did you say to the Monster, Frankie? She’s got a face on her like a sour lemon!”
“Guess what?” I yelled. “My mum says I can go on the school trip!”
“Cool!” Kenny shouted joyfully. “So can I! And Monster-Features is so green with jealousy, she looks like the Incredible Hulk! Ow! Get off me, Molly!”
I waited impatiently while Kenny and Molly had a fight at the other end of the line.
“Kenny!” I yelled at last. “Get off the phone, ’cos I want to ring Fliss!”
“I’ll ring Lyndz then. Right, Molly, you’re dead!” And Kenny banged down the phone.
“Of course I’m going!” Fliss said when I got through to her. “And so’s Lyndz, I just called her. Now get off the phone ’cos I want to ring Kenny.”
While Fliss was calling Kenny, I phoned Lyndz.
“So we’re all going!” Lyndz said, delighted. “Except Rosie…”
“Well, we’ll just have to try and talk her into it when we go over tonight.” I glanced up at the clock. “Oh, rats, I’m going to be late!”
“So am I!” said Lyndz. “See you soon!”
I raced upstairs and started chucking things into my sleepover bag. Usually I take ages packing my stuff, but tonight I was too excited to care. I couldn’t believe that I was finally getting the chance to go abroad. Fliss was always going on about Tenerife and Florida and Lanzarote and all the places she’d been to, and the others had been on foreign holidays too, so sometimes I felt really left out.
“Toothbrush, diary, membership card, pyjamas, slippers,” I was muttering under my breath, when my mum came in.
“Hold it right there, Frankie,” she said. “Mrs Cartwright has just phoned. Rosie’s not very well, so the sleepover’s off.”
“What?” I bounced off the bed and onto my feet. “But she was fine at school today!”
My mum shrugged and went out, leaving me feeling really suspicious. It was all just a bit too convenient that Rosie was ill when she knew we were probably going to spend the whole sleepover trying to persuade her to come to Spain with us. So I legged it downstairs and phoned Kenny.
“I know – it stinks!” Kenny said when I got through. “I bet there’s nothing wrong with her. I just spoke to Fliss, and she thinks Rosie’s faking it too.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, puzzled. “What’s her problem?”
“I don’t know, but we’re gonna find out!” Kenny said. “I reckon we should all go over there anyway, right now. Can you meet us in half an hour?”
Fliss lived the closest to Rosie, so we decided to meet at her house. The others were already there when my mum dropped me off, and we set off for Rosie’s place immediately.
“I don’t know why Rosie’s being so weird about all this,” Kenny grumbled. “Anyone’d think she didn’t want to go to Spain!”
“There must be a reason why she doesn’t want to ask her dad for the money,” Lyndz pointed out. “Poor old Rosie, I feel—”
“Really sorry for her!” we all chimed in.
“We won’t be able to have a proper sleepover in Spain if Rosie doesn’t come,” Fliss said gloomily, as we went up to the Cartwrights’ front door.
“She’ll come,” Kenny said confidently, ringing the doorbell. “Even if we have to carry her onto the plane ourselves!”
“I really want to learn flamenco dancing,” I remarked. “Do you think we’ll get a chance to have a go while we’re there?”
“That’d be cool!” said Fliss. “I love those big swirly dresses the Spanish dancers wear.”
“Isn’t flamenco dancing difficult?” Lyndz asked.
