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“So?” I said.
“Well, grey ears might stop her winning the Pet Show,” said Lyndz.
“Hmm,” I said. “I can’t see High-Jumping Dog winning either.” That’s what we sometimes call Lyndz’s dog, Buster.
He’s got these stumpy little legs, but he can jump up and reach a Smacko even when Lyndz holds it high over her head. It’s as if he’s got spring-loaded feet. And when he walks he looks like a little clockwork toy.
“I suppose he is a bit wild,” Lyndz giggled.
“Jenny’s our best hope of winning,” said Kenny. “Even though she’s a mongrel.”
Rosie didn’t like Kenny calling Jenny a mongrel. “She’s mostly sheepdog,” she said. “She can do all sorts of tricks and she’s brilliant with Adam.”
Adam is Rosie’s brother, he’s in a wheelchair.
For ages Rosie wouldn’t let us go to her house and, like idiots, we thought it was because she felt embarrassed about Adam. Then we found out it was nothing to do with Adam, she was embarrassed because her house was such a tip. Actually, it’s not really a tip; it just needs decorating. Now she lets us go round all the time.
Adam can’t walk and he can’t talk because he’s got cerebral palsy, I think that’s how you spell it. It means his brain was damaged when he was born, but he’s such a laugh. He loves jokes and playing tricks on Rosie. For instance, all their doors swing both ways, so that he can push through in his wheelchair. So he goes through in front of her and then lets it go with his feet so it whips back fast and nearly knocks her over.
Jenny, their dog, seems to know exactly what Adam wants even though he can’t talk. She brings him things. And she plays football with him.
Adam’s mad about football. He can’t use his hands because…I don’t know why, they sort of jerk about and he can’t stop them. But he can kick a football and Jenny runs after it and brings it back. She’s so clever.
Some days, after school, Rosie brings Jenny to the park, where I walk Pepsi. They love playing together and it seems really mean to me just having one dog. I’m an only child so I know how that feels! I’ve tried telling my mum and dad, but they seem to go deaf whenever I get onto that subject.
But at least I’ve got a dog. Fliss had no pet to take, as she kept on reminding us.
“It’s just not fair, I’m sick of hearing about pet shows.”
Sometimes Fliss is a real moaner. I call her the Mona Lisa.
“At least we’ve all got one thing to look forward to,” I reminded her. “Tomorrow’s our first sleepover at Rosie’s.”
“Humph,” Fliss grunted. “It’s the night before the Pet Show, so I know what’ll happen: you’ll be talking about it all night and leaving me out.”
“No, we won’t,” Rosie promised.
“If you like, we won’t even mention the word pets,” I said.
“Do you promise?” she said, satisfied at last.
The others nodded and made the Brownie promise, but in fact we needn’t have bothered, because the next day Rosie had her brainwave about Gazza, the class hamster. And in the end he came to the sleepover too.
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It was Friday, the day before the Pet Show and the day of the sleepover at Rosie’s. Kenny and Lyndz had spent the dinner hour cleaning out Gazza’s cage. It was their turn on the rota. If you’re thinking that Gazza’s a dumb name for a hamster, well, it is. The boys in our class chose it. We wanted Cuddles, but we were outvoted.
Fliss had started up again about how unfair everything was. So Rosie said, “Fliss, if your mum won’t let you have a pet of your own, why don’t you ask her if you can take Gazza home one weekend?”
Fliss looked doubtful but everyone else thought it was a great idea.
“Yeah. Neat,” said Kenny. “What about this weekend?”
I jumped down to check the rota to see whose turn it was, in case it was someone who might swap with Fliss. “Uh, oh,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s Alana Banana.”
Mrs Weaver walked in just then and gave me one of her looks. She doesn’t like us calling each other names, but that is what we call her: Alana Banana Palmer.
“I was just saying, it’s Alana’s turn to take Gazza home this weekend,” I said.
Alana looked up surprised to hear her name, then she went bright pink. She said she’d forgotten to tell Mrs Weaver she couldn’t take him, because they were going away for the weekend. I think Alana’s really dippy. Mrs Weaver tutted, you could tell she thought so too.
“OK, now we have a problem.”
But before anyone else had time to volunteer Emma Hughes pushed to the front.
“That’s alright, Mrs Weaver, I’ll take him,” she said.
“Are you sure, Emma?”
She nodded and gave her one of those stoopid sickly smiles she does which make us really mad.
“Oh, yes. It isn’t a problem. Mummy won’t mind.”
But then, suddenly, without asking Fliss about it, Kenny said, “Fliss would like to take him, Mrs Weaver. She’s never had a chance before. Emma’s taken him lots of times.” Emma Hughes gave Kenny such a look but Kenny ignored her.
“Is that true, Felicity?” Mrs Weaver asked. Fliss went pink, but she nodded.
“Do you need to check with your mum?”
Fliss looked doubtful for a moment but Kenny gave her a dig in the ribs. “Oww! No, I think it’ll be OK.”
“Good. Well, I’m sure Emma doesn’t mind if Felicity has a turn,” said the teacher, turning round to find the register. “That seems only fair.”
The look on the M&Ms’ faces was too good to miss. We stood in a row and smiled back at them as if butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths, as my gran says.
“Everyone sit down now,” said the teacher. We went back to our table feeling really pleased with ourselves.
“Yeah. One-nil!” said Kenny. “That showed those M&Ms.”
But Fliss was already looking worried. “I don’t know why you made me say that,” she hissed at Kenny. “I’ll be in real doom when my mum finds out.”
That was when Rosie made her great offer: “Don’t worry. You can bring him to my house, if you like. You can play with him there and you won’t feel so left out.”
“Honest?” said Fliss, she couldn’t believe her ears. “Won’t your mum mind?”
“No,” said Rosie. “It’ll be fine.”
Fliss started to grin. “You’re my best friend ever!” she told Rosie.
“Oh, please,” I said. Kenny rolled her eyes, Rosie went bright red.
Then Fliss hugged her, which made her even redder. Rosie’s still a bit shy of us. She’s quite new to our club. She only moved into Cuddington last summer and into our class when we came back after the summer holidays. At first she seemed a bit of a sad case, but then we found out why.
Rosie’s dad had left them a few weeks after they moved in, because he’d met someone else. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d started to do the house up but then just left them in the middle of it. It looked a bit like a building site, really.
That’s why Rosie wouldn’t let us sleepover at hers, because everywhere was in a mess, especially her bedroom. We kept telling her it didn’t matter and in the end she changed her mind. She gave us these neat invitations. Adam did them for her on his computer. I’ve still got mine. Do you want to see it?
I was really looking forward to it because Rosie’s house is ever so big with lots of rooms. Some of them are only used for storing stuff, which means loads of places to hide and make dens. It’s magic. In fact I couldn’t decide which I was more excited about: the Pet Show or the sleepover. Now we’d got the hamster to cheer Fliss up, we were all looking forward to it.
But we might have known the M&Ms would have to go and spoil everything.
We were sitting in our places, supposed to be practising for a spelling test. Suddenly something dive-bombed our table and landed in Kenny’s lap. We knew straight away where it had come from. We looked over and saw the dreaded M&Ms giggling to themselves. It was one of their letters.
When we’re at war with them they send us the meanest letters they can think of. So we send them nasty letters back. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? They print them on the computer so we can’t recognise their writing, which is a bit pointless because we know very well it’s them and they know very well it’s us writing back.
Kenny started to unfold it.
“What does it say?” Fliss squeaked.
“Give me a chance.” She smoothed it out and read it aloud to us. “To our enemies. We are watching you. Don’t think you’ll get away with this. We have put a spell on you. Goodbye forever, Horrible Stinkers.”
“What a cheek!” said Lyndz. “We don’t stink.”
“Right,” I said, “after the spelling test we’ll ask to go on the computer.”
While Mrs Weaver was busy hearing readers, we wrote back to them:
Dear Ugly Mugs,
We hope you both slip down a drain or
fall in a bowl of sick. There’s no way
you will win tomorrow. We’ll make sure
of that. Have a horrible day, Poshfaces.
It’s funny really, because that is what happened. Not the bit about them falling down the drain or in a bowl of sick, but about them not winning. When we wrote it we didn’t have a plan or anything. It was just one of those things you say. And then, when we met them on the way home from school, we said it again. Afterwards we wished we hadn’t, because it all turned out to be true.
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But hang on, before I tell you about that, let’s look for Pepsi in the park, there’s a few bushes she likes digging around. I can’t see her anywhere yet, can you?
Oh, blow. Not a sign. Now where can we try?
I know: the other place she likes is the canal. I’m not allowed to go there on my own, but Dad and I often walk her there. We could go as far as the bridge next to the pub, you can see a long way down on to the towpath from there.
Come on and I’ll tell you what happened next.
By the time we’d collected up all Gazza’s bits and pieces, we were a bit late leaving school. Rosie put Gazza into his carrying cage and then we helped her carry everything round to her house. We were already loaded down with PE kit, lunchboxes, and school bags. So we must have looked like a travelling circus when we came round the corner of Mostyn Avenue, which is a couple of roads away from Welby Drive, where Rosie lives. Walking towards us were the gruesome M&Ms and who do you think was with them? Only Ryan Scott and Danny McCloud, two horrible boys from our class. That was all we needed.
“Oh, look, it’s the Famous Five,” said Emma Hughes.
“Which one’s the dog?” said Ryan Scott. He thinks he’s so funny.
“Ruff, ruff. Here, girls,” shouted Danny McCloud, “fetch a stick.” And he broke a whole branch off a tree by the side of the road and threw it at us. Good job for him he missed.
“Oh, very clever,” I said. But they’d both started now, whistling and calling us good dogs and silly things like that. Fliss looked like a boiled beetroot with embarrassment. Fliss actually likes Ryan Scott; she says she wants to marry him! She is so weird.
We just kept on walking, pretending we couldn’t hear them, but they followed us.
“Dogs are supposed to be kept on a lead,” shouted Ryan Scott.
“I’ve got a good idea,” said Emma Hughes, “they could enter each other for the Pet Show. That way they might win.”
“Well, you’re not gonna win, that’s for sure,” said Kenny.
“That’s what you think,” said The Goblin.
“That’s what we know,” said Rosie.
“And how are you going to stop us?” said The Queen.
“Don’t you worry, we have our ways,” I said, mysteriously.
We all smiled at each other, as if we’d got this big secret that they knew nothing about. We walked off down the road.
“What ways?” Emma Hughes shouted after us.
“You’ll find out,” Kenny called back to her. Then we carried on down the road trying to ignore the fact that those two stupid dodos were still whistling us to come and the gruesome M&Ms were giggling at them as if they were the funniest things on legs.
Fliss turned to Kenny, “How are we going to stop them?”
Kenny shrugged. “Don’t ask me,” she said, “ask Frankie.”
I shrugged too. I had no idea either. But, we’d got them worried and that was almost as good.
When we reached Rosie’s, she was right, her mum didn’t mind about Gazza.
“What difference can a hamster make?” she said. “It’ll be enough of a madhouse with all you girls round.” But she smiled, so we knew she was only kidding.
We were all so excited to be sleeping over at a different house, we raced off home to get our things packed. “See you at seven,” Rosie called after us. “Don’t be late.”
When I got home I gave Pepsi an extra good brush and clean up and told Mum and Dad they’d better keep her like that.
“Don’t let her roll in anything on her walk tonight,” I warned them.
“Yes, boss,” said Dad. “Any more orders while you’re away?”
