The Sleepover Club at the Carnival

скачать книгу бесплатно


“Teddy boys!”

Even Mrs Weaver looked impressed by this. “I think that’s a very good idea, Felicity,” she said warmly. “Hands up if you agree.”

A forest of hands shot up at once. A few boys’ hands hung back – and I have to confess, I didn’t put mine up STRAIGHT away, as I secretly fancied Simon’s sports idea instead. But when Rosie gave me a fierce look, I decided I really should support Fliss. I’d never be forgiven otherwise.

Mrs Weaver was smiling now. I think she was just relieved that someone had come up with something sensible. “Good thinking, Felicity,” she said. “Everyone seems to like your idea.”

Fliss blushed and looked down at her desk modestly, even though I knew that secretly she was practically wetting her pants with pride.

“Now, it’s just about time for break,” Mrs Weaver said, looking at her watch. “But keep thinking up ideas, everyone! I’ll see what Mr Phillips thinks of ‘fashion through the ages’. If he likes it, we’ll start putting together materials for you to get working on tomorrow.”

There was an excited buzz of chatter as we all went out into the playground. Fliss was beaming. Mrs Weaver often gets a bit impatient with her for day-dreaming or sneaking peeks in her little mirror to check her hair’s OK all the time. But today she was the golden girl! And the thought of doing a whole project on her favourite thing – CLOTHES – was a dream come true.

As soon as we got outside, Frankie put her hands on her hips and practically screamed, “So what’s the news, Kenny? I’ve been dying to find out!”

I started to laugh. “You already HAVE found out, you nana. The carnival! That’s what I was going to tell you about, but eager-beaver Weaver beat me to it.”

Frankie’s face fell. “Oh, phooey!” she moaned. “I thought it was going to be an idea for the next sleepover or something REALLY exciting.”

“Talking of which…” Rosie said. “Anyone thought of anything?”

“Well, we’ve got to do some sort of carnival sleepover now,” Lyndz said at once.

“Agreed!” I said. “If we have it at mine, we could use Molly the Monster as the bouncy castle!” Me and Molly – my middle sister – are about as friendly as Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf.

“We could have a sort of hundred-years sleepover,” Fliss said, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully.

Frankie felt Fliss’s forehead, looking concerned. “Blimey, Fliss, that’s two ideas you’ve had already this morning! No wonder you feel hot – your brain’s probably about to explode!”

“And a hundred years is quite a long time for a sleepover, Fliss,” I teased. “I don’t think my mum and dad would be very keen on having us in the house for so long!”

“Yeah, do you fancy yourself as Sleeping Beauty or something?” Rosie quipped. “Falling asleep for a hundred years, only to be woken by a kiss from… Ryan Scott!”

Fliss tossed her long hair. “I didn’t mean it has to LAST one hundred years, you derr-brains,” she said scathingly as everyone else cracked up. “I meant, we could imagine what a sleepover would have been like one hundred years ago!”

“Like a 1901 sleepover?” Rosie said. Then she frowned. “I don’t think they had telly then, though, did they?”

“What about sweets?” Lyndz asked anxiously.

“We had enough historical stuff when we stayed in that Blitz house,” Frankie said with a shudder. “And there’s no way I’m going without an inside toilet again, whatever you say!”

“Oh… Er… Well, we don’t have to be that strict,” Fliss said hurriedly. I could tell she didn’t like the idea of not having a toilet either. “But maybe we could play old-fashioned games and eat old-fashioned sweets – like humbugs and toffee, that sort of thing – and maybe dress up, or… I don’t know what they used to do in those days. Make love potions or something?”

Everyone pulled faces at the love potions idea. Fliss is the only one of us who’s remotely interested in boys and lurve and all that soppy stuff.

“Is that your final answer?” I said in the end, leaning forward and shoving a pretend microphone under her nose.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Lyndz said, still sounding rather doubtful.

“Well, no-one’s got any better ideas, have they?” Fliss pointed out. “So shall we do it?”

“Mmmm,” “Yeah,” “I suppose so,” we all said at once – some of us less enthusiastically than others.

“Granny sleepover it is!” Frankie said with a wink.

(#uedf40eac-ddc5-5697-a474-ca224424bd75)

The next day, we started work on our “fashion float”. Mrs Weaver told us that the float would be divided up into ten sections – one for each decade. Our class was going to be split up into five groups. One group would work on the Fifties, one would do the Sixties, one the Seventies, and so on. In the meantime, Mr Phillips’ class was going to work on the first five decades of the century.

“On the float, we want two people – a boy and a girl – representing each decade,” Mrs Weaver said. “You can either just dress up in the typical fashion of that time, or you can dress up as a famous person from that decade. So, for example, if you were in the Sixties group, you could dress up in Sixties fashion – mini-skirts for example, or the hippy look. Or you could dress up as one of the Beatles, Neil Armstrong – you know, the first man on the moon, or… well, you get the idea.”

“Do you think I’d look good in a miniskirt?” Simon Graham shouted out, batting his eyelashes and making everyone giggle.

Mrs Weaver gave him one of her stern looks. “You’d look even better with your mouth closed, Simon,” she said witheringly.

Then she split us up into groups of five or six people. Five people – perfect for the Sleepover Club! But then she said there had to be at least two boys and two girls in each group. Typical – boys always have to spoil everything.

In the end, we weren’t TOO badly split up. Me and Frankie got to be in a group together, which was cool. We were with Simon, Neil and Maria Fonseca. I was pleased about that – at least we were guaranteed some laughs.

Rosie, Fliss and Lyndz were in a group with the twins, Alex and Joe Dunmore, who are pretty all right, too. At least Mrs Weaver hadn’t put us with the M&Ms this time. She has a nasty habit of putting us in groups with them because she seems to think we’ll make friends if we spend time together. In her dreams! I’d sooner be in a group with a man-eating crocodile and a dozen piranha fish, thanks!

Anyway, we were picked to do the Seventies’ part of the float. Mrs Weaver handed round sheets with suggestions for famous people and events, and piles of library books she’d put together.

Our group started looking through some of the library books. “Look at those boots!” Frankie screeched, pointing at a picture excitedly. The soles were about six inches high and they were silver and glittery. “I want them!”

“Wow – punks!” Simon and Neil were saying. “Look – this one’s got a safety pin through his cheek!”

“Glam rockers,” Maria read aloud. “Look at their trousers – they’re so tight! And is that a wig he’s wearing? That can’t be his real hair!”

We all started snorting with laughter as we flicked our way through the rest of the books. There were lots of pictures of men wearing big, open-necked shirts with huge collars and gold medallions. “I wonder if our dads ever dressed like this?” I said, sniggering. “I know my mum used to have some gold hot-pants!”

“I wonder if Mrs Weaver ever dressed like THIS?” Simon whispered, holding up a picture of a punk girl with bright blue hair and three earrings in her nose.

That just set us all off in fits of giggles. The thought of a punk Mrs Weaver was totally crazy!

“I wouldn’t mind dressing up as a glam rocker,” Frankie said, once we’d all calmed down. “I just want to wear some of these funky boots! Unless one of you two fancy going on the float?”

I shook my head firmly. “I’m not dressing up in stoopid clothes,” I said at once.

“Count me out,” Maria said. “I’d break my neck if I had to wear those things on my feet!”

Simon was quite keen to be Pele, the footballing star of the Seventies, but Maria and Frankie said they thought football was WAY too boring (as if!). In the end, Frankie persuaded him to be a punk by telling him they could dye his hair green with food colouring. “Wicked,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Mum’ll KILL me!”

So that was that – one punk and one glam rocker. This was going to be sooo hilarious!

It was a humungously busy week. We had ‘team meetings’ on Wednesday and Friday morning to discuss our designs and give each other progress reports. Each team had to make some sort of sign or banner which said what their decade was. As all five of us were pretty useless at sewing, we went for a joint team effort to make a collage on card, rather than try anything with a needle and thread.

By the end of the week, it was starting to look pretty good. Maria had painted The ‘70s in big purple letters in the middle, and Frankie had added silver glitter around the edges. Then we’d all brought in pictures of famous people and even some old photos of our mums and dads in outrageous Seventies gear!

Simon had brought in lots of pictures of footballers. Frankie had persuaded her mum to cut out pictures of pop stars from a collection of old magazines she had, and Neil had tracked down some pictures of old film stars. Me and Maria spent ages going through the library books, and made colour photocopies of all the weird Seventies fashions we could find. Our banner was starting to look truly faberoonie!

Fliss, Rosie and Lyndz had been hard at work, too. They were doing the Sixties, and Fliss – who else? – was going to be their ‘model’ on the float. Lyndz had found a great outfit for her in her mum’s dressing-up box – a psychedelic swirly-patterned mini dress, knee boots and a wicked beehive wig.

“Loads of black eyeliner, and I’ll be sorted,” Fliss beamed. “One Sixties chick coming up!”