Narinder Dhami

The Sleepover Club Sleep Out


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a quarter-of-an-hour, though, I’d only written three words. Three words! At this rate I wouldn’t finish the story till next Christmas. The trouble was, it was impossible to concentrate. Everyone was supposed to be working quietly, but they were so excited about the museum sleepover, that they just couldn’t stop talking about it. However hard Mrs Weaver tried, she couldn’t shut the class up. To make things worse, one of the maths groups was measuring all the furniture in the classroom, and they kept accidentally whacking each other with the metre sticks, like actors in a silent movie.

      Like I said, it was impossible to concentrate. But I can always concentrate better when I’m using the computer if I’m eating at the same time. That was when I remembered the Opal Fruits in my jacket in the cloakroom. There were a couple of lime-green ones in there with my name on them! My mouth began to water.

      I looked round. Mrs Weaver had disappeared into the book cupboard, and Ryan Scott and his sidekick Danny McCloud were fighting a duel with their metre sticks. No-one would notice if I just ducked out for a moment, and got my sweets. No, of course we aren’t supposed to leave the classroom without permission, but then we’re not supposed to eat sweets in class either!

      “Where’re you going?” Fliss asked as I sprinted over to the classroom door. That girl’s got eyes in the back of her head, I swear.

      “To get my Opal Fruits,” I muttered, one eye fixed firmly on the book cupboard.

      “Have you asked Mrs Weaver?” Fliss said sternly.

      “Oh, sure,” I said, “like I really want a detention that much.”

      “But, Kenny—” Fliss began, looking shocked. I ignored her. I was out, and back inside the classroom with my Opal Fruits hidden up my sleeve in one minute flat. Fliss looked outraged, but I winked at the others, who started laughing. Mrs Weaver had come out of the book cupboard, but she was busy examining Danny McCloud’s eye where Ryan Scott had poked him with the metre stick, so she didn’t notice me. I hurried back to the computer, and sat down. And that was when I got a BIG shock.

      The first thing I saw was that my story had gone. Vanished. In its place was just one sentence. A single sentence repeated over and over again, from the top of the computer screen right down to the bottom.

       Mrs Weaver stinks.

      My jaw hit the floor. I was so shocked, I sat there staring at the computer screen, wondering what had happened. Then I realised in a flash – the M&Ms! Those nasty little nerds had done this. I just hoped I could get my story back, but first I had to get rid of the stuff on-screen before anyone saw it. I reached for the mouse, but I was already too late. I heard a voice behind me.

      “How are you getting on, Kenny?”

      It was Mrs Weaver. She looked at the screen, and then looked again as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

      There was silence for a few moments. Somehow the rest of the class picked up that something was going on, and gradually they went quiet too, until there was a horrible silence in the whole of the room. And during that silence, the words on the screen seemed to be growing, getting bigger and bigger and blacker and blacker.

      “Well, I’m surprised at you, Laura,” Mrs Weaver said at last, and I could tell from her voice how annoyed she was. She didn’t usually call me Laura, but this time I wasn’t about to argue. “If that’s how you want to waste your time, then you’d better make up for it in detention today. Now clear that rubbish off the screen, and get back to your table.”

      “But, Miss, I didn’t write that,” I began, and then I stopped. I couldn’t say that the M&Ms had set me up while I went out of class (without permission) to get sweets I wasn’t supposed to be eating, could I? I’d still be in trouble, whatever.

      Mrs Weaver just looked at me, and walked off. I deleted all the writing, and switched the computer off. Behind me the M&Ms were giggling and nudging each other, but I ignored them, and went back to my table.

      The rest of the Sleepover Club looked as shocked as I felt. Fliss was nearly crying, and Frankie, Rosie and Lyndz were as white as ghosts. As for me, I was so angry, I was boiling. I could have gone right back across the classroom, grabbed Emma Hughes and shaken her until she owned up.

      “It was the M&Ms, right?” Frankie whispered in my ear as I sat down next to her. “What did they do?”

      “Deleted my story, and wrote Mrs Weaver stinks. A zillion times.” I glanced across the classroom at the M&Ms. They were smirking, and patting each other on the back. Emma saw me looking, and she licked her finger and drew a ‘1’ in the air. I clenched my fists.

      “Keep cool, Kenny,” Frankie said anxiously. “Don’t let her get to you.”

      “The rotten pigs!” said Lyndz. “We’re not going to let them get away with that, are we?”

      I shook my head. “No way,” I muttered. “It’s about time the M&Ms learned that they can’t mess the Sleepover Club around.”

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      “Look, we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do,” Frankie said, for about the zillionth time. “If we don’t get our own back, the M&Ms’ll never let us forget it.”

      We all nodded, but none of us said anything. We were too depressed. We were sitting in Frankie’s back garden, the sun had started shining and we were eating pizza, but we were still miserable. That was because we couldn’t believe the nerve of the M&Ms.

      “I still can’t believe they did it,” Lyndz said. “I mean, the M&Ms are so goody-goody and all that.”

      “Yeah, I would’ve thought they’d be scared of getting caught,” Rosie agreed.

      “Well, there wasn’t much chance of that, was there?” Frankie pointed out. “Mrs Weaver was in the book cupboard, and everyone else was watching Ryan and Danny fighting with the metre sticks.”

      “And Emma was so close to the computer, she wouldn’t even have had to get out of her chair,” I said. “You know what I was really worried about? I thought Mrs Weaver might say I couldn’t come to the museum sleepover.”

      “Yeah, you were lucky to get away with just a detention,” agreed Frankie.

      We all sat gloomily looking down at our pizzas. Not even the thought of the museum sleepover could cheer us up at the moment.

      “You should have told Mrs Weaver it wasn’t you, Kenny,” Fliss said, also for the zillionth time.

      “I did, and she didn’t believe me,” I said impatiently.

      “You could have told her it was the M&Ms,” Fliss persisted. That girl never knows when to give up. I glared at her.

      “I’m not a snitcher!”

      “Anyway, Mrs Weaver wouldn’t have believed you,” Frankie cut in quickly. Just in time to stop me throwing a half-eaten slice of pizza at Fliss.

      After what had happened, I wouldn’t have got through the rest of the day if it hadn’t been for the others. The M&Ms were real pigs. They kept staring at me and giggling, and looking really smug and pleased with themselves, and they made me so angry, I could have gone over there and knocked their heads together. I think Frankie and the others were a bit worried I might actually do it, because they’d stuck to my side like glue all day.

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