to tea with her dad and his new baby on Fridays.
Frankie stared at her. “But you’re always home by about half-past six,” she said.
Fliss wriggled, and went pink. “I might have to stay later,” she said.
Frankie shook her head. “Felicity Sidebotham,” she said, “are you scared?”
Fliss went even pinker. “Of course I’m not,” she said, but her voice was a little bit wobbly.
Lyndz patted her arm. “It’ll be OK,” she said. “We’ll just have a lot of fun.”
“Yes,” Frankie said. “Lots of scary fun!”
“I’m not scared!” Fliss said, but she still sounded squeakier than usual.
“So does that mean you’ll come?” I asked.
“Of course I will,” she said. “Just as long as you don’t go too far.”
That made me laugh. I told Fliss she sounded just like her mum. Fliss tossed her head and said she didn’t, but we all knew that that was exactly what her mum would have said. Looking back on it now, maybe we should have taken more notice… but of course, we didn’t!
Everyone came round to my house after school the next day so we could sort out a plan. A Friday 13th super plan! We grabbed a packet of choccy biscuits, some crisps and a coke each, and sneaked up to my room. Molly the Monster was out somewhere, so we piled up the pillows and duvets from her bed and mine and made ourselves really comfortable.
“We need to make a list,” Frankie said. “Where’s a pen?”
I found a stubby old pencil under my bed. It’s always exciting, looking under my bed. The weirdest things pop out sometimes, and I know I haven’t put them there.
I mean, there was the time when Emma lost her best trainers. Anyone would have thought she’d lost the crown jewels, the way she went on about it. She kept looking at me, too, and she knows I don’t have the same size feet as her. Well, not quite. I have to stuff loads of extra socks on if I want to wear Em’s shoes.
Anyway, even Dad got involved and he ordered a huge search. And guess where they were? Yes – that’s right. Under my bed! I told Dad they must have walked there by themselves, but he just made a sort of humph! noise.
The problem was, in the hunt Mum found Molly’s homework diary under my bed, and Monster Features said it was my fault! Can you believe it? I never touched her diary, and if I’d known it was there I would’ve given it back to her. I don’t want anything of Molly’s in my half of the room.
Then Dad went on about the other things… two pairs of jeans (dirty), one sweatshirt (crumpled), one bag of rat food (just a little bit open), last week’s maths test (scrumpled), half a bar of chocolate (melted), lots of bits of paper, an empty coke can, one clean blue sock, one smelly green sock, one bedroom slipper, three pens, an old rubber… and some very interesting fluffy bits.
Mum had a go at me, too, and Molly moaned and groaned. It went on for ages. Personally I don’t know what they were fussing about.
But there I go, sidetracking again. I was telling you about our sleepover, wasn’t I? So, anyway, I found the pencil and tore a piece of paper out of an old notebook. Then we got planning. Frankie wrote down:
1. Check sleepover OK with Kenny’s mum.
2. Get rid of Molly.
I sighed when she put down number two. Some chance! If Molly has a friend to stay I’m quite happy to make myself scarce and share Emma’s room. There’s always loads of interesting things to poke around in in there, so you’d think Molly would be pleased to do the same for me… but oh, no. She hates moving out of our room, and she hates all my friends, too.
“Maybe she’ll be away that night,” Fliss said hopefully.
I began to giggle. “Yeah – after all, it is Friday 13th! Maybe she’ll be off scaring small children!”
“Frightening little old ladies!” said Lyndz.
Rosie sniggered. “Turning the milk sour on people’s doorsteps!”
“Sending murderers screaming home to their grannies!” Frankie shrieked.
That cracked us all up. We rolled about on the floor, we were laughing so much. Some coke cans fell over and the crisps got scrunched into the carpet, but we just couldn’t stop.
At last we sat up, and I scrabbled around for the piece of paper. It had got very soggy, so I tore out another sheet and we started again.
“What shall we do about food!” I yelled.
We all started grinning at each other. As you know, food is a favourite Sleepover Club subject.
“Green spaghetti!” said Frankie.
“Green pizza!” said Lyndz.
“Green jelly spiders!” shrieked Rosie.
“Green jelly worms!” said Fliss with a shudder.
Frankie looked excited. “Maybe we could make a huge bowl of green slime! We could put the jelly spiders and worms in it – and then everyone has to eat them without using fingers!”
“Yeah!” I said. “Cool!”
We’ve only just discovered green slime. Actually, it was Lyndz who invented it. Rosie was round at her house and they were helping Lyndz’s mum make green jelly. Lyndz was supposed to be stirring the jelly cubes in hot water to make them melt, but she was talking to Rosie and didn’t stir them enough. Then she put in just a bit too much cold water by mistake.
“Whoops!” Lyndz said. “Oh well. I don’t suppose it’ll matter,” and she tipped the whole lot into the bowl where it was meant to set… but it never did! It turned out all slithery and – well, slimy. The bits of jelly cube that hadn’t quite melted were floating on the top. When Lyndz and Rosie fished them out and ate them they were like jelly sweets – all rubbery. Ben, Lyndz’s little brother, thought it tasted gross, but Lyndz didn’t, and neither did Rosie. They ate the whole lot… with straws! We’ve been eating green slime ever since. It’s a Sleepover Club special!
“What else?” Lyndz asked. “What other food is creepy?”
I was playing with the pencil. “Um… I don’t know.”
“OK.” Frankie snatched the pencil off me and turned to face us all. “So what sort of things shall we do? How can we set it up so it’s really scary?” She wrote Plans! on the paper, and drew a creepy face with long pointy teeth underneath.
Fliss gave a little shiver. “We don’t want to go too far… ”
We all started eyeballing each other and Fliss quickly shut up.
“Booby traps!” I said. “We ought to have booby traps! And horrible noises!”
Frankie let out a loud and horrible wail. She was sitting right next to me with chocolate crumbs all over her face… but still it sent a quivery chill up my spine. Fliss squeaked, and Rosie and Lyndz clutched each other.
“Wow!” I said. “Maybe we could tape you! That’d sound completely gruesome in the dark—”
I didn’t get a chance to finish. Frankie gave another wail and grabbed me. “Kenny. You’re a genius! That’s it. We’ll make the spookiest tape ever, full of shriekings and wailings!”
“And horrible gurglings!” shouted Rosie.
“Slow