you’ve GOT to take part,” Kenny said suddenly. “Because I haven’t told you the rest of it yet. All the money that we raise goes to Whizz-Kidz, I forgot to say! NOW tell me you won’t take part!”
“Whizz-Kidz?” asked Frankie. “Who are they?”
“Oh!” Rosie said. She looked delighted at the news. “Whizz-Kidz is that charity for disabled kids. They make all these amazing customised wheelchairs and trikes and stuff. You know that day centre that Adam goes to? They helped them out with a load of new wheelchairs, remember me telling you?”
“Yeah, and that’s not all,” Kenny said. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you all about this! After the swimathon, there’s going to be this mega party at the pool for all the swimmers who take part, plus all their families. It should be really fab!”
Fliss’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, I hope the lifeguards are good-looking!”
“Yeah, one of them’s gorgeous, actually,” Kenny said, winking at the rest of us. “Nige, he’s called. I reckon you’ll like him, Fliss.”
“Oh, really?” Fliss said, smoothing her hair down. “What’s he like, then?”
“Well…” said Kenny, but just then Mrs Poole blew the whistle and we had to go inside for registration. But from the wink Kenny had just given, I had a fair idea that ‘Nige’ wasn’t going to be quite as hunky as Fliss was hoping!
Not even the morning maths test could dampen our spirits now we had the swimathon to get us excited! I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I could tell the others felt the same.
The only person who still didn’t seem that interested was Rosie. But I guessed it was because she didn’t have a swimming costume and felt embarrassed about it. Rosie’s dead proud like that. When we first started hanging out with her, she wouldn’t let us come round to her house for ages because she thought we’d turn our noses up at it, just because it’s in a bit of a state!
To be honest, I think our house is much scruffier than hers, because my dad’s one of these people who’s always starting things off and never finishing them. So we’ve got a half-built wall here, a half-painted room there, a frame out the back for a conservatory that he’s never managed to finish… It drives you mad sometimes!
Anyway, I don’t mind the others seeing our mad half-built house because that’s the way it’s always been, but I guess Rosie’s a bit different. I knew she’d hate having to wear one of Fliss’s swimming costumes because she hates not being able to “pay her own way”, as she says. But if something’s offered to you, you might as well take it, in my book.
I was just imagining myself doing the most graceful breaststroke ever up and down Cuddington Baths with crowds of people cheering me on, when Mrs Weaver called out, “OK, time’s up! Pens down!” and I realised with a jump that I’d barely started on the maths test. Uh-oh – I’d been daydreaming again.
“OK, swap tests with the person next to you,” Mrs Weaver said briskly. “Here are the answers. One – three nines are twenty-seven. Two – eighteen plus sixteen is thirty-four. Three – six fours are twenty-four…”
Luckily, I had Kenny marking mine, and being a complete star and fantastic friend, she scribbled a load of answers in for me so that I wouldn’t get too bad a score. Now that’s what I call a mate! I was marking Rosie’s paper and she’d done nearly as badly as me by the looks of things, so I tried to put a few answers in there, too. Rosie was obviously thinking about the swimathon as well, judging by all the empty spaces on her answer sheet!
Unfortunately, our little bout of “helping” was spotted by beady-eyed Emma Hughes, one of our sworn enemies, the M&Ms. BAAAD news…
“Mrs Weaver, Kenny and Lyndsey are cheating!” she said at once, sticking her hand in the air.
Kenny scowled at her and I gave her a dirty look. Interfering cow! Just because she was a mega-brain maths-head!
Mrs Weaver hates people telling tales, but she’s also pretty hot against cheats, too. “Kenny and Lyndsey, bring your answer sheets here,” she said crisply. “I think I’ll mark the rest of those, thank you very much.”
Emma gave us this whopping great smirk, like she’d just won a prize. In fact, if there was a prize going for smugness, she would have won the gold medal.
Mrs Weaver soon cut her down to size, though. “And Emma, we don’t like tell-tales in this class, so you can wipe that grin off your face,” she said. “Now then! Let’s see if we can get through the rest of this test without any more dramas!”
Kenny and I exchanged looks. Trust one of the M&Ms to stick a big fat nose into our business.
As you probably guessed, me and Rosie didn’t do very well on the maths test in the end, thanks to old supergrass Hughesy. Mrs Weaver handed our papers back, not looking very impressed.
“Tomorrow’s Friday, and it’ll be the last test of the week, as you all know,” she said, “so let’s see if we can get some better scores, please! I don’t know what’s up with you all this morning but some people obviously aren’t at their brightest. Let’s do some long division, to see if THAT will get your brains in gear.”
Ugh! She was in a bad mood now, if she was making us do MORE maths. We were all relieved when it was break time, and we could get outside for a breather. But by now, Rosie was grumpy and fed up, I was feeling completely thick as I’d got all the long-division sums wrong, and even Kenny was still a bit growly after being told off.
Luckily, Fliss managed to cheer us up. “I’ve been thinking,” she started, as we went out into the playground.
“Does it hurt?” Kenny muttered.
Fliss ignored her. “Shall we have the sleepover at mine tomorrow night?” she said. “We could make it a swimming theme, you know, because of the swimathon!”
“Will your mum mind us coming round?” I asked. Everything’s been a bit hectic at their house lately, what with the twins coming along. Even Fliss hasn’t looked her usual immaculate self – which tells you how much hard work they must be!
Fliss shrugged. “No, I’m sure she won’t mind,” she said. “She suggested it, anyway. Said she didn’t want to let appearances slip, just because of the twins.”
“What a trooper!” Frankie said. “That’s what we like – a mum who knows the importance of a good sleepover.” Then she frowned. “What do you mean by a swimming theme though?”
Fliss’s face fell. “Well… actually, I couldn’t think of anything specific,” she confessed. “I was hoping one of you lot would have some ideas.”
“We could… er… all wear blue, like water,” Rosie suggested, screwing her face up as she said it. “No, that’s far too boring!”
“Practise swimming up and down the bath?” I said.
“We could watch Titanic!” Fliss said, brightening. She must have seen that film about fifty times by now. “Although I suppose that’s more about drowning than swimming, isn’t it?”
“It’s a shame it’s not summer – we could have had a water fight in the back garden,” Kenny said wistfully.
Frankie looked up at the grey cloudy sky, and shivered. “Not on your nelly!” she said firmly. “We’d all get hypothermia!”
“Well, everyone get their thinking heads on, anyway,” Fliss said. “We’ve got a whole day to come up with other stuff we can do – so everyone bring something with a swimming theme to my house tomorrow night, six o’clock sharp!”