went for me. I went for her. And in no time we were rolling about on the floor like those mad wrestlers you get on telly.
“Ooof!”
“Ouch!”
“Aaargggh!”
It was well good. And I was winning too, when Mum had to spoil it by coming back into the kitchen.
“Stop it you two! Stop it right now!”
“She started it…”
“You started it!”
“I don’t care who started it. Just stop it, or else!”
So because Mum sounded like she meant business this time, my dear sister and I did what she said, although Molly had to carry on making dorky faces at me behind Mum’s back.
“Now listen to me,” Mum ordered. “I’ve just been on the phone to Mrs Thomas, and she says since it’s an emergency the Sleepover Club can decamp over at Frankie’s tonight.”
“But everyone’s coming here!” I couldn’t bear to think of my spider and web decorations upstairs going to waste. “Mum, I’ve been decorating my room all afternoon.”
“I’m sorry, Kenny,” said Mum.
“So-rry,” mimicked Molly, being her usual super-annoying self. But before I had a chance to thump her, I saw something that would shut her up good and proper.
I saw it loom up out of the dark and float eerily up to the kitchen window, like something out of a horror movie. A sight so gruesome, so horrible, that it sent shivers all the way down to my size three trainers. It was big. It was green. And it had wicked red-rimmed eyes.
“Aaaargh!” screamed Molly, seeing it for herself. “It’s a witch!”
“A what?”
“A witch at the window!”
Sure it was a witch. But I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t shocked. Not me. I just opened my mouth and yelled at the top of my voice:
“Frankie!”
I raced to the front door, and yanked it open. And, with the force of a jet-propelled broomstick, the wicked witch herself fell across our hall floor in a heap.
“Come in!” I laughed as the rest of the Sleepover Club tumbled in on top of her. “Oh, I see you already did!”
“Heh, heh, heh…” cackled Frankie-the-witch, looking up at me from the pile of my friends. “Want a bite of my poisoned apple?”
“Save it for Molly,” I said. “She deserves it.” I helped Frankie with her pointed hat while the rest of the Sleepover Club tried to untangle themselves from the heap of sleeping bags, sweets, cuddly toys, pillows, bags and Hallowe’en costumes strewn across the floor.
“You look well ugly!” I told her, dead admiring.
“I know.”
“Molly’s face!” giggled Lyndz, crawling about the hall floor, collecting all the scattered sweets. “She thought it was a real witch come to cast a spell on her.”
“No such thing,” said Fliss in her usual bossy way, as she folded up her sleepover kit ultra neatly. Fliss is a bit scared of supernatural things and she tries to cover it up by acting superior. She’s also a total neatness freak, in case you didn’t know. “Hope you’ve not squashed my cake, Rosie,” she fussed.
“Oops.” Rosie, who’s known for being a bit of a klutz, went red. “Let me check…”
“Don’t bother, Rosie,” I told her glumly. “The Sleepover Club’s not stopping.”
“What!”
“But it’s sleepover night!”
“I know. It’s over at Frankie’s instead.”
“Mine?” Frankie’s voice sounded muffled behind her green plastic mask. “But we had it at mine last time.”
“I know. Molly’s messed everything up, as usual.”
There were moans of “typical” and “what a Monster”. But before we had a chance to think up any worse names for my meddling sister, the doorbell rang and the monster herself flounced out of the kitchen and pushed past me.
“Out the way, little kids,” she said, shoving Frankie-the-witch rudely. “I’m having my friend to stay over now. So your baby sleepovers are numbered…”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“What d’you mean?”
Molly looked smug as she delivered her killer blow. “Jilly’s staying here Fridays now. So the Sleepover Club’s out!”
We all gaped at her. Then Frankie piped up:
“That’s what you think! Our Sleepover Club has rights!” Frankie will always stand up for herself in a fight, especially if she’s wearing witch’s talons and a pointy hat.
“Rights for you load of babies? You must be joking!” sneered Molly.
“We’re not babies!”
“Yes you are!”
“No we’re not!”
As you can see, things were getting out of hand, and Total War probably would’ve broken out if Jilly’s mum herself hadn’t peeped through the letterbox.
“Hello,” she said, in a friendly voice. “Anyone going to let us in?”
This was definitely not the moment to start fighting. So, still boiling, we decided to cool it and plot our revenge over at Frankie’s instead.
Because something Had To Be Done.
It’s not that we minded sleeping over at Frankie’s for the second week running. Frankie’s got a huge bedroom with extra bunk beds, so it’s well nice having our sleepovers there. (And as Rosie said, a sleepover is a sleepover.) No, we didn’t mind so much about staying at Frankie’s. It’s just that, as Frankie said, “It’s the principle of the thing. If Molly starts messing up our sleepovers, who knows what will happen next?”
And the gang agreed.
That’s why I did what I did. The horrible, hairy deed itself. I mean, no point in letting a fat, juicy spider go to waste is there?
Carting our stuff through the streets was brilliantly creepy. It was so dark and silent that Frankie-the-witch kept cackling and pretending to put a spell on the houses.
“Eye of newt, toe of bat,
Light of the full moon,
Get lots of sweets for Trick-or-treat…
’Cos we are coming soon!”
“Ooo, ooo…” I chanted, waving my hands.
“We’ll put a spell on you, if you don’t!”
But Fliss, whose mum doesn’t approve of spells and stuff, was not having any of this. “Why don’t we practise our 5ive routine?” she said, ignoring our class act.
“Not now!”
“Why? We’ve got loads of room out here…”
“NO!”
’Course, in the end Lyndz, seeing that