the ground, with me following them. But no such luck.
“Sorry,” I said. “How was I expected to know that stuff was yours? Put your name on it next time.”
“Two pound fifty, that lot cost me. You can jolly well pay me back!” he said.
He went out, going, “Piglets. Oink, oink.”
I could hear his foul friends laughing. Foul fiends, I should say. Who’d have brothers?
Next day, Mrs Weaver, our class teacher, said that anyone who intended to enter an act for the charity show had to tell her by the following day.
Frankie put her hand up. “Can we tell you now, Mrs Weaver?” she asked.
“Of course, Frankie,” Mrs Weaver replied.
I looked round. I could see everyone was bursting with curiosity. Especially the M&Ms. Emma’s eyes were just about popping out of her head and Emily’s ears were flapping like Dumbo the elephant’s.
“We don’t want everyone to know, though. We want to keep it a secret,” I said.
Mrs Weaver smiled and said, “I see. Then write down what you want to do and give it to me.”
Frankie tore a page out of her general notebook and started scribbling. She folded it up and passed it to Mrs Weaver, who unfolded it and started to read it.
My heart was racing. Please don’t give the game away, PLEASE! I begged her silently, trying to use telepathic powers to get through to her.
Well, they’ll never write an X-Files story about me, because my extra-sensory powers are obviously nil. The next moment, Mrs Weaver put her foot right in it by saying to Frankie, “So there’s you, Felicity, Laura, Lyndsey and who’s the fifth girl? I can’t read your writing.”
The five of us looked at each other in panic.
“It’s me,” Rosie squeaked.
“Rosie Cartwright,” said Mrs Weaver, writing it down.
I saw the M&Ms exchange excited glances. Emma gave Emily a big smirk.
Emily - The Goblin, as we call her - nudged The Queen (that’s Emily), who in turn nudged Banana, alias Alana Palmer. Then she said nastily, “I hope you don’t think you’re going to be the Spice Girls. We’re going to be the Spice Girls. That was our idea. They pinched it, Mrs Weaver.”
Kenny gave a gasp and jumped to her feet. “We never did!” she said. “Don’t tell porkies!”
I jumped up, too. “We decided days ago. We’ve already been practising!” I said.
Mrs Weaver waved her hand. “Now, now, girls, stop arguing,” she said. “There can be more than one Spice Girls act, and may the best one win!”
Emma, my personal worst enemy since yesterday when I’d spilt water down her stupid neck, turned round. She screwed up her face and her horrid, blobby nose so that she looked like a squashed tomato, poked out her tongue at me and said, “See?”
I pulled a face back.
“So I take it you and your friends want to be the Spice Girls, too?” Mrs Weaver said.
“Yes please, Mrs Weaver,” replied The Goblin, in her most sucking-up tones. Creep! She’s just pathetic.
“And who else will be singing with you?” asked Mrs Weaver.
The M&Ms nudged their slave, the slimy Banana, and she put her hand up.
I looked at Rosie. She was giggling. “They’ve only got three Spice Girls,” she said.
“I’ll join you, if you like.”
We all stared as Regina Hill spoke. Even the M&Ms stared. Regina hasn’t been in our class for long. Her family have only just moved to Cuddington from London and we don’t know much about her, especially as she’s rather quiet. So everyone was amazed when she spoke.
“Can you sing?” Emma asked her.
You could have knocked me down with a King Cone when Regina began to sing Summer Nights from Grease, all perfectly in tune. She had an awesome voice.
My eyes met Frankie’s. Then I looked at Fliss, Kenny and Rosie. Everyone had the same look on their faces. Hate, pure hate.
“It’s not fair!” I said at break.
“We decided to be the Spice Girls first,” Frankie said crossly.
“They’re just pathetic copy-cats,” said Rosie, flicking her brown fringe.
“Yes, they are,” Fliss added.
“Reggie-Veggie’s got a good voice, though,” I said.
“Reggie-Veggie! That’s a good name for her,” said Frankie, with a loud snort that made us all laugh. “What kind of a vegetable do you think she is?”
“A carrot,” Fliss said promptly.
“Well, she is long and thin - and her hair is kind of reddish,” I agreed. Before today, we’d thought she was really pretty and she’d seemed quite nice, but she’d certainly turned into a carrot now that she’d become a friend of the M&Ms.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Frankie said gloomily.
We looked at her and shook our heads. We’d never felt so depressed.
“If they’re going to sing, we can’t get away with only miming. We’ll jolly well have to sing, too.”
“Oh, no!” Kenny wailed.
“Oh good,” said Fliss. “I think I sing better than Reggie-Veggie!”
We knew she wanted us to pay her compliments, but we were all fed up so nobody did.
Fliss went into a sulk and got her Banana-In-Pyjamas toy out of her bag. Her aunt in America sent it to her. Bananas In Pyjamas are very popular in America, according to Fliss’s aunt. Personally, I think dressed up plastic bananas are stupid. Give me a toy pony any day. Better still, a real one.
Fliss started creating a little wedding veil for the banana, out of a piece of paper tissue. She’s mad on weddings. All her toys and stuffed animals have been married at least twenty times each, to different partners. It’s about time she started giving them divorces, not weddings.
I decided to cheer her up. “Of course you sing well, Fliss. We all know that.”
“Perhaps we ought to give up on being the Spice Girls and think of something else,” said Rosie.
“What? Give up? No way!” said Frankie. “We’re not going to let ourselves be beaten by the M&Ms, are we?”
Nobody answered.
Frankie sat down on the concrete of the playground. Her bottom just missed a piece of chewing gum. She pulled a notebook and pen out of her black nylon shoulderbag. We all sat round her as she wrote two headings on the page.
The first heading said, Us. The second said, The M&Ms.
“Right,” she said. “Now, think of all the reasons why our Spice Girls group is better than theirs.”
“We’re better than them at everything!” I said.
“We can sing,” said Fliss.
“We’re the greatest,” said Rosie.
“They’re ugly,” said Kenny, and we all fell about.
“Now tell me why they’re worse