Sleepover Club 2000 (7 page)

The minute we got back home, Mum insisted we’d all got to have hot baths, like IMMEDIATELY!

“I don’t want anyone getting a chill,” she wittered.

Phew! My fusspot mother was back to normal.

We tossed a coin to see who was going first. It was Kenny.

“Hey!” said Kenny. “I never bathed in a whirlpool bath before.”

“Keep it short, Kenz,” moaned Frankie. “Don’t practise your underwater breathing, OK? Otherwise we’ll never get round to the actual sleepover.”

“Time me,” grinned Kenny. “Catch!” She tossed Frankie the sporty watch she got for Christmas. “It’s got a stopwatch function,” she explained. “Neat, eh?”

She skipped upstairs, humming some hippie dippie protest chant under her breath.

“Has Kenny’s watch got a dynamite function as well?” giggled Rosie.

“I wish,” sighed Frankie. “Ten minutes, Laura McKenzie!” she bellowed up the stairs. “Ten minutes, TOPS!”

“Or the watch gets it!!” called Lyndz in a gangster voice.

“Would you girls like a late-night snack?” Mum yelled from the kitchen.

Can you believe we were all starving? All that trudging about in the snow must totally burn up the calories! Mum promised to make us some cheese toasties after she’d made Andy his tea.

I helped the others carry their stuff upstairs. I was so-o pleased to see my room, I can’t tell you. It felt really peaceful and welcoming. And after Jewel’s cluttered little home it seemed absolutely HUGE!

I threw myself on my bed, practically hugging it, and sighed with pure relief.

“Jewel’s van is amazing,” I said. “But I wouldn’t like to live in one, would you?”

“I wouldn’t
mind
” Rosie said. “If my van had, you know, NORMAL facilities.”

Aren’t you glad it was Rosie, not Kenny who had the Protest Loo experience? I just know Kenny would have insisted in going into gruesome details, don’t you!!

I don’t want you to think Rosie was being horrible about Jewel’s home. Actually, she said her trip to their chemical toilet gave her serious respect for Jewel and her mum.

“To tell the truth, I’m ashamed of myself,” she sighed. “Meeting Jewel made me realise that I’m a totally shallow person.”

“You are not!” said Lyndz.

“I am. If I had to choose between saving a wood or a field or something, and having a bathroom, I’d choose the bathroom every time,” Rosie confessed.

“I’m shallow too,” I said in a small voice.

Because the truth is, if it was up to me personally to save them, all those wild, beautiful places Jewel talked about would be concreted over by now.

I’m serious.

“Maybe you wouldn’t do it to save a field, but you’d do what Jewel and her mum are doing to save a person you cared about, wouldn’t you?” Lyndz argued.

We stared at her. “You’re right,” said Rosie, amazed. “I’d do anything to save Mum and Tiff and Adam.”

“So would I,” I said. “I mean, for MY family. Not that I don’t like yours, Rosie,” I added hastily.

Then of course Frankie had to go right over the top! “If it was the only way I could save our baby, I’d live up a tree forever,” she cried.

The thought of Frankie living up a tree sent us into hysterics!

“All the birds would build nests in your hair,” Rosie giggled (Frankie has masses of really wild tangly hair!).

At that exact moment, Kenny’s watch started making chirping birdy sounds. We
totally
cracked up.

Frankie dashed across the landing to hammer on the bathroom door.

About ten seconds later, Kenny marched out, all clean and shiny in blue stripy cotton pyjamas. She saluted. “Next!” she grinned.

It was a good thing we had Kenny’s stopwatch. As it was, it was almost quarter to ten by the time we’d all had baths and changed into our sleepover things!

Rosie was wearing the sweetest little sleepsuit, which her big sister Tiffany got her for Christmas. Shorts and a floppy vest top, with the cutest embroidery around the hem. I was dead jealous!

We tossed a coin to see who was sleeping in my spare bed. (Having two beds is dead handy for sleepovers!) Frankie won the toss that time. She was suddenly looking really worn out.

The others busily spread out their sleeping bags on my carpet.

“Hey everyone,” said Lyndz excitedly. “This is it! Sleepover 2000. Durn durn
durn
!”

“Yikes!” said Rosie. “I’ve got millennial butterflies, haven’t you?”

“I’ve had them for DAYS!” I said. “You have no idea.”

“Relax,” yawned Frankie. “You and your mum did a great job.”

I felt myself go red. “Oh, thanks,” I said.

“We should DO something,” said Kenny. “To celebrate.”

Frankie groaned. “Is this celebrating going on all year, or something? A snow picnic and an ecological protest in the same sleepover ought to be enough for anyone!”

“I wasn’t suggesting we, like, bungee-jump out of Fliss’s window,” Kenny said crossly. “I meant, do something people can, like, LOOK at in the future, so they’ll know we were actually HERE, tonight.”

“You mean, like a time capsule?” I said.

Lyndz sat bolt upright. “Fliss, that’s such a COOL idea!”

My mum came in with our toasties. “Everyone happy?” she said.

Suddenly Frankie took a big breath, like she was diving underwater.

“Sorry if I was rude earlier, Mrs Sidebotham,” she gabbled. “And I’m not trying to wriggle out of it, but none of us gets much sleep at our house. You know, since my little sister was born. And sometimes I – well, you know.”

Look, don’t tell the others, because it’s not something I’m exactly proud of. But sometimes I don’t know if I
like
Frankie very much. But just when I decide I really can’t STAND her, that girl does something which knocks my socks off.

I didn’t realise it, but apparently the whole time we were at Browses Piece, Frankie was feeling terrible about hurting Mum’s feelings. I think she was dead brave to apologise in front of everyone like that, don’t you?

Luckily Mum was really chilled about the whole thing.

“Rude?” she said, like the idea never even occurred to her. “Well, it’s very sweet of you to apologise, Frankie, but I honestly didn’t notice. So, I’ll see you all tomorrow, shall I? Unless you need anything?” There was a hopeful gleam in her eye.

I shook my head. “Uh-uh,” I said firmly. “Good night, Mum.”

After we’d polished off our toasties, we had a mega argument about what to put in our time capsule.

Kenny said we all had to donate something especially precious.

Rosie pointed out that no-one in their right mind would want to stick their most precious possession in the ground for, like,
decades.

“I mean, you wouldn’t bury your Leicester City scarf, Kenz, would you?” she said.

“No WAY,” said Kenny. She sounded shocked!

“Well, there you go,” said Rosie sensibly.

Everyone looked depressed.

“So what are we going to do now?” Frankie asked. “Put in things we totally hate, or something?
That
makes sense. NOT!”

“I know,” I said. “Suppose we don’t write our normal sleepover diaries tonight. Suppose we write special millennium letters for our time capsule instead.”

Frankie groaned. “If I have to hear that M-word one more time,” she threatened.

“A letter?” said Lyndz. “Who to?”

“Whoever finds it in the future,” I said. “You know, a future person.”

Frankie perked up. “Hey!” she said. “We can put in one of those Polaroid photos of us that your mum took in the snow.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” grinned Kenny. “Ask Fliss’s mum to take a new photo of us, in our night things. A serious Sleepover Club picture!”

Unfortunately, at the exact moment I stuck my head round the living-room door, my mum was just sitting down for the first time all day. But if she was fed up, it didn’t show. Well, not much!

I explained our time-capsule plan. “Have you got a tin we can bury our stuff in?” I asked.

Mum did better than that. She dug out this sweet painted box she used to keep all her pretty things in when she was a little kid.

“Are you sure?” I said. She nodded. “Wow! Thanks! Whoever finds it will think they’ve found real buried treasure,” I said.

Then we all faffed around in my room, trying out various poses, while Mum tried to stay awake.

Finally we got ourselves into position.

“OK, now on the count of three, everybody smile!” Mum commanded. “One, two, THREE!” And she snapped the button on Frankie’s funky camera.

Honestly, it was the coolest photo
ever.
We all agreed that any future person finding it would be blown away!

Then Mum left us to write our millennium letters in private.

Kenny insisted they should remain the writer’s deadly secret, until they were finallydug up. Until the
letters
were dug up, silly, not the writers!

“That way we can write what we want, without worrying what anyone else thinks,” Kenny explained.

So we all crossed our hearts and promised we wouldn’t peek.

Which is why I truly TRULY can’t tell you what the other girls wrote in their time-capsule letters, OK?

But if you cross YOUR heart and totally promise never to snitch to anyone, I’ll tell you what I put in mine. Here goes!

Dear future Person

My hame’s Felicity Sidebot. ham and I’m a member of the Sleepover Club. Perhaps you don’t have Sleepovers in your time? You should. They’re a real laugh. Oh, by the way, in the photo, I’m the girl with long, really white-blonde hair, and I’m wearing the short pink nightie with the little hearts on. Pink’s my absolutely favourite colour. How about you?

I don’t khow what else to tell you about myself I’m really just average. For instance, I’m nowhere hear as brave and caring as Jewel, who lives in a van and goes to protests all the time. But I love both my dads and my mum and my little brother, and I’d do anything to keep them safe, which I think is quite a good start, don’t you?

Hope you are happy living in the future, and that there isn’t too much concrete everywhere by the time you read this.

Yours faithfully,

Felicity Sidebotham

We folded our letters into tiny squares and put them into a plastic bag with our sleepover picture. That was Lyndz’s idea. Then I wrote a message on a sticky label to put on the outside, which said: PLEASE DON’T OPEN THIS TIME CAPSULE UNTIL THE YEAR 2020.

I mean, 2020 is far enough into the future for
anyone
, right?

Finally we put the bag inside Mum’s pretty treasure box and closed the lid.

“We’ll bury it before we go home,” said Kenny.

Frankie smothered a yawn. “Do you think we could have our feast quite soon? My baby sister woke us up about a zillion times last night.”

Kenny rubbed her hands. “No problemo,” she said wickedly.

Want to know what the others brought for our Sleepover feast? OK, here goes:

Pringles, a packet of squidgy pink pigs plus a packet of fizzy fish (I think Kenny got them from Marks), a HUGE white chocolate Toblerone (the Sleepover Club is going through a big white chocolate phase!) and a bag of dee-licious Caramel Swirls.

Suddenly I realised everyone was waiting. “Duh!” I grinned. “I only left mine downstairs.”

I went downstairs to get my contribution. Mum helped me make it earlier in the week. It’s this cake you don’t actually have to cook. You make it out of biscuit crumbs mixed with other scrummy things, and it kind of firms up in the fridge. Lemon squeezy or what!The

I think the others were dead touched when they saw the trouble I’d gone to. Not so much the cake, but the special topping. Because right across the cake in wobbly icing was my personal message to everyone.

welcome to sleepover 2000

After everyone had admired the cake, we switched out the light so we could have our feast by torchlight. Usually this is our favourite part of the sleepover.

But tonight we couldn’t actually eat that much. I mean, if you think about it, we’d been stuffing our faces since we got back from school!! Also, we’d had a really long and exciting day, so by this time we were all having incredible trouble keeping awake.

Poor Frankie kept dozing off. But you know Frankie. She hates to miss a thing! Every now and then, she kind of peeled back her eyelids and mumbled, “What did you just say?” in a really cranky voice!

After a bit of an argument, we decided to cut the feast short. One by one we switched off our torches. Rosie’s went off last.

“Bliss!” sighed Lyndz. “I
lurve
Rosie. She finally switched on the dark.”

“You are so-o silly,” giggled Rosie from her sleeping bag.

“Night everyone,” said Kenny.

“Night, John Boy,” joked Lyndz.

There was complete silence, except for the sound of breathing.

Suddenly the phone rang downstairs. Andy answered it. “Sure, I’ll tell her,” I heard him say. He sounded tickled pink. “Is Frankie awake up there, girls?” he yelled.