Sleepover Girls Go Gymtastic! (8 page)

We had arranged to meet up at my place on Saturday afternoon to go through our routines, but somehow we’d conveniently forgotten to ask any of our parents if that was all right. Mum chucked a major wobbly as soon as I mentioned it.

“You know it’s Grandpa Littler’s birthday,” she huffed. “And he loves it when we all get together for a party. You’ve got a whole week to practise for your competition, Kenny. I’m sure one day of not seeing your friends won’t kill you.”

The day might not kill me, but I was sure that my friends would. But hey, shows how much I know. Because when I rang Frankie to tell her the bad news, she sounded positively relieved.

“No probs,” she assured me. “Actually, we’ve got someone coming round to discuss some decorating, and Izzy’s just not herself. I don’t know what’s up with her but she’s really grizzly. I sort of promised that I’d keep an eye on her whilst Mum and Dad arrange everything with the decorator guy, so I’m kind of glad you’ve rung up to cancel.”

Charming!

“Just you practise your routine as much as possible, OK?” I warned her.

It was the same story with both Lyndz and Rosie. Not about them having to look after Izzy, obviously. Lyndz’s grandparents were coming over from Holland for a visit, so the whole family was in a mad panic trying to get their house into some kind of order. And you remember Lyndz’s house, don’t you? It’s always in a state, so boy did they have their work cut out! And Rosie was going to Alton Towers with her dad and his new family. He’d planned it as a surprise for her after the SATs. I know that she feels as though she misses out on stuff since he left home, so I kind of felt happy for her.

“You just make sure you come back in one piece, OK?” I teased her. “No falling out of Oblivion, or else there’ll be big trouble.”

“A big mess, you mean!” Rosie joked.

Before I could even get in touch with Fliss, Mrs Proudlove was on the blower herself, panicking as usual. I heard Mum trying to calm her down and promising that Dad would pop round just as soon as he got back from surgery.

“What’s up? It’s not the twins, is it?” I asked when she’d finally got off the phone.

“No, it’s Fliss,” Mum explained. “She has a headache and is very weak and faint. I’m sure it’s nothing serious but your dad will sort her out, don’t worry.”

Sure enough, when Dad came in he said she was overtired and he’d prescribed lots of rest and no excitement for the next few days. No excitement! Didn’t he know we had an appointment with destiny to keep? I mean, the gymnastics competition was about to change our whole lives.

‘OK, OK, stay calm,” I told myself. “This is just one day. We’ve got a whole week to practise. Rosie will be back from Alton Towers, Frankie won’t have to look after Izzy, Fliss will get better… I just hope Lyndz’s family manage to tidy their house.”

But life isn’t that simple, is it? By Monday Fliss was still too ill to come to school and Rosie had been sick all weekend too.

“Mum said it was too many hot dogs and too many fast rides,” she mumbled. I had to admit that she was still looking rather green about the chops. And Frankie was looking none too clever either.

“I’m just so worried about Izzy,” she explained. “She’s been screaming constantly for two days and her temperature’s ever so high. I know Mum and Dad are really worried about her too. I think Mum’s taking her to see your dad today.”

At least Lyndz was OK.

“Anyone fancy doing some gymnastics?” I asked hopefully at breaktime.

Frankie and Rosie both shook their heads, but Lyndz and I went through a few moves. The trouble was that it wasn’t easy practising them on the grass behind the playground. For a start the grass had just been cut, so when Lyndz tried out her backward roll, she got covered in green cuttings and looked like a mouldy Abominable Snowman! And another thing was that we didn’t want anyone finding out what we were practising for. So whenever anyone came near us, like the dreadful duo, the M&Ms – our deadly rivals Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman – we had to collapse on to the grass and pretend that we were just having a general chat about pop music and stuff.

“Phew, we can’t go through that again,” I gasped, brushing the grass from my skirt. “From now on we’ll have to practise after school at one of our houses. How about tonight?”

“Count me out,” Rosie said. “I’d puke for sure if I had to do a cartwheel.”

“And I want to get straight home to see how Izzy is,” Frankie explained.

“Well what about tomorrow then?” I tried to stay calm. “You do realise that the competition is only four days away, don’t you?”

“Erm Kenny, remember my grandparents are staying with us for a couple of days,” Lyndz told me sheepishly. “And I’ve promised that I’ll be home early for the next few evenings. Sorry.”

“I don’t believe this!” I yelled to the sky. “We’ve got this one chance to change our lives and we’re going to blow it!”

When I got home I was still really mad at the others.

“Fliss rang a few minutes ago,” Mum called out as soon as I’d walked through the door. “She sounded quite anxious, could you give her a ring?”

Phew! At least Fliss was taking this seriously. I mean, she was more desperate to get on TV than the rest of us put together. I knew that she wouldn’t let me down.

“Wassup?” I yelled when she answered the phone.

“Costumes!” she squealed. “What are we going to wear for the competition? We haven’t even
thought
about that yet, and it’ll be the first thing the judges notice.”

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t get your frillies in a fix!” I told her. “I think what we’re going to wear is the least of our worries right now. The rate we’re going we won’t even have a
routine
to show off, never mind any costumes.”

I explained how the others hadn’t been much use on the gymnastics front.

“That’s
terrible
!” she gasped. “I mean, they need all the help they can get, don’t they? At least I’ve been practising my bit whenever Mum’s not around. She’d kill me if she found out. Your dad said I had to have complete rest.”

“So when do you think you’ll be back at school?” I asked.

“Thursday or Friday, Mum says.”

“You’re joking! That hardly gives us any time to rehearse together.”

“I know, I’m really sorry. What about the costumes though? I’d thought maybe we should get pink leotards or something.”

“No way!” I yelled. “Besides, we’ve no time to shop for anything new now. I guess we’ll just have to wear the black leotards we sometimes wear for PE.”

“Yucksville!” Fliss groaned. “No-one will even notice us in them.”

“Well, the way things are going, the only reason anyone will notice us at all is because we look like a load of no-brain wallies!”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can Kenny, honest,” Fliss tried to reassure me. “In the meantime you’ll just have to practise as much as you can with the others.”

But that was certainly easier said than done. Frankie was in such a state worrying about Izzy for the next couple of days that she either completely forgot her routine, or else got it all out of synch and bumped into everyone else. Rosie did what she could but her tummy was still a bit dodgy, and she looked as though she could throw up at any moment. And Lyndz had to shoot off every afternoon to spend time with her grandparents.

It was only on the Friday that we were finally all together and everyone was in a fit state to rehearse. We all went back to my place after school.

“I’m so glad Izzy’s better,” Frankie told us as we were changing into our leotards. “It was only a bug, but she was really poorly.”

“And I’m glad that
I’m
better too,” Fliss said seriously.

“And
I’m
glad that you’re all better, you’re all here and we’re all able to rehearse our routine,” I snapped. “Now are you all ready? We haven’t got much time left, you know.”

I stuck
Live and Let Die
into the cassette player and cranked up the volume.

“And hit it!”

Talk about disaster! We all started moving at different times. Rosie went one way, Lyndz went another, and Fliss was so busy pouting and posturing that she ended halfway up Frankie’s back.

“Come on guys,” I shouted. “Let’s try it again.”

This time Lyndz tripped up and knocked into Rosie, who ended up flat on the floor.

“Are you doing this for a laugh?” I screamed. “Because it’s not very funny.”

“It is from where I’m standing!” Molly was creased up in the doorway.

“MUM!” I yelled. I had enough to contend with, without having to deal with my evil sister as well.

Once Mum had dragged her away, we started again. That time things weren’t too bad. All right, I’ll admit it, it was me who messed up the routine when I misjudged a cartwheel.

“It’ll be OK tomorrow, we’ll have more space,” I said, struggling out of the armchair.

“I hope so,” Frankie mumbled under her breath.

We rehearsed and we rehearsed. Then we broke for a quick sugar fix, and we rehearsed some more. Three hours later the others were all begging to go home.

“We’ll be exhausted by tomorrow,” Rosie moaned. “We need a rest. Please Kenny, the last few times the routine’s been OK, hasn’t it?”

“Hmm.”

It was OK, but I was sure we could do better.

“Just once more through then.”

That time, despite being dead tired, we performed like stars.

“Do it like that tomorrow and we’re on our way to a television series for sure,” I beamed.

As Fliss was getting changed she suddenly pulled a whole load of shiny badges from her bag.

“I almost forgot, I made these for you,” she grinned. “They’re on a sticky backing so they won’t spoil our leotards.”

They were the letters SC in silver on a shiny pink heart-shaped background.

“Mum helped me make them when I was ill,” she explained.

“Cool!”

“I think we’ve just got ourselves a lucky emblem,” I laughed. “Right guys, I’ll meet you at the Leisure Centre bright and early tomorrow morning. Don’t be late!”

When I went to bed later, I was so pumped up I just couldn’t sleep. And when I did get to sleep, I had this crazy dream about the floor at the gymnastics competition turning into toffee and Fliss being eaten by a great big marshmallow. Talk about weird. I’d definitely been working too hard!

The next morning as I waited for the others to arrive at the Leisure Centre, I felt quite sick. Not as sick as I’d felt before the Science SAT, though. It was a sort of nervous but excited feeling, if you know what I mean. And my nerves certainly weren’t helped by the fact that there were already
hundreds
of girls milling about in their tracksuits and leotards. There were a few boys too, but it was mainly girls. And do you know something else? They were all absolutely
tiny
!

“Blimey! Look at the size of everyone!” Frankie gasped as soon as she arrived. “I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb here, aren’t I?”

I caught sight of Rosie pushing her way through the crowds. She looked really relieved when she spotted us.

“It looks like everyone else wants to be television stars too,” she pointed out.

Fliss and Lyndz soon joined us. Lyndz looked completely terrified by the number of people there were, but Fliss lapped it up. She had this look of supreme confidence, which said,
I’m better than you, so don’t you forget it
!