Trick or Treat (4 page)

Fliss was in heaven. “Ooh, look at these!” she sighed. “And these, and these!”

It was half term and we were in Harmony Heaven getting all the stuff for our spells. There were lotions and potions, mirrors, silver trinkets and tinkly glass wind chimes everywhere. The place was like Aladdin’s Cave.

Rosie was sorting through the same basket of shells Fliss was sighing over. “You can almost see through this one,” she said.

“Ooh! Perfumed candles!” gushed Fliss, rushing over to a glass shelf loaded with goodies.

Frankie rolled her eyes. “How romantic!”

Ignoring Frankie’s teasing, Fliss was now going mad on all the smelly stuff. “My mum would love these!” she said as she sniffed a packet of bath salts. “She says you should always take care of yourself and find time to wind down.”

Just as I was thinking that Fliss’s houseproud mum needed more than bath salts to make her relax, Lyndz ran up. “Look!” she said excitedly. “A bottle of coloured sand. My spell says that all I have do is sprinkle sand on the ground, and write ‘Merrylegs’ in it!”

“What for?”

Lyndz thwacked Frankie. “To get my dream horse, Donkey Brain!”

“Neeeeigh!” whinnied Frankie, remembering our last horsey game.

“Brrrrr!” Lyndz snorted back, and she reared just like a horse.

“Go for it, Merrylegs!” I cheered and Lyndz
pawed the ground. But when she pretended to write ‘Merrylegs’ with her ‘hoof’, she knocked over a basket of novelty sponges and a plaster mermaid.

We scrabbled on the floor, collecting seahorse and fish-shaped sponges, in total hysterics. But our laughter died a sudden death as the shopkeeper marched over. “Are you girls planning on making a purchase?” she demanded, waving her jangly bracelets in the air.

“Er…”

“We were…”

“We were just horsing around,” Frankie finished, and before I could stop it, a snort of laughter had escaped from behind my hand.

The shopkeeper swelled up. “Young lady, if you’re going to be rude…”

“Sorry,” I cut in. “We’re really sorry. And…and I do want to buy something.” I stroked a red candle against my cheek. “I’d like this for my…Lu-u-rve Potion.”

Uh-oh. Everyone got the giggles big time
now. The only one who didn’t find it amusing was you-know-who.

Shopkeepers hate kids.

So, after we bought what we needed for our spells, we agreed to boycott her stupid shop just to show her.

We did much better collecting pebbles in the White Swan pub’s driveway. The man who owned the place was dead friendly. “Make a wish for me,” he grinned. “To win the Lottery!”

“No problem!”

Things were going great. We had our candles, our shells, our sand and our pebbles. Now all we had to do was go to the Arboretum to collect twigs for wands.

The Arboretum is this huge tree park smack bang in the middle of Leicester. It’s peaceful and green and has every kind of tree you can think of. We had no trouble finding the ones s’posed to have magical powers, hazel and rowan.

“Look at this.” I rubbed the grey bark of a hazel tree. “You can tell it’s magic.”

“Only take twigs from the ground,” cut in Frankie just as I was trying out a magic chant. Frankie collected signatures with her mum for ‘Save a Tree’ once and it’s made her a bit bossy about living things.

“We care about the environment too, you know,” I protested.

But my promise didn’t stop Fliss the-ever-nervous-one from going, “Watch out no one sees us.”

“We’re not doing any harm,” Lyndz consoled her.

“Heh, heh, heh!” I gave a wicked witch cackle. “That’s what you think!” And waving my hazel wand about, I chanted:

“Eye of newt, slimy toad stew…

Time to put a spell on you!”

Cackling evilly, I chased the gang round the Arboretum threatening to turn them into frogs. It was well funny.

The gang went mad, and Frankie went
haywire as usual. She raced round the trees and slid on her bum down the grass slopes yelling, “A witch! A witch!” Rosie nearly wet herself.

We were all shrieking and running like wild things, when suddenly Fliss stopped dead in her tracks.

“L-look over there,” she panted, pointing to a boy the other side of the grass.

“Where?” We looked.

“It’s Robin Hughes!” Fliss gasped.

We all looked at a tall skinny boy standing under a tree taking notes.

“So that’s my future brother-in-law!” I joked.

“Only if your spell works,” laughed Frankie.

Robin Hughes, who was more like Harry Potter than Harry Potter himself, looked up from his notepad and blinked at us through his glasses.

“Robin!” shouted out Fliss. “This is Molly’s sister. She’s got a message for you!”

The poor boy went white.

“You know, Molly who’s in the chess tournament?” I added.

“D-do you mean M-Molly M-McKenzie?” Robin stuttered.

“Yeah,” I said as I ran up to him. “Hasn’t your cousin Emma told you about her?”

“Well…yes, actually,” said Robin, looking dead embarrassed.

“My sister says she wants to know when it’s Chess Club. She really wants it to be Saturday.”

“Oh,” said Robin looking relieved. “Tell her it’s going to be on Saturdays then.”

Now it was my turn to feel relieved. If Chess Club was on Saturdays, the Sleepover Club might be out of danger!

But just to make sure I said, “Molly really wants to see you.”

Robin went red. “Really…?”

There was an awkward silence. Then Robin seemed to screw up all his courage. In a sudden rush, he blurted out, “Tell her I’ll see her there!”

(YES!)

“OK.”

“See ya, Robin!”

“R-right.”

Heh, heh, heh…Our little plot was working.

“Let me clean the bath, Mum!” I grabbed the Ajax and Mum’s jaw dropped a mile.

“Thank you, Kenny,” she said, trying to act like it was the most normal thing in the world for me to offer to clean the bath after Molly the Monster. (I don’t think so!)

Mind you, Mum wasn’t the only one surprised at me lately. Believe it or not, in the last two days, I had sorted laundry, tidied Molly’s side of the bedside table (even though Molly throws
away anything of mine that goes on to her side) and cleaned her yucky hairbrush.

How else was I supposed to collect bits of Molly’s horrible grunge for my witchy spell? But even a magical person has limits. When I had to fish out a bit of her horrible toenail from the bath, I almost threw up.

Molly the Monster had taken to having long, private baths ever since I gave her Robin’s message about Chess Club. She didn’t fancy him (yet!) but even a nerd showing interest in you is better than no one. So with Saturday looming, my gruesome sister was probably trying to decide which club she’d go to – swimming or chess. The suspense was killing me!

But that wasn’t the only thing looming. Hallowe’en was next week. The thing was, we’d got fab stuff planned for our Hallowe’en sleepover, but so far we had nowhere to have it.

Every parent had said a big fat “No”.

See, the ugly rumour that our Sleepover Club was ‘trouble’ had spread. Jilly’s mum was friendly
with Lyndz’s mum and the two of them had a real downer on us (all Silly Jilly’s doing, of course). They were forever on the phone, complaining about things the gang got up to at sleepovers. And as soon as the other mums got wind of this, they started being mardy about sleepovers too.

True, with all my cleaning, my mum was definitely softening…But there was no way she’d go back on her word to ban sleepovers at our house. Not yet, anyway. When even Mrs Thomas gave a weak excuse, things looked desperate.

So the Sleepover Club had a conference call.

A conference call is where phone lines are linked up so different people can speak together at the same time. Here’s how it works with our gang.

We’ve all got mobiles now, amazingly. First, I call Frankie on our home phone. Next, Frankie answers me and calls Lyndz on her mobile. Then Lyndz answers on her home phone and calls Fliss on her mobile. Fliss answers on her mobile
and calls Rosie at home. Finally Rosie calls my mobile on her mobile. Hey presto! We’re linked in a big circle! We each hold a home phone at one ear and a mobile at the other and we talk! It’s dead cool!

“We’ve got to stop that Jilly coming over to your house,” said Frankie into both her phones. “She’s winding all the mums up.”

“Yeah,” Lyndz and I said together.

“Lyndz, ask Fliss how her campaign to get Robin Hughes interested in Molly is going.”

If the plan to get Molly preoccupied with Robin Hughes didn’t work, she’d carry on ruining our Sleepover Club. I could hear Lyndz talking to Fliss and I waited for her to give me Fliss’s answer.

“Fliss says she ‘accidently-on-purpose’ bumped into Robin on his way home from school. She went on and on to him how nice Molly was.”

“Yuck! How did he act?”

“Just looked puzzled, Fliss says.”

“Don’t blame him!”

Frankie broke in. “All this romance is OK, but it doesn’t solve where we’ll have our sleepover for Hallowe’en.”

“We must all be really, really nice, and get round our mums,” said Lyndz, who reckoned being ‘nice’ was the answer to everything.

“Why don’t we tell each mum that she’s the only one making a fuss?” said Fliss (whose mum usually was the only one making a fuss).

But Frankie came from a household of lawyers. “We could present our parents with a petition,” she suggested.

“Won’t work on my mum,” Fliss moaned.

“Well, being ultra nice will only make mine suspicious,” retorted Frankie.

“Why don’t we try all our ideas?” suggested Rosie, and in the end that’s what we agreed to.

A triple whammy.

The Sleepover Club was in danger and we had to pull out all the stops to save it. I don’t mind telling you, I was worried. But that wasn’t the only thing getting to me…

Merlin still hadn’t been found.

Merlin my pet had been missing for days. I was in a right state. That’s why when I found The Evidence under my sister’s bed, I nearly went through the bedsprings with excitement.

Here’s how it happened.

I was under Molly’s bed, looking for dirty socks, cos Frankie reckoned toe jam would make my ‘Love Potion’ extra potent! Anyway, there I was, wondering why Molly kept chewed-up paper and shredded tissues under her bed, when I noticed a brown, lumpy pile. (Not what you’re thinking.) This was a secret stash of chocolate brazils piled up like rocks, one on top of the other. It was a mini-wall built so painstakingly, it looked like a fortification from a cartoon about knights.

Chewed-up paper? Shredded tissues? Chocolate nut walls?

No one but my clever Merlin could’ve done it and the tiny teeth marks in the chocolate were a big clue. But as if that wasn’t enough, Merlin’s
sneaky little trail of rat droppings, all the way up to Molly’s slipper, proved it.

Merlin, my clever little wall builder, you are alive!

I was dying to break the good news to my sister. But I decided to wait until that night when she was all nicely tucked up in bed.

“Molly?” I began.

“Go to sleep.”

“Molly…”

“What!?”

“You know those chocolate brazils you accused me of stealing?”

“Yeah, and I know you took them. So don’t try to get round Mum with your goody-goody housework tricks…”

“Actually I didn’t steal them,” I said airily. “Someone much smaller than me did.”

“Shut up.”

“Someone much smaller…with tiny pink paws and a long skinny tail…”

Molly’s duvet froze.

“Yes. Did you know that someone with a long
twitchy nose is hoarding your chocolate brazils?”

“H-hoarding them?” whispered a muffled voice from under the duvet. “Wh…where?”

“UNDER YOUR BED!” I hissed. Then I yawned extra loudly and snuggled down to sleep. “Goodnight, Molly.”

My sister was grey the next morning. The thought that Merlin was loose in our bedroom was probably torment to a rat-hater like her. (Serves her right!) The silly thing was so anxious to catch Merlin that she didn’t say a word when I built a trap for him with her precious chessboard.

Molly’s chessboard made an ace ramp, leaned up against a bucket. I planted a trail of chocolate brazils all the way up the ramp so when Merlin reached the top, he’d keel over and drop into the bucket – PLOP! I made a nest of cotton wool for a soft landing and buried a bonus chocolate, just to reward my little pet.

But clever Merlin took the bait much quicker than even I had expected. Cos, ten minutes later, I was on the loo when there was an almighty CRASH! Then a scuffle and a bloodcurdling scream.

“Aaargh! KENNY! HELP!”

I shot off the loo so fast, there wasn’t time to pull up my knickers. But Merlin was even faster! He zoomed about the bedroom like a jet-propelled rocket. Round and round he scampered, climbing up the curtains, skittering across the pelmet and haring along the picture rail at record speed. I chased and he raced and all the time Molly crouched in the corner of her bed, screaming her silly head off.

“Aaargh! Aaaargh! Aaaaaargh!”

It went on for ages. Then, suddenly Merlin disappeared behind the bedside table.

“Aargh!” shrieked Molly again, shrinking further into the corner of her bed.

“It’s no good,” I said, flopping down on my bed. “If you hadn’t kicked the bucket over and
screamed yourself silly, Merlin’d be safe and sound by now.”

“C-couldn’t h-help it.”

“The only way is to leave him alone here. He’ll come out when it’s quiet.”

“B-but that means I’ll have to walk across the floor,” said Molly, looking as if she had to walk the plank.

I shrugged. “Either that, or stay where you are until Merlin appears.”

Molly pulled her duvet up to her chin.

“Oh…but Molly?”

“Wh-what?”

“If you do stay in bed all day, you’d better remember one thing…”

“What?”

“Rats are very good climbers.”

It was irresistible. When I came back into the bedroom after breakfast, there was Molly, with her stomach bare, snoring like a rhino. (She had to
catch up on her missed sleep from last night, poor thing.) Anyway, the chance to get a bit of fluff from her belly button was too good to miss. I’d got hair, nail clippings and toe jam – but so far, no fluff.

Stealthily as a witch’s cat, I crept up…leaned over…and ever so, ever so gently tweaked…

“Aaaargh!” Molly leapt up screaming like a scalded cat. “Aaargh, aaargh!”

The earpiercing screams alerted Mum, who bounded up the stairs and burst into the bedroom. “What on earth’s going on?”

“Rats!” Molly shrieked. “R-rats crawling all over me…”

Mum sighed. “It was probably just a dream, love.”

“B-but they were all over me.”

“Just a dream.”

“It wasn’t.”

Dunno why, but seeing Molly all white and shaky made me want to put her out of her misery. “It wasn’t rats. I was just…”

Molly turned on me, ungrateful as ever.
“It was you! You, you, you!”

“Now stop it, Molly,” said Mum.

“But Mu-um! Kenny—”

Mum held up her hand. “I’ve had enough of this. Kenny has been really trying lately. Cleaning up your mess…Helping out around the house…”

Molly glared at me.

“It’s time you two called a truce…” Mum pleaded so hopefully that I acted nicer than even Lyndz might have expected.

“Don’t worry Miss Rat-Hater,” I muttered. “Merlin is safely in his cage again.” No thanks to you! I thought crossly.

But Molly was not ready to give up the fight. “Where was the slimy, horrible thing?”

“In the bucket,” I said. “My trap worked like a dream.”

“Yeuch!” shivered Molly. Some people are never grateful.

“There!” said Mum, squeezing Molly’s shoulders. “Now you can stop dreaming about rats, Molly. I think you ought to thank
your sister.” And as she said it, Mum flashed me one of her ‘darling daughter’ smiles.

No doubt about it, I was Mum’s blue-eyed girl these days. Though I must admit it felt like I’d won through false pretences.

Still, false pretences or not, when Mum suggested a Hallowe’en sleepover in the famous McKenzie caravan, how could I refuse?

“A sleepover in the caravan!”

“I said ‘no sleepovers in the house’, but our caravan is parked in the driveway, so perhaps that doesn’t count,” explained Mum with a twinkle in her eye.

I almost knocked over my plate of Spaghetti Hoops in my rush to hug my mum. “Mum, you’re a star!”

“It’s only for Hallowe’en,” warned Mum. “You’re still banned from the house.”

“I know!” I rushed to the phone to tell the gang how Lyndsey’s ‘being nice’ idea had
worked. “This is going to be the best Hallowe’en ever!” I cheered.

But Fliss was not so enthusiastic. “A sleepover in the McKenzie caravan!” she shivered. “It’s probably full of spiders!”

“We can use them for Hallowe’en,” Frankie teased.

“I’m not sleeping there!” insisted Fliss.

“Well we can’t have our sleepover at your house,” I retorted. “Your mum hates the mess!”

Fliss had to admit this was true.

“Mine’s out too,” Frankie reminded us. “My mum and dad are going to a Hallowe’en party and they said our gang’s too much for any babysitter.”

“My mum’s gone all weird about the Sleepover Club ever since she bumped into Jilly’s mum,” said Lyndz. “But Kenny? Isn’t the caravan haunted?”

“Don’t!” whispered Fliss.

“Not any more,” I said. “We went camping in it last summer and had a great time.”

“Well, I think it’s perfect for our Hallowe’en spells,” said Rosie, who still preferred not to have sleepovers at her house.