Emergency Sleepover (10 page)

Or at least I think she did, because I was so tired I pretty much zonked out as soon as my head touched the pillow!

I slept really well, despite dreaming that I was drowning in a bath of baked beans. So the next morning I was up early and raring to go. Mum made everybody ring their parents to check whether it was OK if we went to Pricebusters. They all said it was, so Dad said if we walked there he’d drive down with all the sleepover stuff and the others could meet their parents in the car park.

There was a real buzz of excitement as we approached the store. It was ten to ten when we arrived, and quite a crowd had built up at the main entrance. We pushed our way to the front and saw Ryan and Danny inside with their mums and Danny’s little brother. Mr Hicks was just explaining the rules to them. They had one trolley between them, and they only had a minute to fill it with as much stuff as they could. Everything that was in the trolley at the end of the minute was theirs.

“I’d fill it full of chocolate!” Lyndz whispered.

“I’d go for stuff like soft toys and bubble bath!” said Fliss.

I wasn’t really sure what I’d grab. I mean, a supermarket’s not a sports shop or anything exciting like that, is it?

Suddenly a hooter sounded and they were off. We stood behind the barriers and jumped up and down, yelling. It was impossible to see what was going on but occasionally you’d see them flying behind the trolley as it passed the end of one of the aisles. And sometimes you could pick them out on one of the security cameras.

“I think their mums are stocking up on stuff like champagne,” said Frankie, straining her neck to see. “I don’t know what the boys are getting.”

I couldn’t believe it when the hooter sounded again. I mean, I know that a minute isn’t very long, but it had to be longer than that, surely! Mr Hicks led them to one of the checkouts, where a cashier processed their goods so they could find out how much money they’d saved. We weren’t really interested in that, so we pushed our way outside.

“Isn’t it cool to think that they won that prize because of us!” Frankie grinned. “It makes you feel good, doesn’t it?”

We all had to agree that it did.

“Hey, McKenzie!” shouted a voice behind me. It was Ryan. He was walking towards us bouncing a football on his knee.

“Yeah?”

“I wondered if you wanted this.” He kicked the ball towards me. “Me and Danny got one each and this was, like, a mistake.”

“Oh charming!” I laughed.

“You want it or not?” he asked, sounding a bit cross.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said gruffly. “You can never have too many footballs, can you?”

Ryan walked away, and I started to bounce the ball from my foot to my knee and back again. I even forgot to tease him about being with his mum!

“He didn’t get you anything, did he, Fliss?” Frankie teased.

“I wouldn’t want him to,” she snapped. “He only gave Kenny that ball because it was a mistake, remember?”

“Ooh, touchy!” mocked Rosie.

“Look, there’s Mum!” Lyndz shouted, pointing to her parents’ van. “Hey Mum, you’ve just missed the trolley dash. You could have won that if you’d done better at the scavenger hunt.”

Her mum laughed.

“I did have Spike and Ben slowing me down, don’t forget!”

The rest of our parents were there too. They all seemed to be having a laugh about us keeping quiet for the sponsored silence.

“Maybe we should pay you to do that more often!” suggested Frankie’s mum.

“
No way
!” we all said together.

During half-term, we took all the money we’d raised to the bank and paid it into Dad’s account. No, the M&Ms hadn’t been right about us keeping the money for ourselves. It’s just that Dad said that was the best way of looking after the money until we could hand it in to the Children’s Ward Appeal Fund. When we did, he wrote out a cheque for £300, which included the money for Mufti Day, the money raised from the scavenger hunt and my baked-bean bath, our sponsored-silence money, Molly’s pocket money and Dad’s money to make it up to “a nice round figure”.

It was really cool, because when we called into the Children’s Ward to give them our cheque, everybody was really thrilled.

Sister Kay, who is in charge of the ward, told us, “We should really have a proper presentation for this.” So she arranged something for the following week.

We couldn’t believe it when we went there after school and the ward was filled with balloons and bunting and a big sign saying:

THANK YOU, SLEEPOVER CLUB!

And that wasn’t all. They’d arranged for a reporter and a photographer to come from the
Leicester Mercury
as well. They took loads of photographs and asked us how we’d raised the money. Jake even told them how brilliant the scavenger hunt had been.

Our photographs ended up on the front page of the paper. That really wound up the M&Ms. We’re never going to let them forget it, but I have a nasty feeling that they’re already planning their revenge on us.

Still, we’re not going to worry about that now. Fliss has got a copy of the photograph, do you want to come and see it? We’re meeting there for tea and she’ll probably invite you too. But whatever you do, don’t let her give us any baked beans!!!