Emergency Sleepover (9 page)

“They add up to 10p each, don’t they?”

“Oh I see now!” Fliss smiled, relieved.

“The penny’s dropped, eh Fliss?” Dad chuckled.

“Ha, ha, Dad—very funny!” I sighed, and shooed him out of the room.

We all sat round the table and I slowly tipped the bag into the middle of it. All these coins came shooting out. There were
hundreds
of them. I’d never really seen so much money before.

“Wow!” We all stared at it for a few minutes.

“Just think of all the things we could buy with that!”

“A new Leicester City strip!” I drooled.

“Tons of expensive make-up!” Fliss sighed.

“Chocolate!” Lyndz was almost dribbling. The rest of us cracked up laughing.

“Well come on then, if it’s chocolate you want,” I teased. “Mum’s made one of her yummy-scrummy chocolate cakes for tea. So the sooner we count this lot, the sooner we’ll be able to eat!”

We dived in, and soon loads of little piles of coins were springing up on the table in front of us. I was just starting to feel kind of hungry and hoped that it wouldn’t be long before we’d finished, when Molly the stupid Monster came in.

“Hello creeps. You’re very quiet in here. Ooh money! Lovely money!”

She picked up a handful of the coins and let them run through her fingers. As they dropped back on to the table, they knocked over several of the piles that Fliss had counted.

“Hey watch it!” she snapped.

“Or else?” Molly tried to sound menacing.

“Or else I’ll come and smack you one!” I warned through gritted teeth.

“Yeah? Come on then!”

I leapt up and started to chase Molly round the table. I was closing on her when she stumbled and crashed into one of the table corners.
All
the coins we’d already counted slithered from their piles and formed another mound in the middle of the table! We all stared at it in disbelief.

“You’re for it now!” I yelled. But before I could do her some serious damage, Mum came in.

“What on
earth
is going on in here?” she demanded.

“Ow!” Molly was clutching her side where she’d fallen against the table, but she didn’t get anybody’s sympathy.

“I’m really sorry girls, you’re going to have to start again,” Mum said gently when we’d explained what had happened. Then she grabbed hold of Molly’s elbow and propelled her out of the room.

“I don’t believe this!” moaned Fliss, her head in her hands. “It’s going to take us
ages
!”

“Well, I’m starving,” I announced. “So I suggest we get back down to it double-quick before I collapse with hunger!”

It was kind of depressing having to start all over again, but it didn’t take as long as we’d thought before we had the money in piles again.

“Right, nobody touch the table!” I warned. “I’m going to count them up.”

In fact, we all counted them. And apart from Lyndz, who got a different total completely, we all agreed that we’d collected £78.67, two buttons, three foreign coins and a piece of chewing gum! Not bad at all!

Mrs Poole had also put an envelope in the bag which contained the £35 we’d collected as the entrance fee for the scavenger hunt. So that made £113.67.

“And don’t forget the money we raised on Mufti Day,” Fliss reminded us.

“So that means we’ve raised a grand total of…” I did a quick – OK then, not so quick – calculation. “£275.67!”

“Yeah!”

“Great!”

“Wicked!”

We all did high fives and danced around the room.

“I take it you’ve finished?” Mum came in with loads of little plastic bags. She helped us carefully bag up all the cash, then told us that tea would be ready in fifteen minutes. She had a bit of a smile on her face as she was saying it, but I really didn’t think anything about it. I was just kind of glad to be able to have a mad chase about with the others in the garden. I hate sitting still for too long, don’t you?

Anyway, when she called us in for tea, Mum was standing there with Dad and Molly, like they were some kind of reception committee or something.

“Well, I feel a bit mean doing this after all you’ve been through today,” she began.

We all looked at her suspiciously.

“But I’m afraid you’re going to have to eat your tea in silence!”

“WHAT?”

“It’s just an idea that your parents came up with,” explained Dad. “When we were discussing all this fundraising malarky, someone suggested – I think it was your mum, Rosie – that we should sponsor you to be quiet for once.”

“And as your mealtimes together usually resemble a chimps’ tea-party,” Mum went on, “we thought it would be good to sponsor you to stay quiet now, before your sleepover. You’ll have plenty of time to catch up with your chatter later!”

“That’s what’s worrying me,” moaned Dad. “They’ll probably be talking until three in the morning now!”

It looked like we didn’t have much choice in the matter. But boy, was it tough! It wasn’t like a boring old sponsored silence at school or anything, because you never really want to say much then anyway, do you? But we had
loads
to talk about now. And we needed to keep asking each other to pass the ketchup and stuff. The more we winked and pointed, the more we wanted to laugh. In fact at one time Rosie did splutter a bit, but we just tried to ignore her.

We really hit problems though when Molly started to torment us. I mean Mum and Dad were sitting there, but they just let her go round pulling faces at us. They were both reading their newspapers and they both seemed happy as long as we didn’t make a noise.

“You’re a big fat ape!” Molly whispered in my ear. I was about to hit her when she dodged away.

She went round to the other side of the table and whispered something to Lyndz. She went bright red in the face and looked as though she was about to shout at Molly, when Fliss poked her hard with her fork to stop her. Well, I thought Lyndz was going to explode. She put her hand over her mouth, her eyes started to water, then she let out the loudest hiccup you’ve ever heard!

It was so funny, the rest of us were creased up. And have you ever tried to laugh silently? It’s virtually impossible. I was laughing so much I fell off my chair, and that just made the others worse.

But then Molly did something really mean. She actually started to tickle Fliss. And Fliss hates being tickled – big time! She squirmed in her chair and looked pleadingly at the rest of us with her eyes. I could tell she was getting really mad so I got out of my chair to sort Molly out, but it was too late.

“MOLLY! JUST STOP IT! NOW!”

The silence was broken!

Well, I bet you thought that was Fliss, didn’t you? To be honest with you, so did I at first. But when Mum leapt up from her chair, she looked so furious that we all knew it must have been her who’d shouted. In one movement she grabbed hold of Molly’s arm and dragged her out of the room. The rest of us all looked at each other and tried not to splutter with laughter. Lyndz was still hiccuping, and we had to make sure that we got through the rest of the meal without any silence-breaking mishaps.

I think it was the first time in my life that I hadn’t enjoyed Mum’s chocolate cake. All I could think about was getting outside and screaming at the top of my voice. I didn’t realise keeping quiet could be so
difficult!

It was such a relief when Mum came back in. We’d almost finished eating, apart from Fliss who seems to take twice as long as everybody else to finish her food. When she’d finally picked at the last few crumbs of cake Mum spoke.

“Well I’m really impressed that you managed to keep so quiet,” she marvelled. “Especially with Molly provoking you like that.”

I put up my hand.

“Yes Kenny, what is it?” Mum asked.

“Can we speak now?” I mouthed at her.

“Yes, yes, you can speak as much as you like!” she laughed.

We all burst out cheering and whooping.

“Well, that sponsorship money should boost your total some more!” Dad grinned.

“And I’ve told Molly that she has to give you her pocket money too, for being such a pain,” Mum told us.

“Hey, that’s great!” squealed Rosie. “We must have raised enough to buy loads of new toys for the Children’s Ward now, mustn’t we?”

“I would imagine so,” Dad nodded.

We all beamed at each other and danced about. Then we raced into the garden to really let off some steam. First we wrestled Rosie to the ground and tickled her until she was screaming for mercy.

“That’s because it was your mum who suggested the sponsored silence!” I told her, when we had finally collapsed, panting, on to the grass.

“Well you should tickle
her
then, not me!” she said huffily, then started to giggle at the thought of it.

After we’d got our breath back we had one of our barging
Gladiators
games. I leapt on to Frankie’s back and Rosie leapt on to Lyndz’s. You’re supposed to push the other team into the flowerbed and it usually turns into a big free-for-all, but Fliss had other ideas. She was the referee and kept making up all these crazy rules.

“Peep!” she pretended to whistle. “Bentknee barges aren’t allowed, free push to the opposing team!”

It was a scream. I think Fliss was quite chuffed with herself for making us laugh too.

We stayed outside for ages playing our crazy games. And when Mum finally called us inside, it was getting dark.

“Just look at the state of you!” she shrieked when she saw us. “You look as though you’ve been down a mine for a month!”

We were so dirty and grimy that she made us all have a bath. Bad move! By the time we’d finished in the bathroom, the mirrors were all fogged up and the floor was swimming with water! Mum was not pleased at all.

“Chimpanzees from the zoo wouldn’t make as much mess!” she sighed.

She made us get down on our hands and knees and mop up the water with some old towels. Molly thought it was hysterical and kept jeering at us from the doorway.

“I’m exhausted!” moaned Fliss when Mum finally agreed that the bathroom was clean enough. “I feel that I could sleep for a week!”

“Yeah, we should have had a sponsored sleep!” agreed Rosie. “That would have been dead easy!”

We piled into my room and wedged a chair behind the door so that Molly couldn’t get in. You know what she’s like when we have sleepovers at my place! Particularly as we normally share a room, and she has to go in with our big sister Emma.

“My pyjamas are all wet!” grumbled Rosie, sliding into her sleeping bag.

“So are mine!” agreed Lyndz. “That’s the second time we’ve got wet today.”

“It’s my third, remember!” I laughed.

“Hey, that reminds me,” Frankie suddenly perked up. “Let’s have our midnight feast!”

Now I know that Frankie can be a bit odd sometimes, but I couldn’t see how me being wet earlier could remind her about our midnight feast. But when the others spread their goodies on my bed, it all suddenly became clear. They’d only brought cans of baked beans, hadn’t they?

“Funny, funny, ha, ha!” I said. The others were doubled up so much they looked as though they were peeing their pants.

“We thought you’d like them!” Frankie guffawed. “Look I’ve even remembered the tin-opener too!”

“Oh, don’t remind me about that!” I groaned. “Honestly guys, I swear to you that if I ever see another baked bean I’ll probably throw up!”

“It’s just as well that we brought these as well then, isn’t it?” chuckled Fliss, emptying a mound of sweets from a Pricebusters carrier bag over the top of the cans.

“That’s more like it!” I said, relieved.

We scoffed until we were stuffed. We ate marshmallows and mini Mars bars, we shared two chunky Kit-Kats and chomped our way through three packets of Doritos. Yum!

“We are going to go to the supermarket tomorrow to see Ryan Scott do the trolley dash, aren’t we?” asked Fliss as we were settling back down into our sleeping bags.

“’Course we are,” I reassured her. “I want to tease him for doing the scavenger hunt with his mum!”

“Don’t be mean!” said Fliss.