Sleepover Club Vampires (4 page)

“DAD!” Molly and I yelled together.

“Look, her son just might have meningitis and you can’t play around with that. I’ll be back as soon as I can. You’d better ring Patsy and Keith and explain the situation to them.”

And with that, Dad grabbed his doctor’s bag and flew out of the door.

Now if I was a doctor, I don’t really know what I would have done. But just at that moment I wasn’t thinking about being a doctor. I was just thinking about meeting up with my mates and getting up to Scotland to have some fun.

Eleven o’clock passed. And half past. It was almost midday when Dad finally reappeared. I was certain that the boy had had to go to hospital for sure.

“Well?” we asked when Dad finally came through the door. We could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t good news.

“A temperature and a runny nose. The lad has a wee cold,” he told us grimly. “I spent half an hour trying to reassure the woman that her son was not on death’s door, and then I had to go to the surgery to inform the other doctors. You couldn’t make me a cup of tea, could you Molly love? I feel exhausted and I’ve still got that long drive ahead of me.”

Talk about spitting feathers! We’d never get up to Scotland at this rate.

When we did eventually set off, I hadn’t been in the car five minutes before I’d had a fight with Molly, called Carli a brainless chicken and been told by Mum that if I carried on I wouldn’t be going to Scotland at all. Needless to say, by the time we drew up in front of Lyndz’s I was well cheesed off. Not in the best of moods then to cope with Fliss bawling her eyes out and having what looked like a full-on paddy.

“What’s with her?” I asked Frankie, who was looking a bit pink round the edges.

“She’s just discovered that she’s brought her brother Callum’s bag instead of her own.”

She gestured to the pyjamas covered in Pokémon and Pikachu which were scrunched up on the gravel.

“You ought to have seen her when she found out!” Rosie whispered. “She went ballistic. She flung everything out over the ground and started stamping on them.”

“I bet Callum did the same when he found Fliss’s frilly knicks in his bag!” I grinned. “Where is he anyway?”

“That’s just the point,” whispered Frankie. “He’s gone to stay with their gran for a few days. But when Lyndz’s mum rang Fliss’s mum to find out where they were, Fliss’s mum didn’t know and thought they’d gone off somewhere – with Fliss’s bag!”

“Trust Fliss!” I snarled. “It can’t be that hard to check that you’ve got the right bag can it? Even for Fliss.”

Was this holiday turning into a disaster or what?

“So what are we doing now?” I demanded. “Waiting for Callum to turn up?”

“No, Fliss’s mum is packing her another bag and Andy’s going to bring it over,” Lyndz explained. “He shouldn’t be long because Mum rang him ages ago. I’m really cross with Fliss, actually. Before this happened Mum was quite bright, but she’s gone all cross and narky again.”

“She’s not the only one,” I said through gritted teeth.

After what felt like an hour (but was apparently only five minutes) Andy’s van appeared. He leapt out brandishing a luggage bag identical to the one whose contents were now being tried on gleefully by Ben and Spike, Lyndz’s two youngest brothers.

“Here you are love,” he smiled, thrusting it towards Fliss. “We managed to trace your gran and get your bag back. Now, now, there’s no need to cry!”

Fliss was in full waterworks mode again and was sobbing into Andy’s jumper. Mum managed to prise her away, and before any more mishaps could occur bundled us all into Lyndz’s van.

“OK Jim, I’ve got the directions and your mobile number. You’ve got mine, haven’t you?” Lyndz’s dad checked with mine. “Right then, all being well we’ll rendez-vous at Tebay service station. All aboard? Wagons roll!”

At last! We were off! I have to admit that at one stage I seriously doubted that we would ever get out of Cuddington.

“Can we have the Steps tape on, Mum?” Lyndz asked.

“Yeah!”

“Wheels On The Bus!” yelled Ben.

“Steps!” we all chorused back.

“Wheels On The Bus!” Ben’s chin was going all wobbly.

“OK, you can have your tape on first, Ben,” Lyndz caved in. “But then it’s our turn, all right?”

Ben grinned his big soppy grin and started doing all the actions to the songs on his tapes. The first time round we all joined in and it was a bit of a laugh. But when Ben insisted on having his tape on again, my heart sank. Not least because the alternative to his stupid tape was him shrieking at the top of his voice.

“Just once more then.” Lyndz shrugged her shoulders apologetically at the rest of us.

I wouldn’t have cared, but Mrs Collins just didn’t say anything at all. So we had to listen to “Wheels On The Stupid Bus” yet again. And let me tell you, by the fifth time I was ready to yank the wheels
off
the nearest bus and stuff them down Ben’s throat.

Fortunately, five repeats of his tape seemed more than enough for Ben too, because he nodded off.

“Great!” whispered Rosie. “Can we have Steps on now?”

We handed the tape to Mrs Collins who put it on. Then, noticing that Ben was asleep, she turned the volume right down so we could barely hear it at all.

“Could we have it up just a tiny bit, Mrs Collins?” Fliss asked.

“I don’t want to wake up Ben, Felicity,” Lyndz’s mum replied coldly. “He wouldn’t be so tired if we’d managed to get off on time in the first place.”

“Patsy!” Mr Collins looked crossly at his wife.

Fliss went bright red and her eyes welled up with tears. Lyndz squeezed her arm and mouthed “sorry”. She looked as though she was about to start crying herself. The rest of us just looked miserable. So much for Mum’s plan of bringing Lyndz’s mum away with us to cheer her up. At the moment she just seemed to be making everybody else unhappy too.

At least when we got to Scotland we’d be able to escape from her for a bit. Whereas right now we were stuck in the van with hardly any music, one snoring toddler and a baby who, by the smell of it, had just filled his nappy.

It was a major relief when we finally pulled into the service station next to Dad’s car. But it made us feel worse then ever when we entered the café and found Molly and Carli in sickeningly high spirits.

“We’ve had a wicked journey!” Molly gushed. “We’ve listened to two Westlife tapes and Robbie Williams. We even caught Dad singing along to them.”

“Yeah, it was so funny I thought I was going to wet myself!”

“Carli!” Mum pretended to sound shocked. “What kind of journey have you lot had then? Noisy, I’ll bet!”

“Erm, not exactly,” I said truthfully, but I couldn’t expand on that because Lyndz’s mum had appeared looking tired and harassed.

“I didn’t realise it was such a long way,” she sighed, flopping down on the seat next to Mum’s.

“Not to worry Patsy, the bulk of it’s behind us now,” Mum reassured her. “There’s only a couple of hours to go.”

“Two hours!” Frankie almost exploded. “I’m not sure I can stand that van for another two hours.”

She said that last bit quietly because she didn’t want Lyndz’s mum to hear. It was true that the thought of two more hours cooped up with Mrs Trunchbull’s more gruesome sister didn’t seem a very exciting prospect. But it also meant that in two hours we’d be at Uncle Bob’s place with a week of adventures in front of us!

In actual fact, the last two hours of the journey passed really quickly. It was very dark by the time we set off again, and we were soon in the countryside where there didn’t seem to be too many streetlights. The darkness and the rhythm of the moving van seemed to make us all drowsy and I can’t really remember anything much until Mr Collins suddenly shouted:

“Wake up guys! We’re almost there!”

It was amazing, because one minute I was fast asleep and the next I was wide awake, staring eagerly out of the window.

For ages we couldn’t really see anything. We seemed to be driving up a long, long road with trees on one side and a huge expanse of water on the other.

“Look, a lake!” I pointed to it eagerly. “I knew there’d be a lake!”

Occasionally we caught sight of a startled pair of eyes on the road in front of us – rabbits, foxes, goodness knows what else.

“This is amazing!” breathed Mrs Collins softly.

Suddenly Mr Collins slowed down.

“Oh my goodness!” he gasped. “I didn’t expect this!”

We all peered eagerly out of the windows. Looming before us beneath a sinister swirling mist was the creepiest, spookiest house I had ever seen in my life.

“Th-this is a joke, right?” spluttered Fliss, stumbling from the van. “We’re n-not really going to stay here, are we?”

I was kind of wondering whether it was one of Dad’s jokes myself when the door of the house creaked open.

“A monster!” screeched Fliss and Rosie together, ducking down behind the van.

It was the funniest monster I’d ever seen. There in the doorway, silhouetted by the lights from the hall behind him, was a tiny little bloke dressed in a kilt and funny long socks. He was warbling
Scotland the Brave
and doing a strange little dance.

I saw Mum raise her eyes at Lyndz’s mum. But miracle of miracles, Lyndz’s mum was actually doubled over with laughter.

“Hello there, Bob!” Dad called out and climbed the steps to join him. “You’ve dressed the part for our Sassenach friends, I see!”

“Indeed laddie,” Uncle Bob was shaking Dad’s hand with gusto. “Can’t be doing with the bairns thinking we Scots are a dour lot!”

“What’s he talking about?” hissed Frankie in my ear. “I haven’t understood one word. I didn’t realise Scottish people spoke a different language!”

“Me neither,” I agreed.

“Come in, come in,” Uncle Bob gestured towards the rest of us. “You must be weary fit to drop. Mrs Barber’s preparing the best hot chocolate north of the border, so come in and rest your bones a wee while afore bed.”

“Come on girls, let’s get you all inside.” Lyndz’s mum rounded us up with Ben asleep in one arm and Spike nodding off in the other. “This is going to be a fun week, I can just tell!”

We all exchanged glances. She was like a completely different person, all bubbly and bright like she used to be.

“It must be something in the air,” I muttered.

“I’d better bottle some and take it home with us!” Lyndz giggled.

“I want to go home!” Fliss sobbed. “This place is just too –
weird!
”

“Come on Fliss, we’re just tired, that’s all,” Frankie reassured her. “Things will look different in the morning – I promise!”

“I-if we’re still here by then,” Fliss stammered. “We’ll probably have been b-bitten by a v-vampire or something!” And she burst into tears again.

“Now don’t you worry about that, Fliss,” I comforted her as I helped to carry her bag inside. “Frankie and I are expert vampire slayers, aren’t we Franks? No big-toothed bloodsucker would
dare
mess with you, OK?”

I executed a few high kicks along with a bloodcurdling scream to prove my point. Unfortunately the entrance hall was so vast that my scream sort of magnified and bounced off the walls. It sounded as though a mass-murderer was on the rampage in one of the rooms upstairs.

Frankie rolled her eyes at me as Fliss went off on another of her sob-fests.

“Now Kenny, you’ll arouse the ghosties with noises like that!” Uncle Bob appeared in the hall in front of us. “This way for hot chocolate, then I’ll show you all to your rooms.”

We followed him in silence, trying to take in the vastness of the house. I know that I’d sort of dreamt that Uncle Bob lived in a castle, but I never thought it would be anything as enormous as this. The ceilings were so high that you had to strain your neck to look up at them. The walls were all wood-panelled with various deer heads mounted on plaques above us.

“Ooh, gross!” Frankie (the vegetarian) shuddered theatrically. “Killing animals like that is just disgusting!”

Fortunately Uncle Bob didn’t seem to have heard. He led us into a room where an enormous fire roared in a massive stone fireplace. On a huge wooden table were steaming cups of the most gorgeous hot chocolate you have ever tasted in your life. Mmm, I can still taste it now – scrummy!