by Fiona Cummings

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Have you been invited to all these sleepovers?

Sleepover Kit List

Copyright

About the Publisher

Watch me, watch me, watch me!

Cool huh? I am Kenny, fantastic gymnastic! Did you see how I went straight from those cartwheels into a walkover-handstand combo? Wicked or what? I’ll show you how to do it later if you want, but whatever you do, don’t tell Fliss, OK? She thinks she’s queen of the gymnastics scene, and once you get her started she’ll show you her full repertoire of moves and you’ll be there for days!

I guess when you think of gymnasts, you usually think of someone like Fliss, don’t you? You know, all petite and bendy. You certainly wouldn’t think of the rest of the Sleepover Club, that’s for sure. I mean, Frankie is good at lots of sports, but petite she ain’t! She’s shooting up so fast that she’s about as tall as King Kong now (though not as hairy!). Rosie’s actually not bad at cartwheels and stuff, it’s just that she’s not completely confident in herself. So after every move, she stops to check that her leotard hasn’t ridden up her bottom. And Lyndz, hmm – what can I say? Gymnastics and Lyndz just don’t mix!

And me? Well, I’ll give anything a go once. And although I’m too much of a tomboy to look all neat and tidy, I am pretty hot when it comes to the old gymnastic moves, even if I say so myself. (In fact I used to go to a gymnastics club, but Mum said I had to pack it in because I never had time to do my homework.)

So what’s with all this gymnastic talk anyway, I hear you ask? Well, my little friend, you’d better sit down and make yourself comfortable because I have one wicked tale to tell. And it’s not just about gymnastics either. Oh no. It’s also about – and I’m going to whisper this next bit in case you’re of a nervous disposition – SATs. You know exactly what I’m talking about, right? Those yucky, pukey, stupid tests that some cruel person devised as a form of torture for us poor children.

We’ve known since about Year One that this particular set of SATs was coming up, and Fliss has been panicking about them for just as long. You just have to mention the food chain, or percentages, and her eyes glaze over like you’re talking a foreign language. She’s been attending extra revision lessons with Lyndz and Rosie so they can push their scores up to the next level in the tests. I think it’s just a question of giving them confidence really, and that’s something Frankie and I certainly don’t lack. It’s not that we’re brainboxes or swotty or anything. (Swotty? Me? Per-lease!) It’s just that we don’t get all jittery when we take tests. We go in there, do our stuff and come out again. Sorted!

Well, that’s the theory anyway. This time it all went badly wrong. And by the time the SATs came round we were all under pressure – Big Time!

So you want to know how gymnastics came to be muddled up with SATs, do you? I guess I’d better start at the beginning, then.

OK, there were a few weeks to go before we sat the dreaded tests and all we seemed to hear was “SATs this” and “SATs that”. We went over and over and over fractions and reading comprehension at school. Then we’d have to do revision on the solar system or something for homework. It was enough to make a girl reach for a jumbo-sized bag of Maltesers, I know that much. And if I remember rightly, that’s exactly what I was doing when I saw the programme which just about changed our lives.

I went into the lounge and the local news was blaring out of the TV – yuckarama! That was so not what I needed to chill out with after all my hard work. But Mum and Dad were engrossed in it as usual so there was no way that I could turn it over to The Simpsons.

“Don’t tell us you’re actually going to sit down and watch this with us!” Mum looked shocked and pretended to faint.

“No way!” I mumbled. “Who wants to see all that boring stuff? If I wanted to depress myself I’d follow Molly around and watch her sad life.”

I was referring to Molly my manky sister, in case you were confused. She’s one incredibly gruesome geek, and I’m embarrassed I’m even related to her if you must know.

“Now now, Kenny, enough of that,” Dad tutted. “Fortunately for you Molly’s still at Carli’s, but she’ll be back any minute.” He patted the empty cushion beside him on the sofa. “You really ought to start watching the news you know, Kenny. It’s always a good thing to be aware of what’s happening in the world around you. I know this is going to come as a terrible shock, but the entire universe doesn’t revolve around you, your Sleepover chums and Leicester City Football Club.”

“Oh no, Dad!” I collapsed dramatically next to him. “You mean there are other things out there too?”

Dad ruffled my hair and turned his attention back to the screen. To be absolutely honest with you, I was prepared to be bored out of my skull. I was even considering going back to my revision. But then up flashed this amazing footage of kids about my age doing these brilliant gymnastic routines. They were going from backflips into these wicked handstands where they actually did the splits in the air.

“Good gracious me!” Mum’s eyes started to water. “That can’t be good for you, can it?”

“Shh, Mum, I’m trying to watch,” I hissed. I could feel Mum and Dad exchanging one of their looks over my head.

The presenter had now appeared on the screen. “Amazing, aren’t they?” she smiled. “Well, gymnastics isn’t only for Olympic hopefuls like these…”

There was a loud thud as Molly burst through the front door and dumped her bags in the hallway.

“Mum, there’s someone at the door selling stuff,” she called out. “Will you come and talk to him?”

Mum sighed and got up. Thanks to Molly I’d missed what the presenter was saying. I think it was something about gymnastics encouraging coordination and teamwork. I missed the next bit too because the phone rang.

“Dad, it’s for you!” Molly yelled. “It’s Mrs Davies about her piles!”

I couldn’t believe it. The one time I was actually interested in something on the news, I couldn’t hear a word because my stupid sister kept yelling at everybody. I went to sit on the carpet about a metre in front of the screen. And a good job I did too, because the presenter woman was just moving on to the interesting bit.

“… looking for raw talent. So we’re organising a competition in the Leicester area to get all you 8- to 12-year-olds more involved. To make it fun we want you to get together with a group of up to five friends and work out a routine using some basic gymnastic moves. Each of you should perform a very short solo routine, and end by performing a routine all together. The music you choose is very important because it should enable you to express lots of different emotions. Now don’t worry, we’re not looking for anything like this…”

The film cut to a mind-blowingly complicated series of leaps, backflips and balances.

“What a load of prats!” Molly must have been watching from the doorway. “You wouldn’t catch me prancing around like that.”

“Well, seeing as you’re as flexible as a tree trunk when you try to dance, I don’t think there’s much hope for you in gymnastics anyway,” I grinned.

Molly made a lunge for my hair, but Mum came in and caught her just in time.

“Out you come, young lady. You can help me tidy up in the kitchen!”

I turned back to the television just in time to catch the presenter saying:

“The winners of our competition will become the stars of their very own TV series, which will follow their progress and see what kind of impact gymnastics has on their lives. Think Popstars in leotards! For more information send for our factsheet at the address which follows. And remember that the competition will be held on…”

But I didn’t hear what she said next because I was flying out of the room looking for a pencil and paper so that I could copy down the address. This was just the kind of break the Sleepover Club was looking for. We’re always looking for ways to get famous. (You’ve got to remember the time that Lyndz almost appeared in the advert for Spot Away spot cream.) I knew that the others would be totally razzed when I told them about it.

You know about the Sleepover Club, right? How we all stay over at each other’s houses and have a laugh? Well, I started doodling all the names of the Sleepover Club on the piece of paper I was holding. I wrote Frankie’s name first because we’ve known each other forever, and although we’re not really supposed to have best friends in the club, she’s mine. She’s a real laugh and can go a bit crazy at times, but she’s usually the one who makes sure we don’t get too silly or carried away with our ideas. Next to her name I drew a star, because she’s a star mate of course, but also because she’s well into astrology and stuff.

“Is that in case you forget your friends’ names?” Dad asked, glancing over my shoulder at the paper. Fortunately I’d folded it over so he couldn’t see the address I’d written for the competition. “Why’ve you drawn a picture of a princess next to Fliss’s name?”

“’Cos she thinks she is one, of course!” I giggled.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look nice,” Dad said, eyeing my scruffy Leicester City football shirt.

“Yeah, but she takes it a bit far sometimes,” I said, “bothering about her eyeshadow when we’re supposed to be planning serious Sleepover business.”

“Well, maybe it’s to build up her confidence?” Dad suggested. “She might be feeling a bit pushed out now her mum’s got the twins to worry about.”

I guess he had a point. It must be kind of weird having babies in the house again when you get to our age. Although Frankie’s got a new baby sister too and she hasn’t gone all freaky over make-up and stuff. But then Fliss’s mum is a bit, erm, neurotic at the best of times. I guess Fliss’s life isn’t as easy as we think it is.

“Now why does it not surprise me that you’ve drawn a picture of a horse next to Lyndz’s name?” Dad laughed, looking more closely at my piece of paper.

Everyone knows how mad Lyndz is about horses. I guess that’s her escape from all four of her brothers – they’re enough to make anyone crazy. But strangely enough, Lyndz is one of the calmest people you’ll ever meet. She hates it when we fall out and is always playing the peacemaker. And she has the most fearsome hiccups in the world!

I drew one of those mask-type things next to Rosie’s name – you know, the kind where one face is laughing and the other is crying.

“That’s a bit of a strange thing to draw, Kenny.” Dad looked puzzled. “What’s that about?”

“Well, you never know what you’re going to get with Rosie, do you?” I pointed out. “She’s great fun most of the time, but sometimes she can be really prickly.”

Finally I drew a football next to my name on the list. If there’s one thing I’m passionate about it’s Leicester City Football Club. As well as my friends, of course. Which is why I was determined that we should win this gymnastics competition. It would be a major thrill for all of us.

When Dad had gone out of the room, I started to seriously think about gymnastics and what we could do. And I was reminded of one thing – Circus Jamboree. Do you remember Ailsa trying to teach us how to perform flick-flacks? And the workshop we went to? Well I kind of wished I hadn’t remembered it, because we weren’t really much cop at all the acrobatic stuff. And this time, just dressing up as clowns wouldn’t win us any prizes!

Still, hadn’t the TV presenter said that for this competition they didn’t want gymnastic geniuses, they wanted “raw talent”? Well, she wouldn’t get talent much rawer than the Sleepover Club’s, that was for sure. And I was pretty certain that when the others realised that the prize was to star in our very own television programme, they would be able to backflip and flick-flack with the best of them.

I went back up to my bedroom and started to practise a few moves. I did a couple of cartwheels but there wasn’t as much room as I thought, and I crashed straight into Molly’s bedside cabinet. A few of her precious ornaments fell over, so I picked them up quickly, because she goes ballistic if anyone even looks at her stuff.

Then I tried to do a handstand and make shapes with my legs in the air. But it’s much harder than it looks and I ended up sprawled on the floor. Hmm, I could see that we would have to get in some serious practice if we were going to win this competition.

But that wasn’t my biggest problem. No. I could hear Molly thudding upstairs like an elephant, so I had to get back to my homework. If there’s one thing that Molly loves doing, it’s winding me up about the SATs.

And sure enough, as soon as she came in she started.

“I hope you’re working hard there baby sis, because those SATs papers are just the hardest thing ever!”

Molly sat hers last year so she reckons she knows everything about them now.

“And let’s be honest,” she carried on, “you’re not as clever as me, are you? I mean, you’ll never get the levels I got.”

She smiled a false sickly smile. “But you’ve got to do your best, you know. And I promised Mum and Dad that I’d keep an eye on you and make sure that you’re working hard. So no slacking now, Laura dearest. We can’t have you letting the McKenzie family down, can we?”

Sometimes I could quite happily stuff my sister down a dirty toilet and flush her round the U-bend. But instead I flashed her a sarcastic smile and gritted my teeth. I had to keep the peace and make sure that she didn’t find out about the competition, because if she did she’d make my life hell for sure.

The next morning I was bursting to tell the others about our chance to be famous. But I was kind of late for school, so they were already in the classroom when I managed to catch up with them.

“I’ve got some excellent news for you,” I garbled as I plonked myself down at our table.

“Have the SATs been cancelled?” whispered Fliss hopefully.

But before I could reply, Mrs Weaver turned her beady eyes on me.

“I am trying to get on with registration, if that’s all right with you, Laura?”

I absolutely HATE anybody using my real name, so I did my best impression of a very angry tomato.

After that there was no way that I could tell the others about the competition, especially as we had a maths test which we had to do in absolute silence. To be fair, I did try to give them as many clues as I could. Like drawing a picture of us on television on my paper. But they just thought I was doodling because I was bored. So ‘accidentally on purpose’ I dropped my rubber on the floor. And when I went to pick it up I did a weenie little handstand. Lyndz stared at me like I’d lost it completely, but Mrs Weaver was not impressed.

“Laura McKenzie, is there any particular reason for your foolish antics, or are you just too shy to ask me for the extra maths homework I am now going to give you?”

A ripple of giggles spread round the room.

At least the extra homework would be worth it when I told the others my news. They wouldn’t just be giggling then. Oh no, they’d be whooping and cheering, carrying me on their shoulders and telling me how they’d be grateful to me forever for making them stars. Well, I expected something like that anyway. Boy was I in for a surprise!

“Gymnastics?” Frankie shrieked when I’d told them all my news. “I don’t think so, Kenny. I mean, look at me. I don’t exactly look like a gymnast, do I? Gymnasts are small. I’d be laughed out of the place for looking like a freak.”

“But that’s exactly the point of the competition,” I assured her. “Gymnastics isn’t just for delicate little people…”

“Like me!” piped up Fliss.

“Yep, like you Fliss. It’s for everyone. They’re trying to get more people to join in and benefit from it. Oh come on, it’ll be fun. What do you think, Lyndz?”

Lyndz was looking pretty sick actually.

“I agree with Frankie,” she said. “You know that I’m hopeless at gym, Kenny. I even get stuck on forward rolls sometimes. And do you remember that time Mrs Weaver asked us to try a handstand and I lost my balance and crashed down on top of Alana Banana? She was so dazed everyone thought she had concussion. She was off school for ages.”

“But the presenter said each person only has to do a short solo performance, Lyndz,” I reassured her. “There must be lots of gymnastic-type balances and stuff you can do. And the rest of us can cover for you when we do the routine all together.”

“I suppose.” Lyndz shuffled her feet and didn’t sound too convinced.

“So Rosie-Posie, are you up for it?” I demanded.

Rosie smiled warily. “Yeah, I guess so. As long as it doesn’t interfere with SATs too much. I’ve promised Mum I’m going to work really hard for these tests.”

“When is the competition exactly?” Frankie wanted to know.

“Dunno,” I shrugged. “Ages away, I think. Anyway, wouldn’t it be great to have something to look forward to after the SATs? And in the meantime, practising for it will help us clear our minds a bit. What do you say?”

The others all looked at each other. Only Fliss was jumping about like she’d got ants in her pants.

“It’ll be so cool!” Fliss twittered. “This competition was made for me… I mean, us!”

I sighed. I just knew that that was because she thought she was little and perfect and would capture the judges’ hearts the moment they saw her. PUKE!

To be honest I was well cheesed off with the others. You’d think they could have mustered some enthusiasm when I was offering them the chance of stardom.

“Look guys, don’t you realise that if we win this thing, we actually get to star in our own TV programme?” I told them in exasperation. “And that’s not just going to be about gymnastics, is it? It’s going to be about us. Everybody will get to see us and we’ll be famous. Lyndz, they’ll probably film you at Mrs McAllister’s stables. You’ll be able to show everyone how much you love horses and you’ll be offered some top job where you can ride the best horses in the world all day. Isn’t that what you want?”

Lyndz’s eyes had begun to sparkle. She beamed and nodded.

“And Frankie, you’ll bowl everyone over with how witty and clever you are and no one will even notice that you’re as tall as a giraffe!”

Frankie batted me playfully on the arm. But I could see that she was beginning to realise what a mega-opportunity we were looking at here.

“And I’ll be spotted by a model agency, won’t I? It’s going to be totally cool!” Fliss gushed again. “It’s a brilliant idea, Kenny. Have you sent off for the factsheet yet? We’ve got to start planning everything. I mean, I’m brilliant at gymnastics, but you knew that, right? I’m sure I can teach you all a few moves, even you Lyndz.”

And with that she cartwheeled across the grass in front of us.

“Charming!” Lyndz tutted, but she was laughing really.

“So are we about to be famous TV stars then?” I shouted.

“YES!” the others chorused.

“We should start rehearsing right away!” Fliss reappeared, a little breathless from her exertion. “What about after school?”

“Revision!” the others reminded her.

“Who cares about stuffy old SATs when we’re going to be on TV?” she retaliated.

“I think you’re being just a tad hasty there, Fliss,” Rosie reminded her. “We’ve got to actually win the competition first, you know.”

But you could tell that there was no stopping Fliss now. She had that look on her face which spelt trouble with a capital T.

“Oh-oh, she’s in Cloud Cuckoo Land again,” Frankie whispered. And we just knew that Fliss’s fluffy little brain was filling up with images of herself being mobbed by adoring fans whenever she went out. Revision for SATs was going to have a really tough time competing with that.

To be honest with you, it was hard enough finding time to see each other at all, what with after-school revision clubs and the masses of homework that Mrs Weaver kept piling on top of us. But as soon as I’d received the factsheet about the competition, we made a firm arrangement to meet round at my place.

“So how was the science revision club?” I asked as Lyndz, Rosie and Fliss staggered through the door.

“I just don’t get it,” Lyndz moaned. “I mean, reversible changes? What’s that all about then?”

“Oh come on Lyndz, Mrs Weaver’s been going on about it for the last hour. You’ve got to understand it by now!” Rosie sounded really exasperated. “Water turns into ice when it freezes, doesn’t it? But you can melt ice when the conditions are warm enough, right? So that’s a reversible change.”

“And salt dissolves in water,” added Frankie. “But you can recover it again through evaporation, so that’s a reversible change too.”

“But what about bread turning into toast?” Lyndz looked puzzled. “If you burn it, you can scrape the black bits off so it looks like bread again, can’t you?”

“WHAT?” we all shrieked. “Changes involving burning are never reversible!”

Lyndz started spluttering.

“You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?” I yelled, wrestling Lyndz to the floor. “The question is, if I tickle you until you explode, what kind of change would that be, Lyndz?”

“An icky, gooey, horrible change!” giggled Rosie.

All the time we were fooling around, Fliss was stretching elaborately in the hallway, totally oblivious to us.

“What’s with her?” Frankie asked, when Lyndz and I had finally picked ourselves up.

“I don’t know,” Rosie shook her head. “She was like that all the time in the class. She wasn’t paying any attention at all.”

“Yeah,” Lyndz whispered, as we crept into the lounge. “I thought Mrs Weaver was really going to lose her rag at one point. It’s like she’s on another planet. Planet Gymtastic!”

“Planet TV Star more like,” Frankie moaned. “That’s all she went on about today. It’s like everything else has just gone out of the window. And that’s really weird because until you told us about that competition, Kenny, she’d been driving us all crazy by stressing so much about the SATs.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed. “But now it’s like she’s forgotten all about them.”

“Maybe she’ll be OK once we’ve started practising,” Lyndz suggested. “You know, maybe it’s something she needs to get out of her system.”

“Hey guys, shouldn’t we be getting on with planning our routine?” asked Fliss, sticking her head round the door. “I mean, I know what I’m going to do for my bit, but we’ve got to get the rest of you looking decent as well, haven’t we?”

We all burst out laughing and chased her into the garden.

Now when Lyndz had said that she was useless at gymnastics, she wasn’t joking. You know when babies do that thing where they look as though they’re going to do a forward roll, then collapse at the last minute? Well, Lyndz was just like that. And the more Fliss tried to encourage her to do a cartwheel, the funnier it got. First she just ended up doing strange, lopsided little bunny hops. Then she kicked Fliss in the arm as Fliss tried to help Lyndz’s balance. And finally she ended up sprawled on her back in Dad’s compost heap.

“Aw yuck, Lyndz, you stink!” Frankie held her nose.

“Sorry, hic, guys!” Lyndz gulped. “I, hic, told you I wasn’t, hic, any good at this kind of, hic, stuff!”

“You’ll get there Lyndz, it’s just a matter of practice,” Rosie reassured her, as she rubbed Lyndz’s back to get rid of the dreaded hiccups. “Anyway Kenny, why don’t we have a look at your factsheet now? There might be a few suggestions on moves which would be suitable for Lyndz.”

“Good idea, Batman!” I agreed, racing up to my bedroom for the paper.

It did have some really helpful suggestions in it. And it described how in gymnastics the most important thing is the quality of the shapes you make with your body.

“There you go, Lyndz!” I grinned. “You could just stand at the back and make shapes. Like this!” I stood up and spread myself out like a starfish, then crouched down and stuck one arm in the air. The others doubled up in hysterics. Except Fliss.

“I don’t think it means that at all,” she sniffed. “But look, the bit about music is in bold type – that must be important.”

“It says that ‘gymnasts should choose music which enables them to express different emotions. Each move should be in tune with the music, and one move should move seamlessly into another.’ Well, that’s all right then!” I said, pulling a face. “What kind of music ‘expresses different emotions’?”

“It doesn’t, hic, mean classical music, does it?” wondered Lyndz. “I mean that, hic, would just put the icing on it if we had to, hic, prance around to that.”

“They mean show tunes,” Fliss announced smugly. “Gymnasts usually perform routines to songs from big musicals like Phantom of the Opera or Miss Saigon. Mum’s got loads of CDs from shows, I’m sure she’ll help us to pick some out.”

“No way!” I told her firmly.

The others backed off. They knew what was coming. We were winding up for another Kenny and Fliss showdown.

“You and your mum might like show tunes Fliss, but the rest of us don’t,” I continued. “I couldn’t even recognise a song from Miss Saigon if it bit me on the bottom. And just because other gymnasts use music like that, doesn’t mean that we have to, OK?”

“I was only trying to help!” Fliss said huffily. “I want us to win this competition, that’s all.”

“Well so do I,” I told her. “And that’s why we’re not going to tell our parents about the competition just yet. We’re going to win this by doing things our way, OK?”

“OK,” the others agreed.

But I could see by the look in Fliss’s eyes that things weren’t OK. Far from it. I’d never seen her looking so defiant before. It was almost like she was a different person.

The hairs pricked up on the back of my neck and a shiver crept down my spine. I knew then that this whole competition thing was going to bring us nothing but trouble. What I didn’t know was just how much.

“Fliss has turned into a power-crazed freak!” Frankie flopped down on the lawn next to me. We were at her place after school, practising our gymnastic moves.

“She’s just been having a right go at me because I couldn’t hold my handstand long enough,” Frankie carried on. “I told her that it’s easy for her with her short little legs. Mine are so long it’s like trying to balance two drainpipes up there!”

“What did she say?”

Frankie put on her ‘prim Felicity Proudlove’ voice. “‘You must practise, practise, practise Frankie. I’ve got my work cut out as it is trying to get Lyndz to look half-way decent.’”

We both dissolved into giggles.

“Poor Lyndz!” I chortled.

We both squinted into the distance, where Fliss was demonstrating to Lyndz how she wanted her to kneel, lift and stretch her left leg behind her then move into a forward roll. But every time Lyndz tried to follow her instructions, Fliss found something to complain about.

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