Mega Sleepover Club 3

Sleepover Girls Go Pop!

The 24-hour Sleepover Club

The Sleepover Club Sleeps Out

Lorna Read

Fiona Cummings

Narinder Dhami

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Sleepover girls Go Pop!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

The End

The 24-Hour Sleepover Club

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

The Sleepover Club Sleeps Out

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

Sleepover Girls Go Pop!

Uh-oh, I can see Frankie looking at me. Well, looking’s hardly the word. She’s glaring like Fliss’s neighbour, Mr Watson-Wade - Mr Grumpy, as we call him - does, when he thinks we’ve thrown crisp packets into his pond.

I know what that look means. It means I’ve got to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, cross my heart a billion, trillion, zillion times and hope to die before Andy - that’s Fliss’s mum’s boyfriend - discovers that his guitar is really a cardboard cut-out and my brother Stuart discovers why his saxophone won’t make a sound any more!

I’m a Libran and everybody knows Librans don’t like telling lies. We’re the ones who believe everybody should play fair. We’re always trying to keep the peace -but ‘peace’ is a dirty word in our house at the moment. At least, since Saturday night.

It wasn’t all our fault. It was partly Dad’s, for not converting the attic properly.

He’s always doing weird things to our house, like moving the doors around and building extra rooms. I shouldn’t be surprised to wake up one day and find out he’s double-glazed me!

I’m Lyndz, by the way. That’s short for Lyndsey Marianne Collins. I’m one of the five members of the Sleepover Club.

The others are Laura McKenzie, known as Kenny. She’s Frankie’s best friend. There’s Francesca Thomas, Frankie for short, and Fliss. Fliss’s full name is Felicity Sidebotham (please don’t laugh, it’s not fair. Anyway, she pronounces it Side-botham).

The last person to join our gang was Rosie, alias Rosie Maria Cartwright. It was my idea that she should be allowed to join, because she was new to the area, and new to school, and didn’t know anyone.

Well, we had to rescue her from the dreaded M&Ms, didn’t we? Just imagine if she’d got into the clutches of our worst enemies! The Goblin - that’s Emily Berryman, one of the M&Ms - might have twitched her stupid splodgy nose and turned her into a toad or something.

Quick! I’ve just noticed Frankie isn’t looking. Let’s run out into the garden and hide in the shed, otherwise she’ll want to tell you everything as usual, and I won’t get a turn.

Mum calls our shed the summerhouse, now that Dad’s fixed a completely gross verandah on the front, with a wonky railing. Mum’s put some old chairs in and painted them streaky blue. Mediterranean blue, she calls it. It looks more like what happened in Rosie’s living room when it was being painted and Jenny, her dog, wagged her tail all over the wet wall.

Right. Now listen up, as my Canadian cousin Ryan would say. He sent us a tape with his voice on at Christmas and “listen up” was his fave expression. “Hey, listen up, the snow’s fifteen feet deep outside our door.” Well, if the snow was that thick all round the house, the only sound you’d hear would be from up above, anyway. You’d be walking round lop-sided, with one ear raised to the ceiling, listening up for the rescue helicopters!

But it’s me who needs rescuing right now, so stop slurping that Slush-Puppy and popping that bubble-gum and I’ll tell you what you really want to know.

Oh no, I’ve done it now! Tell me what you want, what you really, really want… That’s a bit of Wannabe, by the Spice Girls. And that, unfortunately, is where the whole thing began.

Oops! I’ve got hiccups now and when I hic, I really, really hic. It’s your fault. You shouldn’t have made me laugh. What you’ve got to do for me now is press your thumbs very hard into the palm of my hand while I hold my breath.

There, it’s worked. Not a hic in sight (or sound). As I was saying, we - the Sleepovers, that is - are crazy about the Spice Girls at the moment. In a few weeks or months, we might be crazy about somebody else, but right now, Spice is nice as far we we’re concerned.

Sometimes we sneak into the studio at school when it’s empty at dinnertime. We love to dance, and sometimes Dishy Dave the caretaker plays the piano for us. He’s really good. He plays all these pop songs by ear. Well, with his fingers, actually. Oh no, don’t make me hiccup again! We asked him if he knew any Spice Girls songs and he did. He said he really likes them, too, and he’d got their video.

He asked us what our favourite Spice song was and we had a big argument. Fliss and I love Mama. Kenny’s fave is Wannabe and Rosie and Frankie think Love Thing is brilliant. Dave decided Mama was the easiest for him to play, because it’s slow.

The studio’s got mirrors on the walls so that dancers and gymnasts can watch themselves performing. We all struck Spice Girl poses and sang the words. Kenny can sing quite loud, though she often goes flat. Fliss and Rosie have got soft, whispery voices, but at least they’re in tune.

Frankie sounds like a crow with laryngitis. No wonder she wrote in her Sleepover diary a while back that she’d given up wanting to be a pop star when she grew up and wanted to drive a taxi instead!

As for me, I think I’m a good singer. Yes, I know I sound as if I’m boasting, but I was given a solo to sing in the Nativity show last Christmas and Mrs Weaver would never have given it to me if she thought I sounded like Mary and Joseph’s donkey. (Frankie does.)

Dave thought we were good. “That’s great! You sound just like them,” he said. “There’s five of you, too, just like the five Spice Girls. You should start a group,” he said.

So, really, if we’re blaming anybody, we should blame Dishy Dave for getting the ball rolling, the cookie crumbling, the group grouping …

Okay, okay. I know I’m rambling. Please don’t fall asleep, though. I haven’t got a Sleepover planned for tonight. In fact, after last Friday, I don’t think my parents are going to allow one here ever again!!!

Right from the start, it was intended to be our thing. ‘Girl Power’, as the Spice Girls would say. The last thing we wanted was to get mixed up with a gang of horrible, smelly boys, even if some of them were my own brothers.

You should get a whiff of Tom’s room. He’s my second oldest brother, aged 14. Old socks and stale crisps. Steve, who’s sixteen and my oldest brother, smells of zit cream and stinky feet, because he hates having baths.

I once made a sign for Tom’s door. It had a skull and crossbones on it and under it I wrote, NASAL DEATH AREA. He took it down and ripped it up, leaving all the family noses in mortal danger once more.

Fliss and Rosie have got brothers, too, so a few weeks ago I decided to try and find out if all brothers smell, or if it’s just my personal misfortune. Fliss said that Callum, her seven-year-old brother, smells like stink bombs. My little brother Ben smells of wee, and as for baby Spike - well, he often smells of worse, when his nappy needs changing!

Rosie’s got the perfect brother. Although Adam’s got cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair, he’s fanatical about his appearance. He loves taking showers and having his hair moussed and gelled and the best prezzie you can give him is a really nice spray cologne. I wish my brothers would catch the habit!

It’s not as if nobody ever gives Tom and Stuart any smellies. They’re always getting them for Christmas and birthdays, but the minute they put them on, the scent mutates into Dead Rat or something.

Not that they often use their smellies on themselves. They do stupid things with them instead, like the time Stuart decided our cats’ litter tray ponged and wasted a whole bottle of Dad’s Aramis, trying to freshen it up.

Unfortunately, right in the middle of his spraying activities, Toffee came bounding through the cat flap and caught a full blast. Fudge and Truffle, our other two cats, treated him like an alien and wouldn’t go near him for days, and Buster, our dog, got a sneezing attack whenever Toffee sat next to him.

Anyway, back to that afternoon three weeks ago, which is when it all began…

The bell for the end of dinnertime had rung and we all said a reluctant goodbye to our reflections in the mirror and started to walk back to our classroom.

Fliss was the last one to leave the studio, of course. She just had to pout at herself and toss her ponytail one last time. She gave a high kick through the studio door and lost her balance and nearly fell over. As she tottered around with her arms whirling like windmills, who should stroll past but the lurv of her life, Ryan Scott.

“Hi there, Fliss. They’ll never have you in the Riverdance team,” he said, sniggering.

You should have seen her blush. It was just as if someone had thrown tomato ketchup in her face! Frankie gave me a big nudge and I nearly fell over, too.

“Drunk again, Lyndsey,” said Ryan.

“Oh, run off and play on the M1, won’t you?” said Frankie, in her best “you’re being really bo-ring” voice.

He shrugged and did a big slide round the corner of the corridor, with his hands in his pockets. I was hoping Mrs Lynch would be coming round the corner and he’d go wham, straight into her, but no such luck.

Mrs Lynch is our school secretary and she’s seriously bad-tempered, not like Mrs Poole, our Head. She’s a sweetie, unless you do something really bad, and then she can get you expelled!

“Why did you have to be nasty to him? He’ll think we don’t like him now!” Fliss complained.

“I think you’re a very sad person, Fliss,” Frankie told her, and a row was all set to break out, until Kenny changed the subject. Thank goodness she did. Who wants to talk about boring boys? Especially big-headed posers like Ryan Scott!

What Kenny said was all set to change our lives, though none of us knew it at the time.

“Do you think Dave meant it?” she asked us.

Rosie frowned. “Meant what?”

“About us being like the Spice Girls.”

“I hope so!” said Fliss.

“Stoo-pid!” said Frankie.

“Why does it matter?” I asked Kenny.

“The competition!” Kenny said.

We all stared at her. Then I suddenly remembered. I don’t watch much telly. I’m not as mad about it as the rest of the club, especially Fliss, who eats, drinks and sleeps Friends and has all the episodes on video -she’s the saddest thing on earth! One thing I do enjoy, though, is seeing people make complete twits of themselves on Stars in Their Eyes, where they have to look and sound like a famous singer.

The other day Mrs Poole announced in Assembly that the school was going to raise some money to send some needy kids in a children’s home on holiday.

“The staff and I have had a discussion and we’ve come up with something we thought you’d all enjoy,” she told us. “Every class is going to enter an act in Cuddington Primary’s version of Stars in Their Eyes. There’ll be class heats first and we want all of you to have a go. The winning act from every class will get a prize, and they’ll perform in the charity show. The ticket money will go to the children’s home.”

We didn’t think any more about it, as none of us are particularly talented, though Fliss thinks she looks and sings like Madonna and Frankie plays pretty mean piano.

But it looked as if Frankie had thought of something now, and the rest of us were desperate to find out what it was.

The door of our classroom was closing as we got to it. I grabbed the handle to stop the others from entering, while I thought quickly.

“Six o’clock at my place, folks,” I told everyone. “Mum’s got yoga tonight and Dad’ll be in the workshop. He’s trying to finish this really gross pot for Auntie Cath’s birthday. I don’t know what she’ll ever use it for.”

My dad really fancies himself as an arty potter, but his efforts are always wobbly and lopsided, or bits drop off them. They are totally useless, though he thinks they’re works of art which should be worth millions of pounds and displayed in museums throughout the world.

“A spaghetti jar?” suggested practical Fliss.

“A potty?” Rosie giggled.

“That’s what your dad is - a potty potter,” Frankie said.

We all laughed loudly, even me, though it was my dad Frankie was insulting.

Then Mrs Weaver yelled, “When you girls feel like joining us, the class can start.”

So we had to go in and pretend to be interested in caddis fly larvae.

As we were drawing them in our Nature Study books, Frankie made hers look like my baby brother Spike, swaddled in an enormous nappy. I tried so hard not to laugh when she passed it to me under the desk that I got the hiccups.

Mrs Weaver sent Alana Banana, of all people, to get me a glass of water, but my hand shook so much as I hiccuped, that the water shot all over the back of Emma Hughes, one of the M&Ms.

That put the king in the cake all right! She’s one of our worst enemies and the sight of water dripping down her neck inside her collar made us have hysterics. We just collapsed with our heads on our desks and sobbed.

But it stopped my hiccups, so it was a good thing for me, if not for Emma, who hissed, “I’ll get you for this, Lyndsey Collins! You’ve really got it coming!”

Now, a threat from the M&Ms spells real doom. I had no doubt in my mind that Emma and her crony Emily meant to do something to get back at me.

But what…?

I laid the news on Mum as soon as I got home.

“No way. You can’t have all your friends round tonight,” she said.

“But why not?” I wailed. “I’ve invited them now. It’s not fair!”

“I’ve got some of my friends coming this evening. I might be an old wrinkly, but I do have friends, you know, and I’m going to be far too busy entertaining them to cater for you lot as well,” she insisted.

“I thought it was your yoga night and we wouldn’t be in the way,” I said.

“It’s been cancelled. The teacher’s on holiday.”

I put on my sweetest, most pleading face. “Please, Mum… They’ll have eaten already by the time they get here. And we won’t take up any space. We’ll go straight up to my room and disappear. We’re having a summit conference,” I told her importantly.

“The summit of stupidity, if you ask me!” snorted Tom, who would happen to walk into the kitchen right then.

“It is not!” I said angrily.

“Tis.”

“‘Tisn’t!”

“Oh, stop being babyish, you two,” said Mum. “Look, if you want to see your friends tonight, Lyndsey, just make sure they bring their own crisps and biscuits, and keep out of the lounge at all costs. Okay?”

“Thanks, Mum!” I said, giving her a hug.

Frankie’s dad brought her, Kenny and Rosie over. Shortly afterwards, Andy, Fliss’s mum’s boyfriend, dropped Fliss off.

I’d already done a phone around about the food situation, and raided some of the emergency rations Mum keeps in the spare fridge, which sits next to the huge freezer in the garage.

I’d found a big tub of my favourite ice-cream, two packets of chocolate biscuits and a bumper crisp selection pack. Don’t ask me why there were crisps in the fridge. I guess Mum was being hassled by Ben and Spike and just shoved them anywhere to get rid of them. The crisps, I mean, not my little brothers.

Frankie’s dad brought in a six-pack of Cokes. Fliss had some bananas and a bottle of diet lemonade so I knew she had to be on one of her healthy eating kicks again. Rosie had some Jaffa Cakes. Kenny was carrying a weird looking cake. It was sort of pinky orange.

“Ugh! What’s that?” I asked her.

“Molly made it at school. It’s supposed to be carrot cake,” she explained. Molly is Kenny’s twelve-year-old sister.

“It’s bound to be horrible,” Fliss said. “She wouldn’t have let you have it if it hadn’t been. You know how much she hates us. She’s probably trying to poison us so she’ll never have to move out of the bedroom again.”

Molly and Kenny share a room and every time we spend the night there, she has to move in with Emma, Kenny’s oldest sister. Both of them hate having to share, and Molly’s always nasty about which of her possessions we mustn’t touch or go anywhere near. Last time we had a sleepover at Kenny’s, Molly was so strict about her precious Spanish costume doll that, after she’d gone, I took its knickers off and made it a little nappy out of some pieces of toilet paper held together with a safety pin.

She can’t have discovered it yet, otherwise she’d have gone ballistic and I’d have heard all about it from Kenny.

I made everyone take off their shoes before going in my room. We always kick our shoes off, anyway, and my room’s too small for loads of shoes. There’s no space to put anything and Dad still hasn’t made me the new bedroom in the attic he’s been promising me for over a year.

I took the cake off Kenny and looked for somewhere to put it, where it wouldn’t get damaged. My dressing table was far too full of stuff, so in the end I put the cake down on the floor, between the bottom of the bed and the window. Big mistake.

Meanwhile, everyone was cramming themselves on to my bed and on the carpet. There was no room for Rosie till we’d closed the door and she could sit with her back to it. That was great, because it meant no nosy brothers could get in.

Frankie remained standing. It was obvious she wanted to organise everything as usual.

“I’ve got this great idea,” she announced.

We all groaned. This was one of Frankie’s stock phrases, and it always led to trouble of some sort.

She ignored us. “How many Spice Girls are there?” she asked.

“Five, of course,” said Rosie.

“How many of us are there?”

“Five,” said Kenny, frowning.

Frankie grinned. Then she ripped open a crisp packet noisily and started cramming the contents into her mouth.

I sighed. Frankie loved ‘keeping us in suspenders’, as she put it.

“Come on,” I said. “Give us a clue.”

“Mm-mm-mm-mm,” she muttered through her munching.

“What?” we asked her.

She gave a big gulp and licked her crumby lips.

“Stars in Their Eyes,” she replied. “School version, of course. Why don’t we go in for it as the Spice Girls?”

“Yeah! Fantastic! Can I be Baby Spice?” yelled Fliss.

She took a flying leap off the end of the bed. There was a squelchy sound. Then silence. Then an awful scream. She’d landed right in Molly’s carrot cake and squashed it all over the carpet. Fliss is very fussy, just like her mother. She absolutely hates getting in a mess. When we saw bits of creamy orange sponge squidging between her bare toes, we all collapsed.

“Oh no, oh no, I think I’m going to wet myself,” giggled Rosie, which made us all laugh even more.

Then I heard Mum coming up the stairs.

“Girls, girls, what’s going on up here? Is everything all right?” she called out.

“Yes, yes,” I panted, between hoots of laughter. “Fliss just put her foot in it, that’s all!”

Luckily for us, the doorbell rang. Mum dashed down the stairs to answer it, giving me a chance to get a sponge from the bathroom and do some cleaning up.

When we’d all calmed down, we got down to some serious snacking and talking.

“Who’s going to be who, then?” asked Kenny.

“I think you should be Sporty Spice,” Frankie told her.

Although we all like sports and all play netball, Kenny is seriously sports mad. She never wears anything but jeans and sportswear. Tonight, she was wearing jeans and a Leicester City Football Club sweatshirt. They’re her favourite team. My dad and grandad are mad about them, too, and sometimes we all go to matches together.

We all agreed that Kenny was perfect for Sporty Spice and, to save arguments, we agreed that Fliss could be Baby Spice. She has the right colour of hair, after all.

It was a bit difficult choosing Ginger Spice, because none of us has got ginger hair. But my mum has a big trunk full of dressing up clothes, amongst which is a red wig she bought to wear at a fancy dress party. I felt sure she’d let me borrow it. So I became Ginger Spice.

We all thought Frankie was perfect for Scary Spice, because she’s such an extrovert. Although she doesn’t wear glasses, she’s got some sunglasses that the lenses keep falling out of. So she said she could just wear the frames.

“Don’t think I’m going to get my tongue pierced, though,” she said, with a shudder.

“You could stick a blob of chewing gum on it, to look as if it was,” suggested Kenny.

“Yes but when I sang, it would go flying out into the audience,” Frankie said.

“It might hit one of the M&Ms,” said Rosie, giggling at the thought.

“Right in the eye, with any luck,” I said.

Frankie laughed and spluttered crisps everywhere. As usual, we were all getting covered in crumbs. It’s as if, when we get into a room together, we become grot magnets and pick up every crumb, foodstain and drip going. It’s like magic. I think every bit of dropped food and spilt drink in the universe looks around and says, “Oh look, it’s the Sleepover Club, let’s go get ‘em!” and they all come whirling in our direction and go splot, all over us.

Four Spice Girls were decided. That left Rosie to be Posh Spice.

“But I’m not posh!” she protested.

“Your hair’s the right colour, though,” Fliss pointed out.

“Okay. Now, how about our clothes?” Frankie said. She was being the boss, as usual. None of us really minded, though. At least she got things done, so the rest of us could be lazy.

“Kenny’s all right, she can just wear what she normally wears,” said Fliss.

“And so can you, Fliss,” Rosie said. “That silver dress of yours is a bit like one that Emma wears.”

By ‘Emma’, she meant Baby Spice, of course, not Emma of the dreaded M&Ms, my very worst and dreadest enemy!

“There’s always Mum’s dressing-up box,” I said. “Anything we haven’t got, we’re bound to find in there. She’s even got some genuine stripy T-shirts from last time they were in fashion.”

“Cool,” said Frankie.

“Now that we’ve decided who we all are, how are we going to do our show? Mime to one of their records?” I asked.

“No way. I want to sing!” insisted Fliss.

The rest of us glared at her. We didn’t want to sing and get laughed at by all the boys in our school. Of course, she hoped Ryan Scott would hear her wonderful voice and fall madly in love with her. I tell you, Fliss is saddest of the sad!

“We’ve got to sing. They do on Stars in Their Eyes,” said Rosie. “Besides, I want to sing Say You’ll Be There.”

“No, we’ve got to do Wannabe!” yelled Frankie.

“Mama,” begged Fliss.

“Okay, okay,” Kenny said. “Tell you what we’ll do. We’ll put the CD on and try them all out and see which one we do the best.”

We soon found we had a mega problem. The louder we sang, the louder we had to turn the volume up in order to hear the Spice Girls. And the more we turned it up, the louder we had to sing, until we were screeching at the tops of our voices.

I switched the machine off in the middle of Mama.

“It’s no good,” I said. “We’ll just have to mime.”

“No, no!” Fliss wailed.

“Or else get hold of a karaoke tape with just the music on,” suggested Frankie.

That was the best idea anyone had had all day. In fact, we were so happy about it that we decided to eat our tub of ice cream, which was busy melting.

Before we could even pick up a spoon, doom struck in the shape of my oldest brother, Stuart. He hammered on my door and yelled, “Hey, Lyndz, you haven’t seen the food that was in the fridge in the garage, have you?”

My hand shot to my mouth and I felt quite ill.

Fliss let out a squeak like an electrocuted mouse.

Frankie groaned, “Oh, no,” then we all tried to be as quiet as anything.

But it was no good. Stu came barging in, totally ignoring my Keep Out notice on the door.

“Aha! Thought as much!” he said, swooping on the ice cream. Luckily, we hadn’t even got the lid off yet.

“I’ll have those chocolate biscuits, please. And the big bag of crisps,” he demanded.

“Er…” I went. The others had gone bright pink and were starting to giggle. “Shut up!” I hissed at them.

I saw Kenny trying to push the remains of one of the biscuit packets under the bed, but I had so much junk over there that it wouldn’t go.

“Don’t tell me you’ve scoffed the lot?” Stu said. “I’ve got Tony and Mick here for band practice. That food was for us. I bought it and hid it specially so that greedy pigs like you and Tom wouldn’t find it.”

I looked at my feet, wishing they’d disappear through a hole in the ground, with me following them. But no such luck.

“Sorry,” I said. “How was I expected to know that stuff was yours? Put your name on it next time.”

“Two pound fifty, that lot cost me. You can jolly well pay me back!” he said.

He went out, going, “Piglets. Oink, oink.”

I could hear his foul friends laughing. Foul fiends, I should say. Who’d have brothers?

Next day, Mrs Weaver, our class teacher, said that anyone who intended to enter an act for the charity show had to tell her by the following day.

Frankie put her hand up. “Can we tell you now, Mrs Weaver?” she asked.

“Of course, Frankie,” Mrs Weaver replied.

I looked round. I could see everyone was bursting with curiosity. Especially the M&Ms. Emma’s eyes were just about popping out of her head and Emily’s ears were flapping like Dumbo the elephant’s.

“We don’t want everyone to know, though. We want to keep it a secret,” I said.

Mrs Weaver smiled and said, “I see. Then write down what you want to do and give it to me.”

Frankie tore a page out of her general notebook and started scribbling. She folded it up and passed it to Mrs Weaver, who unfolded it and started to read it.

My heart was racing. Please don’t give the game away, PLEASE! I begged her silently, trying to use telepathic powers to get through to her.

Well, they’ll never write an X-Files story about me, because my extra-sensory powers are obviously nil. The next moment, Mrs Weaver put her foot right in it by saying to Frankie, “So there’s you, Felicity, Laura, Lyndsey and who’s the fifth girl? I can’t read your writing.”

The five of us looked at each other in panic.

“It’s me,” Rosie squeaked.

“Rosie Cartwright,” said Mrs Weaver, writing it down.

I saw the M&Ms exchange excited glances. Emma gave Emily a big smirk.

Emily - The Goblin, as we call her - nudged The Queen (that’s Emily), who in turn nudged Banana, alias Alana Palmer. Then she said nastily, “I hope you don’t think you’re going to be the Spice Girls. We’re going to be the Spice Girls. That was our idea. They pinched it, Mrs Weaver.”

Kenny gave a gasp and jumped to her feet. “We never did!” she said. “Don’t tell porkies!”

I jumped up, too. “We decided days ago. We’ve already been practising!” I said.

Mrs Weaver waved her hand. “Now, now, girls, stop arguing,” she said. “There can be more than one Spice Girls act, and may the best one win!”

Emma, my personal worst enemy since yesterday when I’d spilt water down her stupid neck, turned round. She screwed up her face and her horrid, blobby nose so that she looked like a squashed tomato, poked out her tongue at me and said, “See?”

I pulled a face back.

“So I take it you and your friends want to be the Spice Girls, too?” Mrs Weaver said.

“Yes please, Mrs Weaver,” replied The Goblin, in her most sucking-up tones. Creep! She’s just pathetic.

“And who else will be singing with you?” asked Mrs Weaver.

The M&Ms nudged their slave, the slimy Banana, and she put her hand up.

I looked at Rosie. She was giggling. “They’ve only got three Spice Girls,” she said.

“I’ll join you, if you like.”

We all stared as Regina Hill spoke. Even the M&Ms stared. Regina hasn’t been in our class for long. Her family have only just moved to Cuddington from London and we don’t know much about her, especially as she’s rather quiet. So everyone was amazed when she spoke.

“Can you sing?” Emma asked her.

You could have knocked me down with a King Cone when Regina began to sing Summer Nights from Grease, all perfectly in tune. She had an awesome voice.

My eyes met Frankie’s. Then I looked at Fliss, Kenny and Rosie. Everyone had the same look on their faces. Hate, pure hate.

“It’s not fair!” I said at break.

“We decided to be the Spice Girls first,” Frankie said crossly.

“They’re just pathetic copy-cats,” said Rosie, flicking her brown fringe.

“Yes, they are,” Fliss added.

“Reggie-Veggie’s got a good voice, though,” I said.

“Reggie-Veggie! That’s a good name for her,” said Frankie, with a loud snort that made us all laugh. “What kind of a vegetable do you think she is?”

“A carrot,” Fliss said promptly.

“Well, she is long and thin - and her hair is kind of reddish,” I agreed. Before today, we’d thought she was really pretty and she’d seemed quite nice, but she’d certainly turned into a carrot now that she’d become a friend of the M&Ms.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Frankie said gloomily.

We looked at her and shook our heads. We’d never felt so depressed.

“If they’re going to sing, we can’t get away with only miming. We’ll jolly well have to sing, too.”

“Oh, no!” Kenny wailed.

“Oh good,” said Fliss. “I think I sing better than Reggie-Veggie!”

We knew she wanted us to pay her compliments, but we were all fed up so nobody did.

Fliss went into a sulk and got her Banana-In-Pyjamas toy out of her bag. Her aunt in America sent it to her. Bananas In Pyjamas are very popular in America, according to Fliss’s aunt. Personally, I think dressed up plastic bananas are stupid. Give me a toy pony any day. Better still, a real one.

Fliss started creating a little wedding veil for the banana, out of a piece of paper tissue. She’s mad on weddings. All her toys and stuffed animals have been married at least twenty times each, to different partners. It’s about time she started giving them divorces, not weddings.

I decided to cheer her up. “Of course you sing well, Fliss. We all know that.”

“Perhaps we ought to give up on being the Spice Girls and think of something else,” said Rosie.

“What? Give up? No way!” said Frankie. “We’re not going to let ourselves be beaten by the M&Ms, are we?”

Nobody answered.

Frankie sat down on the concrete of the playground. Her bottom just missed a piece of chewing gum. She pulled a notebook and pen out of her black nylon shoulderbag. We all sat round her as she wrote two headings on the page.

The first heading said, Us. The second said, The M&Ms.

“Right,” she said. “Now, think of all the reasons why our Spice Girls group is better than theirs.”

“We’re better than them at everything!” I said.

“We can sing,” said Fliss.

“We’re the greatest,” said Rosie.

“They’re ugly,” said Kenny, and we all fell about.

“Now tell me why they’re worse than us,” Kenny said.

“They’re ugly,” said Kenny again.

When we’d stopped laughing for the second time, I said, “And pathetic.”

“And copy-cats, weeds and nerds,” said Fliss.

“Is this war?” asked Frankie.

“This is WAR!” we all agreed.

That night I told my mum about it. Maybe I chose a wrong moment. At the time, she was battling with a curtain that had got stuck in one of the holes inside the washing machine.

“Mm, dear. Help me with this, could you?” was all she said.

I got my head inside the machine. A corner of the material was jammed. I had a hair grip in my pocket, from my last trip to the swimming baths. I always used grips to pin my hair under my swimming cap.

I poked the grip down the hole to loosen the bunched-up material, and promptly lost it.

“Oh, that’s just wonderful!” said Mum sarkily. “That’s going to rattle round in there forever, now. I’ll hear it every time I use the machine.”

“If I use one of the fridge magnets, I might be able to get it out,” I said.

I thought it was a brilliant suggestion.

Mum didn’t seem to agree. “Don’t you go magnetising my washing machine, Lyndsey. It’s all metal in there. Every zip will stick to the drum and I won’t be able to get anyone’s jeans out,” she said.

I had a mental image of Mum and me, each hauling on a jeans’ leg, trying to pull it out of the machine. I started laughing. Then my hiccups started.

“Oh, per-lease! Not those again,” said Mum.

She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and looked so weird that I laughed and hicked even harder.

“Sor-hic-ry,” I apologised.

Mum was still tugging at the curtain. Suddenly, it came free and she fell over and landed on her bottom on the floor. I roared with laughter, it was so funny.

She gave me a hurt look. “How do you know I haven’t broken anything?” she said.

“You haven’t got any bones in your bottom,” I pointed out.

I should have remembered that Mum knows all about anatomy, as she teaches childbirth classes.

“I might have cracked my coccyx!” she said, which made me screech so much, I nearly had an accident. But it cured my hiccups, it really did.

I wandered out to the workshop to find Dad. I told him about what the M&Ms had done to us.

“You’ve just got to be better than them,” he said, and started to sing Tina Turner’s, Simply The Best. Now, Dad really can’t sing, so I put my fingers in my ears. When I took them out again he was saying a very rude word because he’d dropped his paintbrush and the pot he was painting got a big green squiggle all down it.

“Never mind. Make it look like a piece of seaweed,” I suggested.

“Seaweed? It was meant to be a leaping panther,” he said grumpily

If that green blob was meant to be a panther, then I’m a Brussels sprout! Still, I said nothing. I didn’t want to upset his artistic temperament. Besides, I needed to ask for extra pocket money, to make up for what I’d had to give Stu!

Then I remembered a really important question I had to ask.

“Dad,” I said. “Do you know where I can get a karaoke tape of the Spice Girls’ songs?”

“Haven’t a clue,” he said. He was being a real grump-pot. I knew his runny green panther had something to do with it.

So I rang Kenny. We’d all agreed to ask our parents about karaoke tapes and report back to her.

“You were my last hope, Lyndz,” she said sadly. “Have you asked Stu?”

I wouldn’t have thought of asking my rotten brother if the sky was blue, because I knew I’d never get the right answer. But everything was hanging on it. “I’ll report back later. Roger. Over and out,” I said.

Stu’s so-called ‘band’ was driving everyone in our house crazy. I’d seen various band members arrive and when I went up to my room, I could hear them thumping about in the attic. There was a twang and a crash, as if the guitar fell over, then a sound as if someone had dropped the drums.

And just then, like the lottery finger coming down and saying, “It’s you!”, I got a fantastic, ginormous, amazing idea as to how the Sleepover Club could beat everyone, especially the M&Ms, and win the school competition…

The only person I managed to get on the phone was Fliss. Everyone else was out.

“We’ve drawn a blank on the karaoke tapes but I’ve thought of something else,” I told her.

“Tell me, tell me,” she squeaked.

I didn’t. Not straight away, anyway. Another brilliant bright idea had dawned.

“Lyndz? Are you still there?” I could hear Fliss saying.

“Yeah,” I answered. Then I said, “I don’t suppose by any teeny-weeny chance that you fancy the idea of a sleepover?”

“Do I? You bet! When?”

“Friday? Saturday? The sooner the better. We’ve got to start practising,” I said.

“The class heats are in two weeks’ time,” she said gloomily.

Talk about dropping a bombshell! I was gobsmacked. Two weeks? We’d never have our act ready by then. Why had nobody told me?

I said those same words to Fliss.

“But Mrs Weaver mentioned it yesterday, just after all that trouble with the M&Ms,” she said.

“I suppose I wasn’t listening. My mind was full of hate. Kill, kill, kill! Death to the M&Ms!” I said dramatically.

“Was that what you rung me about, then? No, not about killing the M&Ms. The sleepover?” she asked me.

“No. I only just thought of that. My other great, earth-shattering idea was about the music to go with our song,” I said.

“I know. You’re going to ask the Spice Girls’ band to play for us, I suppose,” she said.

“Ho, ho. Don’t be a moron,” I told her. “I was listening to Stu and his friends playing the other night and - “

“You’re not going to ask them?” she said. There was pure horror in her voice, as if I’d told her the M&Ms were about to be fried in toad juice and served up to her for lunch.

“Of course not! Can you imagine my big brother even setting foot in Cuddington Primary? It would ruin his street cred for all time! But it made me think, why don’t we accompany ourselves? We could borrow a guitar, and Frankie’s got a keyboard…”

“But none of us can play the guitar,” she pointed out.

“I know four chords. Stu showed me,” I said proudly. “That’s why the sleepover’s got to be held here, so he can teach me some more. Will you tell Rosie and Kenny, and I’ll keep trying to get Frankie. See you later, alligator!”

“In a while, crocodile,” she replied.

“Have a laugh, big giraffe!” I said. It was our latest signing-off game. We kept trying to think of new animals.

“Don’t get smelly pants, elephant!”

I snorted down the phone and laughed so loud, I must have deafened her. When I’d stopped laughing, which took ages, I told her I couldn’t think of any more animals.

“Don’t get fat, tabby cat. ‘Bye!” she said, and rang off.

I stared at the receiver after she’d gone. Then I stared at the Twix bar in my other hand. How did she know I was about to eat it? It’s not as if I’ve got a reputation for pigging out all the time… is it?

I searched the telephone for a tiny hidden camera that could have relayed a piccy of my choc bar, but there wasn’t one, of course. It was just my paranoia at being the fattest of us five friends.

Rosie’s the next fattest, she’s just sort of normal. Kenny is all muscle, Fliss is a natural stick insect, and Frankie is so tall that a few spare pounds wouldn’t show. She’s the luckiest, I think. I hope I grow taller soon.

My next big challenge was to ask Mum and Dad if I could have a sleepover. Although I kept my fingers crossed, I didn’t need to because Mum was great about it.

“You know I love having the house full of girls, instead of horrid, smelly boys,” she said.

I’m glad she agrees with me about boys. It must be because she’s given birth to four of them - and got Dad and our dog to cope with, too!

She repeated another of her favourite sayings: “Girls are far less trouble than boys.”

Though she didn’t know it, she was going to regret saying that…

Next day was Saturday. We had all arranged to go to the library in the centre of Cuddington at the same time, eleven o’clock in the morning.

I’m the furthest away, as I live in Little Wearing, whereas the others live in Cuddington itself. So I had to ask if someone would drive me over.

Dad volunteered, as he wanted to go to the art shop and buy some paints. He probably needed more green, after his accident with the leaping panther. Why paint a panther green, anyway? I suppose that’s what you call ‘artistic licence’.

When Dad dropped me off at the library, saying he’d pick me up in an hour, I could see two familiar bicycles fastened to the rail outside - Kenny’s and Frankie’s. Frankie has a new one. It’s bright green, to go with her vegetarian nature. She eats so much salad that we kid her that she’ll turn green one day. All over, including her hair, just like Dad’s stupid panther.

We met in the music section, by the CD and tape selection.

“Look what I’ve found!” yelled Kenny, earning a warning frown from the man on the check-out desk.

It was a CD of football anthems. As you know, Kenny’s seriously football mad. But this pointed to her being just plain mad, as well.

“Ugh! You’re not actually thinking of listening to that, are you?” I said. “It’ll do your eardrums in.”

“I find football songs inspiring,” she said mysteriously.

“Oh, get her!” said Rosie.

“Haven’t they got a tape on teaching yourself to sing?” I said.

Frankie was looking very pleased with herself.

“I’ve gone one better than that,” she said.

She waved two books at me. One was called, The Piano: Learn To Play in a Week. The other was called Guitar Made Easy.

“One for you and one for me,” she said.

“I don’t need that,” I said, pointing to the guitar book. “You know I can play some chords.”

“Yes, we’ve heard you,” said Fliss.

She was referring to a time when we’d all been round at her place and Andy, had left his guitar lying around. He only ever got it out when Fliss’s mum was out, as she hated hearing him play and thought guitars made the room look untidy.

I’d picked it up and played my four chords. I thought I sounded brilliant, but when I looked round, they all had their fingers jammed in their ears and were making being sick noises. Call themselves friends? I ask you!

“Let’s get the books out, anyway,” said Frankie. “I certainly need to improve a bit.”

“Don’t forget to bring your keyboard next Friday,” I reminded her. It was only small, so it was easy to carry.

“Friday’s nearly a week off. Couldn’t we have a practice tomorrow?” Kenny said desperately.

Our parents would only ever let us have sleepovers at weekends, so there was no chance at all of us having a proper get-together before then, if Sunday was out.

It looked as if it was, worse luck.

“I can’t,” Rosie said. “We’re going out for the day with my gran and grandad.”

“And I’m going to Alton Towers for Carl and Colin’s birthday,” Fliss said, then waited for our reaction.

A chorus of “You lucky thing!” came from the rest of us.

Then I thought about Carl and Colin, Fliss’s twin cousins. They were a gruesome twosome, the male equivalent of the M&Ms, as they were always poking fun at Fliss and being horrid to her. Maybe she wasn’t so lucky, after all!

You’re in school with me now. It’s dinnertime. Come down the corridor with me. Ssh! Don’t make any noise. Careful, your shoes are squeaking! We don’t want anyone to hear.

Stop! We’re right outside the door of the studio. Can you hear the the din that’s going on in there? How could you miss it? It’s like a load of groaning hippopotamuses - or should that be hippopotami? It’s the M&Ms practising their Spice Girls routine. They’re doing Wannabe and it’s really pathetic.

Let’s push the door open a crack and watch them dancing. They look like hippos, don’t they, as well as sounding like them! Just look at them galumphing about!

They’ve got old Fatty-Bum-Bum with them, which is what we call Amanda Porter. The nickname may sound a bit cruel, but you don’t know Amanda. She’s a horrible person, really nasty to everyone. We wouldn’t care that she bought her dresses from Tents R us, if she was nice with it. But she hasn’t got the niceness gene in her entire vast body. I don’t know which Spice Girl she’s meant to be. There isn’t a Gross Spice, is there?

The only decent one among them is Regina Hill. She’s not only got a good voice, she’s obviously had some dancing lessons, too. Why did she have to offer to sing with them? They’d have been booed out of school if it hadn’t been for her. I wish she could have sung with us. If only the Spice Girls would suddenly add a sixth girl to their group. Then we’d definitely win.

Let’s tiptoe away now, before they spot us. Did you notice who’s playing the piano for them? It’s Dishy Dave. He’s the one who started this whole thing off by saying we were good. I wonder what he thinks of the Hippo Girls? And why didn’t we think of asking him to play the piano for us, instead of deciding to accompany ourselves? It just never crossed our minds, and it’s too late now. The M&Ms really would accuse us of copying them then!

None of us could wait for Friday to come. We were still arguing about which song to do, but we’d more or less decided on Mama, because it was slow. That made it easier for us to sing and play. There was no way my fingers on the guitar could have kept up with the pace of Wannabe!

I was hoping - really desperately hoping - that Stuart would be going out till late, so we could use his room. That’s what happened last time we had a sleepover at my place. His room is much bigger than mine, and he’s got a TV and video in there, so we could have played my Spice Girls video.

When I asked him, though, he said he wasn’t sure what he was doing that night.

“Meanie!” I told him.

“Who owes her big brother loads of money, eh?” he reminded me, with a yah-boo kind of expression on his spotty face. Then he held his hand up, saying, “Pay up and I might be able to afford to go out on Friday.”

He knew Dad didn’t give me my pocket money until Saturday, so there was no way that I could. I went to my room and had a quick sulk. Then I sorted out my sock drawer. I’d intended to do that for ages as I couldn’t find any proper pairs any more and had gone to school that morning wearing one white sock and one cream one.

I’d spent all day expecting the M&Ms to notice and make fun of me, but they were far too busy boasting about how brilliant they were at being the Spice Girls, and how no other Spice Girls act stood a chance against them. They didn’t know I’d seen their dancing hippos routine. They were so sad.

It got to Friday and we still didn’t know if Stu was going out or not.

Tom, my next oldest brother, wasn’t. He had made up his mind to enter a picture in an art competition in one of his weird magazines.

For a whole week, he’d spent every night in his room, drawing and painting. Every morning, he’d stagger down with his full waste-paper bin, dropping screwed up sheets of paper all down the stairs. I swooped on one and when I un-crumpled it, I saw it was an amazing science fiction type of picture, complete with space ships and aliens and weird creatures with horns and antennae and tentacles, all in brilliant orange and slime green.

“Hey! Give me that back!” he shouted, and went all red with embarrassment.

“It’s good,” I told him. “Can I keep it?”

He looked pleased. “All right,” he agreed.

I un-crumpled another one. It was seriously loony, with lots of funny purple creatures and bright red cactus plants.

“It was supposed to be Life On Mars, but it went wrong,” he explained.

He snatched it out of my hand and tore it to shreds. Buster came bounding up the stairs and ate them.

“He’ll be sick now. Red and purple sick, all over the carpet,” Tom said, putting me right off my Coco Pops.

The first big disaster of our rehearsal was that Fliss hadn’t brought the guitar.

“I looked in the shed but it wasn’t there. Andy drove me here, anyway. I couldn’t have brought it because he’d have seen it,” she said.

At least Frankie had remembered her keyboard, so all was not lost. She reckoned it wouldn’t take long to learn the tune from my tape. At least we’d still be able to practise.

Last time we’d held a sleepover at my house, we’d all been seriously into cucumber. We’d gone off it now. Celery was our new thing. It was so nice and crunchy and didn’t give you the burps like cucumber did. So when Mum had asked me yesterday what kind of food we’d like, I’d told her to give us lots of celery.

Mum had made cheese and celery sandwiches, baked potatoes with pineapple and celery stuffing, and a big salad with loads of celery in.

There were two pizzas, one vegetarian, as both Frankie and I are veggie, and a ham and mushroom one for the others, plus all the usual crisps and cakes, and a huge bag of popcorn. Oh, and lots of lemonade and Coke.

“What’s that?” Rosie asked, pointing to the plate in the middle of the kitchen table.

We all looked where Rosie was pointing. I’d thought it was a bit of Dad’s wonky pottery which Mum had turned into a table decoration, but on close inspection, which involved prodding it a bit, it turned out to be a pile of celery sticks, arranged as a kind of mountain with the curly leaves looking like bushes on top, and tiny flakes of carrot stuck on like flowers.

“Weird!” said Frankie. “Really weird.”

I had to agree with her. It was very weird indeed.

We weren’t sure whether it was intended to be eaten, or just looked at, but Fudge solved it for us by leaping on the table, which she wasn’t supposed to do, striding between our plates and knocking the celery heap over with her tail. After that, none of us wanted to eat it at all, as it was covered in cat hairs.

I’d told everyone to bring some Spice Girls costumes with them, so after we’d eaten the proper food, we took the crisps and things up to my room and got down to sorting out our clothes.

The bathroom’s next to my bedroom. It soon got turned into an extra changing room, as it’s got a big mirror in it. Fliss and Rosie were in there when suddenly we heard an ear-splitting scream!

Had they found a humongous spider in there, or was it something worse…?

Before any of us could arm ourselves with spider-killing weapons, there was a screech of, “Get out! Go away!” and the bathroom door slammed so hard that the pictures on my bedroom wall rattled.

Well, anyone knows that spiders can’t understand English. So whatever was in the bathroom had to have more intelligence than a spider. Buster? One of the cats?

When we dashed out to see what the matter was, we found my brother Tom standing there. Now, the average spider has considerably more brains than Tom. I mean, surely he could hear bumps and voices and know that the bathroom was occupied?

Of course, there isn’t a lock on the door. It broke ages ago and Dad never got round to fitting a new one, though bathroom door locks are about the most important thing in a house. I mean, you don’t want someone walking in when you’re on the toilet, do you?

Tom was standing there like a twit, with a clean T-shirt and a pair of underpants in his hand.

“I was only going to have a bath,” he complained.

“A bath? You had one last month! Don’t you think it’s a bit soon for another one?” I said.

“Perhaps he’s got a girlfriend,” Frankie said.

To my amazement, Tom went bright red.

“He has! He has! Tom’s got a girlfriend, Tom’s got a girlfriend,” sang Frankie.

“No, I haven’t!” he said.

He bolted back into his bedroom and banged his door shut, making my pictures rattle again. I plonked myself down so hard on my bed that I bounced.

“I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed. “Tom? He can’t have a girlfriend. He’s never been interested in girls.”

“He’s nearly fifteen. He could be,” said Kenny.

“I think he’s quite hunky,” said Fliss, wiggling back into my room in her silver dress and matching shoes. She thinks anything male is hunky. She probably even fancies Buster!

“Better looking than Ryan Scott?” asked Frankie.

Fliss refused to answer.

“I’m going to write Fliss Loves Tom and put it under his door,” said Frankie, looking round for some paper.

“Don’t you dare!” screamed Fliss, flying at her and grinding a paper plate of crisps to dust on the carpet.

“No, don’t. He’ll get upset. He’s really shy,” I told her.

I thought it was really funny, though. He’d be in for a good teasing from me tomorrow.

I tried the red wig on. Once they’d stopped laughing, the others thought I looked quite like Ginger Spice. She likes shiny clothes and I’d made a black plastic mini skirt out of a piece of bin-liner.

I wore a black T-shirt with Stu’s old black leather jacket over it, and my winter boots. I was sure Stu wouldn’t mind my borrowing his jacket. He hadn’t worn it for ages as it had got a bit small for him. I was boiling hot, but I tried not to moan. I knew the Spice Girls wouldn’t have complained. Some of their video was shot in the boiling hot desert, yet they still jumped around and danced. They’re amazing. Really professional. So we had to be the same.

Frankie looked great in a leopard print T-shirt of her mother’s, worn as a dress. Rosie had a black bikini top on and a black skirt which was really a stretchy jersey top of Mum’s.

Kenny just had her normal clothes on, Leicester City T-shirt and track suit bottoms. She really did look like Sporty Spice.

Frankie balanced the keyboard on the windowsill. She knocked over one of my china horses, but luckily it didn’t break or I’d have broken her!

I hit the power button and fast-forwarded the tape player to Mama. The second Frankie’s finger hit a key, I knew we were in deepest, darkest Doom-with-a-capital-D. Instead of sounding like a keyboard, it made a buzzing sound, as if twenty thousand bluebottles were trapped in it.

“You haven’t just spilt your lemonade on that, have you?” I asked her.

“No.” She frowned. Then she said, “I did upset a strawberry yogurt over it yesterday…”

“You’re hopeless, Frankie!” Kenny told her.

Frankie tried every note, but they all sounded the same. She had really truly wrecked it. Now what were we going to do?

“We might as well give up,” said Kenny.

She cracked the tab on a can of Coke, took a swig and passed it around. We all had some. Coke often gives me the hiccups, because it’s fizzy. But not this time. Even my hiccups were too depressed to hic. They stayed in my middle, in hiding.

“I want to go to the loo,” said Rosie.

“Tom’s in the bath,” Fliss reminded her.

“I can’t wait. I’m desperate!” Rosie wailed.

“There’s another loo downstairs,” I reminded her. “Through the kitchen and turn right.”

It was the original outside loo that had been built for our old-fashioned house. You had to be tough in those days. If you wanted to go to the loo in winter, you had to grab your wellies and brolly and risk sprouting icicles between leaving the kitchen door and entering the bog.

Good old Dad had put a nice little plastic conservatory roof over it, which meant you couldn’t get wet any more. Mum hated it because horrid, slimy moss grew on it - the roof, not the loo - and she had to climb on a chair to scrub it off with a brush.

“Come with me, someone, in case I get lost,” Rosie said.

“I’ll come. I want to go, too,” said Frankie.

Off they went, and while they were gone, Kenny, Fliss and I leafed through Girl Power, our Spice Girls book, to see if anything about our costumes needed changing.

By now, I’d got so hot that I’d taken Stu’s leather jacket off. I slung it on the bed but it fell on the floor and guess what? It went right to the spot where the cake had got squashed. Isn’t that typical? I told you what I thought about us being grot magnets! I’d just have to wipe it down before I sneaked it back on the coat hook in the hall.

“You know what?” I said to Fliss. “I reckon I could make myself a top out of the spare bits of bin-liner. I kicked them under my bed.”

I knelt down to look at them. My knees got all wet from the spilt lemonade. I pulled the bits of bin-bag out. Then I remembered the scissors were in the bathroom.

And so was Tom! Now we could get our own back on him.

I beckoned to the others and we lined up by the bathroom door, trying not to giggle.

“One, two, three,” I whispered. Then I yelled, “Charge!” and we burst the door open and galloped in.

Rats! He’d gone. Only a scummy line round the bath and a steamed-up mirror told us he’d ever been in there at all.

I got the scissors, laid the bin-liner on the floor and started to cut.

“That’s funny,” I said. “It’s only plastic. It should be easier to cut than this.”

Kenny had gone a funny shade. Sort of pale, with her eyes all bulgy as if she’d seen something nasty. “Er, Lyndz…” she said.

“What?” I frowned at her, wondering why she was looking at me like that. Had someone - The Goblin, perhaps - just turned me into a toad without me knowing anything about it?

I snatched up the piece of black plastic I’d been cutting. I realised what had gone wrong when my stripy cotton rug came up with it. I’d managed to cut through that as well.

“Mum’s going to murder me!” I said, my face going as pale with horror as Kenny’s.

“If you put some things on it, maybe she won’t notice,” Fliss said.

There normally were loads of things on my carpet, like books and shoes. Fliss was right. I started to breathe normally again.

There was a knock on my door. “Reggie-Veggie!” said Frankie’s voice. It was our password for the night. We always had one, for every sleepover, to keep out people we didn’t want to come in.

“Enter, Friend!” I said.

Frankie and Rosie were looking really pleased with themselves.

“I think I’ve solved all our problems!” Frankie said.

I don’t know about you, but when someone says they’ve solved all my problems, I expect them to have come up with something really good. Instead, Frankie and Rosie stood in the doorway arguing.

“It was me who heard it first!” Rosie said, looking indignantly at Frankie.

“Heard what?” I asked, shooting Fliss and Kenny a look which said quite plainly that these two had left their brains behind in the outside bog.

“We were passing the door of the babies’ room when we heard it,” Rosie went on.

She meant the room where my two little brothers, four-year-old Ben and baby Spike, sleep. It’s on a kind of half landing, between the ground floor and the floor where my bedroom is.

“It was in tune with the album. We could still hear the song as we went downstairs. Couldn’t we, Rosie?” Frankie said.

“I haven’t a clue what you mean,” I said.

“A musical instrument. As in bong-plink,” said Frankie, giving me a pitying look.

Bong-plink? I couldn’t think of anything that went bong-plink, unless it was her keyboard being thrown out of the window.

We all went down to listen, but we couldn’t hear a thing. The babies slept with their door ajar. I went in. Ben had fallen asleep with his xylophone on the bed next to him and the stick to bong it with still in his hand.

I gently slipped it out of his fingers while Frankie picked up the xylophone. We all tiptoed away.

Back in my room, Frankie hit a few bongs and plinks and began to sing - or rather, groan - Mama.

“We can’t use this!” I cried. “It’s a baby’s instrument. Everyone would laugh. The M&Ms would wet themselves!”

Everyone except Frankie agreed with me. She continued to play it. We all joined in singing. Suddenly, I saw the funny side and started laughing. That set everyone else off, until we were rolling about on the bed and on the floor, kicking our legs in the air and shrieking helplessly.

Next moment, there was a thunderous knocking on my door. We all held our breath, trying to stop laughing. It was Mum. She came in, looking very cross. Some extremely loud wailing was coming from somewhere behind her.

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