Sleepover Girls on the Range Read online

  “I guess she’s only making sure that nothing goes wrong,” said Fliss quietly.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I admitted. “We have got into a few messes in the past when we’ve tried to organise stuff, haven’t we?”

  The others agreed, but I could sense that Frankie was still pretty wound up.

  “Well, we’re going to show Sita Chandri that we’re quite capable of organising things ourselves,” she told us firmly. “We can’t afford to stuff up this time. The reputation of the Sleepover Club is at stake!”

  Well, that sounded a bit dramatic, but that’s Frankie for you.

  “So we’ve got to think about this lassoing competition,” she continued sharply, going into ‘Sita’ mode. “And when do your mums go line-dancing, Fliss, Rosie?”

  “Thursday,” Fliss told her. “Isn’t that right, Rosie?”

  Rosie nodded.

  “OK, we’ll have to go ourselves to check it out and to try to persuade the caller to perform at the Open Day,” Frankie told us firmly. “And get your thinking caps on to find someone who can cook round the fire for us. Burger van!” she snorted. “Cowboys didn’t go to burger vans, did they?”

  We walked the rest of the way home in silence. Like I’ve said before, once Frankie’s in a mood there’s no point arguing with her.

  Seeing as I live nearest to the farm and a little further out than any of the others, they all waited at my place for their parents to collect them. As we waited, we sat in the garden and pondered some more about the Open Day. I couldn’t help wishing that I’d kept my big mouth shut about the whole thing. Not about the sleepover of course, but that seemed ages away now. We had so much to get through before we could enjoy that. And the way we were going, we’d certainly deserve it!

  As the rest of us were pondering, Kenny picked up a piece of Mum’s old washing line, which was kicking about in the garden. She tied a moveable knot in one end so that the end formed a noose. Then she started to swing it round above her head.

  “What are you doing, Kenny?” Fliss asked.

  “I’m practising lassoing, what does it look like?” she snapped back.

  “So-rree!” mumbled Fliss.

  Kenny swung the lasso round some more. Then, when she’d just gained enough momentum, she threw the end with the loop out into the garden. To start with, she didn’t get it right at all, and let the whole thing go. Once it got tangled in one of the bushes – the other time it just missed Buster, my dog. Buster ran inside in fright, but Kenny’s eyes started gleaming.

  “That’s what I need – some sort of target!”

  She looked around. Ben was charging about down at the bottom of the garden, pretending to be a dinosaur. (Don’t ask. He is only four. And he’s a boy!)

  “Hey, Ben!” she called out. “Can you come here a minute?”

  “Kenny, you can’t!” I yelped. “You’ll strangle him!”

  Ben came running up to us, thrilled to be joining in.

  “You look like a pretty good cowboy to me!” Kenny told him. Ben beamed. “I’m just learning how to lasso – can I borrow your rocking horse to practise on?”

  “If I can ‘so too!” he agreed.

  So we trooped upstairs and carried Ben’s rocking horse into the garden. It made a pretty good target. It sort of moved in the wind a bit so you had to really concentrate to try to lasso it. Not that I was any good. Ben was better than me, but Kenny really got into

  “That was great!” she gasped, finally flopping down on the grass next to me. “We need something like the rocking horse for the competition. Everyone can have three goes to try to lasso it, then we keep moving it further and further back. So the person who manages to lasso it at the furthest distance wins the prize.”

  “Brill!” we all congratulated her. “That’s one problem solved, eh Frankie?”

  “Sure!” Frankie agreed. “But there’s still a lot for us to think about.”

  And it looked like we were going to have to think about it by ourselves, because Kenny’s dad had just arrived, followed by Andy, Fliss’s mum’s fiancé. It was time for the others to go home.

  “Don’t forget to ask your parents about line-dancing,” hissed Frankie before they left. “And remember that we need someone to cook for us at the Open Day too.”

  When the others had gone I flopped down on the settee in the lounge. I just needed to think about things for a while. Dad and Tom were watching some old cowboy movie, which seemed sort of appropriate. I can never work out what’s going on in those films. Everyone looks the same, and all they seem to do is shoot people and ride horses. But I love the horse bit, so I settled down to watch the film too.

  When it had finished, Dad said, “Well, they don’t make films like they used to!”

  “Thank goodness!” I muttered under my breath. Give me Toy Story 2 any day!

  “Hey you, don’t be so rude!” Dad laughed. “It’s every man’s secret fantasy to be a cowboy, didn’t you know that?”

  No I didn’t, and it was very interesting. Very interesting indeed!

  The next morning I rushed into the playground to find the others.

  “Hey, you guys!” I yelled as soon as I spotted them. “I’ve had an idea. Last night Dad was watching that Western on TV.”

  “So was mine,” Frankie said.

  “And mine,” Kenny agreed. “Although he kept pretending he wasn’t.”

  “Well, Dad said that it’s every man’s fantasy to be a cowboy,” I continued. “So maybe our dads would like to help out at our Open Day. It’d be like making their dreams come true!”

  “Hardly!” Frankie snorted. “It won’t exactly be riding wild on the prairies, will it?”

  “But if they took charge of the food,” I suggested, “it’d be like those big campfires they have. We could even let them tell some of their favourite cowboy stories!”

  “Yeah, and send everyone to sleep!” grinned Rosie. I was kind of glad that she was getting into the spirit of it, because I’d suddenly felt a bit bad talking about our dads when her dad doesn’t live with her any more. Neither does Fliss’s, but at least she’s got Andy.

  “It does sound a good idea,” Frankie agreed. “But we ought to ask them when they’re all together. They’re less likely to say ‘no’ then.”

  “Good thinking, Batman!” I grinned.

  As we were wondering when would be a good time to ask them, Fliss piped up:

  “Are you all coming to the line-dancing tomorrow? I can’t wait. I’m going to dress up in my jeans and cowboy boots and everything.” We all rolled our eyes. Fliss manages to turn everything into a fashion parade.

  “Yeah, Mum said she’d come along too if that’s OK,” I told the others.

  “‘Course!” giggled Rosie, “The more the merrier. I just hope I can manage all the steps. Mum says they’re a bit complicated at first.”

  “We’ll be brill!” Kenny rocked her feet and did those turns you see line-dancers doing on the TV. “They won’t know what’s hit them when they see us!”

  “That’s what we’re worried about!” Frankie and I spluttered together.

  As it was, when we did get to the linedance evening, we felt a bit over-awed by it all. Fliss didn’t look out of place at all because everyone was dressed up in cowboy-type things – even Fliss’s mum.

  “They should all come and enter the fancy-dress competition at the Open Day,” I whispered to Rosie. “It’d be tough to pick a winner.”

  “Yeah, I’d no idea they all got so into it,” she confided.

  Now I must admit that country and western plinky-plonky music isn’t my thing at all. But once it started playing and the caller started shouting out the dance moves, I kind of got into it. So did Kenny – but she got into it in a completely different direction from everybody else. When the rest of us were stomping forward she was doing a chasse to the side. When we did a mambo on our right, she did a pivot to her left. Disaster or what?

  “Do try to keep up, Kenny!” Fliss hissed
at one stage, but that only seemed to make things worse. Fortunately the adults round us were pretty forgiving, and I think she actually amused one or two of them as well.

  “It’s good to see you young ones throwing yourselves into it!” one older guy said as we were having a break.

  “Throwing yourself into it is right, Kenny!” shrieked Frankie when he’d gone. “It’s a wonder you haven’t broken something yet.”

  “Like someone else’s leg!” suggested Fliss.

  “Well I might not be much good at the dancing,” sniffed Kenny, “but I bet you I can get the caller to come along to the Open Day – for free!”

  I have to be honest with you – the rest of us had sort of forgotten that that’s why we had come. We were having such a laugh, it had slipped our minds.

  “Come on, then.” Kenny dragged us to the front of the hall. “There’s no time like the present.”

  We all felt dead embarrassed standing there waiting for the caller, Ruth, to notice us. She was going through a complicated routine with someone and we didn’t like to disturb her. When she finally looked up she gave us a big smile.

  “Hi there! It’s nice to see some new young faces. Are you enjoying yourselves?” she asked brightly.

  “Yes, thanks!”

  “It’s great!”

  “Brill!”

  “It’s so good, we wondered if you might share this line-dancing with some more people,” Kenny asked seriously. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of Mrs McAllister’s riding stables? They were burnt down a while ago.”

  Ruth frowned sympathetically.

  “Oh it’s OK now, they’ve been rebuilt,” Kenny continued. “And Mrs McAllister’s having an Open Day on Saturday 28th. She lost a lot of business because of the fire, you see, and she needs to show everybody that she’s up and running again. She might not be able to carry on if business doesn’t pick up soon.”

  I shot Kenny a glance. I didn’t think that Mrs McAllister would want everyone to know that she had money worries.

  “And it would be dreadful if she did have to close down, because she does a lot of work for Riding for the Disabled. Rosie’s brother goes, doesn’t he Rosie?”

  Rosie nodded.

  “We were hoping to have some line-dancing at the Open Day, and as you’re so good, we wondered if you might do the calling?” Kenny concluded innocently.

  “Well …” Ruth spluttered. You could tell that she felt just like we had when Mrs Chandri had steamrollered us with suggestions for the Open Day!

  “Well, I guess I could pop in for an hour,” she agreed at last.

  “That’s great!” We all leapt up and down.

  “Here’s Sita Chandri’s number,” Kenny pushed a piece of paper into her hand. “If you ring her, she’ll give you all the details. Right then – are we ready to do some more of that bootin’ scootin’ stuff?”

  I couldn’t believe the nerve of that girl!

  “Why did you give her Mrs Chandri’s number?” Frankie demanded as we were walking away.

  “I’ve just done the hard work in persuading her to come to the Open Day, haven’t I?” Kenny explained patiently. “Now old Sita-chops will have to do all the boring work like arranging what time she has to get there. You know, ‘details, details’.” She mimicked Mrs Chandri. “We can’t do everything, can we?”

  The rest of us grinned. I think Mrs Chandri had probably met her match in Kenny.

  So, we’d sorted out the line-dancing and the lassoing competition. The fancy-dress competition would be easy-peasy to arrange. Now all we had left to sort out was the campfire cookout. It was time to launch Operation ‘Cowboy Dad’!

  I arranged for everyone to come round to my place on Sunday so that we could start making the posters for the Open Day.

  “But we haven’t asked if anyone can cook round the campfire yet,” Fliss reminded us. “So we won’t be able to put that on the poster, will we?”

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “That’s all in hand. The most important thing is that Andy is here at five o’clock to pick you up.”

  By the time everyone had arrived, I’d cleared the big kitchen table, covered it with newspaper and got out all my paints.

  “Hey cool, Lyndz – this looks great!” marvelled Frankie, dropping her bag to the floor.

  “Let’s hope our poster looks great when we’ve finished,” I said. “I bet Mrs Chandri will make us do it again if she doesn’t like it.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to make sure it’s perfect when she sees it then, won’t we?” Frankie said sharply.

  I poured us all a big glass of Coke and we settled down to work.

  “I reckon we should stick pictures of cowboys and lassos and stuff round the edges of the poster,” I suggested. “That way it will get people’s attention and they’ll stop to read what it says in the middle.”

  “Good idea!”

  I gave everyone a piece of paper and we settled down to paint. I painted horses, and Kenny drew loads of lassos because she said that she was rubbish at doing people. We all cracked up when we saw one of Fliss’s paintings. She said it was a line-dancer but it looked more like someone who was bursting to go to the toilet!

  We were just picking which pictures we should cut out and stick round the edges of the poster when Stuart, my oldest brother, appeared.

  “What are you lot up to, then?” he asked, peering over our shoulders. “You’re not usually this quiet.”

  “Charming!” I laughed. “We’re designing a poster for the Open Day at Mrs McAllister’s stables, if you must know.”

  “Oh, right. What are all these?” Stuart was pointing to our drawings.

  “Well there’s going to be line-dancing and a lassoing competition and a fancy-dress competition,” Fliss explained.

  “You know what you need?” Stuart looked at us. “You need a Bucking Bronco. They’re brilliant fun. You’ve got to hold on and it spins round faster and faster like those wild horses at American rodeos.”

  “What, you mean it’s a real horse?” Fliss looked horrified.

  “No Felicity, it’s a metal one on a stand and someone controls the speed. They’re excellent, trust me.”

  “Well that’s all very well, Stu, but where are we going to get hold of one of those? For free?” I asked.

  “Well sis, I might just be able to help you out there.” Stuart looked very smug. “My friend Sam’s father hires things like that out, and it just so happens that I’m going to be seeing Sam this evening.”

  “That’s brill, Stu! Do you think he’ll lend it to us?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Yeah, Sam’s father’s a pretty cool dude!”

  “Excellent!” I slapped Stuart hard on the back.

  When he’d gone we were all totally hyper.

  “This is going to be even better than we thought!” Rosie giggled.

  We all settled down to work on the poster. We pasted the best of our designs round the edges, then it was time to write in the middle. After ages of deliberation (and arguments) we came up with this. Pretty good, huh?

  “How do you know about the pony trek on the Sunday?” asked Rosie when I’d written that bit in.

  “Mrs McAllister told me about it when I went to the farm this morning,” I explained. “She mentioned it before, but now it’s official. It’s the only thing she seemed really enthusiastic about, to be honest with you. Anyway, she’s arranging the pony trek so it’s nothing to do with us.”

  “But we will be going on it, won’t we?” Kenny asked.

  “Yeah, ‘course!” I agreed.

  Then I saw Fliss’s face. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. She looked terrified! But I didn’t have time to argue with her about that now. We had more important things to do. It was almost four-thirty and we had to start preparing for Operation ‘Cowboy Dad’!

  We all piled into the lounge and I put on a video. It was one of Dad’s very favourite Westerns, starring this bloke called John Wayne.

&
nbsp; “Aw man, what’s this?” Kenny moaned.

  “This is our secret weapon,” I explained. “When your dads come in, you’ve got to pretend that you’re really enjoying it, OK?”

  Kenny made a being-sick face, and the others looked dead bored.

  “Couldn’t we just put it on when they come?” Rosie asked.

  “Nope – I want them to think we’ve been watching it for ages.”

  We slumped back on the settee and watched. After what felt like an hour, the doorbell rang. I heard Dad answer it – then he came into the lounge with Frankie’s father.

  “Oh it’s True Grit!” Dad exclaimed. “I love this film!”

  “Me too,” agreed Frankie’s dad, and they both perched on the settee to watch.

  Bingo! We all exchanged glances and carried on pretending we were totally absorbed in it too.

  When Kenny’s father appeared, Mum showed him through.

  “Isn’t this True Grit?” he asked, and settled down to watch as well.

  Rosie’s mum and Andy appeared at the same time, and they came into the lounge to join us.

  “You’re not watching a Western, are you?” Rosie’s mum sounded horrified.

  I flashed the others a look, and launched into Phase Two of the Plan.

  “Wouldn’t it be great to be a cowboy!” I said dreamily. “Riding the range on a horse all day …”

  “Rounding up cattle …” Kenny continued.

  “And cooking round a campfire at night,” Frankie added.

  “Yes, you’re right there. No worries about anything,” agreed Dad.

  “No money worries,” Andy added. “Just you, your horse and the open country. What could be better?”

  Fliss looked as though she was going to get all huffy about her and her mum being better than that, but I shut her up with a glare.

  “So, do you fancy cooking round an open fire then, Dad? And maybe telling some of your stories?” I asked innocently.

  “Well, not now, Lyndsey,” Dad laughed. “But I’d love to do it another time.”

  “What about you, Dad?” Frankie asked. “Would you do it? And you too, Dr McKenzie?”