Party Time Read online

  I gave her a big hug. “Thanks, Mum.”

  We had an early tea so that Gran could get home before it got too late. She doesn’t really like driving in the dark, you see. But I think Mum and Dad were relieved when she did leave, because she’d been fussing over Mum ever since she arrived. She kept going on about how she was kind of old to be having another baby and how she hoped that Christmas Day hadn’t been a warning. Mum was getting wound up, I could tell, and Dad just kept calling Gran “The Prophet of Doom” to make her shut up. But what she said kind of got to me, and I started to worry about Mum all over again.

  In fact, I got myself into such a state that I almost didn’t go to the sleepover. On Tuesday evening I’d got dressed and packed my stuff and everything – and then I suddenly thought: what would I do if Mum had to go into hospital again and I didn’t know anything about it?

  “Relax, Frankie!” Mum said when I told her how I felt. “I have no intention of going into hospital yet. And if anything does happen, anything at all, we’ll ring you at Lyndz’s.”

  “You promise?”

  “Promise!”

  “Why is it women are always late?” Dad stomped into the lounge. “I’ve been waiting for you in the car for five minutes.”

  “I wasn’t sure that I was going to go to the sleepover,” I told him.

  “And let the others miss out on seeing you in all your finery? You must be mad!” Dad smiled. “Don’t worry about your mum, Frankie, I’ll look after her. And we won’t let you miss anything, honestly!”

  I felt better after they’d reassured me, but a tiny part of me still felt that I shouldn’t be going out and leaving them. But you know what? I felt better as soon as I got to Lyndz’s.

  I was the last to arrive, and when I knocked on the door there was this stampede to open it. And wow! You should have seen what the others were wearing!

  Lyndz had had the pick of her dressing-up clothes and was wearing this brilliant Spanish dress with millions of flounces down the skirt. She had this totally cool comb thing in her hair too. Kenny had really excelled herself by wearing a new Leicester City shirt and a Leicester City tracksuit top – no surprises there! Rosie was all done up in some of her sister Tiffany’s clubbing gear, which looked really wild. She was wearing this leopard-print mini skirt and a sort of rubber bodice thing. But I think she felt a bit uncomfortable in that because she kept trying to tug it down. But the coolest thing was she’d stuck a blue ‘jewel’ into her tummy button with some special glue and it sort of sparkled whenever she moved. It was wicked.

  But Fliss took the biscuit. Her mum had actually bought her – yes, bought her – a slinky electric-blue evening dress. Her make-up was immaculate, and she looked as though she’d spent the whole day in a beauty parlour.

  “I’m really trying it out for Mum’s New Year’s Eve party!” she smirked when I told her how great she looked. “It was ever so expensive and I wouldn’t normally wear it to one of our sleepovers …”

  “Charming!” sniffed Lyndz.

  “…but,” Fliss carried on, “seeing as this is a special sleepover, I thought I might as well. It’s the first time I’ve ever worn it properly, so you’re all honoured!”

  “Thanks very much, Fliss!” we all laughed sarcastically. But she thought we were being serious and said, “You’re welcome!” which made us all laugh even more. Honestly, what is she like?!

  It felt really good being with the others again. And I know that the others felt the same, because for a few minutes we just stood there grinning at each other. But Kenny of course was soon keen to see some action. She leapt on to Lyndz’s back and yelled at the top of her voice:

  “Let the party begin!”

  Before we could get on with the fun part of the sleepover, we had to take all our stuff up to Lyndz’s room. Now, I don’t know if you remember, but Lyndz’s house is all higgledy-piggledy. Her dad is always in the middle of doing some major building project or other, so her house is always in a bit of a state. I don’t mean that in a nasty way, I just mean that – well, you don’t usually find great planks of wood and old doors propped up in the lounge, do you? And I bet your house has carpet on the floor, doesn’t it? There are just dirty old floorboards at Lyndz’s, which freaks Fliss out big time!

  Lyndz’s bedroom is really tiny, and Kenny always jokes that her rat Merlin lives in a bigger cage! But Lyndz knows that she’s only teasing. Besides, her dad’s building her a spanking new room right at the top of the house. She swears that it’s going to be ginormous when it’s finished. At the moment, when we all pile into her room we’re like a row of sardines in a can! She has to take out her bed, just so that we can all fit in. But we don’t mind because we always have a really cool time when we’re at Lyndz’s. And this time was certainly no exception.

  “WOW! Look at this!” we gasped as soon as we got into her room. There were banners all over the wall saying HAPPY NEW YEAR! and helium-filled balloons were tied up at each corner. It was wicked!

  “We’d already got the banners for Stuart and Tom’s party,” admitted Lyndz. “I just sort of borrowed them.”

  “Won’t they mind?” asked Fliss anxiously. I think she’s a bit scared of Lyndz’s older brothers because they’re always teasing her.

  “Nah, they’ll never know!” Lyndz smiled a little nervously. “They never set foot in my room anyway, so I’ll just take them down tomorrow and put them back in the bag.”

  “Clever you!” Kenny teased, and started tickling her.

  Now tickling and Lyndz mean just one thing. Yep, you’ve guessed it – hiccups! It was really hysterical because the more she hicced, the more the comb thing on her head moved around. It looked like a bird or something pecking at her head. We doubled up, it just looked so funny. Lyndz didn’t know what we were laughing about until we pointed to her reflection in the mirror. And that of course just made things worse. She got redder and redder and tears started streaming down her face.

  “We ought to do something!” Fliss was looking quite concerned.

  Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

  “What’s going on in there?” It was Stuart.

  “Quick! Don’t let him come in!” squealed Lyndz.

  We all bustled out of the door.

  “Out of the way, Stu!” Lyndz barged past her brother. “We’ve got a party to get on with!”

  Stuart just shook his head as we all bundled downstairs.

  “Your hiccups have gone!” whispered Rosie when we were in the lounge.

  “It must have been the thought of Stuart coming into my room and seeing those banners!” Lyndz giggled. “He’d have my guts for garters if he knew I’d borrowed them! Right then, anybody fancy a dance?”

  She rushed over to the corner and turned on the CD player. This awful thumping sound blasted out so loud, I swear the walls started shaking.

  “Aw man, that’s dreadful!” Kenny yelled, covering her ears with her hands.

  “Sorry about that,” Lyndz grimaced when she’d managed to turn it off. “It’s some of Tom’s awful techno stuff.”

  “I’m glad we’re not coming to the party here on New Year’s Eve if that’s what they’re going to be listening to,” Rosie told her.

  “We’re going to have great music at our party,” Fliss gushed. “Mum went out and bought loads of new CDs. It’s going to be perfect!”

  I looked across at Kenny. We usually pull faces at each other when Fliss goes off on one of her “I-am-wonderful” speeches, but Kenny was looking really miserable. Lyndz must have noticed too, because she put on a CD and turned it up really loud to drown out Fliss. Then she grabbed Kenny’s arm and made her dance.

  It was cool bopping around. We could have done without Lyndz’s little brother Ben joining us, though. He’s a right little tearaway, and thought it would be fun to start pelting us with fruit. A satsuma caught Kenny right on the back of the head.

  “This means war!” Kenny muttered through gritted teeth, and grabbed a bunch of grap
es from the fruit bowl. “Right, young Benjamin, how d’you fancy this lot crushed over your bonce?”

  Soon we were all charging round the room armed with handfuls of fruit. Fliss looked very uneasy.

  “Ooh, that reminds me, Mum made me an exotic fruit salad for our midnight feast,” she suddenly piped up. “It’s in my bag and I really should put it in the fridge. I’ll just pop up to get it.”

  “Typical Fliss!” Kenny shouted across to me. “That girl just doesn’t know how to have fun!”

  A couple of walnuts came flying across the floor and hit me right in the shin.

  “Yow! That really hurt!” I stumbled over to the sofa and rubbed my leg.

  “Right, that’s it Ben, I’m going to tell Mum!” Lyndz stormed out to the kitchen.

  The others crowded round me, and wallop – a fig landed on Rosie’s lap.

  “I’m going to get you!” Kenny yelled, narrowing her eyes as she looked at Ben. She grabbed a really squashy kiwi fruit from the fruit bowl and aimed it towards him. He bobbed down behind an armchair and splat! The kiwi fruit hit the wall. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Fliss had just reappeared, and the sight of a kiwi fruit hurtling towards her made her stumble. Unfortunately the lid wasn’t securely on her container of fruit salad and a little bit of the juice slopped down her dress.

  Tom, of course, chose just that moment to put in an appearance.

  “Oh, Fliss, you haven’t wet yourself, have you?” he smirked. “That’s a pity, you were looking pretty good too – for one of Lyndz’s friends!”

  “That’s enough, Tom!” Lyndz’s mum came in. “Benjamin Collins! I hear you’re causing a nuisance.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him out.

  “It might be an idea to pick some of that fruit off the floor, girls,” she shouted over her shoulder. “We wouldn’t want any accidents if you slipped on it!”

  I told you that we always have a cool time at Lyndz’s! Any other parents would have gone ballistic if they’d found fruit slung all over their lounge. I know that my parents would – wouldn’t yours?

  “We could put some of this in your fruit salad, Fliss,” giggled Rosie, scooping up a squashy tangerine. “The dirt might give it a bit of crunch!”

  The rest of us cracked up, but Fliss was still upset about her dress.

  “The best thing to do is leave it and let it dry naturally,” said Lyndz kindly. “I bet if you dance around in it really fast, it’ll dry in no time and we won’t be able to see the mark at all.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Fliss.

  “Oh yes!” we all nodded confidently.

  Well, it was a good excuse for a dance, wasn’t it? So when we’d cleaned up all the fruit, we did the routines we knew for the Sugababes and Britney Spears. And then we put on our favourite bopping tunes.

  I was pretty exhausted, not to mention hungry, when Lyndz’s mum called us through for supper. She’d laid out a table so it looked like a really swanky dinner party. We had our Coke in proper wine glasses and everything.

  After we’d eaten, we watched High School Musical, and then pretended that we were some of the characters. I don’t know what time it was when Lyndz suggested we get ready for bed.

  “I thought we were going to see in our ‘New Year’ like this,” complained Fliss, smoothing down her dress. “I wouldn’t have worn it otherwise.”

  I was kind of ready to get into my jim-jams, and I figured the others were too.

  “Well, you know Fliss, I think you should save that dress for seeing in the proper New Year,” I reasoned. “It’s so beautiful, and you wouldn’t want to risk spoiling it again with our midnight feast, would you? You know what a messy eater Kenny can be!”

  Kenny pretended to bop me on the head, but at least Fliss agreed to get ready for bed.

  I must admit it felt kind of nice to slob out after we’d been so dressed up. After we’d washed and everything, we wriggled into our sleeping bags, then sat up in them so we could see each other. As I told you, the room is so small that it took a while for us all to get comfortable.

  “I know! Why don’t we tell each other what we want to happen in the New Year?” suggested Fliss.

  “Well, I just want the baby to arrive safely,” I told the others. “And for it to be healthy and for Mum to be OK.”

  “I’m sure everything will be fine,” Lyndz reassured me. “What about you, Kenny, what do you want?”

  “I want to finish the M&Ms off once and for all!” she yelled.

  “Yes!” We all agreed with that.

  “But what else do you want, Kenny?” Rosie asked when we’d all calmed down.

  “Leicester City to win the FA Cup,” she grinned. We all groaned. “And for me to get into a proper football team and for my skills to be spotted and to play for England and …”

  “Yes, we get the picture!” we laughed, bashing her with our pillows.

  “Well, what I want more than anything is actually going to happen!” squealed Fliss. Then she added, in that really annoying way of hers, “But I can’t tell you what it is!”

  The rest of us looked at each other.

  “That’s what you think!” said Kenny menacingly. We all wriggled in our sleeping bags over to Fliss and started to tickle her.

  “We have ways of making you talk!” giggled Rosie, tickling Fliss right under her arms.

  “Get off!” she squawked. “That’s not fair! I’m not telling you. I promised!”

  “Promised who? Who did you promise?” demanded Kenny.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to marry Ryan Scott!” I joked.

  By then we were all kind of breathless, so we collapsed back into our sleeping bags. Fliss was looking really chuffed with herself for not giving in to us. But as soon as we mentioned her beloved Ryan’s name, she want all pink and peculiar.

  “No silly! But oh, I almost forgot…now, where is it?” Fliss was in a real tizzy of excitement, trying to rummage about in her bag.

  “Ah here it is!” She pulled out a Christmas card of two robins nestling together on a branch and started wafting it about in front of our faces. “Well, did anyone else get one of these?”

  “Yep, I think we can all say that we got plenty of cards, Fliss,” Rosie said, pulling a face.

  “No, look who it’s from!” Fliss squealed and pointed to the signature at the bottom.

  Luv Ryan

  “You are joking!” I screeched. “Is this for real or is it a joke?”

  I looked at the old prankster Kenny, but she looked as mystified as the rest of us. Fliss just blushed and went all soppy. There was going to be absolutely no dealing with her now.

  “What about you, Rosie, what do you want in the New Year?” I asked.

  “Well, I used to wish for my parents to get back together again,” she admitted. “But now I know that they are both happier with the way things are. So I guess I’d like the rest of the house to be decorated. You lot don’t fancy helping, do you?”

  “No way!” laughed Kenny. Talk about hard work!”

  “I guess that’s what I’d like too,” admitted Lyndz. “I want Dad to finish my new room, so that we’ll have more space for our sleepovers!”

  “That’s what we want too!” shouted Kenny. “I’m getting cramp here being squashed in next to you lot!”

  We were just going to pile on top of her when we heard something outside Lyndz’s door.

  “Have you seen the time, girls?” Lyndz’s mum called.

  “BONG …” Tom and Stuart were pretending to sound like Big Ben.

  “It must be midnight!” squealed Rosie.

  “BONG …”

  “What should we do now?” asked Fliss anxiously.

  “BONG …”

  “You’re supposed to sing some special song, but I don’t know the words,” I told them.

  “BONG …”

  “Well, let’s all get in a group hug then,” suggested Lyndz. “We’ve got to do something.”

  We all got into a huddle. And when S
tuart and Tom had bonged twelve times, we hugged each other extra hard and yelled, “Happy New year!”

  Then Lyndz’s mum and dad, Stuart and Tom burst through the door. Her mum was carrying a tray with a bottle of lemonade done up like champagne and five posh glasses. They were grinning all over their faces – until Stuart noticed the banners on the walls.

  I really thought all hell was going to break loose when Stuart spotted the decorations.

  “Are those my banners?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Well, erm, yes,” stuttered Lyndz. “I’m only borrowing them, I didn’t think you’d mind—”

  “Of course I mind!” he yelled. “Mum made me use my own money to buy them, and you didn’t even ask to borrow them!”

  “Well, I knew you wouldn’t lend them to me if I did!” Lyndz was getting a bit upset, I could tell.

  “Too right I wouldn’t,” Stuart snapped back. “I know you and your mad friends. You’re bound to ruin them with your stupid games.”

  Rosie mumbled “Charming” under her breath, but he didn’t seem to hear.

  “Well, I’m going to take them down right now!”

  Before anyone could stop him, Stuart stormed right into the room. He grabbed one end of a banner and tugged it, but I guess he’d forgotten that there were five sleeping bags on the floor. He certainly hadn’t bargained on Fliss being inside hers. She’d snuggled back inside at the first sign of trouble. Anyway, Stuart tripped over her and stumbled. The banner was still in his hand as he fell, and with a SNAP the string broke and the letters spelling out HAPPY NEW YEAR! fell to the floor like autumn leaves.

  We just stood there and didn’t know what to do. Fliss was squealing and trying to get Stuart’s foot out of her hair, Lyndz looked as though she was about to burst into tears and Tom was laughing his head off.

  “Well, your New Year’s certainly started with a bang!” observed Lyndz’s mum, putting the tray with the glasses down on Lyndz’s table. “Or should that be a bump?”

  “So much for Lyndz’s silly games spoiling your banners, Stu,” said Mr Collins, helping Stuart up from the floor. Stuart was bright red and looked furious with Lyndz.