Mega Sleepover 7

by Narinder Dhami

  Kenny.

  “Sorry, Frankie,” said Fliss and Rosie together.

  “Poor old Frankie,” said Lyndz sympathetically.

  “Yeah, bad luck, Frankie.” Kenny thumped me on the back.

  “It’s cool,” I said, trying not to sound like I minded too much. “You’re a better player than me, anyway.”

  “Come on, girls.” Mark was calling and waving at us from another court. “You should be practising your forehands.”

  We spread out across our court, and began knocking the ball to each other. I didn’t feel much like playing any more, but I didn’t want to let the others down. After all, they had to practise if they were going to beat the M&Ms.

  Fliss hit a forehand drive towards Kenny, who ran forward to return it. At just that moment, Emily Berryman came charging on to our court, chasing a stray ball. Kenny bashed straight into her, and knocked the Goblin flying.

  “Help!” Emily shrieked, as she fell backwards on to her bottom. “You did that on purpose, Laura McKenzie!”

  “No, I didn’t,” Kenny retorted. “You got in my way.”

  The Queen came stomping over to stick her nose in, as usual.

  “You’re just trying to make sure we don’t win the tournament,” she snapped, hauling the Goblin to her feet. “You tried to injure Emily by pushing her over!”

  “Oh, go stuff a tennis ball in your mouth!” Kenny replied. “On second thoughts, try two tennis balls – your mouth’s big enough.”

  “You won’t be laughing when we win that tournament,” the Queen said threateningly, and she stalked off, dragging the Goblin behind her.

  “The trouble is, they could win it,” Kenny muttered. “They’re good.”

  “And did you hear Emily say that they were going to practise every afternoon at that posh tennis club?” Rosie said gloomily.

  “Well, we can practise too,” I pointed out. “We don’t need a posh club. We’ve all got gardens. Or we could go to the park.”

  The others cheered up a bit. Although I wasn’t going to be playing in the tournament, I reckoned it was going to be a full-time job keeping the others from getting too depressed!

  We went back to practising our forehands, and then Mark called us all together again. This time he showed us how to serve properly. And guess what? Surprise, surprise (and nobody was more surprised than ME), I turned out to be quite good at it. I banged down quite a few good serves, and everyone (except the M&Ms) looked pretty impressed.

  “Frankie, maybe you should be playing in the tournament,” Lyndz said, when we’d been sent off to practise on our own again. “I don’t mind dropping out.”

  I shook my head. “Nope, you were all chosen fair and square.”

  “I don’t think me and Lyndz have got much of a hope,” Rosie said. “I’m rubbish.”

  “No, I’m worse than you,” Lyndz argued.

  “No, I’m the worst player.”

  “No, I am.”

  “Shut up, you two,” Kenny said, giving them both a shove.

  “Kenny and Fliss are in with a good chance,” I said. “Fliss is brilliant.”

  Fliss turned pink with pleasure.

  “What about me?” Kenny demanded.

  “You’ll be all right, as long as you don’t fool around,” Fliss said sternly.

  “Me? Fool around?” Kenny snorted. “Do I ever?”

  “Yes!” we all shouted, and pelted her with tennis balls.

  About ten minutes later, Mark announced that it was the end of the coaching session for today. None of us wanted to go home though – we could have stayed there and played all day long!

  “There’s my mum and Auntie Jill,” Fliss said, as we put the tennis balls in the boxes.

  “Hurry up, Emily,” called the Queen in a loud voice which just about everyone could hear. “My mum will be here soon to take us over to Green Lawns.”

  “They’re really getting on my nerves, going on about that tennis club,” Kenny muttered. She did a double-take in the direction of Mrs Proudlove. “Hey, what’s the matter with your mum and Auntie Jill, Fliss? They look like they’ve won the lottery!”

  Mrs Proudlove and Auntie Jill were hurrying towards the tennis courts, looking really excited. We went to meet them. So did Mark.

  “We’re in!” Mrs Proudlove announced. She was waving a small piece of card in the air. “We just heard this morning.”

  “In what?” Kenny asked, looking puzzled.

  “The Green Lawns Tennis Club,” Auntie Jill said triumphantly, showing us her membership card. She flung her arms around Mark and gave him a hug. “Thanks for putting in a good word for us.”

  “That’s great,” Mark said.

  “Excellent!” Fliss beamed. “I’ll be able to practise there too, for the tournament.”

  “Are you ready, girls?” Mrs Proudlove called. “Jill and I want to go to the tennis club this afternoon, and I have to take you all home first.”

  Kenny nudged me. “What do you reckon?” she whispered in my ear.

  I blinked at her. “What’re you talking about?”

  Kenny grinned at the rest of us. “How annoyed do you think the M&Ms would be if the whole of the Sleepover Club turned up at their posh tennis club this afternoon?”

  “They’d go totally mad,” I said. “But it’s not very likely to happen, is it?”

  “We’re not members,” Rosie pointed out, looking puzzled. “They only let members in.”

  “We’re not members.” Kenny winked at us. “But Fliss’s mum and Auntie Jill are – and you heard what Fliss said before. They can take guests!”

  Fliss turned a sickly shade of white, while Rosie, Lyndz and I burst out laughing.

  “Do you really think my mum is going to let us all go to the club with her this afternoon?” Fliss spluttered. “Dream on, Kenny!”

  Kenny grinned. “Why not? We can ask her, can’t we?”

  “You can ask her, but she won’t say yes!” I replied. “Not in a million years.”

  The M&Ms were sitting on the bench near us, changing their shoes. Now they got up, and picked up their bags.

  “Come on, Emily,” said the Queen, shooting us a poisonous sideways glare. “Let’s go. At least we’ll be able to have a proper game at Green Lawns without stupid people mucking about.”

  Kenny gave them a cheery wave. “We’ll see you there!” she called.

  The Queen’s mouth fell open as she goggled at us.

  “What did you say?” she roared.

  “We’re coming to the tennis club this afternoon,” Kenny retorted coolly. “We’re going to be there regularly from now on.”

  Emma Hughes couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She turned bright red with rage and stomped off, with Emily scurrying along behind her.

  “Oh, Kenny, what’ve you done?” Fliss moaned, looking terrified. “I am not asking my mum if she’ll take us to the tennis club!”

  “Calm down, Flissy,” Kenny said breezily. “I’ll ask her myself.”

  “Oh, no,” said Fliss’s mum, folding her arms. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

  “Why not?” Kenny said, trying to look all innocent. “We wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  Mrs Proudlove looked even more doubtful. “Yes, well…” she said. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Oh, go on,” Kenny nagged her. “We’d only sit and watch. We wouldn’t do anything.”

  “And maybe we could learn something by watching you and Auntie Jill,” I added. “Then we could get better at tennis ourselves.” OK, so I was doing some serious sucking-up here. But if we didn’t turn up at the club now, after everything Kenny had said to the M&Ms, we’d look like prize prats.

  “Oh, that would be great,” Rosie said, joining in to help me out. “I’m so rubbish at tennis. I bet I’d be loads better if I could watch someone really good.”

  “Me too,” Lyndz added.

  “And you and Auntie Jill are brilliant at tennis,” Fliss finished up.


  “Well, I don’t know about that.” But Fliss’s mum looked pleased. She turned to Auntie Jill. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, let them come,” said Auntie Jill with a smile. “There’s two of us to keep an eye on them, after all. And they can’t get up to much, if they’re just sitting watching us play.”

  “Well, all right then,” Mrs Proudlove said, and we all cheered. “But I’m warning you,” she went on sternly, “I don’t want any messing around.” She stared hard at us. “We’ve waited a long time to get into this club, and we don’t want anything going wrong. Is that clear?”

  We all nodded.

  “I’ll see you there later,” Mark said, kissing Auntie Jill on the cheek. “’Bye, girls.”

  “Yes!” Kenny said triumphantly, as we hurried over to the Proudloves’ people carrier. “I knew we could swing it!”

  “You heard what Mum said, Kenny,” Fliss reminded her. “If we get into any trouble, I’m dead – and so are the rest of you.”

  “We’ll all be really good,” I said. “Won’t we, Kenny?”

  “Yep, cross my heart and hope to die,” Kenny said loudly. “Unless the M&Ms annoy me, of course,” she added under her breath.

  Mrs Proudlove drove us all home, and dropped us off one by one, after she’d arranged to pick us up in an hour or two.

  “Mum!” I dashed into the house, yelling my head off. “Mum, is lunch ready? And is it OK if I go out this afternoon? Fliss’s mum is taking us to her tennis club.”

  My mum was working in the study, with Izzy in the playpen next to her. She looked up from the computer and stared at me.

  “A tennis club? I thought you hated tennis, and you were only going to the coaching sessions because Fliss forced you into it?”

  “Oh, Mum, you’re so out of date!” I groaned. “Tennis is cool.”

  Fliss’s mum turned up again bang on two o’clock to pick me up. She’d already collected the others, so I dived into the back of the people carrier to join them.

  “I was just saying,” Mrs Proudlove remarked, as she pulled away from the kerb, “that I expect you all to be on your best behaviour, and not to show me up.”

  “This is worse than going on a school trip!” Kenny whispered in my ear. “We’ve been getting the big lecture for the last five minutes.”

  Auntie Jill, who was in the front seat, turned round and winked at us. “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” she said.

  The Green Lawns Tennis Club was just outside Cuddington, in the countryside. I’d been past it and seen the big iron gates loads of times, but I’d never been in before. There was a large car park at the front, and large, brightly-coloured flowerbeds.

  “Right, you can get out,” said Mrs Proudlove, switching off the engine. “But stay together where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “Does she want us to hold hands like five-year-olds?” Kenny grumbled.

  We went over to the entrance. Fliss’s mum insisted on walking in front, and she kept looking round at us nervously, as if she thought we were already up to something. There was a turnstile next to a little green-roofed hut, and a man with a big moustache and grey hair was sitting inside the hut, reading a newspaper. He glared suspiciously at us.

  “Members only,” he snapped. “Membership cards?”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” said Mrs Proudlove. She and Auntie Jill held theirs out, and the man took them. “And these girls are our guests,” she added.

  The man looked down his nose at us as if we were a bad smell.

  “Nobody’s allowed to play on our courts unless they’re wearing white,” he said, giving Kenny’s football strip a disgusted glance.

  “They’re not playing,” Fliss’s mum said quickly. “Just watching.”

  The man didn’t want to let us into the club at all. He handed the membership cards back really slowly, after he’d spent ages looking at them, and then he operated the turnstile, grumbling all the time to himself.

  “He’s a real misery-guts, isn’t he?” Kenny said, as we went through. “I’ve seen more cheerful people at funerals!”

  “Hey, this is pretty cool,” I said, looking around.

  The tennis club was really big. There were lots of courts, and quite a few people were playing on them. There were landscaped gardens around the courts, filled with flowers, and there was a fountain too, of a boy riding on a dolphin. In the middle of it all was a big clubhouse, next to a posh-looking restaurant with tables set outside on a patio. We were all pretty impressed.

  Rosie pointed at a poster pinned to the clubhouse door. “Look at that. That’s what the M&Ms were going on about last week.”

  COME AND CELEBRATE 50 YEARS OF

  THE GREEN LAWNS TENNIS CLUB!

  A SPECIAL GALA AFTERNOON ON JULY 29th

  EXHIBITION MATCHES

  REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED

  ALL MEMBERS WELCOME!

  “That’s in two days’ time,” Fliss said eagerly. “Maybe Mum will bring us to that.”

  “That would really get up the M&Ms’ noses!” Kenny grinned.

  “I have to pop into the clubhouse, and find out which court we’re playing on,” Fliss’s mum said. She fixed us all with a laser-beam stare. “Don’t move, or touch anything while I’m gone.”

  We stood outside the clubhouse with Auntie Jill, staring at everything going on around us.

  “I wonder if the M&Ms are here yet,” Rosie said.

  “Maybe we can have a wander round the courts, and find out,” Kenny began, but she shut up when Auntie Jill gave her a look. “Oh, I forgot. We’re not allowed to move!”

  Fliss’s mum came back. “Court Seven,” she said to Auntie Jill. “Let’s go and get changed.”

  We went over to Court 7. We looked at all the other courts we passed on the way, but there was no sign of the M&Ms.

  “Maybe they haven’t arrived yet,” Lyndz suggested, as we reached the changing-rooms.

  “You girls had better come with us while we get changed, so that we can keep an eye on you,” Mrs Proudlove began, but then she stopped as Auntie Jill pointed at a sign on the door.

  ONLY PLAYERS ARE ALLOWED IN THE CHANGING-ROOMS

  “Oh.” Fliss’s mum looked worried. “You’ll have to stay outside then. But—”

  “We know,” said Kenny. “Don’t move!”

  “Can’t we go on to Court Seven, and wait for you there, Mum?” Fliss asked.

  Mrs Proudlove glared at her. “No, Felicity, you stay right here,” she snapped, and she and Auntie Jill went into the changing-rooms.

  We all stood there, shuffling our feet for a few moments and getting really bored. Then Kenny started walking towards the tennis courts, which were right ahead of us.

  “Kenny!” Fliss began to panic. “Come back!”

  “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Fliss,” Kenny said impatiently. She leaned against the fence and peered into the nearest court. “Is this ours? Because it looks like someone’s playing on here already. There’s some rackets and tennis balls lying on the ground.”

  I went over to her. “No, that’s Court Eight,” I said, squinting at the number on the fence. “Ours must be the next one.”

  “Frankie, come back,” Fliss wailed, but I didn’t take any notice. After all, we were only about two metres away from her!

  “Hey, what about a knock-up?” Kenny nudged me, and nodded at Court 8.

  “Not a good idea, Kenny.” I shook my head. “Fliss’s mum would go mad.”

  Kenny shrugged. “Oh, she’ll be ages yet. And anyway, why would someone leave tennis rackets and balls lying around, if they didn’t want people to use them?”

  “Kenny,” I said warningly as she pushed open the door of the court, but that didn’t stop her. She walked in, and picked up one of the rackets.

  “Kenny, what’re you doing?” Lyndz said. She and Rosie hurried over to join us, with Fliss trailing after them looking terrified. “Put that down!”

  “It’s OK,” Kenny grinned. She brought the racket over to
the fence and showed it to us. “This racket is really gross. I’m sure no one would mind if we had a game with it.”

  Kenny was right, the racket was really awful. The strings weren’t broken, but it was made of wood, not like Mrs Proudlove’s posh metal one, and nearly all the paint had flaked off.

  “Come on, who’s going to play against me?” Kenny asked, waving the racket around as she tried out her shots.

  The rest of us looked at each other. We weren’t quite as brave as Kenny. None of us wanted to annoy Fliss’s mum.

  “You lot are so boring!” Kenny announced. “Hey, have you seen what some of the players do when they win a match at Wimbledon? They throw their rackets right up into the air.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “I thought you hated tennis until this morning!”

  “Well, I’ve seen the end of some of the matches, haven’t I?” Kenny retorted. “You know, while I was waiting for EastEnders to come on.”

  “What happens when the rackets fall down again?” Rosie asked. “Do they catch them or what?”

  “What if they don’t get out of the way in time, and it hits them on the head?” Lyndz wanted to know.

  Kenny considered that. “I dunno,” she said. “Let’s give it a go!”

  “Kenny, no!” Fliss yelled, but it was too late. Kenny had flung the racket into the air as hard as she could.

  “Don’t worry, Fliss,” Kenny called, “I’ll catch it on the way down.”

  The racket started hurtling downwards.

  “Kenny, you’re not going to catch it!” I shouted. “Get out of the way!”

  Kenny looked alarmed at the speed with which the racket was falling. She leapt out of the way, and the racket hit the hard surface of the court.

  CR-R-R-ACK!

  We all stared in horror. The wooden frame of the racket had split.

  “What’s going on here?” said a loud voice behind us.

  Luckily, it wasn’t Mrs Proudlove. Instead, a tall, plump woman with grey hair, wearing tennis whites, was marching towards us, followed by a much weedier woman of about the same age, who looked really scared. Not as scared as we were, though!