“Another little sandwich, Kenny?” Fliss’s mum asked, fluttering in front of me with a plate. “Or how about a fairy cake?”
What I really fancied was a jam doughnut, and I’d seen a plate of them on the side. Fliss’s mum must have read my mind because she went to pick up the plate. But then she put it down again.
“No, I think these might be too much after all that other food. We don’t want you being sick, do we?” She gave a little giggle. “Now, are you going to go and play quietly to let your tea settle? No running about, please.”
We all trooped out of the kitchen and into the lounge.
“Will the fun never start?” I whispered in Frankie’s ear.
“Right, what should we do?” said Fliss.
We all sat on the floor in a circle.
“I bet those kids in the circus aren’t just sitting around now,” I said wistfully. “I bet they’re walking the tightrope or something.”
“Yeah, wasn’t that cool!” Frankie agreed. “Wouldn’t it be ace to be able to do something like that? You could impress people wherever you went!”
We were in full discussion about the circus when Fliss’s mum popped her head round the door. She beamed when she saw us sitting down. She probably thought we were playing ‘ring-a-ring-a-rosies’ or something.
“I’m just going upstairs to change the beds. Andy and Callum should be back from the park soon. You will be all right, won’t you?”
“Yes Mum!” Fliss sighed. “I think we’ll manage.”
Her mum pulled a face, then closed the door behind her.
“We could always practise a few circus skills,” I suggested.
Fliss looked horrified.
“I don’t mean tightrope-walking or plate-spinning with your mum’s best china, you idiot!” I said hastily. “What about juggling, or acrobatics? They’re nice and quiet, aren’t they?”
Fliss still didn’t look too sure.
“We’ll be dead quiet, honestly,” I reassured her. “Your mum will never know.”
“Has she got any wool or anything?” suggested Frankie. “We could practise juggling with that and it’ll be silent if we drop it.”
Fliss went upstairs to look for some wool, and the rest of us crept about downstairs. I went into the kitchen, and what should I see first? Yep, the jam doughnuts. My first thought was that I could sneak one to eat – but then I had a brainwave! They were ball-shaped, weren’t they? Perfect for juggling! And they didn’t have that much sugar on them, so they wouldn’t make too much mess if we dropped them. And we could scoff them down before Fliss’s mum reappeared. I mean, she’d obviously bought them for us to eat anyway. Sorted!
I took them back into the lounge, and Rosie appeared with a couple of those plastic plates you take on picnics, a broom and a mop.
“I thought I could practise plate-spinning with these,” she explained. “They won’t break when they fall. Good, eh?”
In the middle of the room, Frankie was trying to walk on her hands, with Lyndz holding her feet.
“’S not as easy as it looks, y’know,” she said in an upside-down garbled voice.
“This is great!” I laughed, taking hold of the doughnuts. “It beats those poxy kids’ games any day of the week!”
I tossed one of the doughnuts into the air a couple of times. Easy-peasy. A bit of sugar sprinkled on to the carpet, but nothing major. I picked up another one and started to throw that as well. When I was comfortable with that, I grabbed the third one and tried to juggle with that too. A doughnut fell to the floor. I tried again. One landed on the sofa.
“OK Kenny, you can do this!” I told myself.
I grabbed the doughnuts and slowly, slowly threw them into the air. And do you know what? I actually started to juggle with them. I couldn’t believe it!
“Hey guys, look at me!” I yelled.
Lyndz stopped to watch, and let go of Frankie’s legs. THUD! Franks tumbled on to the carpet. That kind of made me lose my concentration, so I bumped into Rosie and dropped one of the doughnuts. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if Fliss hadn’t chosen just that moment to come through the door.
“Whaddayadoing?” she shrieked. Then – SQUELCH. She trod on the doughnut.
Well, you would not believe the amount of jam that spurted out of it and shot across the carpet in a red streak. I mean, when you eat a doughnut there never seems to be that much jam in the middle, does there?
Fliss kind of yelped, then went white.
“Mum’s going to kill us!” she squealed.
“It’s not that bad,” I reassured her, and scooped up the jam with my finger.
Unfortunately, the trail of jam now looked worse than ever against the cream carpet.
“I think I can hear someone coming!” hissed Rosie.
I quickly grabbed the other two doughnuts, shoved one in my mouth and the other in the back pocket of my jeans.
“Baaborginagaig!” I commanded, although my mouth was so stuffed with doughnut I couldn’t make myself understood.
The others looked at me blankly. I got down on the floor and did a handstand to show them what I meant, balancing over the jammy stain so that if Fliss’s mum did come in she wouldn’t see it.
“Gotcha! You mean you want us to carry on doing handstands and stuff, don’t you?” Frankie grasped at last. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”
But I was upside down with a mouthful of doughnut, wasn’t I? Not a great place to be in, all in all… I started to splutter, I started to cough, then I started to choke.
“Are you OK, Kenny?” Rosie asked. “You don’t look too good!”
“Come on Kenny, deep breaths!” Lyndz slapped me hard on the back.
I gasped and coughed and the remains of the doughnut sprayed out all over the lounge – and all over Fliss’s mum, who had come in to see what all the noise was about.
It was hard to tell what her first reaction was going to be. She went kind of red, then very, very white. I thought she was going to cry, or maybe collapse with shock. But none of us was prepared for the ear-splitting shriek that eventually burst from her lips.
“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! N-O-O-O-W-W!”
Well, we weren’t going to argue with that! We left the house running, grabbing any old shoes on the way out of the door. We ran down the path and on to the pavement, only stopping when we were well out of sight. Gasping, we exchanged shoes so that somehow we ended up with the right pairs.
“Poor Fliss!” said Frankie at last. “Do you think she’s going to be all right?”
“I hope so,” I murmured.
But I think we all knew then that “The Jam Doughnut Incident” was going to have serious consequences for the Sleepover Club.
It was pretty obvious to my parents that something was wrong when I arrived home from Fliss’s so early. Plus, Dad was already standing in the hall holding the phone receiver about a mile from his ear. I could hear someone screaming and yelling on the other end. No prizes for guessing who that was! Mum reluctantly took the receiver from Dad and leant against the hall table.
“Hello Nikky, it’s Valerie. I think you’d better start from the beginning.”
The sobs from the other end of the phone quietened a little, and Mum went into her patient-listening mode. I crept up the stairs and sat down near the top. I kind of wanted to know what Fliss’s mum was saying, but I daren’t really go any closer.
After what felt like about six hours, Mum finally put the phone down and had a muted conversation with Dad. Then she called upstairs angrily:
“Laura McKenzie! Get yourself down here, now!”
Oh-oh. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.
As I walked into the lounge, Molly shuffled out, smirking.
“You’re for it now, dog-breath!” she goaded.
I didn’t even feel like punching her.
“Sit down!” Both my parents had their “this-is-very-serious” expressions on.
“That was Fliss’s mum on the phone,
” Mum began, like I couldn’t guess that for myself. “She is very upset…” BLAH BLAH BLAH… “we’re very disappointed in you…” BLAH BLAH BLAH… “thought we could trust you but you’re obviously still acting like a toddler…”
Yeah right, like a toddler would be able to juggle with doughnuts, I don’t think!
“… Fliss’s mum feels, and I have to say that in this case we agree with her, that there should be no more sleepovers, no more socialising with the others at all, until you all prove that you can behave more responsibly.”
“WHAT?” I gasped.
“And if Fliss’s mum had her way,” Dad said very calmly, “you wouldn’t be allowed to even talk to each other, so think yourself very lucky, my girl!”
“I just cannot believe that you would upset Fliss’s mum like that when you know that she’s pregnant and should be taking things a bit easier.” Mum looked at me reeeally reproachfully.
This was seriously serious. It was like Leicester City losing 6–0 in the FA Cup Final and me getting beaten up by Molly all rolled into one. I slunk upstairs and climbed on to my bed. I was so miserable, I didn’t even notice that my stomach was rumbling with hunger.
“You sound like a clogged-up drainpipe!” moaned Molly, who was sprawled out on her bed.
“Shut your face!” I snapped, and turned over so my back was towards her. She started to say something else, but I stuffed my pillow over my ears so I couldn’t hear her. I wasn’t even in the mood for a fight, so you can tell how miserable I felt.
The next morning I still felt bad. Worse, even. I would have to face the others, and they were bound to say it was all my fault. They always say that when our parents give us grief about anything. I mean, I can’t help it if my brain comes up with all these great ideas, can I? Frankie and the others are always happy enough to join in at the time. It’s only when we get parent problems that they start to complain. And Fliss’s mum is one HUGE problem when it comes to us having fun, even when she’s not pregnant.
“Looks like you had as bad a night as we did!” Rosie mumbled when I joined her and the others in the playground. They were all there apart from Fliss. And when Fliss arrived, she looked absolutely dreadful. Her skin is very pale at the best of times, but that morning it looked almost transparent. She had huge dark circles under her eyes and she looked like she’d been crying all night.
“Don’t say anything,” she whimpered. “I know Mum was out of order to go off on one like that, but she’s been going on at me all night about putting her health at risk. I can’t take any more.” And she dissolved into racking sobs.
We all crowded round and Frankie gave her a big hug.
“I know things got a bit out of hand yesterday. Didn’t they, Kenny?” Frankie looked at me menacingly. “But it wasn’t that bad, was it? I mean we’re not going to let anyone stop us seeing each other because of a jam doughnut, are we?”
“NO!” we all chorused.
Fliss just sniffed a bit.
“We’ve just got to play it cool for a while and show that we’re responsible and it’ll all blow over. You’ll see,” Frankie finished.
Fliss didn’t look too sure, but the rest of us grinned and nodded bravely. The bell went for the start of school, so we all walked to the classroom, feeling a bit brighter than we had done earlier.
Mrs Weaver was standing at the front with a wiry scrap of a girl. She had dark hair tied in plaits, really dark eyes, and lips which were pursed into a tight thin line. She stared at us all defiantly as we trooped in and sat down.
“Well everybody, we have a new addition in our class today,” Mrs Weaver beamed at us. “This is Ailsa, and she’ll be joining us for a term. I hope you’ll all make her very welcome and make sure that she settles in all right.”
She motioned Ailsa to sit at an empty space at the table in front of ours. Everybody turned to look at her. Well, we didn’t, of course – we tried to play it a bit casual. We just sneaked little glances to try to suss out what she was going to be like. All I could think was that she wouldn’t be much good at football. She was too small.
“She looks a bit familiar, doesn’t she?” Fliss whispered.
“I know what you mean,” Rosie murmured back.
But none of us could think where we’d seen her before.
At break time when we were going to say hi, the M&Ms swept her away.
“Come with us Ailsa, we’ll look after you!” smarmed Emma Hughes.
But at the end of break, Ailsa walked back into the classroom by herself. And when the M&Ms appeared, they stuck their noses in the air and did their best to avoid her.
“Well, they obviously didn’t make much of an impression on Ailsa!” laughed Rosie. “She must have some taste!”
“I just wish I could think where I’ve seen her before,” complained Fliss. “It’s really bugging me.”
We didn’t have chance to catch up with her at lunchtime, because Miss Burnie had called an extra netball practice and for once we were all on the team. I thought I caught a glimpse of Ailsa watching us at the side of the court, but when I turned round she’d gone.
As if that wasn’t enough exercise, we had a gym lesson after lunch too. Actually, that’s my idea of heaven – it beats boring maths any day. But poor Fliss seemed quite exhausted.
“At least Ailsa will be able to sit it out, ‘cos she won’t have got any gym kit with her,” Fliss said hopefully. “Maybe I can join her.”
But she was wrong on both counts. Mrs Weaver insisted that Fliss took part, and Ailsa did have her kit with her. In fact, she was the first to get ready. We were all still struggling into our shorts, and there she was in a sort of leotard thing and proper gymnast’s leggings.
“Just who does she think she is?” sniffed Emily Berryman as she made her way into the gym. “She looks ridiculous, if you ask me!”
But the old cogs were beginning to whir in my brain. She definitely looked very familiar. Suddenly it came to me!
“I’ve got it!” I shouted excitedly to the others. “She’s—”
Just then, Ailsa started to do a series of flick-flacks and cartwheels the length of the gym, ending in a super-dooper double somersault.
“Wowee!”
Everyone started to clap and cheer.
“She’s from the Circus Jamboree!” Fliss and I said at the same time. “Come on! We’ve got to talk to her now!”
“That was amazing!”
“I wish I could do that!”
“Did it take you long to learn? Can you teach us?”
“You’re from Circus Jamboree, aren’t you?” said Lyndz eagerly.
An agitated expression spread across Ailsa’s face. Then she just stared away across the gym. We looked at each other, puzzled.
“I only wanted to say how fantastic it was!” Lyndz carried on, sheepishly. “We went for my birthday and it was the best birthday ever. It was totally brilliant!”
“Yeah! We wish we belonged to a circus!” I assured her. “It must be ace performing like that, making everyone wish they could do what you can do.”
Ailsa shrugged. “It’s all right.” But she was kind of grinning as she said it.
“Do you think you could teach us to do what you just did?” Frankie asked again.
Ailsa eyed us up and down and started to giggle. I guess we did look kind of funny. We all have such different physiques, and none of us looks wiry like her. I mean, Fliss is kind of thin and everything, but she’s not got what you might call any muscles to speak of. And I guess you need those if you’re going to perform so many flick-flacks one after the other.
“I could try,” Ailsa said thoughtfully. “But I’m not making any promises. I’ve been doing this all my life, remember!”
Mrs Weaver came over to us. I think she’d been dealing with Ryan Scott in the boys’ changing room when Ailsa had put on her performance, so she didn’t know what all the buzz in the gym was about.
“Well Ailsa, I hope Laura and her friends are showing you the
ropes,” she said breezily.
“Actually, we were hoping Ailsa would show us the ropes, Mrs Weaver,” I said seriously. “The tightropes, of course!”
We all started spluttering with laughter, even Ailsa.
For the rest of the lesson we worked in a group with her. I think Mrs Weaver was just so glad that Ailsa was fitting in that she virtually left us to our own devices, which meant that we could learn the art of flickflacks. Well, ehem, excuse me if I don’t show you right now how that went. All you need to know is that we went home with severely bruised bums and crushed egos!
We actually walked home with Ailsa as far as the circus. She was really nice, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about what it was like travelling around the country. Just before we left her, Frankie asked:
“Did the M&Ms do something to upset you at break time?”
Ailsa looked puzzled. “Excuse me? Oh you mean Emma what’s-her-face and her little friend?”
We nodded.
“Nah,” said Ailsa quietly, “they were just really snotty when I told them where I lived. They said they couldn’t imagine anything so awful as living in a caravan all the time.”
“Well, don’t you take any notice of them!” I said indignantly. “They’re pond-scum, they wouldn’t know a good thing if it bit them on the bum!”
After that we spent a lot of time with Ailsa. It did feel a bit strange that there were six of us hanging round together instead of five, but it was kind of cool having someone new to tell about our adventures. She seemed well impressed by some of them. And a bit sad too that she didn’t have such good friends to share things with.
“I thought there were other kids in the circus,” Fliss said.
“There are, but they’re a bit older than me and we don’t have so much in common,” she explained.
“Like me and Molly the Monster,” I groaned, and the others all pulled gruesome faces.
Sleepover Girls in the Ring Page 2
