Sleepover Club 2000 (4 page)

The others looked totally embarrassed. I wasn’t. I was steaming mad. I know my mum isn’t the most relaxed person on this planet, but she’d tried really hard to give everyone a good time, and Frankie had been dead disrespectful. Huh! I thought. I bet it never even
occurs
to that girl to say sorry!

Kenny cleared her throat. “I thought Frankie was crazy about her baby sister,” she whispered.

“Being a big sister takes getting used to, bird-brain,” hissed Lyndz. “I felt the same when my little brother was born.”

So did I. But I couldn’t very well say so, with Mum earwigging about two inches away.

Unfortunately, Frankie came back in a worse mood than ever.

“I got our stupid answer service,” she moaned. “I had to leave a message, which my parents will probably be too busy to pick up.” Then she looked a bit ashamed. “Oh, thanks for the phone, Mrs Sidebotham,” she mumbled.

“OK,” sighed Lyndz. “Enough. Get out your books.”

She zonked her horse book down on our dining-room table with a mighty crash. I could feel Mum
forcing
herself not to check if Lyndz had made a big scratch or not. And my old mixed-up feelings came churning back.

Rosie blew her hair out of her eyes. “This is
so-o
hopeless!” she said. “We’re in doom forever.”

“Doom city,” agreed Frankie.

“How come you guys are so freaked out by some stupid little word?” said Kenny in disgust. “Ecology is no big deal, honestly. I asked Dad about it and we looked it up together. It just means how everything in nature is all connected and, like, WORKS together.”

We stared at her blankly

“Well, you soon changed your tune, Laura McKenzie,” growled Frankie.

Kenny shrugged. “Dad says we’ve just got to find an angle. A way to make ecology fun.”

“Yeah, right,” said Frankie. “Ecology is fun. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Kenny and Frankie glared at each other. There was a kind of awkward silence. Then Frankie slammed her book shut.

“This is a total waste of time!” she yelled.

Unfortunately, she must have caught her drink with her elbow at the same time.

Oh-oh. One of Mum’s best mugs went crashing to the floor in a kind of spooky slow motion. We watched helplessly. It was like we were so horrified, no-one could move a muscle.

Frankie stared at the mess as if she had no idea how it got there.

Mum came zooming to the rescue. “No use crying over spilled milk, you guys,” she babbled bravely. “These things happen.”

She sounded exactly like Granny Sidebotham trying to be cool and groovy. And this made ME so upset that for some reason I grabbed the Vanish right out of her hand. “Just stop fussing, Mum,” I yelled. “
I’ll
do it, OK!”

Which was incredibly mean of me. Because Mum felt quite bad enough, thank you very much. Her Siberian picnic had got our year 2000 sleepover off to a brilliant start. Too brilliant, obviously. Because now the whole operation had crashed and burned.

There were going to be tears before bedtime, just like Gran always said. And neither Mum nor I knew what to do about it.

We trawled gloomily through our books for inspiration. Then we all sighed heavily, swapped over and tried again.

There were some interesting rude diagrams in Kenny’s. But otherwise we came up with a big fat ZERO.

Mum was fluffing about again, totally getting on my nerves. She kept whisking our mugs away before we’d actually finished our drinks, and pulling back the dining-room curtains and closing them again.

“
Mum
,” I said. “We’re trying to think, OK?”

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that Andy’s not usually this late. And with this weather…” Her voice trailed away.

I stared at her. I’d completely failed to notice Andy hadn’t come home. “Did you ring his mobile?”

She shook her head.

“Ring it now,” I said.

Mum wrung her hands. “I’m probably being silly.”

Neither of us could bring ourselves even to whisper the word “accident”.

At that moment the back door opened, letting in gusts of freezing air. Andy stood in the doorway, stamping snow off his shoes.

I’ll never understand grown-ups. You’d think Mum would be really pleased to see him. Instead, she nearly bit his head off.

“Where have you been?” she snapped. “I’ve been out of my mind!”

“Sorry, love,” said Andy. “At one point I thought I was going to have to leave the car on the other side of Cuddington and walk.”

Mum’s eyes widened. “Are you OK? Is the car OK?”

Andy hugged her. “The car and I are both fine. I didn’t have an accident, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He grinned at me. “A little bit of snow and your mum’s got me dead and buried. Oh, and the answer’s ‘yes’, Nikki,” he teased. “A nice cup of tea would be just the job after that long cold drive, thanks for asking.”

Mum rushed around, fetching Andy dry socks and hot drinks and boosting the thermostat to totally tropical levels.

I rolled my eyes at the others. “Sorry,” I mouthed.

Andy joined us at the table. “How’s it going, girls?” he said.

He was just being friendly, but now I knew he wasn’t dead, I wanted him to go away and stay out of our hair.

I glared. “Actually we’re busy,” I said.

As you’ve probably guessed, it takes more than a glare to embarrass Andy Proudlove. Yes, that IS his full name. And guess what? After the wedding, it’s going to be mine as well. How come I get lumbered with two totally STOO-PID, totally humiliating names?

Anyway, Andy started chatting away about this protest demo he’d run into on his way home. Apparently, protesters were stopping drivers to explain what their demo was about.

Instead of being fed up with them for getting between him and his tea, Andy sounded impressed. “Say what you like, they’ve got some bottle camping out in this weather. It’s enough to freeze your—”

“Do you
mind
,” I moaned. “We’ve got this project.”

Mum sat down too. “It must have been a big protest to make you this late.” And she cosied up to Andy.

Andy put his cold hand over hers. Mum shrieked and pushed him away “You’re not kidding,” he grinned. “They caused a serious traffic jam. They were better than the circus. Flaming torches, banners, painted faces.”

“What were they demonstrating about?” asked Mum.

Who CARES! I screamed silently. Couldn’t my parents see they were totally ruining my life, just by
being
there?!

I tried beaming deadly thought-rays. But Andy was immune to them too. He went warbling on about how someone was building some massive DIY outlet near our village.

“I heard about that!” said Kenny suddenly. She sounded interested. “Mum says it’s a disgrace to even think of building on Browses Piece.”

“Browses Piece?” said Rosie. “I don’t think I’ve been there.”

“Me neither,” I yawned. “Shouldn’t we get back to this—”

“Yes you have, bird-brain,” Lyndz interrupted. “You’ve been
loads
of times. It’s on the way to Leicester,” she explained to Rosie. “I go riding near there. There’s a little turn-off, right? You go down a little twisty lane and there it is. In spring and summer it’s totally gorgeous.”

“OK,” I said. “I do remember. Now let’s get on with this project.”

But they totally ignored me.

“I just
lurve
that place,” gushed Frankie. “Mum used to take me when I was a little kid. She’s got this picture of me, toddling around in the flowers. I’m so small, it looks like I’m in a daisy and buttercup jungle!”

“If you believe these protesters, our village is about to lose a piece of paradise,” Andy wittered on. “Not just primroses and whatnot. But all kinds of wildlife apparently.”

How come Andy was suddenly so keen on Nature? Mum can’t usually drag him away from the snooker long enough to cut our grass!

Frankie gave a gasp. “Nobody move!” she said.

“It’s not a spider, is it?” quavered Mum.

Frankie had an incredibly tense expression, like someone waiting for a sneeze. “I have had the most AWESOME idea,” she announced.

Honestly, that girl! Of course, she’d got everyone staring at her now.

“Remember the photograph Mrs Poole showed us, of those villagers at the beginning of the nineteenth century? Well, where do you think it was taken?” She waited for us to catch on.

Lyndz looked puzzled. “Browses Piece, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, definitely,” said Kenny.

Frankie beamed around the room. “Isn’t that a totally incredible coincidence?”

Everyone looked blank.

“Don’t you see how perfect it is?” she said, waving her arms like a windmill. “Here’s this lovely little beauty spot which has been here, like, forever. I mean, our grandparents and great-grandparents used to go there to chill out with
their
kids. And now thanks to some horrible DIY company, my baby sister might never set eyes on even ONE of those buttercups. I mean, is this serious ecology or WHAT?”

“So are you saying, forget all the big stuff in the books and do something about Browses Piece instead?” Kenny asked.

Frankie nodded. “Mrs Weaver will love it!”

“Sounds great,” said Andy. “Think globally. Act locally.”

Mum gave him a funny look.

“I read that on one of their banners,” he said bashfully.

Suddenly Kenny slapped Frankie on the back. “Spaceman,” she grinned. “You finally cracked the case!”

“Yeah. Nice one, Frankie!” said Lyndz.

“Coo-ell!” agreed Rosie.

I felt like the only person in the soap opera without a script!

“But what would we be DOING exactly?” I said.

Frankie scowled. “I can’t have ALL the ideas. The rest of you do some thinking for a change.”

“Ooooh!” teased Lyndz. “That’s telling you, Fliss!”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Mum. “If you don’t mind me butting in?”

Everyone made polite noises.

She looked dead shy. “Well, since you’ve only got till Monday, why don’t I drive you up to the protest site tonight, to take a look around?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you kidding? It’s
freezing
out there. All those little side roads will be, like, deadly death-traps!”

“Just a suggestion,” said Mum calmly. “I thought you girls might be up for an adventure.”

“You can count me in,” said Frankie at once.

“And me,” said Rosie. “I’ll finally get to see Browses Piece.”

“Yeah, under three feet of snow,” I muttered.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” said Lyndz.

“Totally,” agreed Kenny.

It was awful. Everyone seemed really excited. Everyone except me.

“It’ll be pitch dark,” I wailed.

“We’ve got torches,” said Mum.

How did this happen? Now I’d turned into the worry-wart and Mum was the dare-devil! She’d be wearing motorbike leathers next!!

“What would be cool,” said Frankie, in her most actressy voice, “is if we had a
reeeally
good camcorder, so we could, like, interview protesters for our Ecology Zone.” And she looked straight at Andy as she said it.

“You’re in luck,” said Andy. “Nikki got me a fantastic new camcorder for Christmas!”

“How AMAZING!” said Frankie, acting like this was totally news.

“What a shame,” I sighed. “Dad will be bringing Callum home any minute now. There’s no way we can take him to some freezing cold protest site. Not with his chest.”

My little brother catches everything going. Normally Mum totally wraps him up in cotton wool. One-nil to me, I crowed to myself. THAT should do the trick.

Only it didn’t.

“No probs, Fliss,” said Andy. “One phone call should fix that. Steve and Maria won’t mind.” He glanced at Mum. “It’s only once in a millennium.”

If one more person uses that phrase I personally am going to SCREAM, I thought.

Mum went skipping off to organise Thermos flasks. “Make me a nice fat sandwich while you’re at it, Nikki,” Andy called. “I’ll eat when we come back.”