Trick or Treat (6 page)

“Stay, Pepsi! Stay!”

Pepsi sat down obediently and wagged her decorated tail.

“Now turn around. Turn around, Pepsi.”

Pepsi leapt up and lunged at Frankie, bowling her over and licking her witch’s mask.

“Woof, woof!”

“Pepsi, you’re never going to have puppies at this rate,” Frankie-the-witch laughed.

And the Sleepover gang had to agree.

At last. Time for my Love Spell.

A thrill went right through me.

While the rest of the gang chanted “Robin, Molly, Robin, Molly,” I mixed my powerful Love Potion in a plastic beaker:

1. One toenail (Molly’s)

2. Scrap of belly button fluff

3. Crumb of toe jam

4. One long hair

5. One half-eaten cupcake with thumbprint

6. Teaspoon of rainwater to moisten

I did a bit of swaying with my eyes closed, to make it more real, and muttered witchy-type things. I don’t know how long I was supposed to do it, but when the potion felt all gloppy and mixed, I set it carefully in the middle of the circle.

Rosie inspected it. “This’d be a wicked mixture for a Sleepover dare.” (Rosie was probably remembering the time she had to eat ‘Nappy’s Brains’ to get into the Sleepover Club.)

“Yuck!”

“Sssh!” I scratched the initials ‘R’ and ‘M’ either end of the red candle I’d got in Harmony Heaven. Then I broke the candle in half and rubbed the two bits of it together, just for good luck.

“Ahhh, it’s like they’re kissing…” sighed Fliss.

“We have to do the next part outside,” I said.

“Why?”

“My mum said we weren’t to play with candles in the caravan.”

There was a bit of grumbling about the cold, but in the end, we all put on our school coats and trooped out into the dark.

“Get into a circle again,” I commanded.

They all huddled together, looking very unmagical.

“It’s cold!” Fliss complained.

Honestly. “Are we doing this or not?” I huffed.

So the gang formed a disgruntled circle.

I lit the two pieces of candle. Then, slowly, slowly I began dripping wax from each burning piece into the Love Potion. The melted wax sizzled and turned into red blobs the second it hit the potion.

“Cool! Looks like drops of blood.”

“Eeuch!”

Ignoring them, I went on dripping. Drip, drip, stir and chant. Drip, drip, stir and chant:

“Come Robin, come to Molly.

You know why, but can’t deny

Your need to come to Molly.

“Come Molly, come to Robin.

You know why, but can’t deny

Your need to come to Robin.”

Everything felt suddenly real, especially when the moon went behind a cloud. It was very cold and very very dark.

Fliss shivered. “Feels like we’re being watched. Let’s go back inside.”

Was it the moon, or the wind whispering in the bushes? But I felt it too and so did the others. Without another word, we stumbled back up the caravan steps. Fast.

Inside the caravan, I set the potion in the middle of the circle. Then I chanted the extra bit I’d made up, just to save our Sleepover Club:

“Molly and Robin, Robin and Molly,
Meet at Chess Club on Saturdays.
Leave our Sleepover Club alone,
And stop your sneaky ways!”

Suddenly there was a low ghostly moan, and the caravan began to shake.

“Wh-what’s that?” Fliss quavered.

Softly at first, the caravan shook, then more and more, until the whole thing was swaying like a boat out at sea. Pepsi whimpered, Fliss screamed and Lyndz’s hiccups disappeared.

The moaning went on…Then along the sides of the caravan was a scrabbling sound, scrabble, scrabble, scrabble, as if hundreds and thousands of long bony fingers were clawing to get in.

“Wh-what is it?”

We were too terrified to do anything but cling together for dear life, trembling like mad. And the moaning was getting louder.

After the longest two minutes in our whole
lives, Lyndz had a brainwave. “F-Fliss, call my brother!” she whispered.

“H-how?”

“On your mobile!”

Fliss usually had her mobile with her the whole time. But her fairy costume had nowhere to keep her mobile, so we were out of luck.

“I want my mum!” cried Fliss.

“Frankie, you and Kenny run to the house!” said Rosie.

“No way,” Frankie trembled.

“Send Pepsi with a note, then.”

But Pepsi was cowering against Frankie’s leg. She was going nowhere.

We couldn’t go out and we couldn’t stay there.

What could we do?

Hide? Faint? Die of fright? Probably. We’d be found years later, five frozen girls and a spaniel with bows on her tail.

There was only one thing left to do.

Together we took deep breaths and opened our mouths. In one long shriek we screamed louder and longer than we’ve ever screamed before. We screamed and screamed and screamed, until it felt like we’d never ever stop.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

And that’s when slowly, very slowly, the door to the caravan creaked open.

“DAD!”

Mega-relieved, I flung myself at my dad, and held on to him tight.

But Dad wasn’t feeling so loving. “What in heaven’s name is going on here!” he yelled.

Everyone tried to answer, but their voices were drowned by my dad’s yelling. Dad’s explosions don’t come often, but when they do – watch out! He shouted that he could hear our screaming all the way from the back bedroom.
And just in case he couldn’t, the next-door neighbours had phoned to tell him all about it. “You’ve probably woken half the neighbourhood!” Dad hollered in a voice loud enough to wake the other half.

“Sorry…”

“I don’t know what you think you’re playing at…”

“Just having a bit of Hallowe’en fun, Dad…”

“Hallowe’en or not, you blah, blah, blah…”

Dad went on and on.

I thought he’d never stop.

Only good thing was, Molly and Jilly got it in the neck even more than the Sleepover Club. Dad reckoned their silly behaviour could’ve have caused a major accident, with all the candles and ‘nonsense’. Candle holders or no candle holders, fire was dangerous stuff and he would speak to Mum about it.

Yes, in case you hadn’t guessed, it was not witches or ghouls that had given us the fright of our lives. It was my dear sister and her silly
friend. And if Molly and Jilly thought they’d win by scaring us with ghostly tricks like shaking the caravan, they were wrong. Dad told them so in no uncertain terms.

Finally Dad stomped off to get on the phone to the other parents.

Whew!

But in less than half an hour the grown-ups had come to pick up their ‘naughty’ daughters, and everyone, including Jilly, was taken home.

Ooops.

The only one left was Frankie. Her mum and dad were out, so Dad had to let her to stay. He wasn’t best pleased about that, either. ’Course, it wasn’t the sleepover we’d planned, but at least, me and my best friend were together, while Molly the Monster had to share with Emma. One nil to the Sleepover Club!

Before Dad could go on any more, me and Frankie did our famous getting-ready-for-bed race (one minute two seconds!) and leapt into
bed. When Dad came up to check on us we were already hiding under our duvets.

“Frankie, I’ll speak to your parents tomorrow,” Dad said as he snapped out the bedroom light, leaving us in total darkness.

I waited ’til he’d gone downstairs. “What do you think your mum and dad’ll do?” I whispered to Frankie.

“Boil me in oil… Tear me from limb to limb…”

“No, really.”

“Dunno. Pass me the sweets.”

We needed some comfort after Dad’s earwigging. So we had our own Sleepover mini-feast and told each other jokes. Here are a couple that cheered us up:

Question:
What do you get when you mix a cross witch with ice cubes?

Answer:
A cold spell.

Question:
How do witches drink tea?

Answer:
With a cup and sorcerer.

And Frankie’s favourite:

Sign at a Witches’ Demo:
“We demand Sweeping Reforms!”

You know how you get the giggles after you’ve been in trouble? Well, we did. Big Time. We couldn’t stop. I think we fell asleep laughing, just when the bedroom was beginning to get light again…

Thank goodness for Frankie.

My best friend didn’t get boiled in oil, or torn limb from limb, but she got grounded. The whole gang did. No more visits, no more sleepovers, no more fun until next year. Dad said he’ll see if we’re grown up enough for sleepovers by then. (Huh!) Still, as Frankie pointed out, we’ve had that threat before. And grown-ups have got very short memories, sometimes. Have you noticed that? I think they’ve even forgotten it’s nearly Christmas, so next year’s not that long to wait.

Anyway, don’t get worried. The grown-ups can’t stop the Sleepover gang from having fun. ‘Fun’ is our middle name. And they can’t stop us having a fab, fab Christmas. Frankie says we have the right to sue them if they try that.

At school, things are really coo-ell too. Mrs Weaver is letting us plan a sooper-dooper Christmas party, so our class is dead excited. We’re decorating the classroom and bringing food and CDs and playing games. It’s gonna be ace. Then there’s the Nativity play and the Carol Service…

It was at the school Carol Service that the grown-ups started to soften. Probably the sight of their little darlings dressed as angels did it. All the mums had got those soppy smiles grown-ups always get at the school Nativity play and Carol Service. So I thought I’d make the most of it, by handing round the mince pies in my angel costume.

“Mince pie, Mrs Sidebotham?” I said sweetly.

“Thank you, Laura,” smiled Fliss’s mum. “That was beautiful singing, just now.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes. A much better sound than screaming,” said Mum with a twinkle in her eye.

“Mu-um!” I groaned. “That was ages and ages ago. We haven’t had a single sleepover since Hallowe’en.”

The mums gave each other one of those looks that said, ‘Good thing too!’.

“It’s not fair!” Frankie in her angel’s wings looked as if she was about to take off. “We’ve got rights!”

Her mum looked at her fondly. Then she spoke up. “The Sleepover Club means a lot to them. Perhaps they’ve learnt their lesson.”

“We have,” chimed in Fliss, her angel costume billowing round her. “We’ll never do spells again.”

“Promise,” added Rosie.

“Pleeeease can we have a Christmas sleepover?” begged Lyndz, putting her hands together like she was praying. Which looked dead good with her halo and stuff. “Please, please, please?”

The mums looked at one another again. Then my mum said the magic words:

“We’ll see.”

And you know what that means in Adult Speak, don’t you?

YAY! One nil to the Sleepover Club!

Mind you, Fliss was telling the truth when she said we wouldn’t do any more spells. We were being right little goody goodies these days. But that didn’t stop the spells we did on Hallowe’en from working their magic. And, messing about or not, some of them did work in a funny kind of way.

For a start, Rosie reckons things at home are more peaceful. Her brother Adam (the one with cerebral palsy) has an amazing new wheelchair, and he’s practising a brilliant new wheelie routine in it for Christmas. And Rosie’s mum’s boyfriend has promised to paint their hall in the new year, so the place won’t look so
much of a bomb site. Of course, Rosie’s dad isn’t back with her mum, but, as I reminded her, spells are only spells. Not miracles.

Lyndz hasn’t got her horse yet but Frankie’s giving her one from her miniature collection for Christmas, so in a way Lyndz will get her wish. (And don’t tell Frankie, but I bought her a cute little china puppy for Christmas. It cost a whole week’s pocket money, but I reckon my best friend is worth it.)

Oh, you want to know about Fliss, too? Well, she hasn’t seen fairies at the bottom of her garden yet, but (secretly) I think she’s still looking. Fliss got it the worst of all of us, really. Her mum took the spell-making stuff deadly seriously and it didn’t matter how much Fliss explained it was ‘just fun’, Mrs Sidebotham was furious. She said witchcraft was ‘dangerous mischief’ and she docked Fliss’s pocket money. Mind you, Fliss gets so much pocket money, that only makes her in the same boat as all of us now.

I s’pose the spell stuff did get a teeny weeny bit out of hand… But like I told you before, the Sleepover gang is mega good at Pretend. So good that, believe it or not, my Love Potion did work some kind of magic.

It happened like this…

On the day of Molly’s swimming gala, Mum made me go with her to cheer Molly on. “It’s time you buried the hatchet and gave you sister some support,” she said firmly.

True enough, my sneaky sister could do with some help. Molly has been what my mum calls ‘spreading herself thin’ lately. She’s been going to Chess Club one week and swimming the next, so now her swimming speed’s rubbish. Still, with her own school pool she doesn’t have to rely on summer openings at the public baths like we do at our school. So Molly can practise in the new year to get back up to her ‘Olympic Standard’ (ha, ha).

At the pool, I did my best to cheer her on, for Mum’s sake. I shouted and waved and whistled, like a real fan. I’ve had plenty of practice at that when I go to Leicester City football matches. So I got into the act. But the funny thing was, as I got into shouting and clapping like mad, I really began to feel it.

Suddenly I wanted Molly to swim well. I wanted her to beat the others and I wanted her to win like mad.

“Come on, Molly!” I shouted. “WIN! WIN! WIN!”

She didn’t win of course. But when she came fifth… guess who was waiting on the sidelines to comfort her?

Robin Hughes!

Yes, the Chess Wiz himself actually praised Molly’s effort, and what’s more, Molly seemed to like it. (Heh, heh, maybe I am a witch after all…)

So, the Sleepover Club actually got a boy interested in Molly the Monster. Will wonders never cease? It only goes to prove, what I’ve said before…The Sleepover Club can do anything!

Wonder what we’ll do next?

Think I’ll just take a look in my crystal ball…