Tthe Sleepover Club on the Beach (2 page)

It all started with an earache.

You know the kind of illnesses where you feel very slightly fragile and everyone spoils you rotten? I
lurve
those. Sometimes Dad buys me silly treats on the way home from work: sherbet necklaces and stick-on tattoos and puzzle books.

Well, my ear infection was nothing
like
that. It made me totally miz, even after the antibiotics had kicked in. And I had to miss loads of school. I didn’t mind about lessons, obviously, but I hated not seeing my mates. Plus, my illness TOTALLY
disrupted our Sleepover schedule.

I was praying I’d recover in time to go on our school trip. But when the day came, Mum said I was nowhere near well enough to go bombing off to Skeggy on a coach.

On the other hand, she saw absolutely NO reason to cancel the paddling party she’d arranged. She’d invited her best mates and all their little kids to our house. Which, if you include my little brothers, makes eight screaming, sticky-fingered under-fives in total! Lucky ol’ me, eh.

Things weren’t too bad at the start. The sun shone and the mums nattered and the little ones splashed around in our ancient paddling pool, like cute little water babies. I just sprawled in a deckchair, looking interestingly pale in my sunglasses, pretending to read a magazine. Also privately wondering how I’d
ever
squeezed into that teeny weeny plastic pool. If I jumped in now, I’d create a major tidal wave!

Then quite suddenly the heavens opened and it POURED. The mums scooped up
toddlers and plates of sandwiches and ran for shelter.

Unfortunately Dad had started one of his famous DIY projects, putting our sitting room completely out of action. (My dad makes
Changing Rooms
look like a bunch of wimpy amateurs!) So the paddling party had to picnic in the kitchen.

Just imagine it. Eight screaming toddlers all spilling juice and trampling on sandwiches and occasionally on each other’s fingers.
Total
nightmare!

I just couldn’t take the mayhem. So I sneaked off to the bombsite formerly known as our sitting room, to watch TV by myself.

But the telly was swathed in several sheets of industrial plastic.

My star sign is Libra, and I’m a really easygoing person. My mates will tell you that normally I take things like disappearing tellies completely in my stride.

But you’ve to got remember I was seriously stressed out. My house was filled with rampaging rugrats and there was completely nowhere to run. And my ear still
hurt, a LOT. And the no-telly-situation was just the last straw.

And I’m sorry, OK, but I completely lost it. Actually, I went totally ballistic. “ARGH!” I yelled. And again. “AAARGH!!!”

But no-one heard me. This was because Mum and her mates had finally succeeded in persuading all the kiddiwinks to sing Five Fat Sausages at the tops of their cute little voices.

I started ripping at the plastic in a frenzy.

“I’m not asking for the moon,” I stormed. “I want to veg out in front of the TV, that’s all. But no! I’ve got to play Pass the blooming TV Parcel…”

Finally I’d peeled my way down to the last layer. Then I dragged our TV to the nearest electrical socket and plugged it in. But all the channels had gone completely skew-whiff!

Now I was
really
mad. I stomped back to the kitchen, glowering at everyone like the evil fairy in a panto. I generally go all starry-eyed when I hear pre-schoolers singing in their little off-key voices. But my heart had entirely turned to stone.

“Excuse ME for breaking up the party!” I yelled rudely. “But I’m still really ill, in case you’ve forgotten, Mum, and I
need
to watch TV, but Dad’s sabotaged the channels, hasn’t he?”

All the tinies gawped at me in pure astonishment.

I could tell Mum was silently counting to ten. “Why don’t you go and watch Stuart’s?” she suggested at last.

“THAT heap of junk!” I snarled. “I’d get a bigger buzz watching Grandma’s snowstorm paperweight!”

My brother’s ancient Sony recently went on the blink, which means you have to watch programmes through this permanent blizzard.

“I know,” said Mum, in her best playgroup leader’s voice. “Why don’t you help yourself to one of those lovely juicy peaches, curl up in a comfy chair and read a library book?”

“Yeah, right,” I sneered. “First find a chair, then—”

“I’m sure we can find you a chair,” Mum interrupted, laughing.

“But I’ve read those books heaps of times,”
I moaned. “I can practically recite them from memory.”

My little brother, Ben, slipped a sticky hand into mine. “Don’t worry, I’ll lend you my library books if you like,” he whispered.

I’ll just explain that Ben’s favourite toddler fact-book explains
exactly
where your poo goes to, with v. colourful diagrams.

“That’s sweet, Ben,” I shuddered. “But I’d just want to lose myself in a good story. You know,
escape.
” My voice came out in a feeble little wail. To my horror I realised I was going to cry.

“Tell you what,” said my mum’s mate Teresa. “I’ve got some kids’ books in the car. I’m meant to be taking them to the charity shop. My dad’s been clearing out his attic.”

“Oh,” I said. “Erm…”

But before I could explain that this wasn’t exactly the reading I had in mind, Teresa had nipped out to her car. In no time, she was back with two bulging carrier bags.

Inside were the fogeyest, most depressing hard-backed books I have EVER seen. No doubt they looked incredibly hip when they
came out in the 1940s or whatever. But over the years all the covers had faded to the colour of bogey slime (I’m sorry, but it’s true!).

It didn’t help that Mum and her mates were obviously expecting me to leap around with gratitude.

I pasted a fake smile on my face. “Oh wow,” I said politely. “Thanks, Teresa.”

And I lugged the awful things upstairs. I wasn’t planning to read them. I just didn’t want to hurt Teresa’s feelings. But after ten minutes or so, I’d had as much as I could take of scowling up at my ceiling.

So very grudgingly I took a book from the pile. I suppose it might be good for a laugh, I told myself.

After an hour or so, I heard a polite cough. Mum was hovering in the doorway. “I reprogrammed the TV if you want to come back down,” she said.

“Cheers,” I said vaguely. “Just got to finish this chapter.”

I was still reading when my brother Tom called me to have my tea!! I rushed
downstairs, gulped a few mouthfuls of shepherd’s pie, then bolted back to my room and carried on reading feverishly. The characters were trapped in a disused mine, and frankly things weren’t looking good.

When Mum suddenly appeared with the phone, I almost jumped out of my skin. I’d never even heard it ring! I glanced at my alarm clock and was astonished to see it was practically bedtime! How had
that
happened?

“It’s Frankie!” said Mum.

I took the phone, still really out of it. “Hiya, Spaceman!” I said groggily. “How was Skegness?”

“Oh, fab and groovy. NOT. Emily Berryman was sick on the coach. All over my trainers, would you believe.” Frankie had obviously rung up for a good moan.

“Oh, poor old you,” I said vaguely, looking longingly at my book.

Frankie sounded slightly huffy. “What are you up to, anyway?” she said. “You sound weird.”

I explained sheepishly about my new addiction.

Frankie snorted. “Oh, those! I totally despise those books.”

“Oh, me too,” I agreed. “It’s just that Dad—”

But Frankie was off on one of her rants. “Have you noticed how they all have samey titles? The Mystery of the Thingybobby, or The Thingybobby of Adventure, or The Secret Thingybobby? And it doesn’t matter which one you read, they’re all exactly the same.”

“Yeah, but once you get into them, they’re surprisingly—”

But Frankie wouldn’t let me get a word in. “Have you noticed how the grown-ups in those books always find some convenient excuse to pack all the kids off to stay with this like, long-lost relative?” she said in a scornful voice. “I mean, how many long-lost rellies have
you
come across recently, Lyndz?”

“Well, none really—” I began.

“Exactly!” said Frankie triumphantly. “And before you can say ‘gosh, golly and jolly good fun’, the little dears are running around in their big baggy shorts and seriously sad
knitwear, on the trail of some totally daft mystery – smugglers, secret tunnels, messages in bottles and I don’t know what!”

Once Frankie gets on her high horse, it’s pointless arguing. You just have to let her run down like an old-fashioned record.

“The thing which REALLY annoys me,” she continued, “is how the girls always get so girly and upset. And the boy with the pet rat always finds disgusting old toffees in his pockets, and they’re all fluffy and icky and I’m like – ‘DON’T put it in your mouth, Betty-Ann or whatever your silly name is. It’s got rat germs!’”

I giggled. “He keeps the rat in his
other
pocket, you lamebrain!”

“But the dopey girl EATS it,” Frankie went on. “Not only that, but she like, cheers up INSTANTLY! I mean what is IN these sweeties, Lyndz? I think we deserve to be told!”

That
did
crack me up. In fact I laughed so much, I started hiccuping. Ever had hiccups while you’re still recovering from earache?

It’s AGONY.

“Sorry, hic (ow!) hic, Frankie,” I whimpered. “Gotta, HIC (ow!) go!”

Snivelling with pain, I rushed to find Mum, who was helping Dad measure alcoves for shelves.

I hate being the middle child. My parents showed me absolutely NO sympathy.

“Oh, not again!” Dad groaned.

“Just hold your breath,” Mum said impatiently.

Now I am the world expert on hiccups, OK? And I’ve tried every hiccup cure going and that holding-the-breath thing never worked for me ONCE. I was getting genuinely hysterical, but then my brother Tom came up with the most ingenious hiccup remedy since hiccups began.

He put one arm around me and drew one of his lightning-fast cartoons with his free hand. And as I watched, hiccuping miserably, Tom’s scribbles suddenly turned into a brilliant caricature of me hiccuping and going “Ouch!”.

I giggled. “My nose isn’t
that
big.”

Then I clutched my chest. “Tom! You are
such
a cool brother! They’ve gone!”

“Tom Collins, Hiccup Wizard!” he joked. “That’s me!”

“Yippee, yippee! I’m hiccup free!” I sang idiotically.

And I flew back upstairs to finish my book. Everything Frankie said was true, but I didn’t give a hoot. I had totally fallen in love with those old stories. Actually, what I really wanted was to climb
inside
that world and stay there for ever.

I was still reading when Mum came in to give me my last dose of medicine. She gave me a goodnight kiss, then firmly switched off my light.

But I still couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for ages, trying to find a cool patch of pillow. I wasn’t depressed any more. The books had completely cured me. But I
was
unusually restless. Which isn’t exactly surprising. My head was filled with faithful dogs and foreign-sounding villains and flashing lights far out at sea!

Maybe I was still feverish, or maybe Teresa’s dad’s books had cast a strange spell
on me. But suddenly I found myself talking in the dark.

“I wish all the Sleepover gang could have exciting adventures like the kids in those stories,” I said. “Though in trendier clothes, obviously,” I added hastily.

You know what they say. Be careful what you wish for. It might happen. And it did. It happened so fast that I was still tossing and turning when Mum got her mysterious late-night phone call from a long-lost relative…

OK, I’ll come clean. Uncle Phil isn’t exactly a long-lost rellie. But he’s
terrible
at staying in touch! I think maybe he has phone phobia. He and Auntie Roz been living in Australia and we hadn’t heard from him for
years.

But it turned out that recently, Auntie Roz had inherited some huge old house in Suffolk by the sea.

Mum told us about it next morning. “They’re going to run the house as a B&B,” she explained. “They’ve been working seven days a week since they got here, getting
everything straight, and they’ve invited us for the weekend.”

But Dad is a real home bird at heart, so he came up with all these excuses. He had exam papers to mark, plus his DIY was at a crucial stage, etcetera etcetera. “You go,” he offered suddenly. “And I’ll look after the boys. How about that?”

Mum looked seriously tempted. Not only was she keen to see her big brother, I got the sneaky feeling she was ready for a break.

When we were alone (except for baby Spike, who doesn’t count), Mum said hopefully, “Fancy going to Suffolk this weekend, Lyndz? Bring a friend if you like. The sea air would do you good.”

My heart totally skipped a beat. That’s what grown-ups always say at the beginning of Thingybobby stories! That’s how you know the adventure is starting! Was it possible my late-night wish could be coming true?

Don’t be daft, Lyndz, I told myself. I shook my head wistfully. “Sorry, Mum. I can’t just take one of my mates.”

She sighed. “You’re right. Oh, well.”

I thought that was the end of it. But like Stu says, Mum’s like our Jack Russell, Buster. Once he gets his teeth into something, he totally won’t let go. And Mum was determined to see her brother.

That evening, she disappeared into her bedroom with the phone. She came out all smiles. “They said yes!” she announced. “Isn’t that great?”

I stared at her. “Huh?”

“Your friends’ parents. They said yes,” she said impatiently.

“Erm, did I miss something?” I said.

‘They agreed to me taking you all down to Suffolk, of course,” she said, as if I was being particularly slow.

I was stunned. “You want to take the
entire
Sleepover Club away for the weekend? Does Uncle Phil know?”

“He can’t wait. He says he and Roz really miss having kids around, now theirs have left home.”

“What about school?” I was shaky with excitement. Suddenly my life seemed to be
turning into a story. There had to be a hitch somewhere.

“No problem,” Mum said absent-mindedly. “Friday’s a training day. I can’t believe you’ve forgotten that! We’ll have to make an early start. It’s a long drive to Suffolk. Where
did
I put that road map?”

My head was spinning. My mates and I were going to stay with my long-lost uncle in a rambling old house by the sea, and have a thrilling adventure like the ones in Teresa’s dad’s books. And all thanks to my brilliant mum!

But before things could get mushy, the phone rang.

Fliss sounds just like a Munchkin when she gets excited. “Is your mum really taking us to the seaside?” she squeaked. “That is so-o cool! I’ve got the cutest bikini! It’s pink with darling little—”

I pretended to gasp. “Pink! Wow! You don’t say?”

My mates were on the phone all evening, babbling happily about sunbathing and candy floss and amusement arcades. But
instead of getting excited with them, I started to feel slightly fed up. It didn’t seem to occur to my mates that I might have ideas of my own. I kept saying, “There’s more to Suffolk than amusements, you know.”

“Like what?” demanded Kenny.

Like, it’s the perfect place for adventures!

But I just said carelessly, “Oh, Mum’s got loads of local info. There’s this old city which totally disappeared under the sea.”

“Big hairy deal!” said Kenny scornfully. “I can’t exactly see us playing the fruit machines underwater!”

Modern kids are so unromantic! Thingybobby kids would fall over themselves at the prospect of a drowned city.

“Plus there’s some cliffs which are like, haunted by ghostly sweethearts,” I said eagerly. “And there’s this church where that Civil War guy Cromwell’s soldiers totally blasted the door with their muskets. And once—”

Kenny made loud yawning sounds. “Bo-oring.”

I sighed. Maybe when we actually crossed over the border into Suffolk, my mates would change their minds.

I know, I thought. I’ll get Mum to pack us a picnic exactly like the ones they have in those books.

I grabbed some scrap paper, thought for a minute, and started scribbling a list:
potted shrimps, ginger beer, Spam
…

Three days later we were bowling down wide country roads with our sunroof open. It was horribly early still, about 8am, but it was really sunny and warm.

Suddenly Rosie said, “Aren’t you hot in that cardi, Lyndz?”

“No,” I said fiercely. Though actually, I was. Very.

“Those old-fashioned hair slides look cute though,” she said quickly.

“Not so sure about the little ankle socks,” said Kenny under her breath.

OK, maybe I’m a really sad person, but I felt like I had to dress the part at least. I had to show a
bit
of faith. Otherwise how was our Thingybobby adventure ever going to materialise?

It’s not like I was getting much support.

Mum had totally put her foot down about the picnic. “I
refuse
to get up at the crack of dawn and pack a picnic,” she’d said irritably. “Anyway potted shrimps are 95% pure butter! As for Spam, who
knows
what they put in that stuff! And you
hate
milk! No, Lyndz, we’ll stop off at a McDonalds instead.”

I don’t know what things are coming to, do you? Mums in books always get up to make their children’s picnics. And OK, so I don’t
generally
drink milk, it’s true, but it sounds so lovely in Thingybobby books – all warm and frothy and fresh from the cow.

But I didn’t mind SO much about the picnic. It was my mates who were really depressing me.

I did
try
to get them in an adventurous frame of mind.

“Uncle Phil’s house is really near the sea,” I babbled. “I wonder if we’ll hear the waves swooshing at night. Hey! Maybe if we hunt around, we’ll find the secret tunnels under the cliffs, where old-time smugglers stashed their loot.”

But I might as well have been talking to
myself, because my mates just gave me pitying looks, then went back to arguing about which to play first, Steps or Westlife. Then Mum said crossly, “Hey! When do I get to listen to MY music?”

She meant it too! We actually had let her play her cheesy oldies! I didn’t know
where
to put myself.

But I haven’t told you the worst thing yet.

Fliss’s stepdad had given Fliss her very own mobile phone.

Apparently, after she agreed to come on this trip, she went into a Fliss-style panic about being stranded miles from civilisation. So Andy bought her a phone! A seriously expensive one with about a zillion different functions. So of course Fliss had to keep taking her new toy out of its trendy little case to see if anyone was texting her.

“Who’d send
you
messages at this time of day?” Frankie jeered.

“One of my mates, of course,” Fliss said in a huffy voice.

“But we’re here with you!” Kenny pointed out.

“I do have other friends,” Fliss said snootily.

“Oooh!” we chorused.

Unfortunately Fliss reread the instruction booklet and made the discovery that you could actually
change
the ring tones. Only she couldn’t decide if she wanted her pride and joy to warble Jingle Bells, play the opening bars of the theme tune to
East Enders
, or imitate the call of a spring cuckoo. So she had the cheek to ask Mum to switch the tape off, while she experimented with all three tones again and again and…

By the time Mum finally spotted a McDonalds, I was ready to throw Fliss and her precious phone out of the window.

Things improved slightly after we’d stuffed ourselves with burgers and fries. But the weather was really changing for the worse. We’d just got back into the car, when splodgy raindrops started landing on the windscreen like tiny pawmarks.

“What if it rains all the time we’re there?” I whispered to Mum anxiously.

She laughed. “Relax! There’ll still be loads to do. I showed you that booklet, remember?”

“My friends want to go to the pleasure beach,” I hissed. “They want to have FUN!”

But just at this moment my friends were having a major argument.

“Erm, Mrs Collins,” Frankie asked politely. “We are camping, aren’t we?”

“I do hope not,” quavered Fliss.

“Absolutely not,” said Mum firmly. “Actually, you’ll be sleeping over the stables.”

Oh,
bliss
, I thought.

But then Mum explained that the stables weren’t actual working stables, but had been converted into holiday accommodation.

My heart sank. No picnic, no horses. This trip was a real let-down.

“Phil hopes you won’t mind being in the annex,” Mum said breezily. “They’ve got B&B guests staying in the main house.”

Oh great, I thought. A bunch of boring bird watchers, that’s ALL we need!

At last we turned off the busy dual carriageway.

Mum puffed out her cheeks with relief. “That’s more like it. Now we’re
really
in Suffolk!”

Despite the rain, the scenery was getting really pretty. All the cottages were painted soft pastel colours, sugar almond pink and primrose yellow, and there were weeping willows everywhere. Plus there was
loads
more sky than I was used to.

We were fed up with our tapes by this time, so Mum let Frankie twiddle the radio dial until she found a local station and we all sang along happily to S Club 7.

But after an hour of twisty country roads, we were in a total car coma. It felt like we’d been stuck in the car our whole lives, lurching around hairpin bends and bumping over hump-backed bridges.

Finally we reached somewhere called Pease Magna, where we parked under a dripping tree. Mum wanted to buy some goodies from a village shop, which had become a famous foodie haunt, apparently. My mates and I
tottered along on our wobbly car legs too, to buy supplies for our Sleepover feast.

On our way out of the shop, we read the ads in the window.

“Someone’s selling a big flowery lady’s dress,” Kenny giggled. “You don’t see too many big flowery ladies these days, do you?”

“Home wanted for adventurous kitten,” I read aloud. “Tail and whiskers slightly singed.”

“Oh the
poor
thing!” said Fliss in dismay.

It sounds really heartless, but the rest of us totally cracked up.

Mum came up behind us, clutching packages of squishy cheese and other weird grown-up nibbles. “Come on. It’s not far now.”

“You’ve been saying that for
hours
,” I moaned.

Ten minutes after we’d left Pease Magna, Mum turned down a wiggly single-track road, with grass growing down the middle.

Suddenly a pheasant literally fell out of a hedge in front of us. Mum braked just in time. Seconds later a bunch of speckled pheasant babies fell out of the same hedge
and went poddling across the lane after their dimwitted parent.

Kenny’s eyes gleamed. “Pity. I hear pheasant is
really
tasty!”

“KENNY!” we all said at once.

Mum was still recovering when she had to back up to let a rusty old Ford go past. But instead of waving “Thanks”, the driver just glowered at us and shot past, splattering our car with mud.

In Thingybobby stories, country folk are pink-cheeked and friendly and sell you fresh buttermilk and brown speckled eggs at the farm gate. Not the villains obviously. They have scowling unpleasant faces and grating voices and greasy hair. Maybe the glowering Ford driver was our villain. Eek, I thought. If he was a villain, at some point we’d have to outwit him!

The narrow lane became a primitive track, lined with ancient trees. They all leaned towards each other, forming a rather spooky green tunnel.