Tthe Sleepover Club on the Beach (5 page)

And we told my uncle and aunt about how we met her at a protest to save this local beauty spot. Of course, then we had to explain all about the Sleepover Club.

Auntie Roz was really interested. “When my girls were your age, they loved having their mates over to sleep. And the things
they got up to,” she grinned.

“Don’t encourage them,” laughed Mum.

Unfortunately, by the time we’d finished our breakfast marathon, it was practically elevenses, and Mum said we didn’t have time to stop off at the village. “We should get started now while the sun’s still shining,” she said. “It’s twenty miles to the pleasure beach at least.”

“Don’t worry,” I whispered to the others. “There’s sure to be a hardware shop there. We can open the bottle when we get back.”

“Aren’t we taking it, then?” Fliss whispered back.

Kenny shook her head. “Lyndz’s mum would be bound to notice.”

So we all rushed to grab our beach gear. Soon we were whizzing along sunny Suffolk roads with our sunglasses on and the wind in our hair.

Mum switched the car radio on just as the DJ was playing my favourite summer tune,
Sweet like Chocolate.

Ever have the feeling you’re in a film? Like, every silly little thing you do is on camera?

I felt that way for almost the whole weekend, like we were starring in our own Sleepover Club video. Everything was so perfect.

I know, I know. I was really supposed to be figuring out how to get hold of a corkscrew, so I could solve a thrilling mystery. This was not consistent behaviour.

But I’m a twenty-first-century girl, OK? And I wanted to have fun with my mates.

“I think you’ll find this town has all the main Sleepover Club requirements!” Mum joked, as she drove around looking for a parking space.

She found one eventually and we all headed for the sea front.

Everything was bright and dazzling, like the whole place had been newly painted just for us. I could actually smell fresh paint, also warm fresh doughnuts! Tiny coloured flags riffled in the sea breeze and people whizzed about on rollerblades.

Fliss unexpectedly produced a bubble tub from somewhere. She started to blow great shimmering streams of them, and all the
little kids pointed as we passed. It was like the whole world was shouting HOLIDAY!

We all had a long cold drink in a café, then we spent twenty minutes exploring the shops. Well, you have to check them out, don’t you?

“OK, is everybody ready for the beach?” Mum said when we were bored with giggling over rude postcards.

“Er, yeah,” I said. “But could we quickly stop at a hardware shop? Kenny needs to buy something.”

Kenny looked blank. “I do?”

“
You
know! That thing!”

Her eyes widened. “Oh,
that
thing!”

Mum looked annoyed. “Lyndz, I refuse to wander around a strange town, searching for a hardware store. There are perfectly good ones in Leicester.”

“But it’ll be too late by then—” I began.

My mates gave me warning looks.

“Sorry, forget it,” I said hastily. “Let’s hit the beach.”

“Yayy!” said everyone.

Fliss sighed with relief. “I can
finally
work on my tan,” she said.

We had the worst struggle putting up our beach umbrella. At one point we had to chase it along the beach, like some mad peppermint-striped wheel. And the whole time I was chasing it, I was secretly starring in my own Sleepover music video. I could actually hear the music playing in my head. I wasn’t being vain, I swear. I was just really really happy.

After we’d got the umbrella firmly planted in the sand, we did the whole seaside bit. We ducked each other screaming in the sea. We stretched out on our towels and basked in the sun like sleepy seals (we slapped on heaps of sun cream, don’t worry). We munched our way happily through the yummy picnic Auntie Roz had packed for us.

Then all at once it felt like the sun went in (which it actually hadn’t) and the soundtrack in my head went totally off-key.

We are SO letting ourselves down, I thought. We’ve got a mysterious bottle with a message in it. Probably our one and only crack at a real adventure, and we can’t
even organise a simple corkscrew. I mean, how pathetic is
that
?

Mum closed her book and glanced at her watch. “Are you girls still up for the amusement park?” she said. “Phil and Roz are having a barbecue for us later, so if you want to go it’s now or never.”

And with one voice we yelled, “NOW!”

It’s like no-one thought twice. I know I didn’t.

Well, what would
you
have done? Put yourself in our shoes. You’ve got two choices, right? On the one hand, you can have a mad time with your mates, going on brilliant rides, and laughing yourself silly in the Fun House.

And on the other hand? What exactly? Oh, yeah! A stray bottle washed up by the sea, a bottle with a piece of paper in it.

An amusement park is like, a sure thing. But our message in the bottle was a totally unknown quantity. For all we knew, that piece of old paper could be blank. And like Dad says, a bird in the hand is worth two in the whatever.

We scrambled out of our sandy swimsuits, doing all those embarrassing manoeuvres
with beach towels. And after we’d stowed our beach gear in the car, Mum took us to this really mega amusements place, where we had an absolute ball.

We played the machines and blew loads of money. We yelled our heads off on the big wheel. We shrieked on the swingboats until we were hoarse. And on the ghost train we screamed so loud, my eardrums will probably never recover. Finally we went on a ride called the Corkscrew (yes, really!) and I was so deliciously terrified, I truly thought I’d DIE!!

We came reeling out through the gates of the amusement park, clutching candy floss and feeling completely blissed out.

My mates were unusually quiet on the drive back. I was feeling just a little bit sick, personally. We were practically within spitting distance of Pease Magna, when Mum said, “Mind if we take a little detour?”

“What for?” I said in a grumpy voice.

“Roz says Blythburgh Church has a very special roof,” Mum explained. She was using her patient playgroup leader’s voice.

“Have we got to see it
now
?” I moaned.

“We don’t mind, honestly,” said Rosie hastily.

I felt a bit guilty then. I mean, we’d been doing our thing practically all day. It was only fair Mum should do hers.

The church at Blythburgh is almost surrounded by flat green marshes. You can see its tower for miles.

“It’s OK, you guys can stay in the car,” I said nobly. “I’ll go in with Mum.”

Kenny frowned. “This is the church with the Civil War bullet holes, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then I’m coming too,” she grinned.

It turned out everyone wanted to see the bullet holes.

“Wow,” Fliss breathed as we came up to the door.

It was quite impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen real live bullet holes before. And this huge church door was like, riddled with them.

“So what do you think?” said Mum, as we stood peering at these ancient battle scars.

Frankie instantly went into chat show mode. “It’s SO hard to imagine all that senseless violence. I mean, when we’re in the middle of this peaceful countryside, with bees buzzing, birds cheeping, butterflies fluttering—”

“Yeah, yeah, we get the picture, Spaceman,” muttered Kenny.

Inside, the church was really hushed and smelled very faintly of hymn books. We trailed around after Mum, not sure what we were meant to be looking at.

Suddenly Mum hissed, “Look up!” And we did.

And the roof was filled with angels!

Not real ones, stoopid! Carved ones, made of painted wood. They weren’t much like the modern idea of angels, admittedly. Their wings were up round their ears and they had these like, comical wooden perms!

Mum let us climb up some terrifyingly steep stone stairs so we could explore the priest’s room. The stairs were so narrow, you banged your elbows on the walls. But about halfway up, Kenny found a little
peephole into the church.

“Hey, this is groovy! I can see your mum!” she giggled.

Of course we all had to take turns to hang out of it, waving wildly at my mum, until she hissed at us to come down again.

Then she dragged us over to look at yet
another
door with scorch marks. Only guess what! These weren’t made by bullets. According to local legend, they were made by the Devil himself!

Apparently, one Sunday he’d tried to storm into the church in the middle of the service. But the churchgoers were praying so hard, he couldn’t get past their like, holy force-field. So he was left outside, scrabbling at the door, and you can still see his huge fingerprints…

Yeah, right, as Kenny said!

But I’ll admit those blackened fingerprint things were a bit spooky. And I think we managed to convince Mum we were genuinely into it all, because she was humming as we drove back to my uncle and aunt’s house. I think she felt really chuffed that she’d
finally got us to do something educational!

As soon as we got back, we sped off to the stables to shower and change. But as we started up the stairs to our hayloft bedroom, Kenny groaned. “Oh, no! Corkscrew!”

Frankie whacked herself on the head. “Duh!”

“We are
such
idiots,” I wailed.

“This adventure is totally doomed,” said Rosie despairingly.

“It never even got off the
ground
,” I pointed out.

“This is terrible. We’re going home tomorrow,” said Frankie.

“Thanks, Frankie, just what we needed,” said Kenny in a sarcastic voice. “More pressure.”

We went into a slump right there on the stairs.

Then Kenny said, “I’ve had enough of this. Let’s smash the stupid thing now!”

Fliss looked puzzled. “I thought you said the noise—”

“No-one will hear,” said Kenny impatiently. “The grown-ups are over in the meadow, getting the barbecue going.”

I felt a surge of excitement. “You’re right! Let’s do it!”

We all moved at exactly the same moment, and ended up having a really undignified tussle on the stairs.

Frankie won (surprise surprise!) and went charging up to the top. The rest of us were all still trying to get up the stairs at once.

“I DO hope it’s a hidden treasure message, not a kidnap one!” Rosie was saying breathlessly.

“Yeah, a kidnap would be WAY too exciting,” Fliss said solemnly.

“If it’s a kidnap one, the victim probably snuffed it yonks ago,” said Kenny.

“Oh yeah,” said everyone.

“Erm, Lyndz! Where did we leave that bottle again?” Frankie yelled.

“On the chest of drawers, you bozo!” I yelled back.

We finally managed to free ourselves and erupted into the hayloft, shrieking with laughter. Which is when we realised that Frankie was the only person who wasn’t laughing.

“So come on, where is it?” demanded Kenny.

Frankie pointed silently at the chest of drawers.

It was completely empty.

The bottle had gone!

The Sleepover Club has its share of ups and downs as you know, but this was an all-time low.

I don’t know about you, but bottles with mysterious messages in them don’t tend to wash up at my feet on a regular basis.

We’d blown our golden opportunity, and we felt like total idiots.

But there’s one great thing about my mates. They have this ability to totally bounce up again like, well, things that bounce back!

And that’s exactly what happened.

“OK,” said Kenny briskly. “Let’s all go on a bottle hunt.”

We stared at her.

“Well, we’re acting like the stoopid thing just disappeared off the face of the earth, when it’s probably just been tidied away somewhere.”

Frankie’s face lit up. “Oh, Kenny, you star!” she breathed. “That’s it!”

“Huh?” said everyone.

“Look around, you guys!” she said excitedly. “When we went out this morning, our room was a tip. Now it’s all spick and span. Carrie, or whatever she’s called, obviously came in to tidy up.”

I was shocked. “You think Carrie
stole
it?”

“Duh,” said Frankie. “Didn’t you hear what your aunt said? ‘Carrie’s a treasure, even if she is a bit of an eco-warrior’; hint hint!”

“Yikes!” Fliss squeaked. “Carrie’s recycled our bottle!”

I covered my face. “Oh, this is so unfair! It’s probably all mashed up by now. It’s no use. Modern kids are just not cut out for
adventures. We should stick to watching TV and shopping!”

“Hey, I thought I was meant to be the Sleepover Club drama queen,” Frankie teased. “Isn’t it possible that Carrie simply thought it was an empty bottle, and being a good little eco-warrior, immediately put it to one side for recycling later? In a recycling bin?”

Fliss went into peals of girly laughter. “You sound
just
like a detective!”

I felt a spark of hope. “Recycling bin? Here, at Willow Cottage?”

We stared at each other.

Then we all made a mad dash to the main cottage, hurtling straight through the kitchen and out into the utility area.

There in a row were three big plastic bins, neatly labelled in black felt pen. One for waste paper. One for veggy peelings. And one for glass…

I clasped my hands together. “Please, please, please,” I whispered.

Kenny lifted the lid with a flourish. And right on top was our precious bottle, winking
in the afternoon sunlight, totally unharmed.

Everyone sagged with relief.

“Come here you little beauty. Mwa!” I gave the bottle a smacking kiss.

“Now nab a corkscrew, quick!” hissed Kenny.

We hunted around the kitchen.

“It’s hanging on the thingy,” said Rosie. “With all the kitchen doodahs, oh
you
know!”

She meant the utensils rack, believe it or not! We all fell about laughing. But unfortunately, at that moment we heard footsteps.

Kenny hastily spirited the corkscrew into her jeans pocket, and I hid the bottle behind my back.

“
There
you are,” said Mum. “I’ve been looking all over.” Her eyes narrowed. “You haven’t changed your clothes. What have you girls been doing all this time?”

“Erm,” I said desperately. “Well, actually…”

To my amazement Frankie came to my rescue. “Oh, Mrs Collins, it was awful,” she babbled. “We thought we heard the ghost.”

Suddenly I was inspired. “Yeah, we heard
funny snuffling noises. I heard them this morning too. It
has
to be the ghost!”

Well it wasn’t a
total
lie!

“It scared me to death, Mrs Collins,” said Frankie earnestly. “I just don’t feel comfortable taking my clothes off, knowing there’s a ghost, you know,
peeking.
”

I could see Kenny biting her lip, desperately trying not to laugh.

I have to say Mum didn’t look too convinced. But quite accidentally, Auntie Roz saved our bacon. My aunt came hurrying into the kitchen, looking for the salad servers or something. And galloping after her, with one ear stylishly inside out as usual, came gorgeous Gizmo.

He immediately began snuffling around his water bowl.

“That’s
it
!” Frankie shrieked. “That’s the noise. Oh, I feel so-o embarrassed!”

“Yeah, whew,” mumbled Kenny. “It was the puppy all the time.”

“Well, now that little mystery’s cleared up, we’ll go and get changed,” I said brightly.

“Good idea,” said Mum drily. She sounded deeply suspicious.

We just made it out of the kitchen before we collapsed in total hysterics.

“So are we going to open it now?” asked Rosie eagerly.

“I think we should do it tonight at our Sleepover feast,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Frankie. “We’ll do it in style.”

“My deah,” said Fliss in a posh voice. “We do
everything
in style!”

Uncle Phil had built a proper barbecue pit in the meadow at the back of the house. He and my aunt were like, barbecue experts (I suppose they ate barbecue all the time in Australia). But we still didn’t get to eat anything for ages. I think that’s an ancient barbecue law or something.

I lurve barbecues. Grown-ups keep handing you delicious savoury goodies as soon as they come off the grill, still sizzling and smelling of charcoal, which somehow makes it heaps more exciting than food which has been cooked indoors. It’s kind of like
outlaw
food!

Don’t worry, there were plenty of delicious veggie options for Frankie.

But she spent most of the evening madly rushing around, taking pictures with her camera. And we all obliged by striking mad poses among the wild flowers. Gizmo’s in most of them, because guess what! He’d recently started to follow
me
around, instead of Auntie Roz.

“You can be
my
faithful dog any time, Giz,” I whispered to him, as I tickled his tum.

The Sleepover Club is always up for a party as you know, and we all had a really enjoyable evening. But I think we were all terribly conscious of trying to save ourselves for our grand Sleepover feast.

After all, this one was a biggie. We kept exchanging excited glances. And I knew what my mates were thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. We were finally going to open the bottle. Tonight we’d know for sure what was in that message!

But it’s surprisingly hard to leave a barbecue when the charcoal is still glowing. It’s that Robin-Hood-camping-in-Sherwood-
Forest thing. So we lingered in the meadow, chatting, until it was almost dark. But then the midges started biting and it grew seriously breezy, and suddenly Kenny faked this huge yawn.

“Blimey!” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I’m SO sleepy. Must be all the fresh air.”

This was our cue to yawn as well. “Me too,” I said. “Thanks for tonight, Uncle Phil and Auntie Roz. I’ve had a great time.”

We all gave Gizmo a last passionate cuddle, and Auntie Roz grabbed on to him to stop him following us as we went racing through the twilight.

I grabbed at a piece of honeysuckle as I flew past, and sniffed deeply. I think heaven must smell of honeysuckle, don’t you?

We got ready for bed so fast, it was exactly like one of those comical old movies. All of us rushed about, tripping over each other and bumping heads, totally keyed up!

Finally Mum came up to say goodnight. “Any idea what you’d like to do on your last morning?” she asked. “I thought we could go to that museum at Dunwich.”

“That kind of depends,” I said vaguely.

“Oh,” said Mum, sounding slightly miffed. “On what?”

Well, Mum, the fact is that by tomorrow, we just might be millionaires!

But I couldn’t exactly say that, so I just said, “Let’s see what the weather’s like.”

Mum switched off the light. “Sleep tight.”

We waited until Mum was safely inside the main cottage, then we all switched on our torches, giggling with excitement.

“This is going to be the most thrilling sleepover feast ever,” said Rosie happily.

“Come on guys,” I said. “We’re doing this properly.”

So we unwrapped all our sleepover goodies and piled them in a pretty blue bowl we’d borrowed from Auntie Roz when she wasn’t looking.

Want to know what we’d bought from the village shop?

Some of the goodies were slightly strange, actually!

We had pink and green flying saucer things with slightly stale sherbet in, a big bag of
marshmallows which must have dated back to hippie days because they were in the
weirdest
colours, a bag of M&Ms, a packet of Eccles cakes. (I bought those. I thought it was just the kind of jolly stodge the Thingybobby kids would eat.) Also a bag of plain kettle chips and a jumbo box of Celebration chocolates, because they were on special offer!

I placed the bottle ceremonially on the ground beside our feast. “Right,” I said. “Who’s doing the honours?”

“You are, girlfriend,” grinned Frankie.

“No way!” I protested. “I never used a corkscrew in my life!”

“Now’s your chance!” said Kenny, and she calmly passed it over.

I plunged the screwy part of the corkscrew into the cork.

“Yikes,” I joked. “I feel like someone in the bomb disposal squad!”

I braced the bottle between my knees like I’d seen grown-ups do, and pulled hard. This is the dodgy part of the operation. If you get it wrong, the cork ends up inside the bottle, forever.

But if you get it right – POP!!

“Yess!” cheered everyone.

I stared at the cork, totally astonished. “It came out!”

“Erm, the message,” Frankie reminded me.

My mates crowded round, totally fizzing with excitement.

I felt like my hands had stage fright! I hooked a shaking finger into the neck of the bottle and fished out the piece of paper.

It dawned on me that I must be the first person to touch it for like, hundreds of years. Wow, I thought. This is so amazing! I cautiously unrolled the paper, and it made a dry crackling sound as if it was really old.

“Move your head, Kenny, I can’t see,” Rosie complained. “Is there a map on it, Lyndz?”

I felt a twinge of disappointment. “Uh-uh,” I said. “Poetry.”

Kenny was disgusted. “We went through all this hassle for
poetry
?”

“They often put treasure clues in poetry in olden days,” Frankie said calmly. “Read it out, Lyndz.”

I squinted at the strange loopy writing.
“I’ll try,” I said doubtfully. “Erm, here goes.” And this is what it said:

“Well, that’s as clear as mud,” said Kenny crossly.

I was still peering at the message. “There’s some little numbers and letters at the bottom.”

Frankie sucked in her breath. “Of course!” she shrieked. “We are SO dense! Angels and devils. Duh!”

And PING! That little light-bulb went on inside my head, and I got it too. I started to grin. “Unbelievable! We were probably
just inches away and didn’t even know!”

Fliss and Kenny both looked at us like we were talking Martian.

But Rosie was bubbling with excitement. “Come on, guys,” she coaxed. “
Angels above you
?”