Mega Sleepover 2. Narinder Dhami

      Adam stopped drinking because he was choking a bit.

      “That’s what comes of trying to drink and grin at the same time,” said his mum. Then Adam started shaking his head. He was trying to spell something. It was a poem he’d made up, while he’d been watching us have tea. Rosie says he’s always making up poems…and jokes. Rosie’s mum started spelling it out.

      “F-I-V…Five?” she said. Adam nodded then spelt out some more.

      “Little…Piggies? Sitting…in…a…row? R-O-S…Rosie’s the F-A-T-T…” Rosie started to squeal, “Tell him to stop.”

      Her mum grinned. “OK, young man, that’s enough. Remember your manners.”

      “You’re the little piggy,” Rosie told Adam.

      “That’s about right,” their mum said, wiping his chin.

      After we’d eaten Rosie said we could explore her house. There are five bedrooms on the first floor, then a staircase which leads to two more rooms, right up in the roof. In places, I could only just stand up straight without banging my head on the ceiling. The rooms were full of packing cases, cardboard boxes and old bits of furniture. There were no light bulbs up there, so when it started to get dark we couldn’t turn on the lights and that made it really spooky.

      We played Hide and Seek and Murder in the Dark all over the upstairs and in the attic rooms, squealing and rushing around. There were no light-bulbs up there so we had to use our torches and that made it really spooky. But in no time it was nine o’clock and Rosie’s mum came to tell us to get ready for bed. We didn’t argue. Actually, we were looking forward to going to bed. That’s the best bit.

      

      Rosie’s room only has one bed in it but it’s a double bed. It’s coo-ell. None of the rest of us has a doule bed. She’s so lucky. We all tried to fit into it, like playing Sardines; we just piled on top of each other. But there was no way we could sleep like that.

      “Give me some room,” yelled Kenny who was right in the middle. “It’s too hot in here.”

      “I’m falling out,” yelled Lyndz.

      “Can’t you breathe in?” yelled Rosie.

      “All night?” I said. “Get real.”

      So in the end we decided two of us would have to sleep in sleeping bags on the floor. We tossed for it. Oh, great. Guess who lost? Me, of course. And Fliss, who moaned on and on about how it wasn’t fair, even though it really was.

      After we’d been in the bathroom we sat up in our sleeping bags with our sleepover diaries. At least the rest of us did; Fliss was too busy playing with Gazza.

      Kenny was scribbling away like mad, she’d finished before I’d even thought about mine. She slammed her diary shut, “That’s me done,” she said.

      “Read us what you’ve put,” said Lyndz.

      “What’s it worth?” she said, which is Kenny’s favourite question.

      “If you do, I’ll let you hold Gazza while I write mine,” said Fliss.

      “Oh, great big hairy deal,” said Kenny. But then she said, “OK.”

      She started to read hers out: “Today is Friday. We are sleeping over at Rosie’s house for the first time and it is awesome. I wish I lived here. It’s the best.” Rosie started to smile; she was dead pleased with that. “Tomorrow, we are going to the Pet Show at the Village Hall and if Merlin wins a rosette I will tie it to his tail. We are at war with the M&Ms…again. They had better look out.” She slammed her diary shut and said. “Now, give, give, give, give, give.” She held out her hands for the hamster.

      “You promised you weren’t going to talk about that,” complained Fliss. But she passed Gazza over while she wrote hers.

      Then everyone wanted a turn, so we played Pass the Hamster for a bit. When Rosie went to the bathroom she brought back a toilet roll which was just about used up. She tossed it onto the bed and Kenny put Gazza down so he could wriggle through it, like a tunnel but he seemed more interested in filling his pouches with it.

      Next Fliss read us what she’d written: “I haven’t got a pet to take to the you-know-what so Rosie is letting me keep Gazza at her house. It is very kind of her. She is my best friend. She can take him out and play with him whenever she likes – as long as she is careful.”

      Kenny looked at me and rolled her eyes. Sometimes Fliss is unreal. It was then that Rosie came up with her other idea. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t such a good idea, but at first we thought it was.

      “Why not take Gazza tomorrow?” she said to Fliss. “You can pretend he’s yours. No one’ll know.”

      “Yeah, why not?” said Kenny.

      I nodded too. I thought it was a great idea, because, if Fliss had a pet to take, it would mean we could talk about the Pet Show, without her moaning on.

      “I don’t know,” said Fliss, doubtfully, “what if someone recognises him?”

      “How would they?” said Rosie. “One hamster looks much like another.”

      “What if there’s anyone from school there?”

      We thought about that. It was unlikely our teacher, Mrs Weaver, would be there, but what about other people from our class? And then, as if it had dawned on us all at once, I said, “Oh, no…” and everyone joined in, “The M&Ms.”

      They’d be sure to recognise Gazza. Those two didn’t miss a thing.

      “Oh, well, it was a good idea while it lasted,” I said.

      “Hang on,” said Kenny, “You could keep him in a box, or something, until they do the judging. The M&Ms’ll be too busy with their own pets. They’ll probably be in different rooms. I doubt if they’ll put the cats and dogs together with the small pets.”

      “Yeah. Good thinking, Batman,” I said.

      You could see Fliss was tempted, but she was still worried about it. Fliss always gets her knickers in a twist if she does anything wrong in case she gets found out. But she really wanted to join in with the rest of us, so in the end she said, “OK, but you’ve all got to promise not to tell anyone, though.”

      We all made the Brownie promise and just then Rosie’s mum came in and told us to turn off the lights and settle down. I was sure she hadn’t heard us but Fliss went bright pink, as if Rosie’s mum could read her mind. When she got up to put Gazza in his cage, she dropped him twice. Fortunately both times he landed on the bed. At last she put him in his cage, but she was so nervous she didn’t fasten the cage door properly. It was nearly an hour before we realised and by then Gazza had completely disappeared.

      After Rosie’s mum went out we lay in bed and counted to twenty-five before we sat up. Sitting up in the dark, with our torches turned on, whispering, is the best thing about sleepovers, I think. Sometimes we tell stories or sing songs or tell jokes. Sometimes we pretend we can talk to ghosts but that can get a bit too scary. Later on, when it’s really quiet and we know the grown-ups aren’t coming back in, we get out our midnight feast. But it was too early so we decided to finish off our Sleepover Club membership cards.

      We’d got some old ones we’d made right at the beginning, but now Rosie’s joined we decided we’d make some new ones with photos and everything.

      Do you want to see mine? Isn’t it excellent? Not as good as Fliss’s, though. Hers looks dead posh. She got her mum to take her into Leicester