Mega Sleepover 6: Winter Collection. Sue Mongredien

alive, you mean!” I snorted, pulling off my school jumper.

      Just then, Mrs Thomas came waddling into the kitchen. I’m not being rude about her – Frankie’s mum is ace – but you know how ginormous pregnant women get? They just start looking like ducks waddling around, if you ask me!

      “Mum! What are you doing up?” Frankie said, and grabbed the tray off the table. I think she was about to give it to her, but you know how clumsy Frankie can be if she gets in a flap. Suddenly – whooosh! She’d stumbled on something, and hot stinky tea went splashing everywhere!

      Mrs Thomas flopped weakly into a chair.

      “Oh, Mum, I’m sorry!” Frankie wailed, rushing to the sink to get a cloth. “My foot skidded, and I…”

      “What’s going on in here?” came a voice. It was Frankie’s dad, standing in the doorway.

      “Frankie’s ‘helping’ again,” Mrs Thomas said to him. The two of them exchanged this weary, eye-rolling sort of look. I got the feeling they were both getting a bit sick of poor Frankie’s help.

      “Come on, Frankie, let’s go and play upstairs,” I said quickly.

      “But I was going to cook dinner,” Frankie began.

      “No, you two go upstairs,” said Frankie’s mum. “I’m not totally useless yet, you know!”

      “But…” Frankie started objecting, but her dad ushered us out of the kitchen.

      “I was only trying to help!” she shouted as we went upstairs.

      Honestly – parents. You can’t win, can you?

      

      I’ve got to admit, I was a bit freaked out by Frankie’s odd behaviour. It was like there was some other girl dressed up as Frankie, she was acting so out of character. Frankie is usually fun, fun, fun – not fuss, fuss, fuss. We leave all the fussing to Fliss! So as soon as we got to Brownies that night, I gathered the rest of the Sleepover lot together when Frankie was talking to Brown Owl about something.

      “Emergency cheer-up sleepover required for Francesca Thomas,” I said urgently. “She needs some laughs, badly! Look at her – she’s gone all stressed out about her mum!”

      “Dr McKenzie prescribes again,” Fliss teased.

      “Yeah, too right,” I said. “I’m prescribing her a sleepover tomorrow night with lots of sweets and stupid games – what do you reckon?”

      “Let’s do it,” Lyndz agreed. “We could have it at my house, if you want. We haven’t had one there for ages. I’ll check with Mum tonight if it’s OK.”

      “Cool!” I said, turning a cartwheel. “And we all have to bring lots of exciting ideas for things we can do to cheer Frankie up.”

      “No prizes for guessing what yours will be,” Rosie groaned. “Or are you into something else today?”

      “No, still got a one-track mind,” I said cheerily – and then I suddenly remembered the indoor snowboarding centre again. Maybe what Frankie really needed was a day away from home, having fun on the slopes. YES! What a fantastic idea. Oh, who was I trying to kid? I needed it too! BADLY!

      Sleepovers are always good at Lyndz’s house. I mean, they’re ace everywhere but somehow they seem to be especially ace at Lyndz’s house. This is why:

      Lyndz’s mum has the wickedest dressing-up clothes in the world so we get to play lots of cool games in them.

      We take Lyndz’s bed down and all sleep on the floor in a line in our sleeping bags.

      There’s always lots of yummy food – and big portions too, ’cos Lyndz has got four brothers.

      Lyndz’s dog Buster usually sleeps in with us and joins in all our games.

      Her mum and dad let us stay up really really late (as long as we don’t wake up the baby…).

      Sleepovers are just the best bit of the week. For a start, they’re often on Fridays so it’s the beginning of the weekend. No school – YEEEAHH! And even better – this week I had some megadocious news to tell everyone. After tons of begging and please-ing and promises to do lots of chores (yeah, right!), I’d talked my parents into… Oh, well I won’t say it now. You’ll have to wait and see, like the others did!

      It’s so hard keeping your mouth shut when you’ve got a secret though, isn’t it? I’m the worst person in the world – I always manage to blab it out, I just can’t wait! But this time, I really tried to save it for the sleepover. I wanted to spring it on everyone as a surprise.

      Lyndz’s mum picked us up from school at three-thirty. “Hello, girls!” she said warmly as we ran out of the school gates. “Looking forward to the weekend?”

      “Yeah!” we all shouted, squeezing into the car.

      Sleepovers are always different, but usually the first thing we do is change out of our yucky school uniforms and play a few rounds of International Gladiators to work up an appetite for the sweets. This week, as soon as we were all in our jeans and T-shirts, Lyndz picked up a sleeping bag.

      “Squishy-poo fighting first,” she announced. “We haven’t played that for ages!”

      What did you say? You don’t know what squishy-poo fights are all about? It’s one of our favourite things – even Fliss loves it! What you do is, you stuff your sleeping bags full of clothes and pillows so they are like giant, long, squishy cushions, and then you whack each other with them. Anyone falling over is out – and the winner is the last one on their feet! The problem is, you get so giggly doing it, it makes you get all weak – and before you know it, you’ve fallen in a heap!

      We all raced to fill our squishy-poos. The rule is, as soon as you’ve stuffed your sleeping bag, you’re allowed to start whacking.

      “Aaargh!”

      “Ooof!”

      “Squishy-poo to you, too!”

      In the end, it was just me and Rosie left, whacking away between fits of giggles. And then – doink! Rosie got me so hard on my left side that it winded me completely and I crashed on to the floor. “Mercy!” I gasped.

      “I am the champion!” yelled Rosie, jumping Up and down and waving her squishy-poo around.

      I had a quick look at Frankie, who was acting a bit quiet. Still worrying about her mum, I guessed. “Let’s play Zombie next,” I suggested – one of Frankie’s favourite games. “It’s a dark and spooky night, and there’s a Zombie on the prowl…”

      “Good idea,” said Lyndz, jumping up and drawing the curtains.

      “Oh, no,” said Fliss with a shudder. “Do we have to?”

      “Oh yes,” I said. “Ibble, obble, black bobble, ibble, obble, out!” I counted round everyone’s fists. “Frankie, you’re the Zombie!”

      She gave a blood-curdling growl. “I’ll give you five minutes!” she warned and left the room.

      Lyndz switched the light off and Fliss gave a whimper. You’re meant to play Zombie in a whole house ’cos you need lots of hiding places, but Lyndz’s room is just about big enough. We all scurried about in the dark, trying to find somewhere to hide from the Zombie. I squashed myself under Lyndz’s desk – I had no idea where the others had got to. It had suddenly gone very quiet…

      “Time’s up! The Zombie is on the prowl!” Frankie called in a spooky voice. And then – crrreeeeak! She pushed the door open slowly and did a Zombie shuffle