Sleepover Club Eggstravaganza (6 page)

Then suddenly…

“So where is the little darling?” said Mrs Sidebotham, looking around. “Has Gwyn got her today?”

Mum went green. Then white. Then a sort of putty grey. “Izzy!” she cried. “Where is she? Frankie? Where’s Izzy?”

Izzy was nowhere to be seen.

We all sort of froze there, like when you press pause on the VCR. Then all the grown-ups started shrieking at once.

“Where did you last see her?” (Mrs Collins.)

“Are you sure you brought her with you?” (Mr Collins – what a daft question!)

“Oh, oh, oh!” (That was Mum.)

“What was she wearing?” (Mrs S, naturally.)

“What if someone’s grabbed her?” (Mrs McKenzie – great, dead helpful.)

“There, there.” (Kenny’s dad trying to calm all the fussing mothers down.)

And they all flapped and fussed like a bunch of chickens when a fox gets into the henhouse.

I didn’t hesitate. “Action stations, Sleepover Club!” I yelled. My mind was somehow crystal clear – which was just as well, as all the grown-ups had gone as woolly as moth-eaten blankets. “I
knew
we were all brought together for a reason! This is an emergency – we have to find my baby sister!”

“I’ll take the north end of the mall,” shouted Kenny. “Come on, Lyndz! You come with me!”

She and Lyndz shot off like greased lightning, running up to passers-by and asking them, “Have you seen a baby in a light blue pushchair?”

“Oh Frankie!” sobbed Mum. I’d never seen her in such a state. “What an awful mother I am! How could I have lost her? What if we never find her? This place is like a maze!”

“Don’t worry, Mum,” I said. “We’ll find her. Come on Rosie, Fliss – let’s go this way!”

We ran everywhere – up and down the corridors, in and out of all the shops we’d
visited (and there were quite a few). Have you seen a baby? Have you seen a baby? I had to keep asking, because all of a sudden I felt all wobbly and tearful. What if Mum was right? What if she
had
been snatched?

“Have you seen a baby in a light blue pushchair?” I said rather hopelessly to a girl in the toyshop down the east wing of the mall. “She’s ever so sweet. She’s wearing…”

“A pink smocked dress?” said the shopgirl.

“YES!” I said, practically sobbing with relief. “Yes! Have you seen her?”

“Yes, she’s over here, look. I was about to put out a tannoy. She’s been ever so good.”

And just behind the till, Izzy sat in her pushchair, beaming up at the twinkling stars on a mobile above her head.

The Sleepover Club were the stars of the hour. Mum sobbed even harder when we eventually managed to track her down, and hugged us all so close that we practically suffocated. Then she swept a rather surprised Izzy out of her pushchair and covered her with kisses (yuck). All the other mums and dads fussed around too, proudly kissing their girls and saying over and over again, “How lucky you were so level-headed about the whole thing!”

“Oh,” said Mum at last, wiping her eyes. “You must all come over for lunch, girls.”

“Yeah, we’ve all got to help with the party,
guys,” I said apologetically.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Mum. “A really good lunch and some fun is more what I had in mind.”

I didn’t quite dare to believe my ears. Were we forgiven, then?

“Er, does that mean…” I ventured.

Mum wrapped her arms round me and stuck a big wet kiss on top of my head. “Well?” she said, grinning. “Are you going to tell your friends to bring their sleeping bags, or am I?”

Everyone piled back to my house for lunch – stacks of fish fingers for the others, and a pile of juicy quornburgers for me. There was
loads
to do. We blew up about a million balloons, which then had to be tied together with ribbons and hung everywhere. Fliss has gone all soppy in the shopping mall (so what’s new?!) and insisted that we had to get all
pink
balloons – lovely pearly pink ones, like the insides of seashells – because Izzy was a girl. I managed to “exercise my prerogative” (one of Mum’s lawyer expressions) as Izzy’s big sister,
and bargained my way to a pink
and silver
theme. It looked dead pretty by the time we’d finished (and not quite so girly, thanks very much), with pink and silver ribbons trailing round the banisters and the front door knocker and stuff.

Then there were all the sandwiches to make. Cutting the crusts off was the worst part – the bread kept crumbling away and my sarnies were a bit of a mess, but according to our Chief Taster (Lyndz) they tasted fab anyway. Kenny was in charge of making the fruit punch – it was a bit of a murky brown colour by the time she finished, and she refused to tell anyone what she’d put in it (ketchup probably, knowing Kenny), but Dad said it tasted lovely and I don’t
think
he was just being polite.

The first guests were due to arrive at around four o’clock – though I suppose you could say the party had already begun with all us lot and our mums and dads at lunchtime! Izzy’d been having a snooze up in her room, so Mum suddenly looked at her watch.

“Gosh!” she said, “I’d better go and wake up the little sleepyhead and put her in her party dress!”

“Ah!” everyone sighed.

Fliss was all for following Mum up the stairs and gurgling at Izzy, but I persuaded her that it would be a better surprise this way. What do you mean, did I know what she was wearing? Of
course
I did! This was a pretty small family after all, and Izzy’s party was all we’d been talking about for the last two weeks (apart from the constant earbashing I’d been getting for all the “shenanigans”, as my gran always says). But you’ll just have to wait and see the finished result, like the rest of the gang…

And talking of getting dressed up, it was time for us lot to do the same! We all shot upstairs gabbling away at each other like a speeded-up tape. There was so much to say, now that we could actually talk to each other again.

“Hey!” piped up Kenny, as she wriggled into a clean T-shirt and jeans (what no Leicester City strip, I hear you swoon? Her mum had
gone and stuck all her shirts in the wash that morning! Boy, was Kenny steaming mad!!). “We should do some kind of Sleepover Club thing for our youngest member!”

“What sort of thing?” said Lyndz cautiously, straightening up her new blue skirt (the colour
reeaally
suited her).

Kenny was hopping around, trying to tie up her shoelaces without sitting down. So naturally, I shoved her in the back and sent her sprawling face down on my bed. Well, seriously, wouldn’t you have done the same?? When we’d all stopped giggling hysterically and Kenz had managed to get her face out of my pillows, she spluttered, “Wait till you hear this idea!”

“Oh
no
!” we all groaned.

“Please Kenny, not another crazy scheme!” Fliss begged, smoothing the (non-existent) creases out of her new blouse for the hundred and ninety-ninth time.

“I don’t think my nerves could take it,” said Rosie earnestly, which just made us all crack up even more.

“You’ll love it,” promised Kenny. “Everyone will love it!”

BONG! The hall clock began to strike four.

“Come on!” I yelled, wrapping my hair up in a new silver scrunch I’d bought that morning. “Geronimo – it’s party time!”

And we all charged down the stairs like stampeding wildebeest.

The first guests had already arrived, and they were all oohing and aahing over Izzy, who was sitting up in Mum’s arms and grinning at everyone.

“Frankie, she looks gorgeous!” squealed Fliss, rushing over.

Dead right she looked gorgeous. She was wearing a little white dress with white smocking on the front and little embroidered rabbits running round the hem. There were little frilly white pants to match, all big and squashy to get round her huge nappy. And on her back – and this was the finishing touch, dreamt up by yours truly – were a little pair of gauzy fairy wings.

“She looks like an angel!” breathed Rosie, completely overcome.

“She doesn’t smell much like one, sometimes,” I said rather practically. “But she’s looking pretty good today, I have to admit!”

“Come on guys,” insisted Kenny impatiently. “I want you to know about my idea. But I’ve just got to ask your mum something, Franks.”

She went galloping over to Mum and tugged at her sleeve. “Er, Mrs Collins?”

“Yes Kenny, love?”

“The Sleepover Club would like to do something for Izzy,” she said.

“What sort of something?” said Dad, walking over with two glasses of punch for him and Mum.

“A daffodil guard of honour!” said Kenny promptly. “We’ll just pick a few, honest…”

There was a moment’s silence – and then a
huge
roar of laughter from all the grown-ups in the room.

“Oh no! Oh, no, no!” spluttered Mum. “I’m not letting you anywhere near my daffodil bed, Kenny!”

“More daffodils, Kenny?” I gasped. “You’re mad!”

“Totally, certifiably insane,” nodded Fliss with a shudder.

Rosie and Lyndz were just taking deep breaths at the very thought!

Kenny looked quite put out by our reactions. “I promise we’ll only pick a few!” she insisted. “Dad? Mum? Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

Dr McKenzie paused with a smoked salmon sandwich about two millimetres from his mouth. “Don’t include me in this discussion!” he grinned. “They’re Gwyn and Helena’s daffs!”

“All right!” laughed Dad. “But you are allowed to pick
one flower each
! And I’ll be watching!”

“I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Frankie’s parents had just locked all the doors and refused!” grinned Rosie as we rushed outside to the flowerbed.

“This is a totally different thing,” objected Kenny scornfully. “There are no M&Ms to fight with, for a start.”

We picked one daffodil each – big, beautiful yellow ones, just like the trumpety one that had got Kenny into such trouble two weeks earlier. And we carried them carefully up to the patio outside the French windows, where an audience of grown-ups had gathered.

“Now what, Kenny?” hissed Fliss, holding her flower rather nervously.

We all shuffled our feet and looked at Kenny for inspiration. I mean, do
you
know what a guard of honour is?

“Now, er…” said Kenz, looking at a bit of a loss.

“Now,” said Mum stepping forward with Izzy, “you all form a line, like you sometimes see for people when they come out of church on their wedding day. Hold your daffs up, pointing together so they make an arch.”

We all snapped to attention – me and Kenny facing Fliss, Rosie-Posie and Lyndz – and pointed our daffs skywards.

“Gwyn, time to make a speech,” said Mum, coming round the garden side of us, ready to walk underneath our guard of honour and
back into the house through the French windows.

Dad spat out half his cucumber sandwich. “What, now?”

“Come on, Gwyn!” came the cheers from the living room. “Get a move on! Speech, man!”

“Well, I, er…” said Dad, clearing his throat. “Well, we are really pleased to be able to welcome all our friends on this special occasion, and most importantly to welcome little Isobel into our family.”

“Hooray!” came the yells and cheers. Kenny almost threw her daffodil up in the air in excitement, but I aimed a quick kick at her shins and stopped her. My arm was beginning to ache – I hoped Dad wasn’t going to drone on for
too
long…

“Izzy,” said Dad. “You are now a part of this family, and I hope you will be a source of great pride to us all.”

“And never get into any food fights!” came a shout from inside the house – Andy, Fliss’s mum’s fiancé!

“I’ll kill him when we get home!” muttered
Fliss, going bright red as everyone cheered even louder than before.

“So Helena, if you would just like to lead Isobel into the house through this fine guard of honour, we can cut the cake!”

Everyone started clapping and singing “For she’s a jolly good fellow” as Mum and Izzy marched proudly underneath our guard of honour and stepped into the living room, where Izzy was anointed with a splash of champagne on her forehead.

“There!” said Kenny with satisfaction. “My idea worked a treat!”

“Miracles will never cease,” I said with a grin.

“You watch it, Spaceman!” yelled Kenny, launching herself at me. And before you knew it, there was a ginormous scrapping match.

“Come on, girls!” Mrs Sidebotham stuck her head round the French window. “You’re missing all the fun!”

We trooped indoors – and you’ll never guess who we saw.
Mrs Weaver!

“Yikes!” said Fliss, going swiftly into
reverse. “What’s Mrs W doing here?”

“Oh-oh!” said Rosie, going quite green. “I don’t want to see her for at least the next couple of weeks! My ears are still ringing from all that yelling last week.”

“We’re on holiday!” groaned Kenny. “What did your folks have to invite her for, Franks?”

I was frozen to the spot as Mrs Weaver bore down on our shivering little group.

“Ah, Francesca,” she smiled. “So good of your parents to invite me on this lovely occasion. Doesn’t your little sister look sweet? I won’t be staying long. I’ve just brought back something that belongs to you.”

And she fished my little Polaroid camera out of her bag and handed it to me. I just gaped at her like a codfish faced with a tough maths question. Mrs W didn’t seem to notice. In fact, she seemed totally her normal self – not like the fire-breathing dragon of last Thursday.

“I heard all about your heroics in Leicester this morning,” she said. “So I think it’s safe to say that the slate is clean now, don’t you
think? New term, new leaf and all that.” She nodded at the camera. “You’ll find it’s loaded up with film again. Your, er,
other
film was all finished, I believe.”

And she turned round and dived back into the chattering crowd.

“
Well
,” said Kenny, finding her voice at last. “
That
was a turn up for the books.”

“Good old Mrs Weaver!” said Fliss with a huge sigh of relief. “I
hate
being in trouble. It’s just so much…
trouble
.”

“Well put, Fliss!” cried Rosie, slapping her on the back and nearly making her fall over.

“Guys, guys!” said Lyndz, all excited suddenly. “I
knew
there was something I had to tell you!”

We all swivelled round at the tone of her voice. You’d think she was about to deliver the best news any of us had ever heard. And you’d be right!

“You remember when the camera and photos were confiscated?” gabbled Lyndz.

“Get on with it!” said Kenny impatiently.

“Well, you may not have got your revenge in
the way you planned, Franks,” said Lyndz. “But you certainly got it all right. Everyone saw how stupid the M&Ms looked when you dumped all the cake mix on them, Rosie. We may never have seen the photos, but I swear, I’ve never heard so many cake jokes in my life as I did on Friday!”