Sleepover Girls in the Ring by Fiona Cummings Read Free Book Online Page B

grimaced and nodded.
    “And remember, Kenny, that you’re already on a warning after that incident at Fliss’s,” Mum reminded me grimly.
    Molly went, “Ha ha!” behind Mum’s back.
    “I heard that!” Mum retorted. “There’s a mound of potatoes need peeling in the kitchen, Molly, and I suggest you go and do that right now.”
    She shuffled off sulkily and I went upstairs. There was no way that I was going to let Molly get the better of me. And there was no way that I was going to let her upstage me in the circus performance. OK, so she was good at juggling. But if the rest of us practised hard enough, we could be pretty impressive, I felt sure. The question was, how were we ever going to practise without her seeing what we were doing?
    We needed a plan. A big fat hairy plan. And I knew that it was in my head somewhere. I lay on my bed and started drifting off tosleep. And that’s how it came to me. What we needed was a sleepover. And we needed to arrange one fast.

Now you’d think the others would be mega-excited at the thought of a sleepover, wouldn’t you? Well, their reaction when I suggested it to them the next morning was lukewarm, to say the least.
    “What’s wrong with you guys?” I yelled at them. “We used to
live
for sleepovers, remember? We’re the Sleepover Club!”
    “We know that,” said Frankie slowly. “But look what happened the last time we were together. You know, the, er, Jam Doughnut Incident. I can’t exactly see our parents being overjoyed at the thought of us all getting together again.”
    “Well, there’s no way my mum would have you lot in my house,” mumbled Fliss. “And I doubt very much whether she’d let me go to a sleepover anywhere else, either.”
    “I reckon my mum wouldn’t mind,” admitted Lyndz. “But our house is still like a bomb site, so we couldn’t have one there. What about your place, Kenny?”
    “The whole point of us having a sleepover is to practise our routines without Molly finding out about them,” I reminded her. “So there wouldn’t be much point in you lot coming to my place and flaunting them under her nose, would there?”
    “Mum probably would let me have a sleepover if I talked her round a bit,” Frankie said. We all started grinning. I mean no-one can talk her parents round like Frankie. “Only Izzy’s still poorly, so it’ll have to wait,” she added.
    We all sighed despondently again.
    Rosie was being very quiet. We all turned to her.
    “Well, Rosie-Posie, it looks like you’re our last hope,” I put my arm round her. “What doyou say?”
    “I..I..I don’t know,” she stammered. “I mean, Mum was cool about me coming here, but I don’t know whether she’d let me have a sleepover. Not when she’s just got the lounge nice and everything.”
    “But we won’t be going in the lounge,” I reassured her. “All we’ll be doing is rehearsing our stuff outside and sleeping in your room. Simple. She can lock the lounge door for all we care, can’t she girls?”
    The others nodded enthusiastically.
    “Right, that’s settled then,” I slapped her on the back. “You work on your mum this evening and tell her that we’ll be as good as gold. And tell her our reputation is at stake. Today we’ve got to start practising like crazy so we don’t look total lame-brains on Saturday. And remember to spy on my stupid sister whenever you get the chance. I’m not having her showing us up, OK?”
    We went into the Big Top to find the others all busy rehearsing. Molly started giggling with Edward Marsh as soon as she saw us.
    “Ignore them,” I hissed.
    But it wasn’t easy. Their juggling was just so darned
good.
So good, in fact, that some of the regular jugglers let them practise a few of their routines with them. Whilst Lyndz and I were struggling to keep two balls in the air, there were Molly and Edward tossing hoops about in complicated sequences and hardly making a mistake at all! Gutted!
    At least Frankie, Rosie and