Tthe Sleepover Club on the Beach by Angie Bates Read Free Book Online Page B

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 littlepeephole 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’dfinally 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