Czytaj książkę: «Merry Christmas, Sleepover Club: Christmas Special»

Merry Christmas! Hello, it’s Rosie here of the Sleepover Club – and I’m just about to hang up my stocking as it’s Christmas Eve. Excellent!!

I just lurrrrrrve Christmas, don’t you? It’s my absolute favourite time of the year. Summer is great because there’s no school and you can stay out late at night, but December has got to be THE most exciting month of the year. You’re just waiting and waiting for the 25^th, and everyone’s buying secret presents for each other, and we do lots of cool stuff at school to celebrate. Sometimes there’s even snow, which is awesome!

Now, you know me – the most down-to-earth person you’ll ever meet. But even I think there’s something just a teeny bit magical about Christmas. Do you know what I mean? It just feels like the one time in the year where ANYTHING could happen, when your wishes really might come true!

I was talking to the others about Christmas wishes the other day, and we were all saying what we’d want for Christmas, if we were each granted one wish. If you’ve never met the other four in the Sleepover Club, I thought it would be a cool way to introduce them, so here goes.

Frankie didn’t have to think twice about her wish. “I wish I could go to Mars!” she shouted straight away. Frankie’s nuts about space and sci-fi stuff, you see. We used to call her Spaceman for a while because she went completely nerdy about the whole thing – reading loads of books about outer space, building a model rocket launch in her bedroom, borrowing all the Star Trek films from the video shop… She even wrote to NASA in America asking if she could go on the next space mission! Yep, she’s pretty hooked, all right!

Mind you, if any one of us five was ever going to be something amazing like a rocket scientist or astronaut, it would definitely be Frankie. She’s really brainy, and she’s also got this knack of coming up with totally cool ideas and plans for us to do. I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone like her in my life! As my mum says, “That girl’s an original!”

Lyndz next. Well, the first wish she came up with was, “I’d love a horse!” as she’s completely and utterly crazy about animals. She goes riding at a stables not far from Cuddington, where we all live, but has always wanted her own horse, ever since she was tiny. But then, as soon as she’d said that, she wanted to make another wish. “I wish all the animals in the world were happy, and none of them would suffer or be frightened ever again!”

If you hadn’t guessed, Lyndz is a teeny bit soppy! But I’m glad about that, because if she wasn’t, I might never have joined the Sleepover Club. You see, it was kind-hearted Lyndz who took pity on me when I’d just joined Cuddington Primary School and didn’t know a soul. She asked me to come along to a sleepover at Frankie’s one night and that’s how I met the others. So I’ve got a lot to thank her for!

Lyndz is one of the nicest, kindest people you’ll ever meet, who’d do anything for anyone. Sometimes I wish I could be more like her, as I’m a bit sarcastic and impatient at times. You know when you just can’t help saying something horrible and you want to bite your tongue off straight after you say it? I do that ALL the time – but Lyndz NEVER says anything mean. Still, I’m not saying she’s a goody-goody or anything.

Fliss took a bit of time thinking about her wish. “We can wish for anything?” she said cautiously.

“Fliss, it’s only a game,” Frankie said impatiently. “Your fairy godmother isn’t really going to come along and wave a wand, you know!”

“I know, I know!” Fliss said crossly. “I was only asking!”

“So what’s it going to be then, Flissy?” I asked. “Nose job? Modelling assignment?” (See? I told you I could be a bit sarky, didn’t I?)

“A fairytale wedding with Ryan Scott, puke puke?” Kenny suggested, pulling a sick face.

Fliss tossed her long blonde hair back, looking a bit annoyed. “What do you mean, nose job?” she asked me. “What’s wrong with my nose?”

“Er… nothing, nothing!” I said hastily. Fliss is a bit vain, you see, and doesn’t take kindly to any criticism of the way she looks!

“I think I’d wish for £100 to spend on clothes,” she said, her eyes lighting up at the thought. “No, wait – £1,000!” she said. Then she thought about it a bit more. “I wish I had a MILLION pounds to go on the most amazing shopping spree ever!”

She was positively beaming by now, whereas we were all staring at her, horrified at such a boring wish.

“Oh, I’d buy you all something too, of course!” she said, waving a hand casually.

“Wow, thanks, Fliss,” Kenny said sarcastically. “Only if you’re sure you can spare it, of course! You can’t buy much with a million pounds these days, can you?”

Fliss looked annoyed. “Well, if you’re going to be like that, I won’t buy you anything!” she snapped. “I’ll keep it all myself!”

Frankie rolled her eyes. “It’s not a REAL wish, Fliss,” she reminded her. “You don’t really get to have your million pounds, you know!”

That’s Fliss for you, anyway. Madly in love with clothes, make-up… and mirrors! She’s the girliest one of us five and she sometimes gets on my nerves by being a bit wet and sappy, but she’s also quite a laugh because you can wind her up a treat before she realises you’re teasing her.

Kenny’s turn next. “Well, my wish would be to wish for a billion other wishes!” she said craftily. “That way I can have whatever I want – whenever I want it!”

“You can’t do that!” Fliss shouted at once. I think she was just gutted she hadn’t thought of it first.

“It’s my wish, I can ask for anything I like!” Kenny said, sticking her tongue out at her. “Just ’cos YOU wasted yours on boring shopping and boring clothes – DERRRR!”

Fliss scowled.

“No, seriously, though,” Frankie said. “What would be the one thing you’d like most of all?”

Kenny’s next answer was a tad predictable, really.

“I wish I could play for Leicester City and score the winning goal for them in the Cup Final,” she sighed longingly. “That would just be sooooo cool!”

“Er, Kenz – you’re a girl, mate,” Frankie pointed out.

“I know, I know,” Kenny said. “But that’s part of the wish – that the team spot me playing footy in the park and realise I’m so mega-talented they’ll have to bend the rules to let me play for them.”

“Sounds a bit like Babe the pig where the farmer let Babe be in the sheepdog trials because he was so good,” Lyndz said thoughtfully.

“Lyndz, if you’re calling me a pig, I’ll…” Kenny said warningly.

Lyndz giggled and put her hand up to her mouth. “I wasn’t!” she said. “Honest! But it wouldn’t have been an insult anyway – pigs are lovely!”

In answer to that, Kenny started making piggy squeals and grunts and chased Lyndz around the room, until Lyndz collapsed in a giggling fit. Then “the pig” got down on all fours, still squealing, and starting nudging Lyndz with her head.

“S-s-s-stop it!” Lyndz panted, weakly trying to push her away. “P-p-pack it in, piggy!”

Anyway, yeah, so Kenny is mad on sport, especially football and swimming. She’s captain of our netball team at school, but was really miffed when she couldn’t play cricket with the boys. She even went to the head teacher about it, saying it was unfair and sexist! I think she really wishes she was actually a boy sometimes.

Kenny has energy and enthusiasm like you’ve never seen before. Sometimes we call her “the power station” because she’s like a one-woman generator! Her and Frankie are a good match in that way. They both hate sitting still and prefer to be bouncing around somewhere outside. No wonder they’re both so skinny.

The other thing you should know about Kenny is that she’s a complete gore-hound. She just loves blood and guts and gross stuff like that. She wants to be a doctor when she’s older, like her dad. Already, she knows lots of amazing things about the way things work in your body, and loves telling us all the yuckiest stuff to try and gross us out. Fliss usually kicks up a fuss before too long as she’s mega-squeamish, and even the word “blood” makes her feel sick (so she says). I think that just encourages Kenny to find even more horrible things to tell us about, though.

I was the last one to make my wish. I just couldn’t decide. Part of me wished we had a nicer house to live in. Ours is a complete dump, ever since my dad moved out before he’d had a chance to do it up. I used to get a bit embarrassed about letting the others come round because it was so scruffy, and there’s still loads that needs doing to it even now – I mean, we still haven’t got carpets in some rooms. Me and the gang ended up decorating my room last year because I got so sick of just having bare plaster walls in there. Dad was originally going to paint my room for me, but… I guess he had other things on his mind.

“Come on, Rosie!” Lyndz was saying, elbowing me. “You’ve had ages to think about it now!”

“Yeah, what’s your gut instinct?” Kenny asked. “What was the first thing that popped into your head?”

“I wish Adam could walk,” I said straight out. Adam’s my brother and he’s in a wheelchair. He’s a really lovely brother (apart from when he takes the mickey out of me, of course) and he’s never been able to walk or talk properly. Sometimes I catch sight of his face if I’m going off on my bike, and he just has this sad look in his eyes which makes me feel really guilty that my legs work OK and I don’t even think about them. Or sometimes he’ll be watching sport on telly, and I just know that he’s thinking about how he’ll never be able to play football or rugby or… You know. I mean, I’ve grown up with him, so I’m used to it, and obviously he is, too – but it’s still sad.

The others were a bit quiet when I said my wish. Kenny’s great with Adam, she just treats him like a normal boy and has a laugh with him about stuff, but I know the others feel a bit awkward around him. Fliss, especially – I think she’s a bit scared of Adam, to be honest. I suppose if you’re not used to being around someone who’s disabled, you don’t quite know how to react at first.

“That’s a nice wish,” Lyndz said in the end. “That would be lovely if it came true.”

“Yeah,” I said. I felt a bit bad that everyone had gone so quiet and thoughtful because of me. “But I also wish my mum would find a new bloke now! A nice new boyfriend for the new year, that would be wicked. Especially if he was rich!”

“Ooh, that would be good,” said Fliss thoughtfully. She likes anything to do with what she calls ‘affairs of the heart’. “Your mum’s quite pretty – I’m sure she’d be able to find someone nice.”

“Do we know anyone we could fix her up with?” Frankie joked, raising an eyebrow at me.

“Not Dishy Dave again, after the Brown Owl disaster!” Lyndz said with a shudder. “That was awful!”

We all giggled, remembering our terrible attempt to fix up Brown Owl with Dave, the school caretaker. It had gone about as wrong as it could have!

“I’m definitely not putting my mum through that!” I said firmly. “In fact, I totally intend to stay OUT of her love life, so don’t you lot get any ideas!”

Frankie’s face fell, and I could tell she’d been half-serious about plotting to fix my mum up. “Well, if you’re sure…” she said reluctantly. “We do have quite a hunky next-door neighbour who’s just moved in – no girlfriend, either!”

“No, thanks!” I said, shaking my head. “End of discussion, Frankie!”

Anyway, you’ve hopefully got a good idea of what we’re all like now. We’re all best friends and do lots of stuff together. We have a sleepover once a week, on a Friday or Saturday, and take it in turns to host it. Wherever we have the sleepover, it’s always an excellent laugh. There’s not much sleep involved though, what with all the games we play and sweets we munch!

What I like most of all, though, is having four really close friends who I can have a laugh with, be myself with and trust with all my secrets. I’ve never had that before, and it’s absolutely ACE! Sure, we sometimes bicker and fall out about stupid things, but at the end of the day, I don’t know how I’d get along without them. Well, that’s the Sleepover Club for you!