sleepoverclub.com (9 page)

There was silence in the room for about thirty seconds. Molly and Louise both turned a very deep red, and started shuffling their feet.

“The disk,” Kenny said faintly. She charged across the room and picked it up. “It is!” she said more loudly. “It’s Tom’s disk!”

She swivelled round, and glared at Molly and Louise. “It was
you
. You’re Katie Shaw!”

“So?” Molly jeered, obviously trying to make the best of it. “You lot are so stupid, you didn’t even
know
we had the disk. We had it right from the start. You dropped it
here when you came round after the sleepover at Lyndz’s— OW!”

Kenny had lunged forward and given Molly a shove. She cannoned into Louise, and the two of them went flying on to the bed.

“Let me at them!” Kenny yelled, launching herself forward, but luckily Frankie and Rosie grabbed her arms and dragged her off.

“We really had you fooled,” Molly went on scornfully. “Didn’t we, Louise?”

“Yeah, we did,” Louise muttered in this weedy little voice. You could tell she was dead scared of Kenny!

“You knew that disk belonged to Tom,” Kenny roared. Her voice was muffled because Frankie and Rosie were pinning her to the bed, not letting her move. “You had no right to keep it!”

Suddenly the door opened.

“What on earth’s going on here?” Mrs McKenzie was standing there, frowning.

I glanced at Molly and Louise. They both looked pretty nervous, and that gave me an idea.

“Nothing, Mrs McKenzie,” Frankie said. “Just Molly and Kenny fighting, as usual.”

“You two!” Kenny’s mum sighed. “I don’t know why you can’t just get on with each other.” And she went out, shutting the door behind her.

“You’re just mad because we fooled you,” Molly taunted Kenny. “We win!”

“No, you don’t,” Fliss said hotly, “because we’ve got the disk back, and we haven’t paid you a penny. So there!”

“Yeah, Fliss is right.” Kenny looked a bit brighter. “You lose!”

Molly looked incredibly smug. “Not when we tell Tom Collins that
you
were the ones who nicked his disk!”

“You wouldn’t!” Kenny said, dismayed.

Molly grinned. “Watch me.”

I stepped forward into the middle of the room. “In that case, there’s only one thing we can do, Kenny,” I said. “I think we should go downstairs right away and tell your mum exactly what’s happened.”

This time it was Molly and Louise’s turn to look shocked.

“Lyndz! What are you talking about?” Kenny began, but I interrupted her.

“And then I think we should go and confess to Tom, and tell
him
exactly what happened,” I went on.

I could see that Frankie and the others were beginning to catch on, but Kenny was still too wound up to see where I was heading.

“I don’t get it, Lyndz,” she said crossly. “We’ll just get into a whole heap of trouble if we do that!”

“Well, Tom might be a bit upset at first,” I admitted. “But once we explain that we took the disk for a special surprise for his birthday, I think he’ll forgive us.” I stared hard at Molly the Monster and Louise, who were beginning to look very uncomfortable. “I reckon he’ll be
much
more annoyed with the people who found the disk and didn’t give it back!”

Kenny began to grin. “Yeah, you’re right, Lyndz!”

“And I don’t suppose your mum and dad would be too pleased if they knew Molly had
tried to blackmail us,” I went on, playing my last and best card. “So, actually, I don’t think we’ll get into any trouble anyway. But I think Molly and Louise probably will!”

Louise glared at Molly. “I
told
you we shouldn’t have done all that,” she squeaked. “My sister’ll go mad if she finds out I’ve been using her email address!”

“You’re bluffing.” Molly stared straight back at me. “You wouldn’t go and tell my mum.”

I grinned. “Watch me!”

There was silence for a minute.

“OK,” Molly said through gritted teeth at last. “You don’t tell Mum and Dad, and we won’t tell Tom you took his disk.”

I looked at the others. “Deal?” I asked.

“Deal!” said Kenny, grinning all over her face. “
Now
who loses?”

Molly and Louise didn’t answer. Still red in the face, they flounced out of the room, and we heard them stomping off down the stairs. Then we all started laughing and doing high fives.

“That showed
them!
” Frankie grinned.

“It all makes sense now,” Kenny said. “Louise Ball lives right next to the park – that’s how they got back to her house so quickly to send the email. We must have just missed them. And I knew Louise had a sister who’s married – I just didn’t know her name was Katie Shaw.”

“You were so smart, Lyndz!” Rosie said admiringly. “You really showed Molly the Monster who’s boss.”

“Yeah, Lyndz, I didn’t know you could be so devious!” And Kenny slapped me on the back. “Oops!” she added, as the disk flew out of her hand and landed on the carpet.

“I think I’ll look after that from now on!” I said, picking it up. “And the first thing I’m going to do is give it back to Tom. Let’s go round to my place.”

“No, the first thing we’re going to do is copy the poster for the website,” Frankie said.

“OK,” I agreed. “But I’m not letting this disk out of my sight, until it’s safely back with Tom!”

*   *   *

“It’s my disk!”

Tom stared down at it, looking completely dazed as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Where did you get it?”

“Kenny found it,” I said. “It must have fallen into her sleepover bag by accident.” That was the story we’d agreed on.

“I’m really sorry, Tom,” Kenny added.

“No worries,” Tom said, still gazing at the disk as if he thought it was going to vanish into thin air or something. “Oh, this is cool. Now I can get the posters out on Monday. Thanks, girls.”

We slipped out of his bedroom, and grinned at each other.

“I know it’s not my turn, but can we have our sleepover here next Friday night?” I asked the others. “I really want you to be here when I show Tom the Aztec website.”

“Sure, no problem,” everyone agreed.

“Hey, aren’t the band playing at the comp that Friday night?” Rosie asked.

I nodded.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could go along and see them?” Fliss suggested.

Well, everyone went wild at that idea, so of course, I had to go and ask my dad, didn’t I? He wasn’t sure at first, but we all promised to be really good and not get in the way. In the end he said he could sneak us backstage so that we could see the gig, but then we had to go straight home. Cool or what?

So there we all were on Friday night, crammed in backstage at the school hall, watching Tom and his band playing a whole load of songs at the disco. We even managed to have a dance, although Kenny’s attempt at break-dancing wasn’t too successful – she nearly broke one of the stage lights!

It was really weird to see
my brother
on stage being a popstar, but it was great too. Everyone seemed to like them – they clapped and cheered for more, which was a bit awkward because the band only have about six songs, so they had to sing some of them again.

We were having a great time, so we didn’t really want to go home when Dad came to fetch us. But we’d promised to go without a fuss, so we all went back to my place and got
into our jim-jams, and my mum made us some hot chocolate. Then we went up to bed, and had our midnight feast. Tom didn’t get back till after twelve, because the disco went on quite late, but we were still up, waiting for him. When we heard him come into the house, we rushed into his bedroom and put the computer on. Quickly we linked up to the Internet, and found the Aztec website. Frankie’s dad had put it on the Net that morning.

“Happy birthday!” we all chorused, as Tom walked into the room.

Tom blinked. “Hey, I thought you lot’d be asleep ages ago,” he grinned. “Did you enjoy the gig?” Then he spotted the computer screen and blinked again. “What’s that?”

“Your birthday present,” I said proudly. “And it’s after midnight now, so it really is your birthday!”

The website looked so great. Mr Thomas had done everything we asked him to, and where he’d changed things, he’d made them better. Everything was on there: the info about the band, the photos, the horoscopes
page and the list of songs, as well as the poster.

“Do you like it?” I asked anxiously, as Tom scrolled through the pages.

“Lyndz, it’s brilliant!” he said, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “It’s the best present I’ve ever had!”

“That’s lucky,” Kenny whispered in my ear, “after all the hassle we had!”

Well, that’s about it for now. Everything turned out OK, and we didn’t even get into any big trouble this time round. Cool or what?

Well,
we
didn’t get into any trouble, but our American friends Darlene, Barbie, Jennie and Shannon did. Shannon’s mum was showing her clown ornament to a friend, when its hat fell off and hit her on the toe! Now Shannon and the others have been grounded, and told they can’t have any more sleepovers. So they’ve emailed us asking how they can change their parents’ minds. We’ll be able to give them loads of advice – after all, we’re experts at getting ourselves into trouble, and experts at getting ourselves
out
of it too!

See ya soon!

The Sleepover Club at Frankie’s

The Sleepover Club at Lyndsey’s

The Sleepover Club at Felicity’s