said Kenny. “If we do it together and get properly organised, we’ll be much quicker, so we’ll do more cars, so we’ll earn more money, so there’ll be enough for all of us.”
“Yeah,” said Lyndz. “And it’ll be more fun, if it’s all five of us.”
I nodded. I supposed she was right. But I had a funny feeling that things were already getting out of hand. It felt like another of those times when, as my gran says, it would all end in tears.
After school everyone came round to my house and we went up to my bedroom. I’m not supposed to have friends round after school, I’m supposed to go next door to Auntie Joan’s until my mum and dad get home from work, and watch TV with the gruesome Nathan. He’s not my cousin, thank goodness. And Joan’s not my real auntie, I just call her that. But she’s a good sport and she said that just this once we could go up and play on my computer, and she’d look in on us and bring us some cookies, when they came out of the oven.
“You’re the best,” I said and gave her a hug.
“Make sure you’re sensible,” she warned us and she gave me our front door key.
We threw our coats on my bed and I turned on my computer.
“OK. What shall we call ourselves?” said Fliss.
“Call ourselves?”
“Yeah. You need a catchy name, so people remember it.”
“What about, Sleepover Club Car Wash,” said Lyndz.
“That’s no good,” said Kenny. “It sounds as if we’ll be going to sleep on the job.”
“I know,” said Fliss, “Al Car Cleaners. That way we’ll get to be first in the phone book. Andy told me lots of businesses do that.” Andy is sort of Fliss’s step-dad and he’s a plumber so I suppose he should know.
“Get a life,” I said. “We’re never going to get in the phone book.”
“We’ve got to think big,” said Kenny. But even she could see that was a stoopid idea.
In the end, we called ourselves: Five Star Car Wash which was much better, because there are five of us and five star means the best. You can probably guess whose idea that was! No, it wasn’t Fliss’s, actually. It was mine, thank you very much.
This is what our notice looked like:
At first we couldn’t agree how much we should charge. We finally settled on $1.50, which seemed a lot, but we had to share it between five. Still, as Kenny had said, we’d be able to clean more cars so we’d earn more in the long run.
Then we printed off half the notices for Kenny’s close, with her name and address on the bottom and the other half for my road with my name on the bottom.
“We can start on Fliss’s street later,” I said.
“If we’re not too busy,” said Kenny.
We were really excited. Before they left, everyone helped me post the notices through all the doors in my road. We rushed to get them done, before my mum and dad came home.
I know! You needn’t look like that. I wasn’t going to keep it a secret forever; I did intend telling them. I just thought I’d wait for the right moment… when they were both in a good mood… tomorrow, perhaps… or the next day.
And it wasn’t easy, not to tell them, because that night I was nearly bursting to. I lay in bed planning all the things I’d buy when I was rich. And I probably would have been, if Molly the Monster hadn’t stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong.
Have I told you before about Kenny’s sister Molly? She’s gruesome. Poor old Kenny has to share a bedroom with her and she hates it. It’s not a very big room and there are two beds in it with a dressing table between them. There isn’t even room for a wardrobe, that’s out on the landing. Molly is so bossy she’s always making rules about what Kenny can and can’t do in her own bedroom.
For example, Kenny has a pet rat, called Merlin. He has to live in the garage. Molly won’t allow her to have him in the bedroom. Kenny has to go outside if she wants to play with him.
The other thing she does is to draw a line with chalk down the middle of the dressing table and if anything of Kenny’s slides over onto her side she throws it away! I mean it. That’s really hard for Kenny, because she’s a bit untidy at the best of times. She’s always finding her things chucked in the waste basket. All Molly says is, “Well, you’d better keep them on your own side, then, hadn’t you?” Honestly!
Kenny and Molly have always fallen out, ever since Kenny was little. She’s almost lost count of the horrible things Molly has done. Once, when they were on holiday, she pushed Kenny out of bed and nearly broke her arm. And another time, when Kenny was really small, Molly cut off her hair, all of it, except a little sprout which stuck out at the front. Kenny’s still got a photo of it. She looks like a Cabbage Patch doll.
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