grinned and sat there shaking her head. Kenny lives and dies in her football top. She’s devoted to Leicester City football team and just about everything she wears has got The Fox’s logo on it. Me and Kenny have been friends since playschool and I have never seen her in a frilly frock.
“Anyway,” I said, “you can forget it. I’m not marrying anybody.”
“I’ll marry you,” Lyndz said.
“Brillo,” said Fliss and gave Lyndz a hug.
So we worked it all out: Kenny would be best man and I’d be the vicar. I’d borrow a white cotton nightie of my mum’s and Fliss’s Bible and an old pair of Dad’s glasses. All my toys and Pepsi, our dog, would be the guests and we’d do it out in the garden. All we were short of was a bridesmaid, so, at the time, it seemed quite lucky that Rosie joined the Sleepover Club when she did.
Lyndz has an excellent set of dressing-up clothes that used to be her mum’s. She brought Fliss an old wedding dress and a net curtain for a veil; she found a soldier’s outfit for herself to wear, and painted on a moustache. There was a pink fairy dress that Rosie wore, and Kenny wore her soccer strip with a jacket over the top.
We all had to hum the “Here comes the bride” tune and then Lyndz and Fliss walked down my garden path through the arch where the roses used to grow, before Pepsi dug them up. Arm in arm.
I started off, “We are gathered here,” and then I rambled on till everyone started to look bored. I didn’t say the bit about “And now you may kiss the bride” because Lyndz had made me promise to leave it out. But we did the bit where they exchange rings. And then we took lots of photos. Pepsi got too excited and kept running off with the other guests in her mouth, so in the end we had to lock her in the house.
At last we got to the best bit: the food. We had veggie hot dogs, popcorn, crisp-and-banana sandwiches, marshmallows, lemon jelly, and chocolate fudge cake. Sometimes, when we’ve finished, we get a big salad bowl and mix all the leftovers together, hot dogs, crisps, jelly, the lot, and stir it up until it looks like a dog’s dinner. We call it Nappy’s Brains. We call it that because there’s a boy called Nathan, who lives next door to me, who we call Nappyhead, because he’s really stupid. But don’t let me get started on that subject or I’ll never finish this story.
Usually we dare someone to eat it. I looked round and chose Kenny.
“I dare you,” I said to her.
“I double dare you,” she said to me.
“I triple dare you,” I said to her.
“Oh, that’s not fair,” said Lyndz. “It’s always Kenny has to do it.”
“All right, I dare Rosie,” I said.
Everyone went quiet because they thought it was mean to dare Rosie when she was still new. But I don’t see what difference that makes. Anyway she picked up the spoon and ate two heaped spoonfuls. We all collapsed on the floor gagging and pretending to be sick, but she just rolled her eyes and looked at us as if we were really weird. So that was another test she’d passed.
After that it was time to go to bed. I’ve got quite a big bedroom with a bed and a set of bunks in it. And we’ve got a camp bed. So, when the sleepover’s at mine, all four of us can fit in.
You see, I’m an only child, which is a very sore point in my house. I’ve just about given up trying to persuade my parents to have another baby, but I still don’t like it. They don’t seem to realise what a disadvantage it is to grow up an only child. So I think the least they can do is make it up to me by letting me have my friends round to stay whenever I want, which they usually do. So that’s pretty coo-el.
But there wasn’t a bed for Rosie, so Kenny and I had to share my bed. This seemed like a great idea until she got the giggles and the fidgets, which always happens with Kenny. She also has the most freezing feet in the world!
Because Rosie is new, she doesn’t have a sleepover kit like the rest of us, so Felicity showed her what she needed to get. We all have a bag and in it is:
1. Sleeping bag
2. Pillow
3. Pyjamas or a nightdress, but
they’re draughty and fly up and
show your bottom when you do
gymnastics
4. Slippers
5. Toothbrush, toothpaste, soap etc
6. Towel
7. Teddy
8. A creepy story
9. Food for a midnight feast:
chocolate, crisps, sweeties,
biscuits and any other yummy
foods you can bring.
10. A torch
11. Hairbrush
12. Hair things like a bobble or hairband, if you need them
13. Clean knickers and socks. And a smelly bag for old ones!
14. Sleepover diary
For the wedding:
15. Wedding clothes
16. Camera
17. Confetti
We all keep a diary. Sometimes we read each other bits out of them, but they are absolutely private, on pain of death! We would never look in each other’s without permission. We write all our secret secrets in them. If you haven’t got any secrets, you can make them up. At least, that’s what I do.
I wrote in mine: When I grow up I don’t want to be a pop star any more. I want to drive a taxi.
I went in a taxi for the first time last week when we went to London. It was class.
Kenny was writing loads in hers, all about what she’d learned about how babies are made. She read it out to us. Kenny’s going to be a doctor, like her dad, when she grows up. She says you have to be really tough to be a doctor. She loves anything with blood in it. And she knows all about babies and things. She wrote: I’m not going to have a baby, though. And I’m not getting married. I shall be far too busy saving lives.
Felicity started to giggle. “I am,” she said. “I’m going to marry Ryan Scott and have lots of children and run a playgroup.”
Ryan Scott is a boy in our class. Kenny made a being-sick noise.
I said, “He’s the saddest thing on earth.”
“Boys smell,” said Lyndz, wrinkling her nose. And Lyndz has four brothers, so she should know.
“How do you like boys?” I asked Rosie.
“In a sandwich,” she said, “with tomato ketchup and chips
