Free Sleepover Club Eggstravaganza by Ginny Deals

apologetically.
    “Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Mum. “A really good lunch and some fun is more what I had in mind.”
    I didn’t quite dare to believe my ears. Were we forgiven, then?
    “Er, does that mean…” I ventured.
    Mum wrapped her arms round me and stuck a big wet kiss on top of my head. “Well?” she said, grinning. “Are you going to tell your friends to bring their sleeping bags, or am I?”
    Everyone piled back to my house for lunch – stacks of fish fingers for the others, and a pile of juicy quornburgers for me. There was loads to do. We blew up about a million balloons, which then had to be tied together with ribbons and hung everywhere. Fliss has gone all soppy in the shopping mall (so what’s new?!) and insisted that we had to get all pink balloons – lovely pearly pink ones, like the insides of seashells – because Izzy was a girl. I managed to “exercise my prerogative” (one of Mum’s lawyer expressions) as Izzy’s big sister,and bargained my way to a pink and silver theme. It looked dead pretty by the time we’d finished (and not quite so girly, thanks very much), with pink and silver ribbons trailing round the banisters and the front door knocker and stuff.
    Then there were all the sandwiches to make. Cutting the crusts off was the worst part – the bread kept crumbling away and my sarnies were a bit of a mess, but according to our Chief Taster (Lyndz) they tasted fab anyway. Kenny was in charge of making the fruit punch – it was a bit of a murky brown colour by the time she finished, and she refused to tell anyone what she’d put in it (ketchup probably, knowing Kenny), but Dad said it tasted lovely and I don’t think he was just being polite.
    The first guests were due to arrive at around four o’clock – though I suppose you could say the party had already begun with all us lot and our mums and dads at lunchtime! Izzy’d been having a snooze up in her room, so Mum suddenly looked at her watch.
    “Gosh!” she said, “I’d better go and wake up the little sleepyhead and put her in her party dress!”
    “Ah!” everyone sighed.
    Fliss was all for following Mum up the stairs and gurgling at Izzy, but I persuaded her that it would be a better surprise this way. What do you mean, did I know what she was wearing? Of course I did! This was a pretty small family after all, and Izzy’s party was all we’d been talking about for the last two weeks (apart from the constant earbashing I’d been getting for all the “shenanigans”, as my gran always says). But you’ll just have to wait and see the finished result, like the rest of the gang…
    And talking of getting dressed up, it was time for us lot to do the same! We all shot upstairs gabbling away at each other like a speeded-up tape. There was so much to say, now that we could actually talk to each other again.
    “Hey!” piped up Kenny, as she wriggled into a clean T-shirt and jeans (what no Leicester City strip, I hear you swoon? Her mum hadgone and stuck all her shirts in the wash that morning! Boy, was Kenny steaming mad!!). “We should do some kind of Sleepover Club thing for our youngest member!”
    “What sort of thing?” said Lyndz cautiously, straightening up her new blue skirt (the colour reeaally suited her).
    Kenny was hopping around, trying to tie up her shoelaces without sitting down. So naturally, I shoved her in the back and sent her sprawling face down on my bed. Well, seriously, wouldn’t you have done the same?? When we’d all stopped giggling hysterically and Kenz had managed to get her face out of my pillows, she spluttered, “Wait till you hear this idea!”
    “Oh no !” we all groaned.
    “Please Kenny, not another crazy scheme!” Fliss begged, smoothing the (non-existent) creases out of her new blouse for the hundred and ninety-ninth time.
    “I don’t think my nerves could take it,” said Rosie earnestly, which just made us all crack up even more.
    “You’ll love it,”