Hit the Beach! (6 page)

Running as hard as I could, my feet slipping and sludging into the sand, I made it past fourth base.

“Home run! Yeeeaaaahhhh!”

It was the afternoon and our whole class was playing a game of rounders, which was a real laugh. Aidan and Bethany had the afternoon off, so they’d both headed down to the serious surfers’ end of the beach. Rosie was dying to go and watch them, but Mrs Weaver said no.

The rounders had really perked me up. I’d hit some great shots and made some seriously cool catches too, so by the time we packed up our stuff and headed back to the hostel I’d practically forgotten how bad I was at surfing.

And the best of it was, there was still our midnight feast to look forward to!

But when we got to the hostel, and everyone piled into their bedrooms to strip off their beach gear, I discovered that it wasn’t just Rosie who had the collywobbles about our beach-trip plans.

“It’ll be scary, Kenny,” said Fliss, who was sitting on her bed, wriggling out of one set of clothes and into another. “It’ll be really dark…”

“What about the romantic moonlight you were so keen on?”

“There might not
be
any moonlight,” she said. “And then we’ll just have our torches, and what if there are, you know, muggers and murderers around?”

“They might pick us off one by one,” said
Rosie, her eyes wide with fright. “I’ll keep sweeping my torch beam round the group, and each time it goes round there’ll be one person less. Someone else missing…”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I snorted. “It might be a bit
spooky
, sure – but that’ll be fun! Won’t it?” Even though it was a blazing hot afternoon, Fliss shivered. I looked at the others.

Lyndz shrugged uncertainly. “Well…what if a high tide comes in really quickly? We could get swept out to sea.”

“What is it with you lot?” I said crossly, flinging down my damp swimming costume. “It’s all doom and gloom and the end of the world!” Though I couldn’t admit it, I knew they had a point. Going all the way to the beach in the middle of the night would be more daring than anything we’d ever done before.

I tried to swallow my disappointment. “OK, OK,” I said. “So what’s it going to be instead? I guess we’ll just have to stay in our bedroom, like when we have sleepovers at home.”

“Not necessarily,” said Frankie. She scrambled down the ladder of her bunk bed and headed for the window. “What about the garden here?” She leant over the sill for a moment, inspecting the view, and then turned back to face us. “I mean – we’ll still get the moonlight, if there is any, and the scars and all that. It’ll be dead quiet, so maybe we’ll even be able to hear the sea in the distance. It could be fun.”

“Genius idea!” said Lyndz.

I went to the window and squashed up next to Frankie to have a look. The garden was big, with lots of trees. It would be quite easy, I thought, to find a spot where we couldn’t be seen from the house. “And we’ll still have to think of a way to sneak out of the building,” I said. That was one of the bits I was looking forward to the most. I nodded. “Yep. I reckon it’ll be cool.”

“Sounds good to me,” agreed Fliss.

“Someone could hide in the bushes in the garden,” said Rosie. “And they could drag us off one by one…”

“
Rosie!!!!
” the rest of us shouted together.

She snapped to attention, as if she’d been daydreaming. “Sorry, guys. I think I’ve been watching too much rubbishy TV.”

The tricky bit was staying awake after lights-out, waiting long enough for everyone else to have gone to sleep. All the surfing and running about we’d done today had left us pretty exhausted.

“Couldn’t we just have a little nap first?” said Lyndz as we all lay waiting in the dark. She yawned. “I could set my alarm clock…”

“I’ll feel groggy if we do that,” said Fliss. “I won’t want to get up if I’ve been to sleep.”

“I…didn’t say you … had to snooze,” said Lyndz, sounding snoozy. “Just me…”

“No one is going to sleep!” I laughed, flicking on my torch and shining it down into the bunk below Frankie, straight into Lyndz’s face.

“Hey!” she grumbled, shading her eyes.

At last, when the luminous hands on my watch said a quarter to midnight, I thought we were pretty safe. We rolled out of bed, pulled sweatshirts and jeans on over our pyjamas, and stuffed our feet into our trainers. Then, opening the door really slowly so that it wouldn’t squeak, we crept out on to the landing.

“Torches off,” I whispered. “Don’t take any chances.”

There was just enough of a dim glow slanting through the landing window for us to make it down the stairs without falling over each other.

“Which window are we heading for again?” hissed Lyndz behind me.

“The little one in the kitchen,” I whispered.

Downstairs, we crossed the hallway and made it as far as the kitchen door. It was shut.

“This is creepy,” breathed Rosie. “Someone might be in there.”

“Shhh!” said Frankie.

I put my hand on the doorknob and turned
it slowly. As the door opened, I clicked on my torch – I didn’t dare switch on the main light.

“OK, I’ll go first,” I whispered.

The kitchen window was fairly small and hinged at the side. I turned the handle on the latch and pushed it open. Then I sat on the sill and folded first one leg through, then the other. Jumping down into the flowerbed, I turned and whispered, “Easy!”

Lyndz was next. She got one leg through and then stopped. Her head was wedged at a funny angle. I could see she was trying to get the other leg up to the sill, but somehow there wasn’t room.

“Oh help – I’m stuck!” she whispered.

You know that bit in Winnie the Pooh when he gets stuck in the rabbit hole and has to stay there for days? I was worried that that was how it was going to be with Lyndz. I could just imagine the teachers coming down to breakfast in the morning and finding her wedged in the kitchen window.

“Push her from behind!” I hissed to the others.

“Ouch!” squealed Lyndz.

“Shhh!”

In the end, I had to push Lyndz backwards into the kitchen again. She came through the next time head first and landed in a heap in the flowerbed.

“Oh no! I think I’ve crushed the biscuits!” she said, dusting herself down.

A minute later, the whole gang had made it through. Frankie carefully left the window ajar, so that we’d be able to get back the same way, and we set off, creeping across the lawn to find a good feasting place.

We needed a spot that was hidden from the house, so that we wouldn’t be the first thing anyone spied if they happened to look out of their bedroom window.

“Behind those trees?” hissed Rosie, nodding towards the far end of the garden nearest the road.

Frankie shook her head. “I checked it out
earlier,” she said. “The space between the trees and the fence is really narrow. It’s got lots of old crisp packets, too, that people walking by have chucked over.”

“Yuck,” said Fliss.

“What about there?” I whispered, shining my torch beam towards a clump of bushes over on our right. “Is there any grass on the other side?”

Frankie shrugged.

“Wait here, team, I’ll go and investigate,” I said. Trying to be light on my feet, I ran across to the bushes. Behind them there was a flat and comfy-looking patch of grass – perfect! I held my torch under my chin, so that it lit up my face, and grinned and nodded at the others. They came scampering over.

I reckon it was one of the best midnight feasts the Sleepover Club has ever had. We sat down on the grass in a circle, put our torches in the middle, and got down to munching crushed biscuits (Lyndz’s), half-melted chocolate (Rosie’s),
plus a whole pile of sherbet sweets, liquorice laces and jelly babies that Frankie, Fliss and I had brought from home.

“You can hear the sea – listen!” whispered Frankie.

“And look at all these stars,” said Rosie, flopping on to her back. “There are loads more here than in Cuddington.”

“There can’t
be
more,” I said, lying down too. “It must just be that there aren’t so many street lights, so you can
see
more.”

Then we talked about Aidan, Bethany and Jude, and had a complete giggling fit about all the rude things we’d say to Rude Jude if we got the chance.

“I’d tell him he’s a ssssnotty sssaddo!” spluttered Rosie, spraying out biscuit crumbs with every “s”.

“With rancid custard for brains!” added Lyndz.

“I’d tell him he should hang out with the M&Ms,” said Fliss. “He’s just about their level.”

“Rude Jude, Crude Jude, Booed Jude, Moody Jude…” said Frankie.

“Pooed Jude!” I put in. Lyndz, who’d just taken a great big swig of orangeade, burst out laughing and sprayed the orangeade all over Rosie. Rosie shrieked.

“Hey, not so loud!” hissed Frankie urgently, clamping her finger to her lips. Instantly, we all turned ultra-serious, holding our breath and looking towards the house. I was convinced we were going to see a light switch on at any moment.

Ten seconds passed.

Then twenty.

Nothing happened.

“Phew, that was close,” said Lyndz, relaxing again. “Sorry, Rosie.”

“It’s OK,” said Rosie. Lyndz pulled off her sweatshirt and wiped the worst of the orangeade out of Rosie’s hair.

“I hope we get to go shopping this week,” said Fliss when we’d calmed down a bit. “I want
to find out where Bethany gets her clothes.”

A few minutes later Frankie said, “Hey – let’s take it in turns to tell ghost stories!”

“No,” said Rosie firmly. “Unless you want me to start
really
screaming.”

Fliss knelt up and put her hands on her bottom. “I thought so,” she said. “This grass is damp. And is anyone else cold or is it just me?”

“I’m freezing, actually,” admitted Lyndz.

“Maybe it’s time to go back,” said Frankie.

“Make sure we’ve got every scrap of rubbish,” I said as we began tidying up. “We mustn’t leave any evidence.”

At last, with all our bits and pieces stuffed back into our bags, and with our torches in our hands, we set off again across the garden, Rosie leading the way. Suddenly, my stomach lurched with worry: what if someone woke up and caught us at the last minute – when we were so nearly home and dry? It would be just our luck. By now, Rosie was standing in the flowerbed, fumbling with the window.

“Come on!” I whispered urgently. “Hurry up!”

“But – but I can’t,” stammered Rosie.

“Don’t be silly – you managed on the way out. Just sit on the sill…”

“No, it’s not that,” said Rosie. “It’s the window. It’s shut.”

“
What?
”

“It can’t be!”

“Are you sure it’s the right window?”

“Yes! Look!”

I pushed ahead of Rosie and looked for myself.

“What are we going to do?” said Fliss.

“It’s spooky,” whispered Lyndz. “It’s as if someone’s been watching us. They saw us come out here and now they’ve shut the window so we can’t get back.”

“Don’t be silly,” hissed Frankie. “If anyone knew we were here, they’d come and tell us off, wouldn’t they? Either that or rat on us.” She shook her head. “One of the teachers probably got up to go to the loo or get a drink of water or something, noticed the window was open and shut it. That’s all.”

“Well, never mind
who
shut it, it’s shut – that’s the problem,” I said. “So how are we going to get back in?”

“We won’t have to spend all night out here, will we?” said Fliss, her teeth beginning to chatter. “We’ll freeze.”

“There’s nothing else for it – we’ll have to break the glass,” said Lyndz.

“What – wake everyone up and make them think they’re being burgled?” I said. “Just think how much trouble we’d get into! They’d probably call the police.”

“Maybe we could throw bits of gravel at someone’s bedroom window,” suggested Rosie. “Just enough to wake them up. Someone
who’d help us without telling the teachers.”

There was silence for a minute as we all tried to remember who was sleeping in which bedroom. Frankie groaned. “Imagine if we woke the M&Ms up by mistake. They’d just
love
landing us right in it!”

All of a sudden we heard a noise.

“What’s that?” gasped Lyndz, clutching my sleeve.

“Sounds like a car,” said Frankie.

“It
is
a car,” I hissed. “And it’s coming up the drive. Quick – get behind this bush.
Now!
”

We crouched together behind the bush, huddled as close as if we were playing Sardines. “Oh no, this is a disaster,” whispered Fliss shakily. “We’re bound to get caught.”

“Who would come to the house at this time of night?” whispered Rosie. “You don’t think it’s a real burglar, do you?”

There was no way around it – you had to admit it was a weird time to be visiting. So far the car had been half-hidden by the trees that
lined the drive – now it came into full view, as it swung round in front of the house. I bobbed my head up, so I could see over the bush.

“It’s got a surfboard strapped to the roof,” I hissed to the others.

“A surfing burglar, then.” Fliss shuddered.

“It looks like an old car – pretty battered,” whispered Frankie, who’d bobbed up beside me.

The car’s engine stopped and the headlights flicked off. Then the driver got out. At first, I couldn’t make out anything except a vague shape – but the next minute the moon emerged from behind a cloud and a dim silvery light flooded the driveway. It revealed a familiar tall figure creeping over the gravel towards the house, evidently trying not to make any noise.

“It’s Aidan!” Frankie and I whispered together. Rosie, Lyndz and Fliss peered round the bush. Fliss sighed with relief.

“Do you think we could dash in through the door when he’s not looking?” said Rosie.

“How would he miss all five of us?” said Lyndz. “He’d have to close his eyes and count to twenty!”

“One of us could sneak in and hide till he’s gone to bed, then open the window,” Frankie suggested.

“He’s unlocking the door,” I said. “If we don’t do something right now, we’re going to miss our chance.” And without giving myself time to think, I raced out from behind the bush.

It was a mad plan. In order to reach the door before Aidan shut it behind him, I had to run as fast as my legs would carry me – there was no time for dodging from shadow to shadow.

Of course, Aidan saw me. For a split second, he looked seriously startled – then he recognised me and frowned. “What on earth are you doing?” he whispered as I reached him.

“We were having a midnight feast in the garden,” I panted. “Someone shut the window so we can’t get back in.”

Aidan put a finger to his lips. He didn’t want
to hear any more. I turned and beckoned to the others. Sheepishly, they climbed out from behind the bush and made their way towards us.

“Quietly,” Aidan mouthed as we tiptoed past him into the hall.

I half expected that he might want to wake the teachers straight away, but he flapped an arm in the direction of the stairs, meaning we should go up to bed.

We crept into our room and flopped on to our bunks.

“We’re really for it now,” whispered Lyndz. “He’s bound to tell Weaver in the morning.”

“But Aidan’s nice!” protested Fliss.

“However nice he is, it’s his job,” said Lyndz grimly.

“Do you think we’ll be grounded?” whispered Rosie.

“Cleaning, all day every day for the rest of the week – ugh,” groaned Frankie. “And I bet they’ll make us miss the Display Day too.”

I didn’t sleep very well – and I don’t think the others did either. In the morning, the mood in our room was a real downer. “When d’you think we’ll get the summons from Weaver?” asked Lyndz, leaning up on one elbow and rubbing her eyes. “Before breakfast or after?”

No one knew. As we got dressed, we expected a knock on our door at every moment. But we made it down to breakfast without anything happening. In the dining room we eyed the teachers anxiously as we crunched our cornflakes, but from what we could see they weren’t in a bad mood, and they didn’t seem to be talking about us either.

We’d signed up for surfing again, of course, and after breakfast we strolled down to the beach.

“Maybe Weaver’s decided to let us off,” said Rosie, squirting sunscreen spray on to her arms as she walked along.

Frankie snorted. “When has Weaver let anyone off anything? No – there’s only one answer: Aidan hasn’t told her.”

“See, I
said
he was nice!” said Fliss triumphantly. “Hey, Rosie – will you spray some of that on me?”

I thought it over as we walked along. To be honest, though I knew Aidan was nice, I was surprised he was
that
nice. He hadn’t looked at all pleased when he’d first caught sight of me dashing towards him like a mad garden ghost last night.

Lyndz was walking next to me. Noticing my puzzled expression, she shrugged. “One thing’s for sure,” she said, hitching her beach bag higher on her shoulder, “we owe him – big time.”

That day we had a wicked time on the beach. I don’t know what it was – the lack of sleep? The hours spent lying awake thinking about getting grounded? – but something had happened to my surfing skills overnight. Maybe, with everything else that’d been going on, I just wasn’t worrying about it any more. At any rate today, suddenly, everything felt a whole heap easier.

“Go, Kenny!” yelled Bethany as, on my very first attempt, I knelt up smoothly on my board.

I screamed and whooped and shrieked. The feeling of the sea beneath me – the power of the wave pushing me along – was MEGA amazing. It felt like the best funfair ride ever.

And then, about one hour and a trillion wipeouts later, a miracle happened: the wave caught my board, I pushed up on my arms, and my feet slipped under me really easily to a crouching position. A moment after that, I stood up. I was surfing – really surfing!

Of course, the very next second I toppled over and fell in with an almighty KER-SPLOSH! But nothing could wipe the grin off my face when I resurfaced.

“You were
awesome
!” squealed Frankie, splashing up and down in the shallows. “Way to go, wave warrior!”

I reckon all five members of the Sleepover Club turned into wave warriors that afternoon. We still fell in loads, of course, but now we were
having serious fun. “I’m so proud of you guys!” said Bethany when, lesson over, we flopped on to the sand to dry off.

“We’re proud of us too!” I said and everyone laughed.

That evening, the Sleepover Club made up part of the group whose turn it was to cook dinner, along with Alana Banana, Simon Baxter and Danny McCloud. Aidan and Bethany were helping out, of course, and – as we chopped vegetables and opened tins of tomatoes (we were making vegetable lasagne) – Bethany told Aidan all about the ace progress we’d made with our surfing.

“Seriously well done,” said Aidan, grinning and nodding at us. “Getting started at surfing takes hard work.”

“He’s obviously not narked with us, anyway,” whispered Frankie to me as she handed me the olive oil.

A little later, when Alana, Simon and Danny were busy around the oven on the other side of
the room, I sidled up to Aidan and said in a low voice, “By the way, we just wanted to say thanks – for not telling the teachers about last night.”

“Well, I wanted to say exactly the same thing to you lot,” replied Aidan, equally quietly.

“What for?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be creeping around in the dark either,” he said. “You could’ve got me into serious trouble if you’d told anyone.”

“What were you doing, then?” asked Rosie, who’d been listening in. “You’re not really a burglar, are you?”

Aidan laughed. “No! I got a text message late last night from one of my mates. He’d seen on the surfcam – that’s a webcam we’ve set up at the beach – that there were some really good waves.” Aidan looked over his shoulder, checking that Bethany couldn’t hear – but she’d gone down to the cellar for some more bottles of water. “So,” he said, “a group of us went and surfed in the moonlight. It was
excellent
.”

“But isn’t it dangerous, surfing at night?” I asked.

Aidan grimaced. “To be honest, it is – although at least I was with friends. It’s definitely something I’d never do alone.” He looked round at us – the whole Sleepover Club was listening to him now. “That’s partly why I’m glad you didn’t say anything – I wasn’t exactly setting a good example, was I? The other thing is, I’m supposed to have a curfew while I’m working here – no late nights on the town for me!”

At that moment, Bethany came back in with an armful of plastic bottles. “What’s that, Ade?”

“Hmm?” Aidan pretended suddenly to be very interested in the courgette he was chopping. “Oh, nothing,” he said. But when Bethany turned her back again, he looked at Frankie and me and gave us a friendly wink.