sleepoverclub.com (8 page)

“Where is she?” Kenny muttered. She was so impatient, steam was nearly coming out of her ears! “We’re going to be late!”

Just then Frankie dashed in again. “Sorry, it wasn’t where I thought it was!” she panted. “But I found it in the end.”

Quickly we put the folded piece of paper and the plastic coins into the carrier bag, and knotted the top tightly. Then we ran out of the house, and down the road.

“It’s nearly ten o’clock!” Rosie gasped, looking at her watch as we dashed through Cuddington. “Do you think Katie Shaw will wait for us?”

“Dunno,” Kenny panted. “Just keep running!”

We got to the park at just after five past ten. We were all so tired, we could hardly even limp across the play area to where the swings were.

“I can see something under the hedge!” Frankie said eagerly, as we made our way over to it.

“It’s probably just a bit of litter,” Kenny replied.

But it wasn’t. It was a note. And it wasn’t a very nice note either.

“Oh, rats!” Kenny groaned furiously, ripping the note into tiny shreds. “Katie Shaw was here – and we missed her!”

“We were only a few minutes late as well,” Fliss wheezed, clinging on to Rosie for support. We were all huffing and puffing and panting as if we’d just run the London Marathon.

“Hang on a minute.” Frankie shaded her eyes, and looked round the play area. “Fliss is right – we
were
only a few minutes late.”

“So?” I said.

“Well, maybe Katie Shaw’s still here,”
Frankie suggested. “In the park, I mean.”

“What!” Kenny clenched her fists. “Do you really think she might be?”

“Well, we know she was here about five minutes ago, because she left the note for us,” Frankie pointed out. “She could still be close by.”

We all stared around the play area. It was pretty empty because it was still quite early, and there was only a mum with her toddler, who was playing in the sandpit.

“I don’t think it’s them, do you?” Rosie grinned.

“Let’s take a look around the rest of the park,” Kenny suggested. She looked really wound up by now – Katie Shaw was in for a right earful if we ever caught up with her!

We left the play area, and walked across the grass towards the football field. We were just going past the ice-cream stand, which was closed, when Frankie clutched my arm.

“Look!” she hissed.

We could hardly believe our eyes. The M&Ms were walking along the path ahead of us, arm in arm!

“It’s them!” Kenny hissed furiously. “It’s the Queen and the Goblin –
they’re
Katie Shaw!”

“And they’ve probably got the disk on them right now,” I whispered.

“Quick, after them!” Frankie said.

“I’m gonna push both of them into the duckpond!” Kenny said under her breath, as we began to run towards them. “Don’t try to stop me, anybody!”

“Hang on a minute.” Rosie had stopped dead, while the rest of us were still running.

“Come on, Rosie-Posie, or we might lose them!” Kenny yelled impatiently over her shoulder. In the distance we could see the M&Ms heading towards the park gate.

“Look!” Rosie beckoned us to come back, and pointed over at the football field. Two very familiar figures were knocking a football around. It was Ryan Scott and Danny McCloud!

“What are they doing here?” Kenny gasped.

“I dunno,” Rosie wailed, “but it could be them, couldn’t it?
They
could be Katie Shaw!”

We all groaned. It was pretty bad luck to see
two
of our best suspects at the same time. What were we supposed to do now?

“Me and Fliss’ll go after the M&Ms,” Kenny decided quickly. “And Frankie, you and Rosie and Lyndz go after Ryan and Danny.”

Fliss pouted. “Why can’t I stay with Frankie and the others?” she asked.

“Because you’ll turn to jelly if Ryan smiles at you!” Kenny said, grabbing her hand. “Come on!”

“Hold on a minute.” Frankie was staring through the railings at the street outside the park. “Who’s
that?
”

We all stared. Would you believe it, Catherine Shaw was walking along the pavement, eating a Wispa bar!

“Oh no!” Kenny slapped her forehead. “They’re
all
here!”

“What are we going to do now?” Frankie asked. “We can’t accuse them
all
of being Katie Shaw.”

“Maybe we should just send an email to her saying we want to set up another meeting,” Rosie suggested.

“Yeah, we could make it this afternoon,” Fliss said.

“And we can still try and catch them red-handed,” I added. “Then Tom will get his disk back in time to do the posters for the gig.”

“Good idea,” Kenny agreed. “Let’s go back to my place – it’s closest.”

We all trailed out of the park, and headed for the McKenzie house. It was pretty frustrating to know that
one
of our suspects might even have had the disk on them when we saw them a few minutes ago. But Frankie was right. We couldn’t go around accusing everyone of being Katie Shaw. Not unless we had some proof anyway.

Kenny’s mum let us in when we rang the doorbell.

“Did you have a good sleepover, girls?” she asked, then took a closer look at us. “My goodness, you look like you were up all night!”

“Don’t be silly, Mum,” Kenny said, trying to smother this absolutely enormous yawn. Of course, that set us all off yawning then.

“Yes, I can see you all look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Mrs McKenzie said, raising her eyebrows.

“Mum, is it all right if we use the computer?” Kenny asked quickly, before Mrs M had time to ask any more awkward questions.

Her mum nodded. “Your dad’s out on an emergency call, so there’s no-one in the study. And Molly’s out with Louise.”

“Good,” Kenny muttered, as we headed for her dad’s study. “We don’t want Molly the Monster finding out what’s going on – we’d never hear the end of it!”

Kenny’s dad’s a doctor, so the study’s full of all these gruesome charts and medical books. He’s even got a
skeleton
in there!

“That’s what Katie Shaw’s going to look like when I’ve finished with her!” Kenny joked, nodding at the skeleton as she switched the computer on.

“What shall we put in the email?” Rosie asked.

“We’ll just say that we couldn’t help being late, and we really want to arrange another meeting,” Frankie said.

“What’s the matter, Kenny?” Fliss wanted to know. Kenny had logged on to our site, and was staring at the messages section.

“We’ve got a new message from Katie Shaw!” she said, looking puzzled.

“What?” I frowned. “That was quick, seeing as we’ve only just got back from the park ourselves.”

“Maybe she sent it
before
she left for the park this morning,” Rosie suggested.

“Quick, open it up, Kenny, and have a look,” Frankie urged her. “The email will have the time it was sent on it.”

Kenny clicked on the email.

“It was sent at ten-fifteen this morning,” she told us, pointing at the time and the date.

“But we were in the park until ten past ten, and so were the others,” Frankie pointed out. “How could
any
of them have got back in time to send this email at ten-fifteen?”

“Emma Hughes lives quite close to the park,” Kenny said doubtfully. “But I dunno if she’d have had time to get home, put the computer on and send an email, all in five minutes.”

“What about Ryan and Danny?” Rosie asked.

“Ryan lives in Stamford Close,” Fliss piped up, then blushed as we all turned to look at her. “I just happen to remember that,” she said hastily.

“And Danny lives near me,” I said. “I don’t know where Catherine Shaw lives.”

Frankie was staring at the screen, her eyes almost popping out of her head. “Have you read the email?” she asked.

You weren’t on time this morning, so the price goes up again. How if s DOUBLED! If you want the disk back, if s going to cost you twenty-two pounds, and if you don’t pay up, I’ll give the disk back to Tom Collins, and tell him EXACTLY how you lost it!

We were all fuming, especially Kenny.

“I’m totally fed up with this!” she yelled.

“Let’s just write back and tell her to get lost,” Rosie suggested. “After all, Tom’s doing a new poster, and we don’t need all this hassle.”

“Yeah, but then we won’t find out who it
is,” Frankie pointed out. “Not unless we arrange another meeting.”

“But what if Katie Shaw goes and tells Tom what happened?” I said anxiously. “I’m going to be in doom forever. And my parents are going to kill me – if Tom doesn’t first!”

“I think we should stick to our original plan,” Fliss said. “I think we should go along and pretend to leave the money, and then find out who it is.”

“I’m with Rosie,” Kenny grumbled. “Even if we try and catch her, how do we know it’ll work? She might be so mad that we’ve left fake money, she’ll just go and tell Tom anyway.”

“Maybe I should just confess to Tom right now,” I said. “Then we
can
tell Katie Shaw to get lost.”

We just didn’t know
what
to do. There were so many things to think about, our heads were spinning.

“Look, don’t reply to that email yet, Kenny,” Frankie said. “Not until we’ve decided what we’re going to do.”

“OK,” Kenny replied, switching the computer off. “Let’s go up to my room, and we can talk about it.”

We all trailed gloomily out of the study, and up the stairs. Molly the Monster was at her friend’s so we had the room to ourselves.

“I’m sick of Molly’s mess,” Kenny said, picking a huge heap of clothes off the floor, and dumping them on Molly’s bed. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for her, this room would be really tidy.”

“Oh, yeah?” Frankie raised her eyebrows as she stepped over a pair of Kenny’s trainers lying in the middle of the floor on top of a pair of jeans.

“So what are we going to do?” I asked. “About Katie Shaw?”

“We either tell her to get lost or we try and catch her,” Rosie said. “That seems to be pretty much it.”

“Yeah, and I reckon she’s had enough fun with us,” Kenny said grimly. “It’s about time we put a stop to it!”

“Don’t you want to know who it is, Kenny?” Frankie asked.

“’Course I do,” Kenny shrugged. “But even if we find out who it is, she might still drop us right in it with Tom.”

“I don’t want
that
if I can help it,” I added. “
Hic!
”

“Now look what you’ve done,” Frankie said to Kenny. “You’ve given Lyndz hiccups.”

“Sorry –
hic!
” I gulped. “It’s just that I’m really stressed out.”

“Hold your breath, Lyndz,” Fliss said, as Frankie started hunting around for something cold to put down my back.

The front door slammed, and there was the sound of footsteps running up the stairs. A moment later, Molly and her friend Louise came into the bedroom.

“Oh, not you lot again,” Molly sniffed. “Well, you can get out of here, NOW. Me and Louise have got homework to do.”

“Go into the study then.” Kenny glared at her. The mood she was in, you could see that she was ready for a fight! “We were here first.”

“Hic!
” I said again, and clapped my hand over my mouth.

“Do you mind
not
hiccuping your horrible germs all over my bedroom?” Molly said, and she and Louise sniggered.

“You leave Lyndz alone,” Kenny scowled, as Molly picked up her schoolbag and began pulling books out of it.

“Hic!” I got up and started walking around the room, trying to hold my breath. Suddenly Frankie came up behind me and slapped me on the back, hard. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I stumbled forward, and banged straight into Louise, who wasn’t expecting it either.
She
stumbled forward, and bumped straight into Molly’s bedside table. All the stuff on it flew off, including the bedside light, an empty glass and a little wooden box, painted with flowers.

“You stupid idiot, Lyndz!” Molly yelled, red-faced. “Look what you’ve done!”

“Sorry, Lyndz,” Frankie apologised. “I thought if I took you by surprise, it might cure your hiccups!”

“It did,” I said, but I wasn’t bothered about that now. I was staring down at the carpet.

The lid of the little wooden box had flown off when it hit the floor, and a computer disk had fallen out. It was labelled: