Sleepover Girls Go Gymtastic! Read Online Free PDF

the air dramatically, and did a perfect walkover, finishing with a flourish like they do in the Olympics.
    “We’ll see about that!” I snapped and did TWO walkovers followed by a cartwheel.
    “Follow that Miss Prissy-Flissy!” I goaded her.
    “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Frankie said sternly. “I’m going to look through that factsheet again to see if there are any more tips to make things a bit easier for us.”
    I pointed to where the factsheet was on the step, and carried on cartwheeling around the garden.
    Suddenly there was a mammoth groan. Frankie was sitting there as white as a sheet with her hand over her mouth.
    “What’s up? You’re not gonna hurl, are you?” I asked, rushing over to her.
    She just shook her head and wafted the factsheet in front of our noses.
    “Look at the date of the competition,” she moaned. “It says it’s on Saturday May 18th!”
    We all looked at each other and shrugged.
    “It’s not your birthday, ’cos you’ve only just had it,” I said slowly. “And the rest of our birthdays are ages away.”
    I pulled a silly face at the others, but they were all looking really sick as well. In fact, I was sure that Fliss was going to burst into tears at any minute.
    “Come on! It can’t be anything that important, surely?” I reasoned.
    “Oh stop being so thick, Kenny! Even you must know what’s happening two days later!” Rosie snapped angrily. “You remember SATs, those horrible examy things we’ve been revising for forever? Well, they start on the 20th. There’s no way that our parents are going to let us enter this competition now.”
    “I don’t understand it,” said Lyndz quietly. “Why hadn’t we noticed the date before?”
    “The page with it on had got stuck to the one above,” Frankie explained in a tight little voice. “With what looks like peanut butter.”
    The others all looked at me accusingly.
    “You can’t begrudge a girl a little snack now and then,” I joked. But for once, jokes weren’t going to get me out of this mess.
    “There must be something we can do,” I said at last. But I knew I was kidding myself. Whichever way you looked at it, we were doomed from ever entering the gymnastics competition.
    “Unless…” Fliss suddenly piped up excitedly. “… Unless we told our parents that we were revising at each other’s houses, met in Cuddington, caught the bus into Leicester, entered the competition and came home. That would work, wouldn’t it?”
    Her eyes were gleaming wildly and she was jabbering on like a wild woman. I was gobsmacked. This was Fliss, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes herself, actually suggesting we do something deceitful ! I mean, the very same thought had actually crossed my mind, but I knew that there was no way we could get away with it. I was actually quite proud of Fliss for being so daring. There was hope for her yet!
    “It just wouldn’t work, Fliss,” Frankie told her gently. “You know as well as we do that the chances of us entering this competition have just melted to zero.”
    Well, Fliss did dissolve into tears then, and boy didn’t we all know about it. We had to make up some stupid story for my mum about her being totally stressed about the SATs. It was true in a way, but not in the way Mum thought.
    The next couple of days we walked around like we’d been told that all holidays had been cancelled forever, television had ceased to exist and the only music we’d ever be able to listen to would be Fliss’s mum warbling along to her show tunes. And if you thought that was bad, it was about to get much MUCH worse.
    You remember that mock science test we’d done? I must admit that I’d forgotten about it as well, until Mrs Weaver announced gravely:
    “I’m sure you’ll all be thrilled to know that I’ve marked your science tests.”
    A huge groan went round the classroom.
    “You might well groan,” she continued in a stony voice. “I felt like groaning myself when I saw some of the test