Sleepover Girls on the Range Read Online Free PDF Page A

man’s secret fantasy to be a cowboy, didn’t you know that?”
    No I didn’t, and it was very interesting.
Very interesting indeed!
    The next morning I rushed into the playground to find the others.
    “Hey, you guys!” I yelled as soon as I spotted them. “I’ve had an idea. Last night Dad was watching that Western on TV.”
    “So was mine,” Frankie said.
    “And mine,” Kenny agreed. “Although he kept pretending he wasn’t.”
    “Well, Dad said that it’s every man’s fantasy to be a cowboy,” I continued. “So maybe our dads would like to help out at ourOpen Day. It’d be like making their dreams come true!”
    “Hardly!” Frankie snorted. “It won’t exactly be riding wild on the prairies, will it?”
    “But if they took charge of the food,” I suggested, “it’d be like those big campfires they have. We could even let them tell some of their favourite cowboy stories!”
    “Yeah, and send everyone to sleep!” grinned Rosie. I was kind of glad that she was getting into the spirit of it, because I’d suddenly felt a bit bad talking about our dads when her dad doesn’t live with her any more. Neither does Fliss’s, but at least she’s got Andy.
    “It does sound a good idea,” Frankie agreed. “But we ought to ask them when they’re all together. They’re less likely to say ‘no’ then.”
    “Good thinking, Batman!” I grinned.
    As we were wondering when would be a good time to ask them, Fliss piped up:
    “Are you all coming to the line-dancing tomorrow? I can’t wait. I’m going to dress up in my jeans and cowboy boots and everything.”We all rolled our eyes. Fliss manages to turn
everything
into a fashion parade.
    “Yeah, Mum said she’d come along too if that’s OK,” I told the others.
    “‘Course!” giggled Rosie, “The more the merrier. I just hope I can manage all the steps. Mum says they’re a bit complicated at first.”
    “We’ll be brill!” Kenny rocked her feet and did those turns you see line-dancers doing on the TV. “They won’t know what’s hit them when they see us!”
    “That’s what we’re worried about!” Frankie and I spluttered together.
    As it was, when we did get to the linedance evening, we felt a bit over-awed by it all. Fliss didn’t look out of place at all because
everyone
was dressed up in cowboy-type things – even Fliss’s mum.
    “They should all come and enter the fancy-dress competition at the Open Day,” I whispered to Rosie. “It’d be tough to pick a winner.”
    “Yeah, I’d no idea they all got so into it,” she confided.
    Now I must admit that country and western plinky-plonky music isn’t my thing at all. But once it started playing and the caller started shouting out the dance moves, I kind of got into it. So did Kenny – but she got into it in a completely different direction from everybody else. When the rest of us were stomping forward she was doing a chasse to the side. When we did a mambo on our right, she did a pivot to her left. Disaster or what?
    “Do try to keep up, Kenny!” Fliss hissed at one stage, but that only seemed to make things worse. Fortunately the adults round us were pretty forgiving, and I think she actually amused one or two of them as well.
    “It’s good to see you young ones throwing yourselves into it!” one older guy said as we were having a break.
    “Throwing yourself into it is right, Kenny!” shrieked Frankie when he’d gone. “It’s a wonder you haven’t broken something yet.”
    “Like someone else’s leg!” suggested Fliss.
    “Well I might not be much good at the dancing,” sniffed Kenny, “but I bet you I canget the caller to come along to the Open Day – for free!”
    I have to be honest with you – the rest of us had sort of forgotten that that’s why we had come. We were having such a laugh, it had slipped our minds.
    “Come on, then.” Kenny dragged us to the front of the hall. “There’s no time like the present.”
    We all felt dead embarrassed