Read Online Sleepover Girls in the Ring by Fiona Cummings - Free Book Online Page A

kind of cross.
    “Erm that, that… we’re going to stay awake all night!” I blurted out. Well, could you have come up with anything better under the circumstances?
    “Oh no you’re not!” Rosie’s mum raged. “In fact, you’re going to get ready for bed right now, and I don’t want to hear another peep out of you! And if I do, there’ll be no circus performance for any of you tomorrow.Do I make myself clear?”
    Rosie certainly hadn’t been kidding about how mad her mum can get!
    I can’t ever remember us getting ready for bed so quickly before, or so quietly. We hardly spoke to each other.
    “Do you think your mum’s found out about the lounge?” Frankie whispered when we were tucked up in our sleeping bags.
    “She must have,” Rosie replied anxiously. “I don’t see why she’d be so mad otherwise. I bet Adam’s told her.”
    We were all silent again.
    “Well, you know what they say,” I told the others seriously. “When the going gets tough, the tough get eating!”
    “Kenny, you nutter!” The others all bashed me with their pillows.
    We scrambled in our bags for our goodies and spread them out in the middle of the floor. I took three marshmallows and tried to juggle with them, but I was hopeless and kept dropping them. Soon there were sugary marks all down my pyjamas and all over my sleeping bag.
    “Well, I hope you do better than that tomorrow night!” laughed Frankie. “We’re going to look a right load of saddoes if that’s the best we can do!”
    She had a point.
    I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. In fact, I had a terrible nightmare. I was trying to juggle with Rosie’s sofas, but I kept dropping them. Then Molly picked me up and started tossing me to Edward Marsh. Fliss and Frankie kept flying past me on a trapeze, but couldn’t reach me. And Lyndz was wheeling Adam about and they were both laughing crazily. It was horrible, just horrible.
    It was quite a relief to wake up the next morning, to be honest. But then it hit home. Today was the day that we were going to be performing in front of loads of people –
and we hadn’t practised enough!
    At least we had a session at the circus in the morning to try to sort ourselves out. But that didn’t start well. Molly was already rehearsing with Edward Marsh and two of the circus jugglers when we got there.I couldn’t bear to watch.
    “Hey, your sister’s really good!” Ailsa gushed enthusiastically as soon as she saw us. “Have you been practising together?”
    “No way!” I told her scornfully.
    “Oh,” she shrugged. “Well, let’s see what you can do, then.”
    Lyndz and I took out our juggling balls and started throwing them to each other. Or at least we tried to. More went on the floor than anywhere else.
    There was a load of slow clapping behind us. My stupid sister!
    “Well, you’re going to really wow them with that display, aren’t you!” she jeered. “You might as well give up now and leave it to the professionals!”
    She turned back and started one of her intricate routines with Edward Marsh. But then, saviours of the hour, the Circus Jamboree jugglers came over.
    “It’s only your timing that’s a bit off,” one of them smiled. “Look, keep your eyes on the balls and concentrate. That’s all there is to it.”
    They encouraged us to start juggling slowly. Then, when we’d got our confidence, they started juggling with us, throwing balls to us and receiving ours. After almost an hour we’d really got it together, and I felt
grrrreat!
    “Thanks, guys!”
    “No problem!” they grinned. “You’re going to be fantastic this evening. Just forget about the audience.”
    Whilst we’d been brushing up our juggling skills, the others had also been having extra tuition, so by the end of the morning we were full of beans and raring to go for the evening’s performance.
    “Shouldn’t we practise a clown routine?” asked Fliss anxiously. “I know Ailsa’s dad said we didn’t have to, but we