Emergency Sleepover. Fiona Cummings

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      I went over to check it out. It was one of those charts shaped like a test-tube. So far they’d coloured in half of it, which meant they still had a long way to go to reach their target.

      “It’ll need more than your pocket money to put this place right!” piped up a voice behind me. “Unless you’re Posh Spice in disguise – which I doubt!”

      It was a really frail-looking boy, with skin so white you could almost see through it.

      “Hi, I’m Jake,” he said.

      “I’m Kenny,” I replied.

      “Have you come to see the pretty one, then?” He jerked his head over towards Rosie’s bed.

      “Yep, that’s right. What are you in for?”

      Jake told me that there was something wrong with his blood and he was waiting for an operation. It sounded pretty serious, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it so I didn’t push it. Apparently he spends a lot of time in Queen Mary’s and has lessons there and everything. I always thought that if you were in hospital, it was a good way of escaping school, but they have special teachers who come round.

      “It’s a bit rough here with no telly and not many books or anything. You feel like you’re killing time a bit,” he told me sadly. Then he brightened up. “I’d rather be playing football. One day I’m going to play for the best team in the world!”

      “Leicester City, right?” I pointed proudly to my shirt.

      “Leicester City? Get real! I mean Manchester United, of course!”

      Well, I wasn’t going to let him get away with that now, was I?! Half an hour later we were still discussing players and the best games we’d ever seen.

      “I hate to break this up…” A big cheery nurse came over to us. “But it’s time for your medication, Jake.”

      “I’d better go,” he shrugged. “Remember to hand in your pocket money for the appeal! See you around!”

      He headed down to his bed at the other end of the ward shouting, “Up the Reds!”

      I went back over to Rosie’s bed.

      “Good of you to join us!” smirked Frankie.

      “I was only chatting to Jake!” I said.

      “Ooh, Jake!” the others giggled.

      “Leave it out!” I grinned. “We were talking about football, actually.”

      “I think Jake’s pretty ill, you know,” said Rosie seriously. “He told me he virtually lives here. It must be awful spending all your time here with nothing to do.”

      I looked over at the appeal poster again.

      “We could try to raise some money ourselves,” I suggested.

      But before the others could reply, the nurse came over to take Rosie’s temperature. As soon as she saw her, Fliss flew out of her chair like a scalded cat.

      “Right, we should go now!” she said, giving Rosie a quick hug. “It’s about time we left you in peace.”

      And she zapped out of the double doors so fast you could almost smell burning rubber!

      “She’s been really twitchy since she got here,” Rosie pointed out. “Poor Fliss, it was good of her to come when she hates hospitals so much.”

      “Well, I guess we’d better go too!” grinned Frankie.

      We hugged Rosie and asked her to let us know when she would be home. I looked down towards Jake’s bed so I could wave goodbye to him, but the curtains were pulled around it. I just felt really, really sad as I walked out, and I was determined to do something to help.

      But first we had another problem to face: Fliss had disappeared. She wasn’t outside the Children’s Ward and she wasn’t in any of the toilets, because Lyndz checked.

      “Maybe she’s gone outside to get some air,” Frankie suggested.

      We wound our way back down the stairs and through all the corridors. And with every step we felt more and more uneasy. Fliss wasn’t good at directions at the best of times. And in a hospital I figured she’d be more hopeless than usual!

      Our suspicions were confirmed when we got outside the main entrance and she wasn’t there. There was no sign of her.

      What we had here was a catastrophe of galactic proportions. Fliss was lost. Not only that, but she was lost in the place she hated most in the world!

      

      “What are we going to do?” asked Lyndz anxiously. “We can’t just leave Fliss here!”

      “We should split up,” Frankie suggested. “We’ll each take a different part of the hospital and meet back here in fifteen minutes. Isn’t that when your Dad said he’d pick us up, Lyndz?”

      “Erm, he said ten past four. Will that be in fifteen minutes?” she asked, her eyes glazing over as she looked at her watch. Lyndz is very ditzy when it comes to telling the time!

      “Right. I’ll take this corridor here; you take that one down there, Lyndz; and Kenny – you retrace our steps back to the Children’s Ward, OK?” Frankie ordered.

      “Yes sir!” Lyndz and I both saluted and we all set off in different directions.

      I went all the way back up to the Children’s Ward but there was still no sign of Fliss. I even checked out three other wards and asked the nurses if they’d seen her, but nobody had. I just hoped that she’d be with Frankie and Lyndz when I got to the Main Entrance again. But she wasn’t. And what’s more, Lyndz wasn’t there either!

      “I should have known not to let Lyndz go anywhere by herself when she’s so hopeless at telling the time!” grumbled Frankie.

      “What are we going to tell her father?” I wondered.

      “It’s too late to think of anything,” moaned Frankie. “Here he is now!”

      Lyndz’s dad’s big van pulled up in front of us.

      “Hop in, girls!” he called out as he stopped in front of us. “Look sharp – I’m blocking the way of this ambulance!”

      Frankie and I piled in, wondering how we were going to tell him about the other two. When just then, we saw them steaming out of the door of the Accident and Emergency department.

      “Wouldn’t you look at those two eejits!” exclaimed Mr Collins when he saw them. “I can’t stop there for them with this ambulance СКАЧАТЬ