Sleepover Girls Go Gymtastic! by Fiona Cummings

channel-hopped.
    “Turn it back Kenny,” Frankie ordered. “The gymnastics competition should be on.”
    I flicked back. Sure enough, after a report on escalating car crime, there was Julia Ward at the Leisure Centre.
    “This is it!” we all squealed. “Can anyone see us? Is that you, Frankie?”
    We squinted at the screen trying to pick ourselves out from the background.
    “Quick, record it Kenny, just in case.”
    I didn’t have time to find a new videocassette so I slammed down the record button and prayed that whatever was on the video already in the machine, it wouldn’t be one of Dad’s precious documentaries.
    “Look, look!” Fliss suddenly shrieked. “It’s us!”
    And there we were, in full colour. It showed the interview before our performance, with us messing about and pretending to faint and everything. Then there was just a tiny glimpse of our performance in amongst loads of clips of other people’s.
    “You’d think they could have shown all of ours,” Fliss tutted.
    “But we didn’t win Fliss,” Rosie explained. “Oh no, here we are again.”
    That was the bit with us listening to the results and larking about afterwards.
    “I don’t believe it!” Lyndz grinned. “They featured us more than anyone else, even though we didn’t make it through to the final.”
    “Star quality you see!” I grinned. “The offers will be pouring in now.”
    We started to pretend that we were appearing in our own television series, until we were interrupted by Molly the Monster.
    “All right saddos, clear off. I’m going to watch the programme Mum recorded about Robbie Williams now and you’re not, so GET OUT!”
    We all looked at each other, and at the video recorder. Oh-oh. Time to make ourselves scarce! We raced up to the bedroom as fast as we could and locked the door behind us. Sure enough after about ten seconds there was a banging on the door, accompanied by Molly screaming:
    “You did that on purpose didn’t you, you evil little cow! I’m going to kill you for this! And all your stupid friends too!”
    It was class! I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. Mum gave me a telling-off about being irresponsible and I had to apologise to Molly (puke) but it was still worth it just knowing how fuming she was.
    We had to keep a pretty low profile for the rest of the evening. But even that was cool because we paraded about in my bedroom pretending we were TV stars. And of course we had to have the inevitable run-through of our gymnastic routine one more time – or one hundred and one more like!
    But the absolute best thing was that when we got to school on Monday morning we were treated like superstars. Everyone had seen us on the television and they all wanted to know what it was like. Kids from Year One came up to us and just stared at us like we were great big international film stars or something. Brilliant! And the ultimate highlight was that we got right up the M&Ms’ noses because they couldn’t bear us having so much attention. When Mrs Weaver asked us to tell the rest of the class all about our experiences you should have seen their faces! They went so red with anger that I thought they were going to explode all over the classroom.
    The whole thing was totally, totally wicked. And even though we didn’t win the competition, we’d only entered it in the first place so we could get on television and that had certainly come true.
    Fliss of course is sure that some big talent scout is going to sign her up at any moment and give her her own TV show, but that’s Fliss for you. The rest of us are just thrilled it worked out like it did. Even Lyndz, because although I don’t think she’ll ever make a gymnast, she’s much more confident in PE now. And of course the fame thing is wicked – we’re milking it for all it’s worth. We’ve got to get into practice, you see, so when we’re major stars we can take it all in our stride.
    I can’t believe now that we almost didn’t