Trick or Treat by Jana Hunter

Come in, quick. Sit down. I’ve got something to ask you, and it’s dead serious.
    Have you got a sister? A crummy big sister? The kind who hates to see you having fun and always tries to ruin things for you? Have you ever wanted to put a spell on that jealous sister? You know, make her disappear, grow warts, or turn into smelly frog-slime and slither off down some deep well? I have, cos my sister Molly really messed up things for the Sleepover Club at Hallowe’en. And itwasn’t funny (not at first, anyway). Mind you, when Frankie did her witchy thing and scared everyone half to death it was a killer. The best. And when Rosie went haywire with the Curse of the Nerd’s Nose, that was something else.
    But that wasn’t all.
    There was Merlin (my pet rat) and his sneaky trail of rat’s droppings. There was the candlelight and the secret chants and all the dark, dark, mysterious goings-on. Then there was the trouble I got into for stealing bits of Molly…
    Why she had to make such a fuss about a teeny weeny bit of belly-button fluff, goodness only knows! But that’s Molly for you. Always making a big deal. If only she was like my other sister, Emma. Emma’s my eldest sister and she’s all right, she is. Molly is different. Gruesome. Is it any wonder we call her Molly the Monster?
    Look, I know I’m going on about Molly, but she nearly ruined our Sleepover Club, and that’s the most important thing in the world to me and my mates, as anyone knows.
    Wait. D’you want to hear everything that happened? I bet you do. Okay, here goes… It started on a Friday night. (That’s our regular sleepover night, in case you don’t know.) It was right before Hallowe’en and the Sleepover Club was getting in the mood for a specially spellbinding time (spellbinding… get it? Spells, potions, witches and stuff). See, my four friends were due at my house any minute. We wanted to work on our trick-or-treat stuff before the dreaded M&Ms, Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman, beat us to it. The M&Ms are our biggest enemies at school and they were sure to have nasty tricks up their sleeves. The gang had some great sleepover things planned: costumes, tricks, witchy games and creepy ghost stories, all topped off with the most wicked midnight feast of black sweets. We had liquorice, Black Jacks, Wine Gums, Fruit Pastilles, jellybeans, Black Imps and best of all, black Jelly Babies! It was going to be the most coo-ell sleepover in history! But of course, Molly the Monster didn’t like that. Oh no. She hadto create a scene the minute she heard about it.
    “But Mu-um!” she whinged, stamping her silly foot. “Mum, you promised Jilly could sleep over next time we had swimming practice and it’s swimming practice tomorrow!”
    Mum clapped her hand to her forehead. “Oh no!”
    Of course Molly had to take advantage of the look on Mum’s face, by whining, “Kenny can’t have our bedroom tonight, Mum. You promised!”
    “I just didn’t realise it fell on Kenny’s sleepover night.”
    “She can have her baby sleepover tomorrow,” said Molly. “Saturday.”
    “Saturdays are out while the Cuddington Ballroom Contests are on,” sighed Mum. “I’ve got customers booked up for the next four weeks.” (Mum does hairdressing at home, and while the Ballroom Contests were on she had glamorous grannies lining up to get their purple rinses and perms.)
    “Our sleepover’s tonight. The gang’s already on their way,” I protested.
    “Mum promised me,” Molly said in that annoying singsong voice she always gets when she thinks she’s got one over me. “And anyway Jilly’s on her way too… with her mum.”
    “Too bad the Sleepover Club got in first!” I retorted.
    “Too bad for you, Laura McKenzie.” Molly made a face at me. But she waited for Mum to leave the kitchen before she gave me one of her big, fat pokes. “Too bad cos I’m having my friend over to stay tonight no matter what. So you can forget your soppy Sleepover