The Sleepover Club has its share of ups and downs as you know, but this was an all-time low.

I don’t know about you, but bottles with mysterious messages in them don’t tend to wash up at my feet on a regular basis.

We’d blown our golden opportunity, and we felt like total idiots.

But there’s one great thing about my mates. They have this ability to totally bounce up again like, well, things that bounce back!

And that’s exactly what happened.

“OK,” said Kenny briskly. “Let’s all go on a bottle hunt.”

We stared at her.

“Well, we’re acting like the stoopid thing just disappeared off the face of the earth, when it’s probably just been tidied away somewhere.”

Frankie’s face lit up. “Oh, Kenny, you star!” she breathed. “That’s it!”

“Huh?” said everyone.

“Look around, you guys!” she said excitedly. “When we went out this morning, our room was a tip. Now it’s all spick and span. Carrie, or whatever she’s called, obviously came in to tidy up.”

I was shocked. “You think Carrie stole it?”

“Duh,” said Frankie. “Didn’t you hear what your aunt said? ‘Carrie’s a treasure, even if she is a bit of an eco-warrior’; hint hint!”

“Yikes!” Fliss squeaked. “Carrie’s recycled our bottle!”

I covered my face. “Oh, this is so unfair! It’s probably all mashed up by now. It’s no use. Modern kids are just not cut out for adventures. We should stick to watching TV and shopping!”

“Hey, I thought I was meant to be the Sleepover Club drama queen,” Frankie teased. “Isn’t it possible that Carrie simply thought it was an empty bottle, and being a good little eco-warrior, immediately put it to one side for recycling later? In a recycling bin?”

Fliss went into peals of girly laughter. “You sound just like a detective!”

I felt a spark of hope. “Recycling bin? Here, at Willow Cottage?”

We stared at each other.

Then we all made a mad dash to the main cottage, hurtling straight through the kitchen and out into the utility area.

There in a row were three big plastic bins, neatly labelled in black felt pen. One for waste paper. One for veggy peelings. And one for glass…

I clasped my hands together. “Please, please, please,” I whispered.

Kenny lifted the lid with a flourish. And right on top was our precious bottle, winking in the afternoon sunlight, totally unharmed.

Everyone sagged with relief.

“Come here you little beauty. Mwa!” I gave the bottle a smacking kiss.

“Now nab a corkscrew, quick!” hissed Kenny.

We hunted around the kitchen.

“It’s hanging on the thingy,” said Rosie. “With all the kitchen doodahs, oh you know!”

She meant the utensils rack, believe it or not! We all fell about laughing. But unfortunately, at that moment we heard footsteps.

Kenny hastily spirited the corkscrew into her jeans pocket, and I hid the bottle behind my back.

“There you are,” said Mum. “I’ve been looking all over.” Her eyes narrowed. “You haven’t changed your clothes. What have you girls been doing all this time?”

“Erm,” I said desperately. “Well, actually…”

To my amazement Frankie came to my rescue. “Oh, Mrs Collins, it was awful,” she babbled. “We thought we heard the ghost.”

Suddenly I was inspired. “Yeah, we heard funny snuffling noises. I heard them this morning too. It has to be the ghost!”

Well it wasn’t a total lie!

“It scared me to death, Mrs Collins,” said Frankie earnestly. “I just don’t feel comfortable taking my clothes off, knowing there’s a ghost, you know, peeking.”

I could see Kenny biting her lip, desperately trying not to laugh.

I have to say Mum didn’t look too convinced. But quite accidentally, Auntie Roz saved our bacon. My aunt came hurrying into the kitchen, looking for the salad servers or something. And galloping after her, with one ear stylishly inside out as usual, came gorgeous Gizmo.

He immediately began snuffling around his water bowl.

“That’s it!” Frankie shrieked. “That’s the noise. Oh, I feel so-o embarrassed!”

“Yeah, whew,” mumbled Kenny. “It was the puppy all the time.”

“Well, now that little mystery’s cleared up, we’ll go and get changed,” I said brightly.

“Good idea,” said Mum drily. She sounded deeply suspicious.

We just made it out of the kitchen before we collapsed in total hysterics.

“So are we going to open it now?” asked Rosie eagerly.

“I think we should do it tonight at our Sleepover feast,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Frankie. “We’ll do it in style.”

“My deah,” said Fliss in a posh voice. “We do everything in style!”

Uncle Phil had built a proper barbecue pit in the meadow at the back of the house. He and my aunt were like, barbecue experts (I suppose they ate barbecue all the time in Australia). But we still didn’t get to eat anything for ages. I think that’s an ancient barbecue law or something.

I lurve barbecues. Grown-ups keep handing you delicious savoury goodies as soon as they come off the grill, still sizzling and smelling of charcoal, which somehow makes it heaps more exciting than food which has been cooked indoors. It’s kind of like outlaw food!

Don’t worry, there were plenty of delicious veggie options for Frankie.

But she spent most of the evening madly rushing around, taking pictures with her camera. And we all obliged by striking mad poses among the wild flowers. Gizmo’s in most of them, because guess what! He’d recently started to follow me around, instead of Auntie Roz.

“You can be my faithful dog any time, Giz,” I whispered to him, as I tickled his tum.

The Sleepover Club is always up for a party as you know, and we all had a really enjoyable evening. But I think we were all terribly conscious of trying to save ourselves for our grand Sleepover feast.

After all, this one was a biggie. We kept exchanging excited glances. And I knew what my mates were thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. We were finally going to open the bottle. Tonight we’d know for sure what was in that message!

But it’s surprisingly hard to leave a barbecue when the charcoal is still glowing. It’s that Robin-Hood-camping-in-Sherwood-Forest thing. So we lingered in the meadow, chatting, until it was almost dark. But then the midges started biting and it grew seriously breezy, and suddenly Kenny faked this huge yawn.

“Blimey!” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I’m SO sleepy. Must be all the fresh air.”

This was our cue to yawn as well. “Me too,” I said. “Thanks for tonight, Uncle Phil and Auntie Roz. I’ve had a great time.”

We all gave Gizmo a last passionate cuddle, and Auntie Roz grabbed on to him to stop him following us as we went racing through the twilight.

I grabbed at a piece of honeysuckle as I flew past, and sniffed deeply. I think heaven must smell of honeysuckle, don’t you?

We got ready for bed so fast, it was exactly like one of those comical old movies. All of us rushed about, tripping over each other and bumping heads, totally keyed up!

Finally Mum came up to say goodnight. “Any idea what you’d like to do on your last morning?” she asked. “I thought we could go to that museum at Dunwich.”

“That kind of depends,” I said vaguely.

“Oh,” said Mum, sounding slightly miffed. “On what?”

Well, Mum, the fact is that by tomorrow, we just might be millionaires!

But I couldn’t exactly say that, so I just said, “Let’s see what the weather’s like.”

Mum switched off the light. “Sleep tight.”

We waited until Mum was safely inside the main cottage, then we all switched on our torches, giggling with excitement.

“This is going to be the most thrilling sleepover feast ever,” said Rosie happily.

“Come on guys,” I said. “We’re doing this properly.”

So we unwrapped all our sleepover goodies and piled them in a pretty blue bowl we’d borrowed from Auntie Roz when she wasn’t looking.

Want to know what we’d bought from the village shop?

Some of the goodies were slightly strange, actually!

We had pink and green flying saucer things with slightly stale sherbet in, a big bag of marshmallows which must have dated back to hippie days because they were in the weirdest colours, a bag of M&Ms, a packet of Eccles cakes. (I bought those. I thought it was just the kind of jolly stodge the Thingybobby kids would eat.) Also a bag of plain kettle chips and a jumbo box of Celebration chocolates, because they were on special offer!

I placed the bottle ceremonially on the ground beside our feast. “Right,” I said. “Who’s doing the honours?”

“You are, girlfriend,” grinned Frankie.

“No way!” I protested. “I never used a corkscrew in my life!”

“Now’s your chance!” said Kenny, and she calmly passed it over.

I plunged the screwy part of the corkscrew into the cork.

“Yikes,” I joked. “I feel like someone in the bomb disposal squad!”

I braced the bottle between my knees like I’d seen grown-ups do, and pulled hard. This is the dodgy part of the operation. If you get it wrong, the cork ends up inside the bottle, forever.

But if you get it right – POP!!

“Yess!” cheered everyone.

I stared at the cork, totally astonished. “It came out!”

“Erm, the message,” Frankie reminded me.

My mates crowded round, totally fizzing with excitement.

I felt like my hands had stage fright! I hooked a shaking finger into the neck of the bottle and fished out the piece of paper.

It dawned on me that I must be the first person to touch it for like, hundreds of years. Wow, I thought. This is so amazing! I cautiously unrolled the paper, and it made a dry crackling sound as if it was really old.

“Move your head, Kenny, I can’t see,” Rosie complained. “Is there a map on it, Lyndz?”

I felt a twinge of disappointment. “Uh-uh,” I said. “Poetry.”

Kenny was disgusted. “We went through all this hassle for poetry?”

“They often put treasure clues in poetry in olden days,” Frankie said calmly. “Read it out, Lyndz.”

I squinted at the strange loopy writing. “I’ll try,” I said doubtfully. “Erm, here goes.” And this is what it said:

“Well, that’s as clear as mud,” said Kenny crossly.

I was still peering at the message. “There’s some little numbers and letters at the bottom.”

Frankie sucked in her breath. “Of course!” she shrieked. “We are SO dense! Angels and devils. Duh!”

And PING! That little light-bulb went on inside my head, and I got it too. I started to grin. “Unbelievable! We were probably just inches away and didn’t even know!”

Fliss and Kenny both looked at us like we were talking Martian.

But Rosie was bubbling with excitement. “Come on, guys,” she coaxed. “Angels above you?”

“Oh, those angels,” said Kenny, instantly cheering up. “Oh wow!”

Fliss’s eyes widened. “You think the treasure’s in that church, don’t you!”

We all nodded.

“Those numbers are probably like, measurements,” said Frankie eagerly. “So we’ll know how many paces to take. They always did that with hidden treasure.”

“What do you think it actually is?” I said. “Gold and jewels, strings of valuable pearls and stuff?”

“Sometimes it’s like, a stash of ancient gold coins,” said Kenny.

“They dug up a Saxon king round here once,” I said. “Mum told me. He had his boat with him and all his valuables.”

“Oh, I do hope we don’t find a dead king,” Rosie shivered.

Fliss was looking doubtful. “This doesn’t really make sense, you know,” she said timidly. “I mean, why go to the bother of hiding valuable treasure, then put a message in a bottle telling a complete stranger where to find it?”

Frankie shrugged. “So? Smugglers are always hiding their loot in those old stories.”

I felt a shiver of excitement. “You think this note was written by smugglers?”

“Or bloodthirsty pirates, maybe?” said Kenny hopefully.

Frankie shook her head. “I don’t think pirates could usually write. I think they just signed their name with like, a mark or something.”

Rosie’s eyes were shining. “Maybe someone stole it and then it started preying on their mind, but they daren’t own up because they knew they’d be gruesomely put to death,” she suggested.

“You mean he put the clue in the bottle to ease his conscience?” I said. I thought this was an excellent theory.

Actually I started getting a bit carried away. “He could have been like a lord’s youngest son,” I said. “But he had to steal to pay his gambling debts.”

Fliss went all misty-eyed. “Oh, I bet he was really good looking,” she sighed.

Kenny was shocked. “You’re not supposed to fancy him, Fliss! He was a thief!”

“But Rosie said he was really sorry afterwards,” Fliss pointed out.

It was like she’d forgotten all her doubts. She was totally caught up in Rosie’s make-believe! We all were.

Rosie nodded eagerly. “I bet he went off to start a new life in – in… I don’t know…”

“Australia,” suggested Fliss.

“Exactly. And as the boat sailed away, the lord’s son threw the bottle over the side, saying ‘I will never profit from my terrible crime, but one day…’”

Frankie elbowed Rosie out of the way and took over, giggling. “’But one day five lucky girls will find this and become humungously rich!!’”

Suddenly everyone went quiet. We stared at each other in the torchlight.

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” I said. “We are really really having an adventure.”

“Yes,” beamed Frankie. “We really really are!”

“Just checking,” I said happily.

“So now what?” said Fliss.

“We’ll get Lyndz’s mum to take us to the church first thing,” said Frankie.

Something about this didn’t feel right. The Thingbobby kids would never just wait until someone’s mum gave them a lift. They’d set off right away, cycling fearlessly along the dark lonely lanes. And if they got tired, the lads would break out the fluff-covered toffees, to keep up their strength.

I sighed. In our times, it’s practically impossible to have a bona fide adventure, when you’re our age anyway.

But no-one else seemed to think it was a problem.

“OK, so that’s settled,” grinned Frankie. “Now let’s eat!”

I know, it doesn’t seem possible, does it! Where DO we put it?

I have no idea, but we did. We always do!

We feasted happily on stale flying saucers etcetera, weaving wild daydreams about the things we’d do when we became millionaires.

“I’ll run my own riding stables,” I said. “No question.”

“Go to Hollywood and make films,” Frankie mumbled through a mouthful of Eccles cake.

Fliss didn’t have to think about it. “Start my own incredibly successful design label,” she beamed.

“Me? Oh, I think I’d probably buy Leicester City football club,” said Kenny, dead casually.

I noticed Rosie smiling to herself in the torchlight. “I’d buy my brother the very latest state-of-the-art computer,” she said. “So he can be really independent.”

See what I mean about Rosie? She just can’t help being grown-up, even in her daydreams.

But it wasn’t long before we were all yawning. For real this time.

“Sorry to be a party pooper,” said Kenny. “But I’ve got to turn in. I’m shattered.”

We switched off our torches, and settled down to go to sleep.

Lying in the dark often makes Frankie really chatty. (NO!!) Her voice floated through the dark. “When you think about it,” she said drowsily, “we’re exactly like the kids in the books. I mean, they’re always stuffing their faces and so are we.”

“Mmn,” we all said sleepily.

“And our characters are so similar, it’s spooky!” she prattled on. “Fliss is the girly one, and Kenny is like a total tomboy and Lyndz is animal crazy, and Rosie’s like the motherly sensible one.”

I heard Kenny snort. “Yeah, so which one are you, then?”

Frankie sounded smug. “I’m the brainy one who unravels the clues, of course!”

So we all threw our pillows at her, then of course we had to get up and find them again!

But as I drifted off to sleep, my mind was buzzing with questions.

In that book world, anything is possible. Ten-year-old kids go camping by themselves and no-one turns a hair. They even capture grown-up criminals and march them off to the police.

But this was our world, the real world.

Did we really think we could walk into a church and help ourselves to valuable treasure, just because we’d found a clue in a bottle?

Could it really be that easy? The others seemed to think so, and I wanted to believe them.

But suddenly, as I lay there in the dark, I wasn’t nearly so sure.