So there we were, stuck with Frankie’s mum, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. We couldn’t even talk amongst ourselves, because Mrs Thomas got on the coach right behind us. Luckily, she sat right at the front next to Mrs Weaver, while we scuttled off down towards the back.
“Better luck next time, girls,” said Ryan Scott smugly from the back row. We ignored him, and slid into some empty seats, me next to Fliss, and Lyndz, Rosie and Frankie squashed in together.
“I can’t believe my mum’s coming with us,” Frankie groaned. “Why did she have to have a day off work today?”
“What are we going to do now then?” asked Fliss urgently.
“Maybe we ought to forget the whole thing,” Rosie muttered.
“Rosie’s right,” Lyndz agreed. “This is getting more and more dodgy.”
“No way!” I said. “Don’t be a bunch of wimps.”
The others looked at me. They weren’t convinced.
“It’s too risky,” Frankie said at last. “The museum’s going to be crawling with grown-ups. And one of them will be my mum.”
“So?” I shrugged. “There are always grown-ups around when we have our sleepovers. Have we ever let that stop us doing exactly what we want?”
“Kenny’s right,” said Fliss. “We can’t give up now.”
If I hadn’t already been sitting down, I think I would have fallen down with shock. Fliss was the last person I would’ve expected to back me up.
“Thanks, Fliss!” I said, giving her a friendly punch on the arm.
“Ow!” Fliss clutched her elbow. “Do you mind!”
“D’you think we can get away with it?” Lyndz asked doubtfully.
“Yeah, I think we should go for it!” I said. “Leave it to me. I’ll think of something that’ll completely trash the M&Ms, and fool all the grown-ups.”
The others grinned.
“OK, then, Kenny,” said Frankie. “But it’d better not be anything too wild, because if my mum finds out we’re up to something, I’m dead.”
From the moment the coach pulled up outside Armfield Museum, and we all piled out, I was on the look out for possibilities. The museum’s a big place – it’s in a kind of old country house with lots of rooms – and I was pretty sure that, sooner or later, I’d get a brilliant idea. I didn’t know what yet, but I’d know when I did. If you see what I mean.
We all followed Mrs Weaver into the museum, where we left our bags in the cloakroom.
“Get into your groups now, please,” called Mrs Weaver. “The museum’s Education Officer is going to give us a guided tour.”
There was a lot of pushing and shoving and giggling as everyone tried to get back into their groups. All the parents were fussing, and trying to get the kids who were with them to stand in rows and shut up. Frankie’s mum didn’t fuss, though. She just looked us over, said, “Everyone all right?”, and then left us alone.
“Your mum’s so cool, Frankie,” Lyndz whispered. “For a mum, I mean.”
“Yeah, but she won’t be so cool if she figures out we’re planning a raid on the M&Ms,” Frankie whispered back. “She’ll be steaming mad.”
“We’ll have to make sure she doesn’t find out then, won’t we?” I said with a wink.
The museum Education Officer, Mrs Saunders, took us on the guided tour. She made it pretty interesting by telling us loads of stories and jokes about the different things the museum had, but I wasn’t really listening. That was because 1) I’d been on the guided tour about a zillion times before, and 2) I was busy keeping my eyes open for something I could use to blow the M&Ms away.
At first I didn’t see anything. We went into the Costume Rooms, the Doll Gallery, the Roman Room and all the other rooms, and I was starting to get worried. Maybe I’d made a mistake thinking that the museum would be a good place to play a trick on the M&Ms!
It wasn’t until we went into the last room, which was the Egyptian Room, that things really started to hot up. There were loads of glass cases round the wall with things in them like old pots, gold jewellery and big stone cats. And right in the middle, lying on a platform, were six big, painted mummy cases. One of them had glass in the top, and if you looked through it, you could see the bandaged mummy lying inside. Mrs Saunders started telling us about how the Egyptians used to make dead bodies into mummies by taking out all their insides, and using a special liquid, so the bodies didn’t rot away. Fliss didn’t like that one bit. She turned green, and went to hide behind Frankie’s mum. I knew all about mummies, but I didn’t mind hearing it again, because it was so gruesome. So it took me a little while to suss out that Fliss wasn’t the only one who was looking a bit icky. I nudged Frankie.
“Look at the M&Ms,” I whispered in her ear.
Emma and Emily were both looking a bit sick. Not only that, they both looked scared, and they were standing really close to Mrs Weaver. They were both staring at the mummy cases as if they expected a mummy to jump out there and then, and grab them, like something in a horror film.
“They look like they’re wetting themselves,” Frankie whispered back.
“They are,” I said. “And I think I’ve just sussed out our plan of revenge.”
I opened my mouth to tell them, saw Frankie’s mum looking at us and decided to wait till later. We were taken off to the museum café to have some juice and biscuits, and Frankie’s mum left us on our own, while she went to talk to Mrs Saunders. That gave us a chance to get stuck into our plans.
“I’ve had this radical idea,” I said, after I’d looked over my shoulder to check that the M&Ms (and Mrs Weaver) were nowhere around. “Did you see how freaked out the Gruesome Twosome were by the mummies?”
Fliss shook her head. “I didn’t notice.”
“That’s because you were hiding behind Frankie’s mum,” said Lyndz.
“Well, anyway, they were dead scared,” I went on. “And I reckon that’s how we can get our own back on them.”
“How?” said the others together.
I hadn’t really sussed out the details yet, but I’d had one idea which I thought was excellent.
“Well,” I said, “I thought I could hide inside one of the mummy cases and –”
I didn’t get a chance to say any more, because the others nearly had a fit.
“Get serious, Kenny!” said Frankie. “Those mummy cases are worth loads of money! If you damage one of them –”
“We’ll be paying for it out of our pocket money for the next zillion years,” Lyndz finished off.
Fliss was almost fainting with fear.
“And what if you got stuck inside?” she gasped.
“Yeah, you’d probably suffocate,” Rosie pointed out anxiously.
“Oh, all right!” I said crossly. I guess I hadn’t really thought this thing through. “OK, stupid idea. But I still think we can use the mummies to get back at the M&Ms…”
And I was right. After we’d finished our juice and biscuits, Mrs Saunders took us to the activities room. There were paints, paper, glue and scissors on the tables, as well as loads of big cardboard boxes.
“We’re going to make some masks,” announced Mrs Saunders. “You can choose to make a mask of anything you’ve seen in the museum today, and I’ve got some postcards here to help you. If anyone would like to copy one of the painted faces of the Egyptian mummies, that would make rather a good mask.”
And then, like a light bulb being switched on above my head, THAT was when I got my brilliant idea.