Sleepover Friends #1: Patti's Luck

Published August 1987

I wonder, did they pay to use Betty Boop?

Lauren, Stephanie, and Kate have sleepovers every Friday, where they play Truth or Dare, watch movies, and eat tons of junk food, including Dr. Pepper, which, just, yeeessss. I love Dr. Pepper. I have a slight addiction. There is a new girl in their fifth-grade class (which, according to the girls, sounds so much more mature than fourth-grade), named Patti. Stephanie knew her back in the day in the mysterious “city”. She wants the other girls to like her, too.

So Stephanie invites her to the next week’s sleepover. They watch movies (and eat, of course), including one that has a witch casting a curse of ill luck. Kate jokingly casts the same curse on Patti. Patti then proceeds to knock over a whole tray of snacks, and breaks Kate’s glasses. Stephanie dares Kate to use purple hair gel, but soon all the girls are playing with it. Realizing it stains, the girls figure they should wash it out before going to bed. Unfortunately, there’s a water main break, and the girls have to sleep with it in, and go home with their new hairstyles the next day.

I guess they eventually get it out, because there’s no mention of it by Monday morning. The girls ride their bikes to school, and when they get there, Patti gets her cuff stuck in the chain of her bike. Lauren hands her her books so she can help, and Patti sets them on the back bumper of a car. Then the car pulls away. Lauren takes off after it, and I guess Patti got un-stuck, because she goes after it, too. Eventually the car pulls into a driveway, and Lauren’s dentist gets out. He offers to give Lauren ride back to school. Only Lauren, because Patti is nowhere to be seen. After returning to school, it starts raining. Patti finally shows up, completely drenched. The other girls later learn Patti got stuck in her chain again (seriously, is she wearing bell-bottoms? This is problematic), and then got lost. She’s at home sick with a cold for a few days.

Their class goes the natural history museum in the city, and Patti shares with Lauren her fears that she’s bad luck. Their group gets in the elevator, and Patti presses the button. The elevator gets stuck. But don’t worry, they get out.

The girls have another sleepover, and try to do everything they can to prevent Patti from having any accidents. They play with a Ouija board, asking it questions about boys. Then Patti uses it by itself, and it spells out C-U-R-Z. They then play Mad Libs, without incident. But then Patti tries to go to the bathroom, and ends up letting out Lauren’s 130 lb. Newfoundland, Bullwinkle. Bullwinkle manages to wake up the house, the neighborhood, and sprain Stephanie’s ankle. Patti thinks it’s all her and her bad luck’s fault, and rides her bike home in tears.

Patti avoids the other girls for the next few days. But Stephanie’s got a plan. The book fair is coming up (yay!), and it sounds more like a fair than any book fair I ever went to. Every class has booth. Stephanie’s dad is going to be a fortuneteller, and she’ll have him predict that Patti will have nothing but good luck.

He tells Kate and Lauren’s fortunes first, just to build up a little believability, and that goes well. But as Patti’s sitting down for her fortune, she kicks the table leg, and the glass globe crashes to the floor, breaking. Patti runs out, wailing about her bad luck. Stephanie and Lauren agree that since she’s the one who “cursed” her, it’s up to Kate to remove it.

Kate decides to have a sleepover on Saturday to remove the curse. Her father christens them the Sleepover Friends. At midnight, Kate draws a circle on their wooden floors in chalk (bet her parents love that), then makes up a “potion”, including a dried spider. Next, she tells the girls to turn their clothes inside out and put them back on. That’s to turn away bad luck.

Then, she has Patti step into the circle, turn around seven times, hold a toad, say a spell, and drink the potion. Girl’s got a good imagination; I’ll give her that. All this Patti does, without complaint.

The next morning, Patti answers the phone, and correctly answers a radio station question. She’s won four free meals and tickets to an amusement park. The girls argue whether it was really a curse (Lauren and Patti), or if it was just Patti psyching herself out (Kate and Stephanie). Kate reveals it wasn’t really a spider, but chocolate. Patti is, understandably, relieved.