Sleepover Friends #4: Patti's New Look

By Susan Saunders. Published 1988.

Those are some fierce slouch socks.

At the first sleepover, the girls are looking at a magazine. One of the articles is about kissing, and the girls practice on their pillows, and then their arms. Just in case these ten year olds see some action soon. Then they take a quiz called “Careful or Carefree”. Stephanie ends up being carefree, Kate and Lauren are in the middle, and Patti scores super careful, and it says she needs to loosen up.

The next day, Patti is determined to try new things. She buys an outfit that's nothing like her, and the other girls aren’t too sure about. Then at the soda fountain, she drinks the Secret Weapon, a mixture of everything they’ve got. She predictably gets sick from this.

The girls are all excited about a really big sleepover – thirteen girls – at their friend Jane’s house. They’ll being going to the ice rink together, and all the boys say they’ll be there, too. Patti almost can’t come because she’ll be having company for all of winter vacation. Her parents’ friends’ daughter from California, Karen, will be staying with them, while her parents and sister make college visits. But Kate gets Karen invited to the party, too. Patti says Karen is short, thin, and really quiet.

Turns out, Karen has changed. Now she’s a total hottie, and the boys fall all over themselves for her. Back at the sleepover, Karen has the girls enthralled, telling them about movie stars she sees, and all about astrology. She says she hasn’t played Truth or Dare in forever, but introduces to girls to the idea of Seven Minutes in Heaven, that she says they play in California.

Kate thinks something’s up, however, and checks out the magazine the girls were reading at the beginning. Turns out, Karen got everything out of there.

By the time the next Friday, and their regular sleepover at Patti’s, rolls around, Karen has Patti completely changed. Patti’s wearing Karen’s clothes, Karen has moved stuff from Patti’s room to the attic, and even changed Patti’s kitten’s name. But Patti confides in Lauren that she doesn’t really like it.

All of a sudden, Karen’s sister Lisa storms in the house. She is pissed, y’all. Karen had stolen a bunch of Lisa’s clothes out of her suitcase. All her “cool” clothes aren’t hers at all. And she confesses to getting everything out of a magazine. Turns out she’s just as careful and “boring” as Patti. The girls change, and have a good time playing a “babyish” game of Mad Libs.

o   Each of the girls did end up getting a kitten from the last book.

o   Karen says she usually sleeps “in the raw”. I don’t feel comfortable thinking about a ten year old sleeping naked.

o   Don’t knock Mad Libs, girls. Mad Libs is the shit.

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.