That couldn’t be right! Hadn’t he saved my life this afternoon? Hadn’t he just made a dream come true for me? He was doing me a huge favor.
I must be wrong!
We stepped out and I closed the shed door.
“Now remember,” Chad said. “We’ll do the switch Sunday night at seven-thirty sharp.”
A wide grin spread across his, I mean, my face. Then he raced past the house and onto Fear Street. Even in my body Chad didn’t trip over anything. He stopped on the pavement across the street, then turned around. For a moment he stared at me and the house. Then he waved and took off again. Double-time.
I thought I should be thinking about how lucky I was to be in Chad’s body and not my own scrawny, clumsy one. Instead, a shiver went through me as I watched Chad disappear around the corner. I couldn’t understand why.
I shook my head, to clear it. I held my hands out in front of me: Chad’s strong hands. I flexed my arm. I actually had muscles. Man, oh, man! This was going to be great!
I scooted around to the back of Chad’s house.
There was another one of those touch pad things on the back door. It was yellow-green, too. These door locks were awesome!
I touched the yellow-green patch and the door slid open, even though it looked like a normal door. The air coming from the house smelled funny. Sort of damp and moldy.
I hoped Chad had been wrong about his folks being home. I wanted to memorize the layout of the house before Chad’s parents noticed I didn’t know my way around. That would be kind of tough to explain.
The back door opened into the kitchen. I stepped across the threshold, and froze. There at the stove was a kid stirring something.
“Where have you been?” he demanded. He turned to face me.
I staggered back and almost fell back out the door.
He was blond and tall for his age. He looked about twelve years old. He had perfect white teeth.
He looked exactly like Chad!
6
Who was this guy?
Did Chad have a twin brother?
Why didn’t he go to school, too?
And how come Chad never mentioned anything about him?
Most importantly, what was I supposed to say to this guy?
Maybe this is all a dream, I thought. Maybe I’m still Will. I peeked down at my hands. They were definitely Chad’s strong, large hands. I looked across at this other kid. He had the same hands, too.
What was going on?
Just then a woman came through a door across from me. “Close the door, Chad-One,” she said, gazing right at me. Her voice sounded kind of sticky and sweet.
Chad-One? Was she talking to me? I glanced behind me. Must be. Nobody else was there.
Chad-One? That’s a weird nickname. How many of us were there? I stared at the woman. I knew I couldn’t ask her such a dumb question.
Why hadn’t Chad told me about any of this?
The woman was thin and blond. She wore a big smile, a red-and-white-checked dress, and an apron with lace around the edge. Her hair came down from the top of her head and then flipped up at the bottom, near her shoulders.
She looked a lot like the moms in the old TV shows I saw on Nick at Nite.
My dad would have taken one look at her and declared, “Sitcom damage!” That’s what he always says when he sees people who look as if they’re pretending they’re on TV shows.
She bent her head sideways and smiled at me. “I asked you to shut the door, Chad-One. You’re letting in flies.”
I gulped and turned around to touch the yellow-green pad on the inside wall. The door whooshed shut. With me inside.
Oh, man! Time to face the music! I had to pull this off.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
“Did you have a nice day at school, dear?” I heard behind me.
I put a big smile on my face and turned around. “Yeah,” I responded, “it was great.”
A man came through the door and stood beside the woman. He was smiling, too.
A pipe stuck out the side of his mouth. It wasn’t lit.
His dark hair was covered with the kind of greasy Dad stuff I saw on men’s hair in old TV shows. He was wearing a blue shirt and a plaid tie and brown pants and loafers.
This was the big inventor who had made the body-switching machine? The fancy door locks? All that other excellent stuff in the shed?
He looked like a reject from “Early Television”! You know, when everything was still in black and white.
What a family!
But I figured I’d better start thinking of them as Mom and Dad. I was spending the weekend with them, after all.
He took the pipe out of his mouth. “Howdy, son,” he greeted, smiling like an advertisement. He stuck the pipe back into his mouth.
This was too weird! Nobody had parents like this.
“Mom,” whined the other Chad, “Chad-One is late again!”
“Chad-One, how many times have I told you to come straight home after school?” Even though she was frowning and trying to sound mean, she still sounded sweet.
Chad-One! What kind of name was Chad-One? “Uh—a lot?” I ventured.
“Twenty-seven,” Mom stated. “More often lately. Young man, you will have to start behaving better!”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. It seemed like the right thing to say.
“Now, help Chad-Two set the table!”
Chad-Two? I should have guessed. Boy, these were the dumbest twin names I had ever heard! Hey, maybe we were clones. With all the equipment in the shed, anything was possible. Maybe Chad-Three and Chad-Four would pop out of a closet any minute!
Why didn’t Chad, er, Chad-One warn me? How did he expect me to keep up the act with all this weirdness around me?
“Hey, it’s his turn, Mom!” Chad-Two complained. That was the first normal thing I’d heard so far. Pepper and I always fight over chores.
Mom just kept smiling. “Why don’t you both do it? Supper’s almost ready!” That kind of sounded like something my mom would say. Maybe things weren’t as strange as I thought.
Muttering and griping, Chad-Two led the way into the other room, which turned out to be a dining room.
He opened cupboards and drawers, taking out place mats, silverware, and cloth napkins. I followed him, doing exactly what he did.
The whole time we were setting the table, Chad-Two hounded me with questions. It was like the third degree. “What did you do in school today? Did any of the kids do anything interesting? What did you learn? Anything in social studies? What did Mr. Sirk make you do in gym? What about Ms. Hartman? Did you make any significant observations about students at each end of the spectrum?”
Most of these questions I could answer, but I couldn’t figure out that last one.
“Significant observations about students at each end of the spectrum?” I repeated.
“Any deviations from the norm for Will Kennedy?”
“What?” I was so startled I dropped a spoon.
Of course, since I was in Chad’s body, I caught the spoon before it hit the floor. Chad-Two had his back to me and didn’t notice.
“He spill anything at lunch?”
“Dropped his milk,” I told him. Which was true. Of course.
“What about Lance Holloway?”
Other than Chad, Lance is the coolest kid in school. He even wears sunglasses most of the time. My guess is he’s sneaking in some nap time during class. Who could tell behind those shades?
“Nothing significant,” I said, hoping that was a good enough answer.
Just then Mom came in carrying a big brown bowl with a cover on it. She set it in the middle of the table.
Dad, still sucking on the unlit pipe, came out of the kitchen carrying a covered pot. It must have been hot; he was using pot holders. He put it on the table, too.
Mom smiled and went back to the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator open and close. Then she came back in carrying a big green plastic conta
iner.
Dad went and got a pitcher of something.
Everyone smiled at everyone else.
It was so creepy! Definite sitcom damage, I thought.
I waited until the others picked chairs and then took the one that was left. As soon as we were all settled, Mom reached out and snapped the cover off the brown bowl.
“Everyone serve yourself,” she said cheerily.
I stared into the bowl. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
There in the soupy yellow liquid floated little brownish-purple creatures.
As if that weren’t disgusting enough, the critters began waving their tentacles in the air.
Dinner was alive!
7
Yeecccchhh!
And that was putting it mildly. I had seen my mom and dad order snails at a restaurant. And I tried some raw fish once—but this! This was the grossest thing ever! I’d never seen anyone eat anything as awful as this!
It had to be some kind of joke!
Right?
Chad-Two reached in and grabbed a handful of the creatures while I sat there—stunned.
He stuffed two of them into his mouth!
For a second a couple of squirming tentacles stuck out between his lips. He sucked them in like noodles and grinned while he chewed.
Oh, man—talk about gross!
My stomach crawled up my throat!
Mom and Dad scooped out handfuls of squirming creatures. The critters slid around on their plates, wiggling their eyestalks and tentacles.
Mom popped one into her mouth. Her fingers dripped with yellow goo. She licked it off and smiled at me some more.
“What’s the matter, Chad-One?” she asked. “Why aren’t you eating?”
“Uh—ur—I—” Because I have to go throw up! “I don’t feel very well! Maybe I’d better go to bed.”
“Are you coming down with something, honey?” Mom asked. She laid the back of her hand against the back of my hand.
“I think . . . maybe,” I said. I coughed to sound more convincing.
“You’ll feel better with some food inside of you,” she said. She picked up one of the purple octopuses and held it toward me. It waved a sucker-covered tentacle.
“I don’t—urp—excuse me!” I jumped up and ran out of the room, through the front hall, and up the staircase.
Chad told me his room was the second one on the left. But as soon as I stepped off the top stair I knew I was going to have trouble.
There was no upstairs hall. It was like stepping inside a giant pink beach ball or a hot-air balloon. The floor was pink and spongy, like the floor of the backyard shed. It curved up at the sides until it turned into walls. The whole place was round. I wasn’t sure where the floor and walls and ceiling started or ended.
The only areas that weren’t pink were two square slick orange patches on the floor. They were about two feet across, and four pairs of fat white boots sat next to them. They looked like moonboots, but puffier.
I noticed more of those circle things on the wall like the one that had made the shed door open.
Could it be? Well, I had to try something. Second door on the left . . . I went to the second patch on the left wall and stuck my thumb on the green-yellow surface.
A long oval door whooshed open.
I peered through the opening. There was nothing in it but some bars along the side walls, about waist high. The space was closet-sized, about two feet by four feet.
This was Chad’s room? You couldn’t even sit down in there, let alone lie down!
I must have opened the wrong door.
I bounced over to another colored patch on the wall. I could hear Chad’s family talking at the dining room table.
“I think I’ll take a plate up to Chad-One,” I heard Mom say. “He may be ready to eat now.”
No! No way! I was not eating creepy crawlies!
This place was way too weird for me!
I snuck down the stairs, careful not to make a sound. I pressed the patch by the front door. Whoosh! I shut the door behind me and took off!
I ran faster than I ever had before—faster than I ever could have in my own body.
Once I put some distance between me and Chad’s house on Fear Street, I slowed down a little.
The closer I got to my own home, the better I felt.
Could I have been wrong? Maybe I hadn’t seen what I thought I saw. Maybe Chad’s family wasn’t eating slimy, creepy, live creatures. Maybe it had just been some kind of weird noodles.
Noodles with eyes?
I still felt sick to my stomach. What kind of food was that?
I’d seen some disgusting food on TV, but those crawly things were the worst!
What could possibly be in the other dishes?
I didn’t want to find out!
There it was! My front porch. And the shaggy lawn, which I was supposed to mow tomorrow morning. It had never looked so good.
It was great to hear the TV blaring through the living room window screens.
I charged up the front porch stairs two at a time. I didn’t trip over the top step the way I always do. I rang the doorbell.
My bratty little sister, Pepper, answered the door. “Can I help you?” she asked through the screen door.
“Let me talk to Chad.”
“Sorry. You have the wrong house,” Pepper said. Her sneer softened as she gazed at me. She started flipping her eyelashes. It made me nervous.
That’s when I remembered. I realized just in time that I wasn’t me, I was still Chad-One. Or looked like him, anyway.
“No, I mean, let me talk to Will.”
“You don’t want to talk to Will. Will’s a big dummy. I can beat him at Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy every time.”
This was a big fat lie, and I was about to tell her so, but then I remembered I wasn’t exactly me.
“I don’t want to play games with him,” I said, irritated. “I just want to talk to him.”
She looked at me for a minute, then said, “How much do you want to talk to him?”
“Huh?”
She was sharpening up into the Pepper I knew and suffered from. “Like, how much would you pay me to go get him?”
“Pay you?” I repeated.
“Is there an echo around here?” she asked, cupping her ear with her hand. “You got fifty cents?”
I reached into my pockets. I had no idea if Chad had fifty cents. There was something in the right front pocket that felt interesting, but it didn’t feel like money. Then I came to my senses. “Forget it!” I shouted. I pressed the doorbell again, hoping to get Chad’s attention.
He wandered down the stairs.
“Hi, Chad,” he said. He stepped out onto the porch.
“Hey, tell Pepper I’m Will,” I told him.
For a second he looked furious. It was almost scary. I didn’t know my face could look that mean and cold.
Of course. I had promised not to tell anyone about the switch.
Then his face went back to normal. “Sure,” he said. “Pepper, this is Will.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Will,” Pepper said to Chad. “Oh. Sorry. You can’t help it.” She smirked.
“She’s too smart for us, Chad.” Chad shrugged.
“You are soooo dumb!” Pepper said.
She stuck out her tongue at both of us, then stomped into the house, slamming the screen door behind her.
“What do you want?” Chad asked me. That mean look came over his face again.
“We have to switch back now,” I told him.
He glared at me. His jaw got really tense.
“No way!” Chad exclaimed. “We have a deal!”
8
“I can’t stay at your house!” I cried. “Your family is weird!”
“I never said my family was normal,” Chad answered. “And a deal is a deal.”
If Chad wouldn’t cut short the switch, at least he could explain a few things. Maybe then I’d have a shot at getting through the weekend.
/>
“How come there’s another Chad?”
Chad grinned. But it was the nastiest-looking smile I had ever seen! He never looked that way at school. “He’s my brother,” Chad said. “I know he’s a pain, but Pepper is no picnic, either.”
“What’s with that weird second floor? Do you sleep in that closet?”
“It’s a New-Age kind of thing,” Chad explained. “My dad invented it. You’ll see. It’ll make you feel great!”
“But—”
Chad cut me off. “Just watch what the other Chad does,” he instructed. “Copy him. Everything will be fine.”
For a second he almost convinced me. But then I remembered dinner. “Chad!” I burst out. “That food . . . I can’t eat that food! We have to switch! Now!”
Chad shook his head. “We had a deal. You wanted to be me. Now you are me! Live with it.” Then his expression softened. “Come on, Will,” he wheedled. “It’s just two more days.”
Mom’s voice called from inside the house. “Will! Time for supper!”
“Get out of here,” Chad said, giving me a shove. He went inside and shut the front door. I even heard him lock it.
I jumped down from the porch and stared up at my house. Some of the paint was peeling, but I didn’t care. I missed my home!
I thought about all the drawers and closets in my room. I knew what was inside of them. I knew what food I’d find in the cupboards and the refrigerator. I even knew where Mom hid the cookies.
Back at Chad’s house, I didn’t know what I would find. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t find anything I could eat.
And my stomach was growling!
In Chad’s body there was no way I could go into my own house and act as if I belonged there.
Especially if Chad didn’t help me.
He could have said I was sleeping over.
But he didn’t seem to want me around at all!
So now what do I do? The Division Street Mall was only two blocks away. I could go to the arcade and kill some time. I wondered if Chad had any money on him when we did the switch.
I checked my pockets.
In the front pocket I found a weird little metal thing. It was made of different pieces in shades of purple, all folded up. I couldn’t get it to unlock or open. I thought it might be some kind of puzzle, or one of Chad’s father’s inventions.