Alligator Action (5 page)

There was a click and the recording ended.

Danny and Josh sat in silence for a few seconds.

“Do you think she's really dead?” asked Danny, after a while.

Josh shook his head. “No. I don't think so. Someone kidnapped her. And we still have to find her.”

“But now,” Danny said, a grin spreading across his grimy face, “we've got something to help!” He tapped the box of S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays. “We can be anything from a bluebottle to an alligator!”

“Yes,” Josh said. “And how does that help, exactly?”

“Erm . . .” Danny said.

It was one thing to have Petty's complete set of S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays. It was quite another to know what to do with them.

They got up and trudged down the garden, to the loose plank in the fence at the far end. They did not plan to retrace their steps through the deadly house. Back in their own garden they headed indoors and hid the lunchbox of S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays under the bunk bed. Mom was appalled when she saw the state of them. And Josh's singed hair took some explaining. Josh had to say he'd been playing with matches. He lost a week's worth of allowance.

After a bath, they really could not think of anything else to do except watch TV in a daze . . .
which wasn't a great idea, because that dreadful Destiny Darcy show was on. “Don't forget, people!” she was simpering into the camera. “We're on tour! Coming to a town near you! Come and meet Destiny!”

Josh and Danny groaned and went to bed.

Petty Potts sat back in the chair. A young lady was patting something slightly damp on her face. Petty hadn't a clue what . . . or why . . . or where she was.

“Hmmmm,” pondered the young lady. “You're an Extra Fair foundation. Don't want to make you too orange. It doesn't look good on camera. Now . . . Mulberry lipstick, I think. Just relax your mouth . . . there! Lovely!”

Petty stared blearily into the mirror with light bulbs all round it. She was wearing makeup. Makeup! She
never
wore makeup!

“Hair looks great!” said the young lady, who wore an apron and a great deal of purple lip gloss. She had many palettes of color spread out on the table under the mirror, along with pots and brushes and pencils.

Petty squinted at her hair.

“Here—put your glasses back on,” said the young lady. She handed Petty a pair of unusually clean glasses. Petty put them on and stared into the mirror. Her hair was still gray but no longer straggly and wild. It was neatly trimmed and styled—and she appeared to be wearing a
dress
.

“Good grief!” muttered Petty.

“Well—we all have to make an effort for Destiny Darcy, don't we?” said the young lady chirpily. “OK—if you can go back to the green room now, I can get on and do KettleMan.”

“The green room?” queried Petty. She glanced across at the man seated next to her, who had a silver kettle fixed firmly to his head.

“Yes—where you'll be waiting,” said the young lady. “You know . . . before you go on?”

“Go on what?!” demanded Petty.

“On TV, of course!”

Danny stared at the little white spray bottle in his hand. There was no doubt about it. The label read “Alligator.” He was one squirt away from turning into one of the world's most powerful, terrifying reptiles.

Josh stared at it too. His eyes shone. Danny knew Josh was thinking exactly what he was thinking.

“Mom and Dad are out,” he said. “Jenny's upstairs watching that stupid Darcy show in her bedroom. She
never
comes into the garden anyway. Nobody will ever know.”

Josh nodded slowly. In the shady bush den, he shivered with excitement. They'd spent most of the morning wondering what to do about Petty and coming up with exactly nothing. There was
no way
they were going to get the police—or,
worse
, their parents—to start searching for Petty. Because they knew the very first thing anyone would do would be to break into her house . . . and then they'd probably end up flash-fried or gassed or poisoned by arrows or deadly dishwater. They should be able to come up with a master plan, but so far they hadn't come up with one.

And in the meantime . . .

“Come on!” Danny said. “You know you want to!”

“OK,” said Josh. “A tiny squirt—so we can S.W.I.T.C.H. for just a few minutes. See what it's like. We can stay down at the end of the garden where we won't be seen.”

Danny lost no time. He squirted Josh first, and then himself. He shoved the bottle quickly back into his jeans pocket before he could S.W.I.T.C.H.

Josh felt peculiar for just a few seconds, and then—
WHOOOMP
! All of a sudden, he was flat on his belly, crouching low to the ground. He could feel the weight and strength of his new body. And he could see his broad snout stretching
out and tapering to a blunted end with two high nostrils. He gave a hiss of delight. This was the
most
amazing thing he had ever been. He turned around on his thick, muscular legs, noticing the way the five-clawed toes on his forelegs dug deep into the soil under the bushes. His tail—three feet long—swished around behind him and hit some of the straggly trunks of the rhododendron with a crack. He grinned. He could feel the immense power in his muscles—it tingled along his tail and up the five rows of dark brown, spiny ridges running up his back to his neck.

Another alligator was grinning back at him. “This is the
best ever
!” Danny said, his voice coming out as a low grunt.

“American Alligator!” grunted back Josh, with glee. “
Mississippiensis
!”

“You what?” Danny said, leaving his enormous snaggle-toothed jaws open and tilting his heavy head to one side.

“It's the Latin name,” Josh said. “For some reason, I remember it.
Mississippiensis
! I guess they must be found in the Mississippi River.”

“Look at my tail!” marveled Danny, turning his dark brown, scaly head to stare down the length of his body. “We're
huge
! How long, do you reckon?”

“About ten feet,” guessed Josh. “Alligators can be nearly twice as big this! We're small fry!”

“And what do we eat?” asked Danny.