Body Switchers from Outer Space (8 page)

I waved to Dad, turned my back to him, and picked up the cordless phone. My body covered my move as I slipped the phone into my shirt. Yes! I thought. I did it!

I bounded up the stairs and ducked into my sleep chamber.

I dialed my home number.

“Kennedy residence,” a voice answered.

Just my luck. Pepper.

“Hi, Pepper. It's me.”

“Me who?”

“Me. Will.”

“Who is this? What kind of game are you trying to play? Will's right in the other room, watching cartoons! You don't even sound like Will!”

Suddenly I really wanted her to know it was me. Maybe if she believed me she would help me. I really wanted someone to help me.

“Listen, Pep. You remember that episode of the Judo-Jabbing Coyotes called ‘The Imposter Syndrome,' where the High Muckety sent in a fake Newton that looked just like the real Newton, and he
really messed everybody up? Copernicus, Galileo, and Einstein didn't know what hit them!”

“Yeah. So?”

“Don't you think Will has been acting strange since Friday?”

She was silent for a while. “He hasn't tripped over anything or spilled anything,” she said slowly, “and he can catch the Frisbee without fumbling it, and he runs real good, and he's way too polite.”

“I bet he doesn't call you Buckethead.”

“Nope. Not that I miss it!”

“I bet he doesn't know your birthday is May eleventh.”

“Who
are
you?”

“I'm
Will.
I know it's hard to believe, Pep. But it's true! I switched bodies with that guy Chad. That was
me
on the front porch yesterday. I can prove it to you. Ask me anything!”

“What's my favorite color?”

“Red.”

“How would you know? I never told Will my favorite color!”

“That's what color notebook you buy for school every year. That's what color shirt you always buy, if Mom lets you. What else?”

She was quiet for a long time.

At last she said, “Tell me something only Will could know.”

“I drew a mustache on your Cabbage Patch doll with Magic Marker when you were five.”

“What?” she yelled. “That was you? You rat! You total rat! I knew you did it! I hate you!”

Then she hung up!

I dialed again.

“Hello?” a voice answered. My voice.

“Chad?” I yelped. “Chad, I don't know if I can wait until tonight. Can't you come over now?”

“No, I can't come over now. Or later.”

“What do you mean?” I asked nervously.

I heard his mean laugh cackle over the phone lines.

“Give it up, Will. I'm never giving you your body back.
Never.”

T
he phone went dead.

I stared at the cordless in my hand.

Never!

He was never going to switch back!

I was stuck with these aliens, and they were sure to find out I was human!

The shink was out in the shed, waiting for me to make one more little goof! And I, Will Kennedy, had a lifelong history of horrible goofs!

No way! I wouldn't let it happen.

I would force Chad back here. That's what I would do. I'd get him back into the shed—somehow.

I went into the workroom and found Chad-Two
still sitting there. A bunch of weird equipment was spread on the floor.

If I was going to get Chad over here, I needed some help.

“Where's my merister?” I asked Chad-Two, remembering his net gun from the day before. It might be helpful in getting Chad to cooperate.

“Check your other pants,” Chad-Two responded, pointing to a door. I opened it and saw a closet full of Chad's clothes.

I checked through the pockets of the pants hanging there and found several strange objects.

One of them was a merister, just like the net gun Chad-Two used on the rat the day before. I stashed it in my pocket.

Then I checked out another gunlike object. It had a clear ball the size of a big marble on the end of its barrel and two touch pads, one blue and one pink. I held it up to look at it.

“You found your lifter!” Chad-Two said, noticing the object in my hands. “Good! Let me see if it's still charged.” He took it from me.

He tapped a touch pad high on the wall. A drawer the size of a piano opened, making a deep grinding sound as it slid across the floor. It sounded
really
heavy.

Chad-Two pushed the round ball against the drawer and pressed the blue button twice. Then he
raised the gun. The big drawer rose up in the air! And Chad wasn't straining at all!

He put the lump back down, tapped the pink button twice, and the ball came loose. “Works fine,” he announced.

“Yeah,” I said.

He tossed the lifter to me.

I wondered if it would lift cars! Or, say, that big bully Eric Rice in Miss Scott's class.

Or Chad-Two?

I put the lifter in my pocket.

“Chad-One! Chad-Two!” Dad yelled up the stairs.

“Yeah, Dad?” Chad-Two shouted back.

“Time for that test drive!”

“Come on, ooligooch!” Chad-Two said, punching my arm. I followed him down the stairs and through the kitchen. I managed to sneak the phone back onto its base.

Mom and Dad came into the kitchen. Chad-Two and I followed them through a side door I had never seen opened before.

The door led to the garage.

There was nothing else in the whole garage but this huge round metal thing with an opening in it.
The aliens' spaceship!

Dad ducked and crawled into the opening. Chad-Two shoved me, so I followed Dad into the ship.

Chad-Two and Mom crawled in behind me.

We crawled through a narrow dark tunnel for a while. All I could see were Dad's feet ahead of me, and the slick shiny walls. Little lights ran across the walls like fireworks. The floor was damp and spongy.

Then the tunnel opened out into a round room and we could stand up. There were pools of bubbling liquid on the floor, and spiky bad-smelling plants grew from the walls and the ceiling.

When we got to the other side of the room, Dad ducked and crawled into another dark tunnel.

I felt like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube by the time we got to the other end!

Finally we ended up in a round room with a big console like the Starship
Enterprise.
It had four sets of touch pads on it.

Mom went to one of the center sets and put her hands on two big gray touch pads.

Dad stood beside her and put his hands on matching gray pads in his set.

Chad-Two went to the set of touch pads on Mom's other side, so I took the only set left. I made sure to touch the same two pads everyone else was touching.

“Ready?” said Mom.

“Yes,” we all said.

“Good. Now zum.”

The others all started humming. I joined in. Then the ship itself started humming!

It was weird. I could feel the metal humming under my feet!

Lights flickered and flashed. For a second I could see right through the ship into the garage. We were lifting off the ground!

I glanced at Dad, and he was flickering and flashing.

I looked down at my hands. They were flickering, too!

I felt as if everything in me was fizzing and sizzling. Like I was burning up! I looked up at the garage's ceiling when the flashes lit it up. I thought we were going to bump into it.

But more flashes, and then I saw the sky! The ship was going right through the ceiling and taking us all with it!

“Uh-oh,” Mom said. “Zum down!”

We hummed softer and softer. The ship dropped back down and settled gently on the ground.

“All systems functioning perfectly!” Mom said. “Pack up everything you want to take. Leave the storage module out back for last. We need that machinery up and running until the last minute. Now, we'll want to switch back to our own bodies as close to departure time as possible. Be ready to leave at two
P.M.
local time.”

“Don't forget anything,” Dad added. “We won't be coming back.”

N
o! It couldn't be!

They couldn't be leaving! As in
leaving the planet!

Oh, man! What if I couldn't get Chad to give me my body back before two
P.M
.? Then the aliens would take me with them into outer space! Away from my friends—away from my family!

I was so scared I couldn't even think. I followed as Chad's family crawled out of the ship and went into the house.

The next thing I knew, I was upstairs with Chad-Two in our workroom. Packing for space travel.

Chad-Two opened drawers and took different machines out of them.

He tapped tiny black touch pads on the edges of
the machines, and they shrank down to the size of quarters.

He took a case out of one of the closets and opened it. It had a whole lot of slots in it, and each thing he shrank fit into one of the slots.

“On the next planet we explore, we get to have six legs!” Chad-Two said. “It's got to be better than this dump! I can't wait until we leave!”

Oh, man! Six legs!

Oh, man! Two
P.M
.? That was really soon!

Leaving! We were leaving the planet!

My thoughts whirled around my brain.

“What's wrong with you, Chad-One? We won't need those where we're going!” Chad-Two snapped.

I looked down and saw I was trying to stuff a pair of tennis shoes into the big case.

“We'll never have to wear these itchy ugly clothes again, thank Sprog!” Chad-Two shrank the notebooks we kept our observations in.

“Sorry,” I choked out, putting the tennis shoes back into the closet. What kind of clothes would I wear on some other planet? Maybe none at all. It would be tough to make a pair of pants with six legs!

Oh,
no way!

I had to get Chad back to that shed. I had to get my body back!
I had to get out of here!
But how could I distract Chad-Two long enough to make a break for it?

Then it hit me.

“Hey, Chad-Two,” I said, trying to sound helpful. “Aren't you going to pack the Slinkies?”

“The Slinkies!” he yelled. “Croggers, I haven't had time to transmorph them with shink technology! The Slinkies! I almost forgot!”

He opened the Slinky drawer and grabbed about six of them.

“Help me carry these out to the storage module,” he said.

I grabbed the rest of the Slinkies in the drawer.

We passed Mom and Dad, who were collapsing stuff downstairs. Chad-Two explained what we were doing.

“Slinkies!” Mom exclaimed. “Yes! We need to take the Slinkies!”

I followed Chad-Two to the door.
Whoosh!
The door opened. I dropped the Slinkies and darted out!

I had never run so fast in my life.

I crossed Fear Street and zoomed through someone's backyard, putting a house, some fence, and a few trees between me and the aliens.

I reached Kent Place in record time. Then I slowed and snuck up to my house, using the bushes for cover. I glanced down at my watch. It was nearly one
P.M.
Less than an hour to takeoff!

The station wagon wasn't in the driveway. That meant Mom and Dad weren't home.

I found Pepper, Chad, and Dumbbell playing Frisbee in the backyard. Chad and Pepper tossed
the Frisbee back and forth, and Dumbbell ran around barking.

I watched them, trying to figure out what to do. How would I get Chad to make the switch? Or even go back to the change chambers? Time was wasting away.

Then Pepper told Chad she was going inside to get some lemonade.

I crept over to the house and slipped inside. I startled Pepper in the kitchen. She screamed.

“Shh!” I hissed.

“Who are you,” she demanded. “What are you doing in my house?”

“Keep your voice down,” I implored her. “It's me, Will!”

“Prove it!”