Switch! (6 page)

What the hell was in that inhaler?
Ethan thought.

The leopard peeled away from Joe just before they hit the water. It dog-paddled, weaving its way between the scattering, screaming swimmers, and slunk out onto the beach where it stood for a moment, dripping. After gingerly lifting and shaking the water from one paw after another, it tested the air with its whiskers, and then sauntered over to a shady tree. Instead of slinking into the bush as Ethan had hoped, it leapt up, and draped itself over a low branch, from which it regarded him as if nothing unusual had happened.

Ethan shook his head. What was he seeing? He wasn’t sure he should take his eyes off the leopard – it could pounce at any moment – but he had to see if Joe was safe. He saw Tariro drag a body out of the water onto the riverbank. What should have been Joe looked like an old woman with long dreadlocks that flopped around her like white kelp.
 

“Joe!” Ethan yelled, his stomach lurching. He ran towards the body, which lay limply on its side. “What happened to Joe?” He shook Tariro by the shoulders. Tariro flopped on the riverbank, panting from the effort of dragging the heavy body out of the water, in no shape to reply.

“Quickly! Help me roll him, uh... her on her back,” Ethan said to two other boys. They helped him flop her over and then backed off to squat in the sand from where they watched Ethan expectantly, as if he were the expert in these things. As Ethan turned again to the woman, he shouted over his shoulder, “Someone, look for Joe. Now!”
 

He nearly retched when he went to clear the old woman’s airway so that he could do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A soggy mango pip was lodged in her mouth and she was all scratched up and, well... old.
 

Ethan wormed his fingers in behind the mucilaginous mango, hauled it out of her mouth, and plopped it on the ground beside him with a shiver of revulsion. Trying to ignore a slimy strand of water hyacinth woven through her hair, he tilted her head back.
 

He had never actually done CPR before, but he hoped it would work the same way it always did on the Discovery channel. Taking a deep breath, he held her nose closed with his thumb and index finger, shuddered, put his lips to hers, and blew hard. He came up for air, spat and wiped his mouth, inhaled, and repeated the action. Halfway through, he remembered that there should be some pushing down on her chest, and counting one, one-thousand, so he tried doing that. His mind raced. Had he gone insane? Where had this woman come from? Where was Joe? Was it something the leopard had done?
The leopard!

“Watch the little kids with that leopard around!” he warned between chest compressions.

He was relieved to notice that some of the bigger boys had already begun to encircle the animal. They advanced upon it, crouching low, slingshots at the ready, leaving a gap for the animal to escape into the bushes. The leopard seemed to be puzzled by the proceedings, his gaze moving from hunter to hunter with an appraising eye, but he made no move to escape.

“Weird,” Ethan muttered, turning back to the old woman.
 

“Don’t blow so hard.” Tariro rose up beside him. “What the hell do you think happened?” he said. “Where the hell is Joe?”

“Jimoh and his boys are looking for him in the pool,” one of the boys told Tariro.

“No, I think this is Joe,” Ethan gasped between breaths. He was shocked at his own words, but had spoken on instinct. It was all so unlikely, but the more time he had to process what had happened, the more he believed it. He had seen it with his own eyes – Joe had changed into this old woman as he jumped off the ledge.

Tariro threw him a dubious look.

“Tariro, as weird as this sounds, that is what I saw. That leopard attacked him and he changed.” Ethan pointed in the direction of the leopard, who lounged over the branch, smoothing and grooming its fur. “There is definitely something not right with that leopard,” he added, taking a breath and blowing once more into the woman’s mouth.

Tariro peered at it. “Just looks like a leopard to me.”

“It has an expression on its face,” panted Ethan, “and it definitely attacked her. Look at her, she’s covered in scratches.” The old woman's injuries, although not that serious, included several bites. Ethan wished she would wake up and tell him what had happened.

Tariro frowned at him for a moment. “Yes, I can see she was attacked, but that does not make her Joe.”

Without warning, the woman shot out a stream of vomit, sending bits of mango, brackish water and other vile things flying up at Ethan.

“Eugh!” He backed away, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth as a wave of nausea washed over him. He spun away and heaved his breakfast onto the ground, glancing at Tariro as he came up for air.

Just for a moment, Tariro had the ill grace to look pleased before he leaned over the woman, rolled her on to her side and shook her gently. “Where’s Joe?” he asked in English, then again in a tongue-clicking language Ethan did not recognise. Then he asked her in the singsong-sounding Shona.

She just lay there coughing, but at least she was alive.

~~~

On the off chance that Joe was not somehow entwined with the old woman, Ethan decided to leave her with Tariro and search downstream to see if he had washed up near the rapids. He pulled his T-shirt over his head as he went, and tried to wipe as much of the vomit off himself as he could, almost vomiting again when he smelled it. A quick scan of the area showed Jimoh and the hunters, still diving under the water in the middle of the pool, but then Ethan froze. He rubbed his eyes.
 

The small girl from the rapids meandered towards him in no particular hurry, stalked by two enormous crocodiles. Ethan could hardly bear to look. She would surely die. They were almost on top of her.

“Go and help her!” he yelled at a boy who was closer to her than he was.

“Those crocs, they for that girl,” the boy said casually, not rushing towards her.

Ethan could not believe it. Had the sonic boom somehow unbalanced everybody?
Stupid backwoods kids
. He would have to rescue her himself.
 

He sprinted towards her, streaking right past the treed leopard, withdrawing his knife as he went. He wished he had a machete but the machete guys were in the pool. Instead, he waved his T-shirt ineffectually at the crocodiles.
 

“Shoo!” he shouted, sweeping the surprised girl up onto his back and making a dash for it, expecting to be pounced on at any moment. One birthday, to encourage him to find something in common with his cousins, his mom had bought him a bush survival manual. In it, he’d read that crocodiles move unbelievably quickly, even on land. If he had known he would actually need the information he’d have paid more attention.

When he turned around to look, the crocodiles had flopped down onto the mud. They lay there eyeing him lazily, as if he had imagined the whole thing. No one else had made any move to help him in his daring rescue either. Some of the village kids shook their heads, astonished. Ethan started to feel as if he were in some sort of parallel world, where nothing made sense. He staggered over to the group surrounding the old woman and put the child down where she elbowed her way into the circle of spectators waiting for the old woman to revive.
 

Some of the kids leaped up suddenly, squealing and scrambling to their feet to scatter into the nearby bushes. Ethan looked up to see the leopard prowling towards him, its powerful muscles rippling under the sheen of its newly groomed coat. He thought he saw Tariro shift into position behind the old woman. Was he shielding himself, Ethan wondered, or was he just propping her up?
 

Ethan found himself getting angrier and angrier. Nobody else seemed to want to help. It was too late to run; the leopard was within springing distance. Heart racing, he groped on the ground beside him for his abandoned T-shirt, which he slowly wound around his left wrist, his knife already in his right hand. He crouched down into the fighting stance he had learned in Taekwando. Not that his patchy training in the martial art would be much help against a wild animal, but as long as there was any risk that the old woman could be his cousin Joe, he was not going to give up without a fight.

~~~

“You are a brave boy.” The leopard’s communication filled Ethan’s head. “Now stand aside. I must see to the witch.”
 

Ethan’s legs went numb with fear. He whipped his head around to see if anyone else had heard the leopard speak. Not that it spoke, exactly. It emitted more of a faint spike of adrenalin that passed through his brain, with an icy edge to it, and then he knew what it meant. Everyone else looked blank.

Struggling to stand his ground, he said, “No! Back off!” and then for good measure, “Bad kitty! Sit!”
 

The leopard sat, as told, regarding him thoughtfully.

“I will not harm you,” it said. “I need to help the witch. I will need you to do something for me.”

“How do I know you are not lying?” Ethan said.
Have I gone completely mad?
I am talking to an animal.
 

Tariro’s head turned from side to side, his eyes darting from friend to friend, as if hoping one of them held the answer to Ethan’s strange behavior.
 

“Yussy!” Ethan said. “Am I the only one who can hear the leopard?”

“You must find the amulet,” the leopard said, ignoring everyone’s confusion. “I fear she has dropped it in the water.”

“Are you out of your mind? I’m not going near that water.” Ethan’s eyes darted from Jimoh’s group, who had climbed out of the water, and were resting on the other side of the pool, to the spot where the crocodiles had been. One was basking in the sun, but sure enough, the other was missing.
Most probably in this very pool
, he thought.
 

The leopard stood up and moved closer towards him in a menacing way. Its face, as it stared at Ethan, had a very un-leopard-like expression on it. Its jaw jutted out, and a single muscle twitched below its eye.

Ethan backed off. He was shaking but he knew he needed to sound as strong as he could. He knew if animals sense fear, they pounce. “Where’s my cousin? Where’s Joe?” He was trying to buy time till he could think what to do. It sounded absurd as he said it. Even if the cat really was talking to him, how would it know where Joe was?

“You cannot reach this Joe for now,” it said, starting to show impatience. “Only the witch can find him, but she will need the amulet to recover. The amulet is in the water.”
 

They both looked towards the witch who slumped against Tariro, breathing erratically. Ethan wondered if he could get Tariro to go back into the pool and fetch this amulet, whatever it was. Aside from the crocodile, he was worried about the teaming throngs of parasites that lurk there. He shuddered, imagining microscopic creatures worming their way into every nook and cranny of his body.
 

“Why can’t he do it?” Ethan said, pointing at Tariro, who was after all just as close, and had already exposed himself to the parasite-infested water by jumping off the ledge.

“He does not believe,” the leopard said. “And look at him, he looks as if he has seen a demon.”
 

Ethan looked hopefully in the direction of Jimoh.

“You are the one who kissed the witch. Only you can do this thing,” the leopard said, following Ethan’s train of thought. He didn’t know if it could tell from the expression on his face or if it was actually reading his mind. It sat down and lifted a paw, inspected its claws pointedly, and glowered at him.

“It’s too deep... I can’t swim,” Ethan tried.

“Then you will drown trying,” the cat said, retracting its claws and stepping closer in a fluid move, “because the witch can wait no longer.”
 

Time stood still for Ethan as the leopard’s bright yellow eyes narrowed at him threateningly, less than a foot away from his face, betraying the internal battle raging within it. It was odd how Ethan was so easily preoccupied by it. It smelled mildly rank, like a wet puppy. Pure white whiskers grew out of either side of its face in sharp contrast to its perfectly symmetrical black rosette markings. Its dark golden fur looked so soft, Ethan had to control an impulse to reach out and touch the animal. Then he recoiled in confusion as a muscle tensed and relaxed across its powerful jaw. It did not blink.
Sjoe!
What was he thinking? He had never voluntarily touched an animal in his life before. An impatient talking leopard was not the place to start.

“Okay, what does this amulet look like?” He let out a long shuddering breath.
 

“It will shine,” the cat said smoothly, all business now that it had won the stand off. “Do not touch the stones. Lift it only by the cord that connects them.”

~~~

Ethan turned towards the water and forced himself to walk slowly to the edge. Whether his pounding heart drew the crocodile towards him, or the beast smelled his fear and came for him, one way or another he was convinced it was going to get him. Trying not to splash, he waded cautiously into the water, but it wasn’t any use. His muscles twitched spasmodically, as if they had a life of their own.
 

Once the rippling water reached up to his shoulders he held his breath and dipped his face into it. His eyes shot open spontaneously.
I’ll probably go blind,
he almost sobbed. At least the pool was crystal clear. He could see right to the other side where Jimoh’s group sat dangling their feet in the water. Revolving slowly to get his bearings he looked out for the crocodile. He thought he could see it about thirty meters downstream with its back to him, so he swam cautiously towards the spot where the old witch had entered the water, and floated on the surface for a moment with his face submerged, scanning for the amulet.
 

He would have been able to see the amulet quite clearly even if it did not give off that eerie glow. It was in amongst the pebbles about six meters below him. An orangey stone lay on one end of a string connecting it to a strange dark stone on the other end. Its dim light pulsated so slowly that it looked as if time had slowed down. He was about to dive down towards it when a movement on the edge of his field of vision caused Ethan to whip around.