The Switch (11 page)

“Get in!” a voice commanded.

Tad hesitated. But then there was a gunshot and a bullet hammered into the taxi’s chassis, and without any further prompting, Tad dived forward. His head and arms passed through the open door and he was full length on the back floor and the voice was yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” The taxi leaped forward again, made a complete circle and shot through the hole in the fence. There were more shots. The back window shattered and fell inward, covering Tad with glass. The driver cursed as the taxi mounted the pavement then rocketed into the road. But they were away! Around one corner and through a set of red traffic lights and they had left the Center far behind.

Tad lay where he was, stretched out on the floor. He was bruised and exhausted and there was glass in his hair and all over his clothes. But he was safe.

“All right. You can sit up now.”

Tad recognized the voice and felt the hairs on his neck prickle. A hand reached down and dragged him into the seat. Tad slumped back, the last of his strength draining out of him.

“Good evening, Bobby-boy,” Finn said. “What a surprise—eh! We been looking all over for you.”

Aren’t you pleased
to see me?” Finn demanded.

“And me!” The driver peered over his shoulder and grinned. It was Eric Snarby. He had a broken cigarette between his lips. In all the excitement he’d bitten it in half.

“Keep your eye on the road, Snarby,” Finn snapped. “And your foot on the axe-hellerator. We got a long way to go!”

Tad turned to Finn. “How did you find me?” he asked.

Finn brushed broken glass off his shoulders. The whole of the window had fallen in, but fortunately it was a warm night—and a dry one. “I been looking for you ever since that little business in Nightingale Square,” he explained. “In fact I ’ad the ’ole network out. All over London. The street vendors and the traffic cops. The thieves and the beggars. The cleaners, the cabbies and the couriers. I was worried about you, you see, my boy. I was worried about what might ’appen to you.”

“You mean, you were worried I’d be picked up by the police.”

“I wanted to find you.” They drove past a streetlamp and for a moment the skin behind the spiderweb glowed a horrible orange. “And you’re lucky I did, Bobby-boy. If old Finn hadn’t come looking for you, ’oo knows what would ’ave ’appened to you. Shampooed to death, perhaps. Or bubble-bathed till you was insane . . .”

Tad leaned forward. “You know about the Center!” he exclaimed.

Finn smiled. “There’s nothing happens in London that Finn don’t know about,” he replied. “And the nastier it is, the sooner I hear . . .”

Tad twisted in his seat and looked out of the broken window. The street behind them was empty. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“You might as well lie back and catch a few z’s,” Finn replied. “We’re going to the country. Life in town’s a bit ’ot for old Finn at the moment. We’re going to join the carnival.”

“Great Yarmouth!” Tad remembered the Snarbys talking about the move.

“That’s right. Boring, snoring, rain-always-pouring Great Yarmouth. But we can lie low there and work out how to earn a dishonest penny or two.”

“Your mum’ll be glad to see you!” Eric crooned from the front seat.

“Shut up and keep your eye on the road!” Finn snapped. “And get a move on, for Gawd’s sake. You’re only doing a hundred miles an hour!”

Eric Snarby slammed his foot on the pedal and the taxi leaped forward, racing into the night.

 

 

The boardwalk at Great Yarmouth was a true, permanent, old-fashioned amusement park. It was more wood than plastic, more falling apart than thrilling. All in all there were about thirty rides, dominated by a huge roller coaster that stretched out parallel with the sea. There were bumper cars, of course, a leaky water flume, a cyclone and a ghost train so old that it could have been haunted by the ghosts of people who had once ridden it. Its most recent attraction was a Mirror Maze, a circular building mounted with speakers so that anyone passing could hear the cries and laughter of the people inside. But the Mirror Maze, like the rest of the park, was closed. It was seven-thirty in the morning. And, as Tad gazed up at the highest loop of the roller coaster, he was utterly alone.

Eric Snarby had a caravan just across the road from the boardwalk and he and Finn had gone in to get a few hours’ sleep. Doll had not yet woken up. There wouldn’t have been enough room for Tad, even if he had been tired. But he’d slept in the taxi. He was glad to be on his own.

He needed to think.

It was still so hard to believe. His parents, Sir Hubert and Lady Geranium Spencer, running a business that used children in experiments? The brains behind a charity that horribly exploited the young people who needed its help? It was impossible, unthinkable. His parents were decent people. His father had been knighted by the queen! But as hard as he tried to persuade himself that his parents were somehow innocent, that they knew nothing, Tad couldn’t make it work.

In the distance, the waves rolled and broke against the beach hidden behind the roller coaster. The sun had risen, but the sky was still gray. Tad shivered and walked on.

What made it so difficult was that he wasn’t even sure anymore who he was. Was he Tad Spencer or was he Bob Snarby? He looked like Bob. He was beginning to talk like him and to think like him. And (it was only now that he realized it) he was even beginning to enjoy some aspects of being Bob. It was crazy, but that was the truth. He liked being thin. He liked being fit, able to run without wheezing and to climb without trembling. It was true that he had lost all his wealth, his toys, his comfortable house and servants, but in a strange way he felt almost relieved, as if it were a weight off his shoulders.

There wasn’t a lot to admire about Bob Snarby or his background, but at least he was free. Tad wasn’t sure if he was Tad or if he was Bob, but for the first time in his life he felt he was himself.

He couldn’t stay with Eric and Doll Snarby, not if that meant working for Finn. At the same time he had nowhere else to go. And then there was the real Bob Snarby to consider. Tad remembered his meeting with the fat boy in Knightsbridge. Could he allow Bob Snarby to remain in his place? It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right.

He looked up and blinked. Although he hadn’t noticed it before, there was one caravan in the park, an old-fashioned Gypsy-style caravan, that he would have recognized even without the sign above the door:

 

 

Tad stared at it. The caravan was parked next to the ghost train, and even at this early hour the door was open. Tad thought back to his last meeting with the caravan’s peculiar owner. Dr. Aftexcludor had known who he was. He had seemed—at least in part—sympathetic. And he had told some crazy story about wishing stars . . . how they had caused the switch. False name, false story, Tad thought now. Perhaps this was the right time to find out the truth.

Tad went over to the caravan and looked inside. There was no sign of the doctor or his curious Indian friend, Solo. Tad climbed in.

The thick smell of incense filled his nostrils and he was once again amazed by how the caravan seemed so much bigger inside than out.

“Dr. Aftexcludor . . . ?” he called softly.

There was a book, lying open on the table, next to the crystal ball. Tad almost got the feeling that it had been left there for him to find. Moving forward, he turned a page. The paper was old and heavy and really not like paper at all. Tad looked down and began to read.

Two pages were exposed and there was a naked figure drawn on each one, two boys connected by a complicated series of arrows. The figures were surrounded by stars, planets and other astrological devices and some of the arrows pointed up toward these. The book was handwritten, the sentences tumbling into one another and slanting in different directions. Growing ever more uneasy, Tad realized what the book reminded him of. It was like something out of a fairy story. A book of spells.

There were two words written in red, but the ink was so old that it had lost most of its color. Tad ran a finger across them. “The Switch.” Underneath, a line of writing twisted in a curve. “Janus. The star of change. Invoking its power. To effect the switch between two personalities . . .” Tad didn’t understand all of it, but he understood enough. Anger exploded inside him along with shock and disbelief. He picked up the ancient book and was about to throw it across the room when . . .

“Master Snarby! How nice to see you again.”

Tad whirled around. He hadn’t heard anyone come in, but now Dr. Aftexcludor was standing right behind him, dressed in a dark green velvet jacket and baggy pantaloons. The Indian, Solo, was with him, standing in the doorway, blocking it.

“I’m not Bob Snarby!” Tad snarled. “I’m Tad Spencer. You know that. You’re the one who did it!”

“Did what?” Dr. Aftexcludor looked the picture of innocence.

“You know!” Tad pointed at the open book. “All that stuff you told me about ‘wishing stars’ was nonsense and you know it! You’re responsible. You’re some sort of—”

Magician? Tad stopped himself before he actually uttered the word. It was ridiculous. Real magicians didn’t exist, did they? Not real ones. But after what had happened to him, he suddenly realized, anything was possible.

“You did it,” he repeated weakly.

“Why should I have wanted to?” Dr. Aftexcludor asked reasonably.

“I don’t know. But . . .” Tad remembered now. “There was something you were going to tell me. Something about Solo.”

“Ah yes.” Dr. Aftexcludor moved forward and sat down, cross-legged, at the table. He might have looked old, but his movements were still somehow those of a younger man. “I was going to tell you a story,” he said.

“You said I wasn’t ready.”

“Are you now, Tad? Do you want to hear it?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Aftexcludor nodded. “Yes. I think so. Draw closer, Tad, Bob, whatever you want to call yourself.”

Tad sat opposite the old man. There was a crystal ball on the table and he found himself fixated by it, by the colors that seemed to swirl around inside it. Dr. Aftexcludor muttered something in the strange language that he had used before and Solo retired. Tad glanced at him as he disappeared into the next room.

“You said Solo was an Arambayan Indian,” Tad said.

“Yes. The last of the tribe.”

Arambayan Indians. Moon fruit. Suddenly Tad knew what this was all about.

His eyes were fixed on the crystal ball and he couldn’t have broken away if he had tried to. And now it was as if shapes were forming themselves out of the colors. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was all the smoke in the room that was somehow sending him to sleep, but it was as if he were looking through the reflection on a pool and into the world beneath. It was a forest. He had never seen so much green, believed there could be so many different shades. There were flowers, brilliant colors. He could smell them! And now he could hear the rushing of a great river as the images rose and drew him into them.

And all the time he heard the voice of Dr. Aftexcludor, coming as if from miles away, telling him the terrible story that he was seeing with his own eyes.

“The Amazon basin,” he began. “The rain forest west of Manaus. Denser and wilder than anywhere in the world. There are not many places where man has not at some time trodden on this wretched planet, Tad, but not in the rain forests. The rain forests are the last great uncharted territory . . . even if the bulldozers are doing their work and the lands are rapidly dwindling.

“There was a tribe of Indians here called the Arambayans. They were not even discovered by white men until 1947, Tad, just after the war. Westerners found them and for a time did them no harm. They were visited by missionaries. And they began to trade—for there was a fruit that grew in the Arambayans’ land . . . a fruit that looked like a crescent moon and tasted of pineapples and lemon.”

“The moon fruit!” Tad exclaimed, and saw it, hanging in clusters, brilliant yellow moons against a swath of dark green leaves.

“The moon fruit,” Dr. Aftexcludor repeated. “Now, all would have been well except that the fame of this new and delicious fruit spread across the globe. And a man heard about it. He tasted it. And he decided that he wanted to buy it. All of it.”

“Who was this man?” Tad whispered.

“I’ll come to that. The trouble is, the Arambayans were a very suspicious people. You see, they’d always been very happy just the way they were. They were peaceful. They just got on with their lives, raising their families and growing their fruit. They sold enough to meet their immediate needs. But their needs, you see, were small.

“They didn’t trust this man-from-over-the-seas, and they didn’t want anything to do with him. The more money he offered them, the less they trusted him. So when he offered to buy all their moon fruit, they politely but firmly said no.

“Unfortunately the man wouldn’t take no for an answer. He still wanted the moon fruit. And so he did a terrible thing . . .”

The crystal ball had gone dark now. It was showing Tad a tropical night sky. But now he saw lights gliding through the darkness. A helicopter. It landed on a rough strip hacked out of the jungle. Tad knew that he was watching something secretive, something wrong. The blades of the helicopter began to slow down and the pilot stepped out. Tad recognized him. It was his father’s chauffeur: Spurling.

“I said that the Arambayans didn’t like war,” Dr. Aftexcludor continued, “but they did have enemies. There was a tribe on the edge of the territory who had always been jealous of them and it was to this tribe, the Cruel People, that the man-from-over-the-seas turned. Suppose they were to own the moon fruit, would they sell it to him? And at a reasonable price? A deal was struck. And one dark night the Cruel People were given what they needed to take what wasn’t theirs.”