The Switch (4 page)

The Indian was standing in the doorway, three steps above ground level. He was lit now by a yellow glow that came from within. He nodded at Tad again, then turned and moved inside. Tad thought for a moment. Then he crossed the grass and gravel and walked up to the caravan.

The door was still open, but there was nobody in sight.

“Hello . . . ?” Tad called out.

Far away, the merry-go-round started up again. There was a snap and a clang from an air rifle aimed at a metal plate. A shout of laughter from the other side of the darkness.

Tad made his decision.

He climbed the three steps to the caravan door and went in.

It was like being inside
some strange church or temple. Tad looked around, wondering just how much more could happen to him today.

The walls of the caravan were covered with thick material, like a tapestry. The floor was richly carpeted. Even the ceiling was hidden by folds of what looked like silk. There were no windows and hardly any furniture. Cushions were scattered on the carpet around a low wooden table on which stood a gleaming crystal ball. There were old leather-bound books piled up in crooked towers, but there were no shelves. Dozens of joss sticks poked out of strange bronze holders, their tips glowing, filling the room with smoke. The only other light came from a row of candles, perilously close to the wall. Sneeze and the whole place will go up in flames, Tad thought.

The owner of the caravan was sitting cross-legged on one of the cushions, smoking a long pipe. He was wearing a red silk dressing gown with a heavy collar and a strange black hat, a bit like a fez. The man had brown skin, deep black eyes and a pointed nose and chin. His hair was silver. Tad would have said he was about sixty or seventy. He had the look of a statue that has been left out in the open—not just weather-beaten but somehow timeless. His was a very odd face and a rather unsettling one.

“Good evening,” the man said in a slightly singsong voice. “Would you mind closing the door?”

Tad did as he was told, instantly cutting out all the sounds of the carnival. The man waved a languid hand. “Please sit down.”

Tad looked for a chair, couldn’t see one, so sat down on a cushion. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“They call me Dr. Aftexcludor,” the man said.

“Dr. Aftexcludor?” Tad thought for a moment. “That’s a stupid name,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s your real name at all.”

The man sighed. “What are names?” he asked. “They’re labels. Things people use to make us into what they want us to be.” He fell silent for a moment. “And what of your name?” he demanded. “Bob Snarby.” He spoke the two words with a smile.

“That’s not my name!” Tad looked more closely at the old man. “But you know that, don’t you. You know who I am!”

Dr. Aftexcludor nodded slowly. “Yes. I do know what has happened to you. At least, I think I can guess.”

“What
has
happened to me? I insist that you tell me. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to the police! It’s horrible and unfair and I’m fed up with it. This carnival, the Snarbys, having to work! I want my mother. I want my Rolls-Royce. I want to go home!”

Dr. Aftexcludor chuckled. “Well, you certainly don’t sound like Bob Snarby,” he muttered.

Just then, a curtain parted and the Indian reappeared, holding a tray. Tad hadn’t realized that the caravan had two sections, but looking over the Indian’s shoulder, he saw what seemed to be a corridor extending some way into the distance. But that was impossible. The corridor was longer than the caravan itself. The curtain fell back and the Indian moved forward. On the tray were two steaming glasses of tea.

“I haven’t introduced you,” Dr. Aftexcludor said. “This is Solo.”

“Solo?”

“That’s not his real name either. I call him that because there’s only one of him left.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s from Brazil. An Arambaya Indian—but he’s the last of the tribe. I met him in Rio de Janeiro and brought him with me to Europe . . .” Dr. Aftexcludor turned to the Indian and muttered a few words in a language that sounded a little like Spanish, a little like a dog barking. The Indian nodded and withdrew. “I won’t tell you his story now,” he said. “You’re not ready for it.”

“What do you mean?” Tad snapped. There was something about Dr. Aftexcludor he didn’t like. Maybe it was that the old man seemed to know so much but explained so little.

Dr. Aftexcludor picked up his tea. “Perhaps we should begin with you,” he said. “Tad Spencer. That’s your real name, if I’m not mistaken.”

“How do you know my name?” Tad demanded.

“It’s my job!” The old man nodded at the table and for the first time Tad noticed the crystal ball. He looked into it and saw the inside of the caravan, the doctor, himself, all twisted into a swirl of colors, trapped inside the brilliant glass. “Your future in the stars,” Dr. Aftexcludor explained. “Two dollars and fifty cents and I tell people everything they want to know. Although, of course, most people don’t know what they want to know and what they do want to know isn’t what they ought to want to know.” He shook his head as if trying to make sense of this. “Anyway,” he went on, “telling their name is the easy part.”

“What’s happened to me?” Tad demanded. He forced himself to look away from the crystal ball.

“That’s not so easy. Obviously you’ve switched places with Bob Snarby—”

“You mean he’s in my body with my parents in my house!” The thought hadn’t occurred to Tad until this moment.

“I’m afraid so. But the real question is, how has this happened?” Dr. Aftexcludor smiled to himself and for just one moment Tad wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. “I would say, if you want a professional opinion, that you’ve been hit by a wishing star.”

“A what?”

“A wishing star. They’re an extremely rare phenomenon and they have to be in exactly the right position at exactly the right time. Let me see . . .” Dr. Aftexcludor reached out and took one of the books. He opened it and Tad saw that it was an old book about astronomy, the heavy pages (handwritten, not printed) filled with diagrams of stars and planets and their possible alignments. “Yes. Here we are.” He pointed to one of the pictures. “In the Andromeda galaxy. This little star here—Janus, its name is. That’s Latin, although of course I wouldn’t need to tell you that. Janus moved into the right orbit for about thirty seconds last night. That would have been around about ten o’clock. And the simple fact is that if you had made a wish at exactly that moment, the wish would have come true.”

Tad stared at the picture, trying to think back. Then he remembered. “I wished I was somebody else,” he said slowly.

“Well, there you are, then,” Dr. Aftexcludor said. “That’s just what you are. Somebody else. Perhaps you’d better have a sip of tea.”

Tad blinked. “Wait a minute,” he spluttered. “You’re telling me . . . I wished. And my wish came true?”

“Evidently.”

“But then . . . I can wish again! Why can’t I wish myself back the way I was?”

“Well, of course you can,” Dr. Aftexcludor said. “But the one snag is that you’ll have to wait for the same star, Janus, to return to the same orbit.”

“When’s that?” Tad was excited now. For the first time he could see a way out of this nightmare.

Dr. Aftexcludor opened the book at another page and ran a long, skeletal finger down a column of figures. He flicked back a few pages, closed his eyes as he worked it all out, then slammed the book shut. “January thirteenth,” he said.

“January thirteenth!” Tad almost burst into tears. “But that’s seven months away!”

“Rather more, I’m afraid,” Dr. Aftexcludor muttered. “I’m talking about January thirteenth in the year 3216.”

“But that’s . . . that’s . . .”

“One thousand two hundred and twenty years from now. Yes. I know. You’ll be one thousand two hundred and thirty-three years old.”

And then Tad did begin to cry, more than he had ever cried in his life. Dr. Aftexcludor looked at him sadly. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” he said.

“Of course it’s bad!” Tad wailed. “It’s terrible! It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened.”

The doctor handed Tad a handkerchief and Tad blew his nose. “What am I going to do?” he asked miserably.

“I’m not sure there’s anything you
can
do,” Dr. Aftexcludor replied. “You are Bob Snarby now—whether you like it or not.” He reached out and patted Tad on the shoulder. Tad looked up and once again he wondered if the old man wasn’t hiding something. It was there in his eyes. Dr. Aftexcludor was doing his best to look sympathetic, but Tad knew that deep down he was enjoying this. “I can give you one bit of advice, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Well. I know it won’t look that way at the moment, but perhaps you might end up actually enjoying being Bob Snarby. Or to put it another way, maybe you can do a better job of being Bob Snarby than Bob Snarby ever did.”

“But I’m not Bob Snarby!”

“That’s just my point.”

Tad had had enough. He threw down the handkerchief and stood up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “And I don’t believe you anyway. I’ve never heard of wishing stars. I don’t believe they exist. I think it’s all just a lot of lies, and when I wake up tomorrow I’ll be back to myself and that will be that. I’m not interested in you or your stupid servant. In fact I never want to see either of you again.” Tad stormed out of the caravan, slamming the door behind him. Dr. Aftexcludor watched him go.

“Good-bye, Tad,” he muttered. “Or should I say . . . hello, Bob?”

 

 

Tad spent the rest of the evening hiding and crept back into the Snarbys’ caravan only when the carnival had closed for the night. He had begun to feel ill and wondered if he had caught a cold when he had been sent out, half naked, into the rain. One moment he was too hot, the next he was shivering with cold. There was a heavy thudding in his head.

Eric and Doll were not pleased to see him.

“Screwed off all afternoon, ’ave we?” Eric complained. “Where’ve you bin, then, Bob? ’Aving a bit of a laugh? Breaking into cars, I’ll bet. Or vandalizing the elderly again.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Tad said. He coughed loudly and shivered again.

“Thinking? Thinking?” Both the Snarbys burst into malicious laughter. “You never done no thinking in your life,” Doll exclaimed. She had been holding a cream éclair and now she took a huge bite. Cream oozed out of her hand. “You was bottom of the class in everything at school,” she went on with her mouth full. “Bottom in math. Bottom in history. Second to bottom in geography—and that was only because you gave the other boy multiple stab wounds!”

“So what was you thinking about?” Eric Snarby asked. “Don’t tell me!” He grinned. “It was Einstein’s theory of electricity.”

“It’s relativity,” Tad said. He found it hard to catch his breath. “Einstein invented the theory of relativity.”

“Don’t you contradict your father!” Doll exploded, grabbing hold of Tad’s ear.

“That’s right,” Eric cried, grabbing hold of the other one.

“Wait a minute. Please. You don’t understand . . .” Tad tried to get to his feet, but suddenly the caravan seemed to be moving. He felt it spin around, then dive as if down a steep hill. He flailed out, trying to keep his balance. Then fell unconscious to the floor.

There was a long silence.

“Blimey!” Doll said, looking at the silent boy. “That’s a bit of a shocker! Is ’e dead?”

“I don’t fink so,” Eric Snarby muttered. He leaned down and put a hand to Tad’s lips. “’E’s still breathing. Just.” He blinked nervously. “Wot we gonna do?” he went on. “I suppose we’d better call a doctor.”

“No way! Forget it!” Doll snapped. “A doctor’ll take one look at all them bruises we given the boy and then we’ll have the social workers in and then the police.”

Eric Snarby went over to an ashtray and rummaged inside it. A moment later he pulled out an old cigarette butt, relit it and screwed it into his lips. “So what are we going to do?” he asked again.

Doll Snarby thought for a long moment, twisting her wooden necklace with one pudgy hand. “We’ll look after ’im ourselves,” she said.

“But ’e looks awful!” Eric Snarby protested. “’E could be full of glue, Doll. Maybe ’is ’eart and lungs ’ave got all stuck together and that’s wot’s doing it. What are we going to do if ’e dies?”

“He won’t die . . .”

“But what if ’e does? What will we tell Finn?”

At the mention of Finn, Doll froze. “Don’t talk to me about Finn,” she rasped.

Eric Snarby went over to Tad, picked him up and carried him through to the bed. But for the faintest movement of the boy’s chest as it rose and fell, he could have been dead already. Doll stared at him with bulging eyes, then threw a soiled blanket over him. “Go out and get ’im two Mars bars and a bottle of Gatorade,” she rasped. “And don’t worry! The boy’s going to be fine!”

Wrapped in filthy sheets in the corner of the caravan, Tad seemed to be breathing more and more slowly, as if he had found the one sure way out of his new body and was determined to take it. Eric Snarby sat watching over him while, in the next room, Doll Snarby blinked back tears and tried on different hats for the funeral. But then, three days after Tad had fallen ill, there was a knock on the door. It was Solo, the Indian from Dr. Aftexcludor’s caravan.

“Blimey!” Doll exclaimed, staring at the tiny figure. “It’s the last of the blooming Mohicans. What do you want, dearie?”

By way of an answer, Solo held out a curious bottle. It was circular in shape, fastened with a silver stopper. It was half filled with some pale green liquid.

“What is it?” Doll demanded.

Eric Snarby appeared at the door beside her. “Don’t touch it,” he muttered. “It’s some sort of foreign muck.” He waved at Solo. “Beat it!” he shouted. “Go on!
Allez-vous!
Push off!”