The Switch Read online

“Because you are!”

  “No. You have my son with you. This whole thing is ridiculous. Let him go and we can straighten this all out. Nobody’s going to hurt you.” He took another step forward. All around, his reflections moved as well.

  “Stay where you are!” Tad also moved and once again the patterns shifted, endless lines of men and lines of boys crossing and recrossing one another in the Mirror Maze. “Admit it!” he cried. “I admired you so much, but it was all a lie. You’re a criminal. Worse than Finn!”

  And then Sir Hubert saw it. A fourth image had appeared in the mirrors, on the very edge of the red circle . . . a huddled shape reflected around and around. Had the boy seen him? Of course he had. But there was nothing he could do. Sir Hubert allowed himself a thin, cruel smile. Spurling was here. It was finally over.

  “You want me to tell you the truth?” Sir Hubert called out. “It’s my pleasure!” He slammed his hand against a mirror. A thousand hands thundered at a thousand reflections of Tad. “Yes—boy—you have learned rather too much about me. My little experiments in the Center? How else can I be sure that my products are safe? The stupid public gets all upset when it’s rabbits or mice or monkeys on the operating table, but who cares about delinquent children dragged off the London streets? Homeless, hopeless children like you? So—yes—my charity, ACID, turned you into a laboratory rat as it has done a hundred children before you. It’s all you deserve.”

  “And you kill people!” Tad cried, horrified and sickened by what he was hearing. “The Arambayans—”

  “Primitives! Savages! Animals!” Sir Hubert laughed. “They wouldn’t sell me what I wanted, so of course I had them wiped out. Do you think anybody cares? When people pay seventeen dollars and fifty cents for a bottle of Moonfruit Massage, they’re not thinking of a tribe of Indians on the other side of the world! Nobody ever thinks of anybody else. That’s what capitalism is all about!”

  Once more the pattern changed. A thousand guns took aim.

  “Kill him, Spurling!” Sir Hubert snapped. “He knows about me. I want him dead!”

  “Kill him, Spurling! I want him dead!”

  The words echoed all around the fairgrounds just as every word had echoed ever since Sir Hubert had accidentally turned on the loudspeakers in the Mirror Maze. The police had heard everything. Sir Hubert Spencer had confessed to unspeakable crimes. Experimenting on children! Genocide! And now attempted murder.

  The detective was the first to react. While everyone else just stood there, as if in shock, he ran forward, heading for the entrance to the maze.

  Inside, Spurling’s finger tightened on the trigger. A single bead of sweat drew a careful line down his forehead. His target was only a few yards away from him. But which target? Where should he fire?

  “Kill him!” Sir Hubert shouted again.

  Tad was utterly surrounded by guns. They were in front of him, behind him, above him and below him. He spun around, trying to find a way out, but now he realized that he too was trapped in the Mirror Maze. His fists struck out at the glass walls. They seemed to have closed in on him, boxing him in.

  “Mmmm . . .” Bob Snarby shook his head from side to side and at last he managed to get his shoulder to the gag, dragging it off. The guns seemed to be pointing at him too and his eyes bulged with fear.

  The detective kicked open the door of the Mirror Maze and ran in. He shouted two words. “Sir Hubert!”

  Spurling fired.

  And everywhere mirrors smashed as, one after another, the bullet tunneled through them, each tiny hole becoming a thousand tiny holes in the reflections as spidery cracks—millions of them—splintered out in all directions. At the same time there was one last great burst of thunder that smashed through the clouds and shook the entire building.

  Tad cried out as the bullet hit him, throwing him off his feet. The pain was like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt every tiny millimeter of the bullet’s progress as it passed through his skin, his flesh, his muscle and his bone. His shoulders hit the mirror behind him and he slid down, trailing blood behind him. The thunder pounded at his ears and there was a flash of lightning worse than any that had come before, slicing into his eyes, blinding him.

  At the same instant Bob Snarby screamed too.

  Tad reached the ground, one leg bent under him, the other outstretched. And in the last few seconds before darkness came, he saw what had happened.

  A uniformed policeman. Spurling with the gun. Sir Hubert, his eyes staring, photographed a thousand times.

  Then a gunshot. Two more. Two thousand sparks of flame. Mirrors shattering. Spurling’s reflection falling back and disappearing.

  Suddenly there was no more pain. Tad closed his eyes. Suddenly there wasn’t anything.

  The boy with fair hair and two studs in his ear shivered and lay still.

  TOGETHER

  The St. Elizabeth Institute for Juvenile Care was a plain, modern building in Sourbridge, on the outskirts of Birmingham. It didn’t quite look like a prison—there were no bars on the windows—but it was just about as welcoming. The front was bare brick, the doors solid steel. The institute had been built on the edge of a busy road, but as the traffic thundered past, nobody turned to look at it. It was the sort of place that had been designed not to be seen.

  Three months after the shoot-out on Great Yarmouth boardwalk, with the last of the summer hanging in the air, a boy stepped out of a door at the back of the institute and stood in front of the fenced-in square of asphalt that was the soccer field, the exercise yard and the garden for those who lived inside. The boy was fourteen years old with short black hair. Although he was dressed in the pale blue shirt and denim pants that was the uniform of the St. Elizabeth Institute, there was something about him that suggested he was used to more comfortable clothes.

  The boy’s name was Thomas Arnold David Spencer. He paused outside the door as if looking for someone. Then he started to walk forward.

  There was a second boy sitting on a bench at the far end of the yard, also dressed in a blue shirt and denim pants, his arm in a sling, chewing gum. This boy was much thinner than the other and had long, fair hair.

  Hearing the footsteps approach, Bob Snarby turned around. He seemed to take a long time to recognize Tad, and when he did finally speak, his voice was unfriendly. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been sent here,” Tad said.

  “What? You’re living here too?”

  “Yes. I just got here today.”

  “So what happened to your mum and dad? Sir Hubert and Lady Moneybags. And what about Snatchmore Hall?”

  “Snatchmore Hall’s up for sale,” Tad replied. “My parents are in jail.”

  And it was true. Tad Spencer was back in his own body. Bob Snarby was back in his. But everything in the lives of both boys had changed.

  Tad still didn’t know how he had switched places again—whether it was the storm or the shock of the bullet that had hit him. He even wondered if Dr. Aftexcludor hadn’t played a part in it. After all, with Sir Hubert’s confession and subsequent arrest, the Arambayans had been avenged and hadn’t that been the whole point?

  He hadn’t died in the Mirror Maze. What he had experienced was the jolting, terrible power of the switch as it fell on him a second time, sucking him out of Bob’s body and sending him back to his own. He had thought he was dying. But seconds later he had stood up, his arms tied behind him. He was unhurt.

  It was Bob Snarby who had been rushed to a hospital and emergency surgery and for the next week had remained in a critical condition. But Bob had always been tough. Slowly he had begun to recover and four weeks later the doctors were finished with him. He was allowed out of the hospital. Eric and Doll Snarby weren’t there to greet him.

  For the Snarbys had both disappeared. Although the police had discovered several cigarette butts and a cold steak-and-kidney pie in the ghost train, Eric and Doll had simply vanished into thin air. There had since been a few sightings of them in Ireland, a
huge, fat woman and a balding little man, working as fish-and-chip sellers in a food truck. Apparently there were never any chips, as the woman constantly ate them all. But since then they had moved on again. The police had given up hope of arresting them.

  Spurling was dead. He had made the mistake of turning his gun on the police and the detective—who was also armed—had shot him in self-defense. The chauffeur had been buried a few days later in the same cemetery as Finn.

  With the arrest of Sir Hubert and Lady Geranium Spencer, Beautiful World had collapsed. NONE OF OUR PRODUCTS ARE TESTED ON ANIMALS. When the truth about the tests had become known, the entire country had recoiled in horror. Several of the stores were actually burned down by furious, shouting crowds. The police had raided the Center, freeing the children who were still there and making over a dozen arrests. Sir Hubert’s knighthood had of course been withdrawn. He was now just plain Hubert Spencer: prisoner 7430909 in Wormwood Scrubs—where he was sentenced to remain for the next ninety years.

  It had been one final twist of fate that had thrown the two boys together.

  The police had decided to overlook Bob’s part in the kidnapping and the break-in at the house of Lord Roven. He had, after all, been under Finn’s influence and Finn had now paid for his crimes. It was quickly decided that Bob should be put into a group home. But Tad too had no parents and nowhere to go. His was a more difficult case in that he did have relatives who could look after him, but unfortunately they had all disowned him, not wanting to be involved in the scandal. His file had been passed around from committee to committee, but eventually he had been put into a home as well.

  Both boys had been sent to the St. Elizabeth Institute. They had arrived on the same day.

  Now Tad waited for Bob to speak. Bob gazed at the other boy. His face was blank, neither hostile nor friendly. “You aren’t so fat anymore,” he said.

  Tad shrugged. “I’ve been doing more exercise. And I don’t eat so much now.”

  “And you’ve ’ad your ear done.”

  “Yes.” There was a silver stud in Tad’s right ear. He rubbed it gently. “I got to like having one.” He paused. “There were quite a lot of things I liked about being you, Bob.”

  “Well, you’re not me anymore,” the other boy snapped. “So why ’ave you come looking for me? Come to ’ave a good laugh?”

  “I’ve got nothing to laugh about,” Tad replied. “I’m the same as you now. My parents are gone and it looks like I’m stuck here.” He sighed. “Bob, I came to say I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “It was me who Spurling came to kill. And it was me who should have got shot. I suppose I did. But it was you who had all the pain, the hospital, all the rest of it. I didn’t know we were going to switch back again . . .”

  “It certainly couldn’t ’ave happened at a worse time,” Bob agreed. He swung around—but slowly. “So you’re stuck here, are you?”

  Tad nodded. “I don’t care,” he said. “I couldn’t have gone back home anyway, even if Snatchmore Hall hadn’t been put up for sale.”

  “Didn’t you ’ave uncles? Aunts?”

  “They didn’t want me.” Tad looked around him and sighed. “I might as well stay here as anywhere,” he said. “It’s only for two years. Then I’ll be sixteen and they’ll have to let me out. And then I can start again.”

  Tad fell silent. There were a few trees near the yard, their leaves turning gold with the arrival of autumn. Behind them he could see the sun, already beginning to set.

  “So what now?” Bob Snarby asked.

  “I hoped we could be friends,” Tad said.

  “What? You ’n me?”

  “Why not?” Tad sat down next to Bob. “Nobody’s ever known each other as well as you and I have. I mean, we’ve actually been each other.”

  “Did you ever tell anyone?” Bob Snarby asked.

  “About the switch?” Tad shook his head. “No. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  “Me neither.”

  “It’s only two years,” Tad went on. “And then we’ll be on our own. No parents. No Finn. Nobody to tell us what to do or turn us into what they want us to be. In some ways, maybe that’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Yeah? And what then?” Bob wasn’t convinced. “What do you think will happen to us then? You say you’re the same as me now. Well, what chance do you think people like us ever have?”

  “I think we can be anything we want to be,” Tad replied. “If we stick together. And if we want it hard enough. With what you know and what I know . . . together we can take on the world.”

  Bob smiled for the first time. “Listen to you!” he said. “I bet you was never like this before you was me.”

  “I bet you’ve changed too.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Bob shrugged ruefully—the movement made him wince. “You know, in the end I didn’t much like being you,” he admitted. “It was lovely to start with. Like having Christmas every day. But can you imagine Christmas every day? How bored you’d get? I was beginning to feel like I was drowning. No wonder you were the way you were. You were spoiled rotten.”

  “Eric and Doll weren’t great parents either.”

  “That’s true.”

  Bob stood up. Tad helped him get to his feet, then held out a hand. “Friends?” he asked.

  Bob Snarby took the hand. They shook.

  A bell rang inside the institute and together they began to walk back.

  They had been each other and now they were themselves. But best of all they were together, and as they slowly crossed the exercise yard, walking side by side, Tad was filled with hope and with happiness, knowing in his heart that the adventure of his life had only now begun.