Swap Over (7 page)

 

Wednesday morning Maddy woke feeling morose and dejected. The prospect of being Maddy Walton forever loomed in front of her. No sisters to share her room or her life; no sociable relatives and friends staying overnight; and no midnight television shows any more. Her easy–going, relaxed life of living as a Matson was gone forever.

If only she could find that mysterious white rabbit and wish herself back home again! She had so little time in her life as Maddy Walton to do anything she wanted to do. She seemed to spend all her time either being sick or having every second of her life organized.

Mrs. Walton came into the bedroom and pulled back the drapes. The warm sun streamed through the window.

“Are you feeling up to school today, my darling?”

“Of course,” Maddy said.

Spending the day at Jennifer's school was better than being cooped up in her bedroom again all day. Besides, she liked being friends with all of Jennifer's friends, especially Selena.

“I'll catch the bus with the others,” Maddy said after breakfast as she pushed her lunchbox into her school bag.

If her life was going to be limited by being Maddy Walton, she may as well make a few changes. There was no fun in being driven to school. She would catch the bus every morning with the rest of the gang.

“I don't know,” Mrs. Walton said looking worried. “It will be much too tiring for you.”

Maddy examined Mrs. Walton's worried face and scowled. This morning Mrs. Walton looked what her own mother described as poorly. There were dark shadows looping under her eyes, and her face was strained and tired. Of course Mrs. Walton had been up all that night with Maddy, and she didn't have the sense to go back to bed after a bad night like her own mother.

“I am not tired,” Maddy said. “And I won't shatter because I have to sit in the bus instead of a car.”

“Are you sure you will be all right?”

“Go back to bed and get some rest, Mum.”

Maddy tasted the word and decided it sounded all right. Maybe she didn't mind Jennifer's mother after all. She was pretty nice despite her weird ideas about tidying up and regular meals all the time. It was all just a matter of retraining her.

“You are a sweetheart,” Mrs. Walton said and leaned over and hugged Maddy. “I'll pick you up after school, or get the school to ring me to collect you if there are any problems.”

“There won't be any problems.”

She trudged down to the bus stop. As she joined the gang in their ragged high school uniforms, she almost faltered. She felt like a freak in her immaculate blouse, freshly pressed tunic and good blazer. She didn't look as if she belonged anymore.

“Hi, Maddy,” Jennifer said, and everyone else chorused. “Hi.”

Maddy relaxed. She had forgotten how much she had missed her own gang of friends. It almost felt like coming home. Except it was Jennifer who now had the chore of getting Merry safely to her class every morning, and checking that Milly hadn't forgotten her lunch.

The bus pulled up. The gang surged aboard. Jennifer held Merry's hand and sat in front of Maddy. Milly sat beside Maddy and chattered non-stop. Maddy remembered with shame and disgust that she used to tell Milly to shut up all the time. Now, she actually enjoyed the sound of her chattering.

She tuned out and thought about the mysterious white rabbit. After school this afternoon, she would ask the Matsons to help her check out all the neighbours. The white rabbit must have strayed from a nearby backyard. It had looked too well-cared for and too well-fed to have strayed very far.

“What?” Maddy said blankly.

“Mr. Stuart was grouching about whatever has been burrowing holes in
her
his back lawn,” Milly repeated.

“Whose back lawn?”

“Old Miss Estenbury got taken away by an ambulance last Friday night,” Milly explained. “The Stuarts are feeding her cat and looking after her garden.”

“Does she have rabbits?” Could the white rabbit have belonged to Miss Estenbury?

“No.”

“She's a witch,” little Merry lisped as she turned around to listen.

“Now that is unkind,” Jennifer said as she turned to join in the conversation. “Mum said we must be polite to her because she is so old.”

Maddy felt a shiver of excitement. Was their neighbour, Miss Estenbury, really a witch? She certainly looked like a witch! She was very old and wore shapeless black dresses, and muttered to herself as she shuffled around. She had beady bright eyes, and lots of untidy white hair. What if it had been the old lady's white rabbit and she didn't keep it in a hutch like a normal person?

Maddy shivered again. How had she had forgotten about old Miss Estenbury? The memory of what had happened that last Friday afternoon when she was Maddy Matson suddenly returned.

When they had got in from school that Friday afternoon, she had a terrible fight with Milly over the television program. She had swapped to her own channel twice before her mother broke up the fight. Her mother had sided with Milly and Merry.

Maddy had slammed out of the house and run across the road. She was playing in front of the shabby cottage, throwing an old cricket ball at the picket fence as hard as she could and catching it. Miss Estenbury had shuffled out and warned her to stop. She had called the old lady a stupid old bat!

“Not happy, are we?” Miss Estenbury had cackled. “And what have we got to be unhappy about, little Miss?”

What had she retorted back? Somehow it was suddenly very important to remember. She had said, “Everything, you stupid old witch.”

“Have to change that, won't we,” the old lady had said with her cackling laugh and shuffled back inside.

After that, Maddy had gone to play with Jennifer in the tree house, until she had to come home to clean the rabbit hutch and made that silly wish. How could she have forgotten about Miss Estenbury's weird answer?

Her life had been changed. Was it Miss Estenbury who had somehow done it? Straight after school, she would visit Miss Estenbury and beg her to change everything back. Life would be back to normal. Then she remembered what Milly had said.

Miss Estenbury had been taken to hospital that Friday night. That was nearly a week ago. What if it was too late for everything to be changed back again?

“Are you sure you are all right, Maddy?” Jennifer was saying. “You've gone as white as anything.”

Maddy looked at Jennifer's worried face. Everything wasn't all right, but it was not Jennifer's fault, only her own for being so stupid.

“No probs,” Maddy said with an effort. “See you after school.”

When the bus stopped at the high school, the Matsons and the rest of her gang got off. Maddy watched them go wistfully. She had forgotten about how much fun life was with everyone at the high school.

Two stops later, she got off the bus and met Rowena and Katrina at the pedestrian crossing. Linda saw her as they entered the school ground and ran up to say hello. She was going to be a pest, Maddy thought crossly, and hang around all the time.

Maddy opened her mouth to say get lost, and shut it again. “Hi, Linda.” She tried a smile.

Linda's face glowed with happiness and belonging. Maddy strolled to Assembly with Katrina, Rowena, Linda, and Selena. Her new gang, she thought to herself, but she felt resigned about it.

Living up to being a Jennifer sort of person was going to take a lot of effort, but she seemed stuck with it

 

The morning hadn't passed that badly, Maddy decided. In fact, she had actually enjoyed most of her classes. All that working during lessons meant that she knew what the teachers were talking about, and they were all as pleasant to her as if she really was Jennifer.

“Got a film for the afternoon and another day over,” Selena said, as they sat in the sun eating lunch. “We have to collect our bags and leave straight from the hall.”

“A good way to fill in an afternoon,” Maddy said with approval. “Anyone know what we are seeing?”

“Not another Shakespeare one,” Katrina groaned. “I'd rather have class.”

“It's
Great Expectations
, because we've got Dickens on our reading list,” Linda said.

Maddy looked at Linda with respect and approval. She was a useful person to have in a gang. Nothing seemed to happen around the school that she didn't hear or see first.

“I just happened to be collecting tea things from the staff room when I heard.” Linda flushed with pleasure.

“Years seven and eights are all doing Dickens this year,” Rowena said. “The hall is going to be pretty crowded.”

“And there are four, year seven classes and three, year eight classes,” Linda said.

“Very crowded,” Selena said thoughtfully.

The seating was so well organized that it didn't seem crowded, however. Maddy and her friends were in the first row of seats. The boys moved forward to sit on the floor in front of the chairs. Maddy noticed the red head of Roland Townsend among the taller boys sitting in the first line in front of them. The teachers settled at each end of the rows by their classes.

Everyone was very quiet. Maddy was really enjoying the film and deciding she would try to read the book after all, when she became aware of muffled whispers and sniggers in front of her.

She took her attention off the film and stared into the gloom of packed boys in front of her. The swaying was the struggle of two boys holding another boy between them firmly. Something was being passed along the line of seated boys. It was being handled, and then passed on with a lot of sniggering.

Maddy bent over to check what was happening, but it was too dark to see anything.

“What is it?” Linda whispered.

Little Miss Nosy, Maddy thought, suddenly aware how closely Linda must have been watching her, but her irritation went immediately. Linda was pretty smart and that was something to be respected. “The boys are up to something?”

“And it's the usual mob of no-hopers along the back row,” Selena whispered.

The music from the film swelled to noisiness and the hall became darker. Linda's seat was suddenly empty. Maddy waited. She hadn't even seen Linda go. One minute she was there and the next, she just wasn't. No wonder she was good at snooping out whatever was going on around the place!

The hall lightened at the next scene. One of the teachers turned a suspicious head along the row of chairs, but Linda was back in her seat, pointed nose facing the screen.

“They pinched Roland Townsend's glasses,” Linda whispered.

She passed something sticky into Maddy's hand. Maddy sneaked a look down at the distinctive thick glasses, now heavily plastered in fresh chewing gum. She grinned. The boys must have been passing the glasses along the row; sticking on chewing gum as they went and smart little Linda had put out her hand and collected them.

There was a “thump” in front of them as Roland threw off the two boys holding him. A torch beam rayed on to the kneeling Roland.

“Sit down Townsend. You will be obscuring someone's vision,” a teacher hissed.

The two boys beside Roland sat quietly watching the screen. Roland's naked face blinked stupidly in the torch beam. He sat down again. The torch beam flicked off.

“I can't see the screen without my glasses,” Roland whispered. “Hand ‘em back.”

“Glasses aren't going to be any use to a moron like you,” someone whispered.

“Yeah, glasses don't cure illiteracy,” someone else whispered.

Someone sniggered.

“The next person who talks gets a demerit,” a voice warned from the side of the hall.

There was silence. Everyone concentrated on the film. Maddy looked at the glasses, heavily covered with the fresh chewing gum. Suddenly the joke wasn't funny anymore. It was just plain mean and nasty. Roland needed to see this film if he had trouble reading.

He only lived around the corner. She would suggest that he come around to her place for half an hour a night. If she read each chapter and they discussed it thoroughly, he would soon understand it. He was pretty bright and he didn't need stupid idiots tormenting him because he was the new kid in class and having trouble with his English.

She tried to breathe in and out and calm herself down. She felt like Maddy Matson at her nastiest. If only she was at her own high school and able to behave like Maddy Matson, the toughest kid in school, she and her gang would teach those kids to pick on someone as defenceless as Roland!

They would puncture their bike tyres; scrawl their innermost secrets on the shelter-shed walls; kick their shins, trip them up, and throw dye bombs at them. It was just awful to have to remember not to do anything to embarrass Jennifer in case they ever swapped back.

Yet, surprisingly enough, Jennifer did have a temper. What she saw as injustice or bullying always set her off. What would Jennifer do in her position? Maddy looked at the sticky glasses in her hand. She suddenly felt more cheerful.

She might be in the wrong school, but she still had a gang who was prepared to back her up. She whispered to Linda, one eye on the darkened wall where their teachers stood and watched.

Linda nodded. Maddy scraped off some of the chewing gum and passed the glasses on to Linda. Maddy then relaxed and concentrated on the film, rolling the chewing gum over and over in her sticky hands until it became more flexible. There was a dark head right in front of her knees!

Just as the credits of the film were rolling, the pair of glasses ended up back in Maddy's hands. They twinkled with cleanliness. Someone had done a very good job of removing the rest of the chewing gum. Maddy gave them to Linda. Linda crouched lower, leaned forward and slid them into Roland's shirt pocket.

Roland's hand went to his pocket. He took his glasses out and put them on. The lights went up. All the boys stood up. The back row of boys started to file out. There were whispered exclamations, as the boys noticed the garlands of chewing gum on each other's heads. The mutter got louder as the boys tried to pull off the chewing gum.

Maddy noticed with interest that the artistic garlands of chewing gum had set and gone hard. She remembered once when she had chewing gum in her hair. Once it had set it was very difficult to get out - very difficult indeed. It was a lovely thought!

The boys glared at each other and then glared at Roland. Roland, looking blank-faced behind his gleaming, clean glasses, was the only boy without chewing gum in his hair.

“Guess there are morons and morons,” Maddy heard him whisper.

“Stop talking,” a teacher called.

The boys filed out, then the front row of girls and then the rest of the hall. Every single girl in the front row signaled to Maddy as she ran off. Maddy grinned. They were an all right bunch, every one of them.

“Tell you what, Linda,” she said as they strolled towards the back fence. “It's not a chocolate medal you deserve but a solid gold one.”

“It was a pleasure,” Linda said. “See you tomorrow.”

The big, dark, square car drew up by the gate. Linda wiped the happy smile from her face and walked towards it, eyes lowered and face grave.

“Have a nice day, my darling?” Mrs. Walton asked as Maddy swung into the front seat of the red car. This afternoon she looked better. Her face was pink again and the black circles had gone from under her eyes.

“Terrific!” Maddy said. “Did you have a good rest?”

“I slept all day. We'll have to stop off while I do some shopping for dinner.”

“Do it tomorrow,” Maddy said. “We can have a boiled egg or something easy, can't we?”

“I suppose it won't hurt just this once,” Mrs. Walton agreed doubtfully.

“Or twice or any other time you don't feel up to it,” Maddy said. “A tired mother is no good to any family.”

This was one of Mrs. Matson's favourite sayings, but Mrs. Walton looked as surprised as if it had been the first time she had heard it.

“I suppose you are right, Maddy. I hadn't thought of it that way.”

They turned into the side street that led to their street. Maddy spotted the old-fashioned cottage.

“What happened about old Miss Estenbury?”

“In a coma, poor old thing, and sinking fast.”

Maddy's heart sank. So she wasn't going to be able to beg the old lady's pardon and be swapped back. She really was stuck forever as Maddy Walton! She changed without pleasure into her good quality jeans and tie-dyed tee shirt and did her piano practice.

After that, Jennifer came around with her sisters. They played in the tree house. For a while Maddy actually forgot about the swap. Jennifer was her favourite friend and they enjoyed playing together and having Milly and Merry in a good mood made it even more enjoyable.

Milly said it was her turn to clean the rabbit hutch. Jennifer and Maddy offered to help, so they all walked back to the Matson's place. Milly and Merry had run on ahead. Maddy and Jennifer were strolling along more slowly while Maddy told Jennifer all about the incident at the school film during the afternoon.

“If I had been in your position, I would have done exactly the same,” Jennifer said indignantly. “What pills, what disgusting creeps!”

Suddenly, a white rabbit shot across the path. Maddy scooped it up almost without even thinking.

“The missing mystery rabbit.” Jennifer's voice seemed to come from a long distance. “I wonder where it's been hiding?”

Maddy clutched the plump, white rabbit with pink eyes. It was definitely the same white rabbit! She was almost too stunned to think properly. Now she was going to be able to make her wish to swap back to her own life, her own family, and her own good health.

“We can put it back in the hutch with the others,” Jennifer was saying.

Maddy looked at Jennifer. She looked so happy and contented and healthy. She had the rounded pink cheeks of all of the healthy Matsons. The raggy shorts showed her sturdy, well-muscled legs.

Maddy started to feel sick. If she swapped back, the pain-filled nights would again become Jennifer's dreadful secret. It just wasn't fair! Maddy clutched the rabbit more tightly. She would rather stay Maddy Walton!

She would never be the sort of a creep to wish that dreadful illness back on her dearest friend. Yet, she was so homesick for her own family and she wanted to swap back so badly and now she couldn't!

And the old lady's last words mocked over and over in her mind. “Have to change that, won't we? Won't we? Won't we?”