Chameleon Chaos (2 page)

A week of rain had turned the whole playground into a swamp. The caretaker had even put cones and orange tape up around the climbing structure to stop anyone from getting onto it. When Josh finally staggered into class looking like a mud monster, the teachers would be in no doubt that he'd broken the rules and gone onto the climbing
structure. He'd be in a lot of trouble, even though it wasn't his fault.

He had tried to swing himself up and get an arm through the bars so he could untie his shoes with his spare hand—but he couldn't manage it. He just wasn't good at being upside down—and the longer he hung here, the more his head threatened to explode. He felt as if his eyeballs were getting bigger with every passing minute.

No. On average, this was not a good day. Josh really needed help. He really needed Danny, his twin brother. But as everyone had now gone back inside, it didn't look as though anyone would be coming by soon.

His feet were beginning to shake horribly now. Josh called “Help!” a few times. But nobody came. It really looked as if he was going to end the afternoon looking like a hippo.

He wrapped his arms around his head. He bunched up his eyes. He was going to have to drop and snap the laces. His feet just couldn't stay like this …

“Josh? What on earth are you doing, you peculiar child?”

“Gah!” grunted Josh. His eyes pinged open again, and he saw the bristly upside-down chin of Petty Potts just inches from his face.

“Getmyleeegs!” he gurgled. “Quiiick! I'm going to—gah!”

SLIP.

SNAP.

DOOF.

Josh found himself on the ground, gasping and gurgling as his blood-filled brain spun and his vision wavered. On the bright side, he seemed to have avoided the worst of the mud. He realized Petty Potts had grabbed him just as his laces broke. This turned his fall from a straight drop to a sudden slither. His pants were a bit muddy, but there were only a couple of splotches on his school shirt.

Petty crouched down and peered at him through her thick lenses. She scratched her wiry thatch of gray hair. “Are you training for the Olympics?” she enquired.

“No!” huffed Josh, carefully getting up onto his elbows. His head swooshed about as the blood in it started to get back to other locations in his body. “Not unless there's a medal for getting stupidly in the way of even stupider school bullies. I'd probably get gold for that!”

“Oh dear,” Petty said, helping him to his feet. “Who was it?”

Josh shook his head and screwed up his eyes again.

“Well, you don't have to worry about snitching to me, do you?” Petty said. “I'm not your teacher. I'm just your kindly next-door neighbor.”

“Kindly?” spluttered Josh. He could think of a lot of words to describe Petty Potts—grumpy, eccentric, genius, amazing, idiotic, and dangerous were the first ones that came to mind. But she
had
just saved him from a bath of sticky brown goo and a severe yelling-at back in class.

He sighed. “Billy Sutter and Jason Bilk,” he muttered.

“Aaaah,” Petty said, as if she had a clue whom he was talking about.

“They were just about to commit mass anticide,” Josh explained. “They were heading for my ant farm that I set up for the class—with a bottle of boiling hot water! They were going to boil 254 defenseless ants alive! I had to throw my lunch at them to stop them.”

“Aaaah,” Petty said again, but more sympathetically this time. She knew that Josh was nuts about creepy-crawlies—and all kinds of wildlife. She also knew that he would feel extra
sensitive about protecting the ants, because not that long ago, she'd turned him into one. “And for this act of mercy, you were tied upside down to the climbing structure.”

“Only after the swirly,” Josh sighed. His short blond hair was still a bit wet from the flushing and still smelled of toilet cleaner. “And the wedgie.” He tugged self-consciously at his trousers and felt the material give a bit.

“Want me to S.W.I.T.C.H. them into ants so you can stomp on them?” Petty offered.

Josh looked at her, his head to one side and his eyes narrowed. It was a good thing she didn't know who Billy Sutter and Jason Bilk were, because he wouldn't put it past her to S.W.I.T.C.H. them. Petty might look like a nice old lady, but she was actually a brilliant scientist with a secret underground laboratory beneath her garden shed, where she worked on her S.W.I.T.C.H. project. Over the summer, since he and Danny had first stumbled upon her secret, Petty had recruited them to help her—whether they liked it or not. Back then they knew nothing about Petty's S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays.

Her BUGSWITCH spray could hijack your cells and turn you into an insect or a spider. And her AMPHISWITCH spray could turn you into an amphibian. And, after he and Danny had helped her find the lost formula to REPTOSWITCH, Petty now had a S.W.I.T.C.H. spray to turn them into reptiles too.

“Well?” Petty was prodding his shoulder. “Shall I S.W.I.T.C.H. them into ants? I might even have that spray on me …” And she started patting the pockets of her big, slightly grubby overcoat.

“No, Petty! Don't even think about it!” warned Josh. “And what are you doing here anyway? Why are you at our school?” He felt very uneasy. Petty had a habit of showing up in their everyday lives … and it usually led to some kind of S.W.I.T.C.H.-related danger.

“I was just passing when I saw you, that's all,” Petty said. “I came in at the gate—your school security is
so
lax—and popped in to find out what you were up to. Would you rather I hadn't? Would you like to be back up on the bars?”

“Sorry—no,” Josh mumbled. “And thanks … really. But … oh, heck—I've got to get back into class. I'll be in such trouble!”

“Run along then, run along,” chirruped Petty. “And bring Danny with you to see me after school. I think it's time we went to C Phase of REPTOSWITCH.”

“C Phase?” Josh called back as he ran toward the low red brick building. He felt a lurch of excitement. He and Danny had been lizards already, and although—once again—they'd nearly gotten themselves eaten, it had still been amazing.
He couldn't wait to have another go. They would be more careful with C Phase … whatever it was.

Petty tapped her nose and winked elaborately. “C Phase!” she called after him. “Find out after school!”

“Josh! Where on earth have you been?” demanded Miss Mellor when he arrived in the classroom. Twenty-seven pairs of eyes turned to stare at him. These included the eyes of Danny, who was making a “What the heck?!!” face—and of Billy Sutter and of Jason Bilk, who were making “Tell and your life is OVER” faces.

“Got stuck in the toilet,” Josh said. Several of the girls giggled.

“So I see,” Miss Mellor said. “Maybe next time, before you come back to class, you might think about pulling up your trousers first.”

Josh stared down at his legs and saw, to his horror, that his energetic tug to undo Billy and Jason's gift of a wedgie had gone too far. A button on his trousers had pinged off. And the panicked running down the corridor had made the zipper give way. And now, even as his eyes bulged in disbelief, his muddy gray trousers were sliding down past his knees.

Josh felt himself go scarlet all over as the whole class collapsed into shrieks of laughter and catcalls. Danny buried his face in his hands. And even Miss Mellor was pressing her mouth shut tight, trying to look as if she wasn't rupturing herself laughing too.

Josh groaned as he hitched his trousers up and wished he could just blend into the wall and disappear.

“SUTTER! I'm gonna spread you like BUTTER!” Danny yelled. “BILK, I'm gonna spill you like MILK! You've just asked for DOUBLE TROUBLE.”

“Well … thanks, Danny,” Josh said. “It's nice of you to threaten my enemies for me—in poem format. I like the dairy theme, too. It'd be even
more
impressive if they were
here.”

Danny glanced around. The only scare he'd caused was to a passing cat, which shrank away from him on the top of a wall as they walked down their road after school. “I'm just warming up,” he said. “I will tell them that tomorrow. You don't think I'd let them get away with giving you a swirly and a wedgie and then tying you upside-down to a climbing structure by your shoelaces, do you?”