Switcharound

by Lois Lowry

  He was still muttering as Caroline headed for the house.

  "Don't sit so close," she said automatically to Poochie as she passed, and he moved his head a fraction of an inch away from the TV screen.

  One of the babies began to wail.

  An hour later, Caroline was rocking the baby wearing the yellow sunsuit, trying to get her back into her usual good mood. But she squirmed in Caroline's lap, whimpered, and pulled at her own ear.

  "Poochie," Caroline said finally, "please, would you turn off the TV for a while? With the baby crying, it's really driving me crazy. J.P.'s out back. Why don't you see if he'll toss a few balls for batting practice?"

  Poochie turned the TV off, stood up, rubbed his eyes, and looked through the window. J.P. was still at the picnic table, staring into space.

  Poochie frowned apprehensively. "He looks like he's thinking," he said.

  Caroline leaned forward and observed her brother. "Yeah," she agreed. "That's his 'I'm thinking' look. Maybe we'd better not disturb him."

  But suddenly, as they watched, J.P. leaped to his feet. He clapped his hands together. "Obvious!" he said aloud. They could hear him through the open window. "Totally obvious!"

  He came charging through the kitchen door and let it bang shut behind him. He stood in the middle of the kitchen floor with his arms out and his shoulders straight and his chin up. He looked like Clark Kent immediately after he had changed into Superman.

  "Totally, wickedly, completely, awesomely, OBVIOUS!" J.P. bellowed. "I have to call Dad. What's the phone number of the store, Pooch? I need it instantaneously."

  Poochie shrugged. "I dunno. Wait a minute." He went to the refrigerator and took down a brown magnetized potholder shaped like a basketball. "Here," he said and handed it to J.P.

  J.P. glanced at the potholder. "'DINNER WILL WAIT,'" he read, '"FOR—'" He looked up expectantly at Poochie and Caroline.

  " 'HERBIE TATE,'" they both replied.

  "Very tasteful," J.P. said with a grimace. "But there's the phone number." He went to the telephone and dialed the number that was printed on the potholder.

  Caroline gave the fussy baby a cracker and put her into the playpen next to her sister, who was chewing on a toy. She listened with interest to J.P. as he talked on the telephone to Herbie.

  "Dad," J.P. was saying, "I can't be positive without coming down there to check it out, but I am almost positive that I know what's gone wrong at the store."

  Caroline watched as J.P. listened impatiently to his father's voice.

  "No," J.P. said, "Poochie's not listening. He's watching TV. Listen, Dad, if you'd just let me come down and check the computer system—"

  There was another impatient silence as J.P. listened. His shoulders were stiff.

  "I know I'm only thirteen, Dad. But I've been studying computers at school in New York for five years. Age doesn't matter; it's how your brain works. My brain works like a computer. I'm a crummy baseball player, Dad, but I'm a genius at computers !"

  More tense silence as J.P. listened in frustration.

  "Dad—"

  He sighed and listened some more.

  "Dad. I know you have the accountants there, and I know how much they're costing you. But I am almost sure that if you'd give me a chance, I could solve the whole thing this afternoon.

  "Hey, Dad, how about letting me speak to one of the accountants? Just for a minute, okay?"

  J.P. waited. His eyes lit up. He whispered across the room to Caroline, "He's getting the accountant. Maybe I can convince him."

  He turned back to the telephone. "Sir? This is James P. Tate, Herbie Tate's son. Listen, sir, I'm only thirteen, but I think I know what the problem is at the store. There was an employee who was fired a while back, and he had access to the computer. I think he sabotaged the financial records before he left."

  J.P. listened for a moment. "Yessir," he said. "Thirteen. But, sir, I know computers. I know how he could have done it. And if he did what I think he did, the data base still has its integrity. Do you have a BASIC interpreter on the system?"

  He sighed and listened. With his hand over the mouthpiece, he whispered to Caroline, "This guy doesn't know anything about computers."

  He turned back to the telephone. "Yessir," he said, "I could. I don't want to just kludge something together, though. I want to write a system, a whole new interface with the data base, and then we could—"

  The man interrupted, and J.P. waited.

  "Thank you, sir," he said at last. "I'll be ready."

  He hung up. His forehead was sweaty, and he was breathing hard. But he was grinning. "They're sending a car for me," he told his sister.

  Caroline and Poochie watched from the doorway as J.P., wearing his enormous COACH shirt, but with his shoulders straight and firm inside it, was motioned over to a dark sedan by two men in business suits. Both of them were talking to J.P. at the same time.

  J.P. was nodding professionally as he listened to them.

  He interrupted them politely just as they reached the car parked in the driveway. "Of course you could be right," he said. "But I feel fairly certain that what we're going to find is a discrepancy between the data base and the report maker. Now that could be programmed into catalogue sales, or front registers, or both, and—"

  He got into the car, looked back at Caroline and called, "I may be gone all night!"

  Caroline nodded and waved. She felt very proud of her brother and very hopeful that her father's problems would be solved.

  But Poochie let out a howl. "All night? What about baseball practice? The big game's day after tomorrow!"

  Caroline put her arm around him. "I'll take over," she said. "I'll coach."

  12

  The phone rang late in the evening as Lillian and Caroline sat nervously in the family room pretending to be interested in a rerun of "Charles in Charge."

  "It's for you, Caroline," Lillian said after she had talked for a moment. "It's J.P., and he says everything's turning out just the way he thought it would. Does that mean we're okay? I can't understand any of this."

  Caroline nodded happily as she went to the phone in the kitchen. She felt very relieved for Lillian and her father. "I don't understand any of it either," she said. "Not the computer stuff, anyway. But if J.P. says it's all okay, well, then it's all okay. J.P. is a genius."

  She picked up the receiver. "Hi, J.P.," she said, laughing. "I hope you didn't hear what I just said to Lillian. It would make you conceited."

  "Is Lillian right there?" J.P. asked in a low voice. "I don't want her to hear this conversation."

  Caroline glanced into the family room. Lillian had picked up some knitting. Then she cocked her head slightly, listening to something: a wail from the bedroom where the babies were. She put the knitting down and disappeared down the hall to check the twins.

  "No," Caroline told her brother. "I'm all alone. Why? I thought everything was okay."

  "It is," J.P. said. "But I'm going to be here most of the night, though, unraveling all of this. I want you to take over baseball practice in the morning if you can."

  "Sure. I already told Pooch that I would. No sweat. Lillian's going to stay home with the babies. One of them has a fever. And anyway, if things are okay at the store, and Herbie's not bankrupt after all—"

  "He isn't," J.P. said. "The money's all there. It was in the data base, but the report maker was sabotaged, like I thought."

  "Well then. Lillian can quit the real estate course!"

  "I want you to sneak into my room," J.P. said. "Don't wake Pooch up. Get my notebook out of my suitcase—it's under some of my electronic stuff."

  "Okay. Why?"

  "You'll need it for baseball practice. Listen, Caroline—Dad's coming, so I have to say this fast—"

  "What?"

  J.P. was whispering. "Undo it. Everything in the notebook. You'll see when you look at it. Undo my revenge. Tomorrow's the last possible chance.

  "I gotta go," he said suddenly. "Good luck." />
  And J.P. hung up the telephone.

  Caroline walked with Poochie to the ball field in the morning. It was very relaxing, not feeding babies and changing babies and bathing babies. Back at the house, Lillian was doing all of that. Even the fussing and feverish baby seemed to notice the difference and was in a better mood now that her mother had taken over.

  Caroline flipped through the pages of J.P.'s notebook as she walked.

  "Poochie," she said, "I'm going to make some changes this morning, since I'm coaching."

  Poochie nodded happily. "Now I'll get some hits," he said. "J.P. didn't know that I—"

  Caroline interrupted him. "Things will be different now," she said.

  J.P.'s revenge had been truly rotten. But she didn't want Poochie to know about it, ever. At least she was going to undo it. Her own revenge had been not only rotten but was also undoable; and she could only hope that no one would ever find out about it.

  She flipped through the pages of the notebook again. As soon as practice was over this morning, she would destroy the incriminating pages. But for now, she needed them.

  Each page held a player's name. And then it listed all that player's baseball-playing flaws. She had to give J.P. credit; he wasn't much of an athlete or a coach, but he certainly was observant. He had noticed the smallest details of each little player's baseball style. Then he had planned the big game tomorrow to take maximum advantage of every single flaw.

  He had programmed the Tater Chips to lose. He couldn't have done it more effectively if he had used a computer.

  Turning back to the page marked "Poochie," she realized that J.P. had already noticed the same things that she had. One of Poochie's problems, unfortunately, was not going to be solved by tomorrow's game.

  "Pooch," Caroline began to ask, as the baseball field came into view around the corner, "who's that kid waiting there in the bleachers? I can't remember his name." She pointed to Matthew Birnbaum, who was punching his fist into his glove rhythmically as he waited for the team to assemble.

  Poochie looked toward the bleachers, where Caroline was pointing. He squinted. "Where?" he asked.

  Caroline squatted on the sidewalk beside him so that her face was level with his. She pointed again, very carefully, to Matthew Birnbaum.

  "See that kid in the bleachers?" she asked.

  Poochie squinted so hard that his face was distorted. "No," he said finally.

  "Do you see the bleachers?" Caroline asked.

  "Sort of," Poochie said uncertainly.

  Caroline took his hand. Slowly they walked on toward the ball field. "Poochie," she said, "you need glasses. And it will take a little while to get your eyes examined and then to have the glasses made. So they won't be ready for tomorrow's game. But probably by the next big game, you'll be able to see."

  Poochie squinted up at her in amazement. "You mean when the ball is coming at me, I'll be able to see it?"

  "Right. After you get glasses."

  "Then I'll be able to catch it!"

  "Right. And hit it, too."

  Poochie grinned. "I can already hit it, Caroline. Even when I can't see it, I can hit it sometimes, if I bat lefty."

  Caroline nodded. It was amazing, considering Poochie's terrible eyesight. But he could bat. It was just that he was left-handed, and he'd been batting right-handed until Caroline had turned him around. His batting average had skyrocketed immediately from zero to .05.

  If Poochie could get an occasional hit when he was blind, imagine what his average would be after he got glasses!

  "You might be the star of this team by the end of the summer, Pooch," Caroline said.

  Carefully she tore out the page marked "Poochie," so that he would never know what was written on it: "Practically blind. Left-handed. Make him bat right-handed, and he'll never get a hit."

  Caroline crumpled the page and tossed it into the trash can at the entrance to the ball field. Then she leaned the notebook against one of the bleacher seats and started a new page. "Poochie," she wrote. "Get Lillian to take him to eye doctor. Be sure he bats left-handed."

  She looked at the new page. She crossed out "Poochie." Above it she wrote, "David Herbert Tate."

  Then she sighed. She had eleven other pages to deal with. And when she looked up, she saw that all eleven other players had arrived now and were poking each other and scuffling in the bleachers.

  It was going to be a very long morning. She adjusted J.P.'s baseball cap on her head. It was a little too large, and it bent the tops of her ears.

  "C'mon, troops!" Caroline called and clapped her hands. "Let's get to work! We gotta make some changes in the way this team operates, because after tomorrow we're going to be—"

  "CHAMPIONS!" the twelve little ballplayers shouted as they scrambled down from the bleachers and headed for the field.

  13

  The house was quiet for a change. No wailing babies—the twins were asleep. No TV—Poochie had gone to bed, promising to practice batting in his dreams for tomorrow's game. And even J.P. was asleep. He had been up all through the previous night and had wandered around groggily during the day, calling the store occasionally to make sure that the computer was still giving out the correct information. Finally, at seven P.M., he had gone to bed.

  Caroline was sitting in the family room with Lillian and her father. Herbie Tate was going through a stack of papers.

  "I can't believe it," he said, looking up. "I can't believe I have a son who is such a genius. Did I tell you what one of the accountants said after he watched J.P. at work on the computer?"

  "Yes," Caroline and Lillian said. "You told us several times."

  "And did I tell you that our financial situation is just fine, Lillian? The income was all there the whole time. It was just that it was concealed, apparently, by the way the computer had been programmed—"

  "Yes," Lillian said, laughing. "You told me, Herbie. The instant you told me, I resigned from the real estate course." She put her knitting down. "How about some iced tea?"

  Caroline and Herbie both nodded, and Lillian went to the refrigerator.

  Herbie set his papers aside and shook his head. "Revenge," he said. "The guy got fired for stealing two tennis rackets, and he was lucky I didn't prosecute. Imagine doing something like this for revenge. If I had any idea where he is now, I think I'd go after him and—"

  Lillian handed him a glass of iced tea. "No you wouldn't, Herb. Because that would be revenge, too."

  Caroline took her glass of tea, thanked Lillian, and sipped. She was uncomfortable listening to the talk about revenge. Very uncomfortable. But at least J.P.'s revenge had been undone, and the Tater Chips now had a better chance of winning their game tomorrow.

  "I know I told you about this, Lillian," Caroline said, "but I want to make sure you don't forget. About Poochie's eyesight—"

  "I already made an appointment," Lillian said. "I'm taking him to the ophthalmologist on Monday afternoon. And I'm ashamed of myself that I never realized he needed glasses. I thought all kids sat four inches away from the TV."

  "He's going to be a really good ballplayer after he gets glasses, Dad," Caroline told Herbie. "Even without glasses, I bet anything he gets a hit tomorrow."

  Herbie beamed. "I can't wait to watch that game," he said. "Thank goodness the mess is cleared up at the store so I can take the morning off. I'll stop by the store early so that I can pick up your COACH shirt, Caroline, and your cap. Do you need a glove? We wouldn't have time to give it the old neat's-foot oil, but—"

  "Nope," Caroline told him. "Thanks anyway. But I really don't need a glove."

  Lillian held up the sweater sleeve she was knitting and measured it against one that was already finished. "I'll be late to the game, Caroline," she said. "I wouldn't miss it for anything, but I probably won't get there until the second or third inning. I talked to the pediatrician this afternoon about Ivy's earache, and I'm going to run her over to his office in the morning for a penicillin shot."

  "I'll
tell Poochie," Caroline said. "His big rooting section will be there by the third inning."

  Lillian stood up and went to the refrigerator again. "It won't take long at the doctor's," she said from the kitchen as she poured some more iced tea into her own glass. "It's a good thing it's Ivy, though, who has the earache. Holly's allergic to penicillin."

  She brought the pitcher in. "More tea?" she asked Caroline.

  Caroline stared at her. "No, thank you," she said finally, in a stricken voice.

  "Is something wrong?"

  "I'm going to bed," Caroline said tensely. "All of a sudden I feel as if I want to go to bed."

  But she couldn't sleep. For hours Caroline lay in the dark bedroom, wide awake. She heard the babies sigh and snore and toss as they slept. After a while she heard Herbie and Lillian go down the hall to their bedroom. She heard the muted sounds of their voices and water running in their bathroom, and then the house was completely silent. And still Caroline couldn't sleep.

  Finally she got out of bed. In the bathroom across the hall, she turned on the light, blinked, and looked at her watch. It was after one A.M.

  Unhappily she wandered out into the dark family room and sat on the couch. Lillian's partly knitted sweater sleeve was there, on top of the knitting instruction book. Yellow, for Ivy. She had already finished the little pink one for Holly, with a matching cap.

  Caroline picked up the little pink cap, turned it over in her hands, and began to cry.

  Had she said, just a few days ago, that she hated the babies? It wasn't true. She didn't hate them. It was true that she didn't like taking care of them. She found it boring. And it was true that she hoped she would never have twin babies—or maybe any babies—because she would much rather spend her adult life in Asia Minor, digging up fossils and prehistoric skeletons, and she would not have time to knit little sweaters and hats.

  But she did like Holly and Ivy. And Poochie: David Herbert Tate. And Herbie and Lillian, for that matter.