by Ali Sparkes
Josh groaned and shouted again, but Danny went on climbing. He was so excited about that stupid marble he was just about to offer himself up as owl food without even realizing it!
There was nothing else for it. Josh couldn’t climb up after him as a boy. He looked at the bottles in his hand, picked up the C one (swiftly remembering a common lizard had better camouflage on a tree trunk) and S.W.I.T.C.H.ed himself.
Danny reached the owl hole in no time at all. Running up the tree had been amazing and much easier than the climbing wall at their summer camp. His long-fingered hands and feet, with their sharp curved claws, had anchored easily into the deep ridges winding through the bark. There were even tasty snacks along the way! Danny tried not to think about what those snacks were. They’d been great . . . he was sure they hadn’t really had wriggling legs. No—they were just seeds which he’d picked up in passing by darting out his quick long tongue. Little, browny seeds. Little moving browny-black seeds with anxious faces . . . Eeeerrm . . .
But then he reached the lip of the big hole and forgot all about the snacks as his heart sped up with excitement. Whatever it was their Mystery Marble Sender wanted them to find, he was certain it was here. Where the silent wise one slumbers . . .
There was a strong smell coming from the hole. A musty, sharp smell that made Danny shiver as he clung to the curved woody lip of the oval entrance to the chamber. His lizard sight was good, and as his golden eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see that the floor of it was covered with . . . eurgh . . . broken bits of bone and feather in a lumpy porridge of dark gray owl pellets and paler gray owl poo. That was one nasty carpet.
“The carpet of death!” he muttered to himself, and it seemed as if a horror film-style shriek went off somewhere in the distance.
The gruesome flooring led around a corner, past a shoulder of ancient rotting wood. There was nothing that looked like a marble sitting on it. The marble must be tucked farther in. He shivered. He really didn’t want to go across the carpet of death and into the inner chamber. But if he didn’t all his efforts would be for nothing. Even if it was just a joke, he still wanted to get that marble.
He stepped onto the carpet. It crumbled under his front foot, sending up some unpleasant dust and a worse smell. Danny reminded himself he was a dragon (sort of) and put another foot bravely forward.
“Daaaneeeeee!” He froze. That was Josh. But he didn’t sound as if he was down on the woodland floor. He was closer than that. Suddenly another lizard popped up behind him.
“Hey! You want to come in with me?” grinned Danny, very relieved. It would be much less scary going around that bit of rotting wood with his brother. He didn’t tell Josh how creeped out he’d been, though.
“No! No! Danny—stop!” panted Josh, who had run up the tree at top speed.
“Why? We’re here now. Might as well check it out!” Danny said.
“No—you don’t understand. And I can’t believe I didn’t tell you this. Look—you’re a lizard!” Josh was looking edgily into the hole past Danny.
“Yeah! Great, isn’t it? All those insects I used to be scared of,” beamed Danny. “I can eat ’em! Not that I would, of course . . . I mean . . . eeeyuw!”
Josh didn’t point out the half an ant stuck to Danny’s upper lip. “Yes, but you’re not off the menu! I told you! Bigger things will eat you . . .”
“Yeah—you said. Cats and dogs and foxes . . . but I can’t see any of those showing up here, can you? Not this high up!”
“I didn’t get to the end of the list!”
“What? What else is there?” Danny said, but Josh wasn’t looking at him anymore. His almond-shaped black eyes were bulging and shiny and fixed on something behind Danny. On something on the other side of the carpet of death. Something peering out from behind a screen of old trunk wood.
Something went “Keu-uu-wik!”
Before he could even scream, the talons closed around Danny—and around Josh too. And Josh knew this time it really was all over.
Josh shut his eyes, readying himself for the horrible moment when his entrails were hooked out of his belly by the small but vicious beak of the tawny owl that loomed over him. He didn’t want to see that happen to Danny either. He hoped it would all be over fast.
But suddenly he felt himself swoop upward, the air whistling past his head. His eyes sprang open, and he realized he was paragliding high through the trees, the tawny wings above him making barely a sound against the air currents. “JOSH!” squeaked Danny, who was riding in the owl’s other talon, his arms and legs flailing wildly. “Where’s he taking us?!”
“She,” corrected Josh. “She went kee-uu-wick . . . or t-wit, if you like. Females do the t-wit. Males do the t-woo.”
“Does it matter?” Danny squawked. “I mean—helloooo!—certain death only seconds away and you’re still being a nature nerd!”
“It could matter,” yelled Josh. “If she’s a mom!”
“Doesn’t seem very motherly to me!” wailed Danny as their deadly pilot made a tight, stomach-flipping turn to the left, avoiding some viciously spiked hawthorn twigs by inches.
“No—but she might still be mothering her teenagers,” called Josh, feeling the faintest flicker of hope. “I think she must be. That’s why she didn’t eat us herself. She’s probably chucking some food at her kids. They’re out of the nest now but still hanging around like . . . you know, like Jenny.” Their teenage sister was fiercely independent . . . as long as Mom made all her meals and ironed all her clothes and drove her everywhere.
“Rii-ight.” Danny gulped, now trying to keep still because the talons only tightened around his chest when he wriggled. “So we’re teen munchies, then! Just a couple of cans of Pringles! How is that better?”
“Well . . .” quavered Josh as the owl swooped down and leveled out, flying low and straight with great purpose. “They might not be able to caaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch!”
The talons released, and they were both flung through the air in the direction of two young tawnies sitting side by side on the top of a battered old wooden hut beneath the trees.
Josh hit the wooden roof at high speed and rolled over and over. Even as his world spun and flipped like a rollercoaster, he was aware of the young birds leaping up and around, huge brown and cream wings flapping, curved talons out. Mom had just come back from the store.
“ROLL ON!” Danny bellowed, to his left, and Josh did. He kept tumbling over and over even as the lamp-like eyes of one of the owlets closed in on his head and a talon reached for him. Danny plunged over the edge of the roof and down into the ivy that climbed up it. Crackles, snaps, and yelps filled the air. Josh was determined to follow him when an awful, hot, stabbing pain shot through his tail. The owl’s talon had pierced right through and into the wood underneath it, pinning him to his doom.
“GETOFFME! GETOFFME!” Josh shrieked and threw himself wildly from side to side, but the young owl had him now and was peering at him curiously, taking its time. It tilted its terrifyingly beautiful face to one side and gazed at him through two huge, unblinking dark orbs.
“Let me have a bit,” said the other young owl.
“You had yours,” said the first.
“Nah—it went over the back,” complained the other.
“Not my fault,” said the first. And it lowered its beak to Josh’s poor soft belly.
SNAP! Josh suddenly pinged away, freed from the talon spike, and was over the edge of the old hut and tumbling down through the ivy in half a second. The owl gave a cry of annoyance. “See! Now you know how it feels,” said the other one.
They didn’t try to go after their departed meal. The ivy and brambles at the foot of the old hut were too thick to get through. As Josh came to rest on the lowest tangle of undergrowth, he couldn’t even speak. The wind had been knocked out of him.
“Josh! Jo-o-oosh!” Suddenly Danny was scrambling across to him. “I thought you were a goner that time! I really did.” He sniffed. “How did you get away?”
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“I—I don’t know . . .” Josh croaked. He was lying on his back exposing his pale belly, which had so nearly been a warm, skin-crusted casserole for owl-kind. His tail hurt, strangely, quite high up, considering the talon had gone through the bottom half.
“Whoa—bro! I think you should take a look at this,” murmured Danny, pulling Josh up by his shoulder. Danny pointed a shaking green finger at the bottom end of his brother.
Josh’s tail was now just a stump.
“Eeeugh,” shuddered Danny. The stump was bleeding.
Josh flipped himself upright and curled what was left of his tail around to scrutinize it. In fact it wasn’t bleeding that much—just across the wound; not spurting all over the place like it would be if someone cut his leg off. Josh couldn’t see any snapped-off tailbone amid the goo. Instead of gaping in horror, though, he grinned. “That is SO amazing!” he said. “I’d forgotten about that!”
“What?” Danny was still looking revolted and a little panicky. “I don’t know why you’re so chirpy. What if you S.W.I.T.C.H. back and find you’ve lost a foot or something?”
“Nah, won’t happen,” Josh said. “A toenail maybe. You know what? I did that deliberately!” He pointed proudly at the stump, which had stopped bleeding altogether now and was already scabbing over.
“What—chopped your own tail off? Are you nuts?” spluttered Danny.
“Chop—no—detach, yes! Don’t you remember? Lizards shed their tails if they get in a panic! And it doesn’t get much more panicky than being owly din-dins. My tail detached! I bet it’s still up there wriggling about now!” He chuckled, even though he did feel a little bit dizzy at the thought of it. “They wriggle on their own for ages after they’ve dropped off, to distract the predator from the rest of the lizard while it runs away.”
“That is quite cool,” Danny admitted. “As long as you aren’t missing a limb when we get back to human form.”
“Nah,” Josh said again. “Remember when we were crane flies? We lost lots of legs between us, didn’t we? And we still came back to normal . . . well, apart from wanting to headbutt hot lightbulbs . . .”
“So now what?” Danny looked around anxiously. “A fox could get in here, maybe . . .”
“More likely a weasel,” Josh said. “We’re not safe. We never are while we’re S.W.I.T.C.H.ed. I can’t believe we did this again.”
“Well, next time we’ll just stay put in Petty’s lab,” Danny said. “So we can S.W.I.T.C.H. and come back to normal without a scratch.”
Suddenly Danny exploded out of the brambles—as a full-sized human eight-year-old. He got a lot of scratches.
Thud! Crackle! Rip! Josh joined him a few seconds later with a howl of pain. The brambles had scraped red wounds across their cheeks and foreheads and arms. They both looked as if they’d been in a serious fight.
Two young owls took off in haste from the little wooden hut behind them. Danny went up on tiptoes, peered over the low roof, and then gave a squawk of revolted delight. “Looook!” he said. “Your tail!” A bloodied bit of scaly tail-tip was indeed writhing back and forth on the roof. “That is beyond creepy!” Danny said.
“Could’ve been worse,” muttered Josh, checking his limbs and finding them all intact. “Now—can we go home please?” He headed off back towards the oak to collect the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray bottles.
“But what about the marble?!” insisted Danny, following him. “We still haven’t found it!”
“Well, if you think I’m going back in that owl nest again, you’re off your head!” snapped Josh. “I’ve got a whole bag of marbles at home. I don’t need any more.”
“But . . . our destiny!” whimpered Danny.
“Don’t you think it’s exciting enough?” demanded Josh. “We’re going to help Petty Potts reveal S.W.I.T.C.H. to the world someday soon. We’ll be famous! The only kids on the planet who’ve been insects and spiders and frogs and newts—and now lizards. We’ve even TALKED to real animals! Isn’t that a pretty cool destiny already?”
“I suppose . . .” huffed Danny. “I just hate not being able to solve the riddle . . . Where the silent wise one slumbers . . . We found it! We found the silent wise one in its bedroom . . . but we didn’t get to look for the marble.”
Josh suddenly stopped and turned to Danny. He laughed and clapped his hand to his scratched and bleeding forehead. “We were looking in the wrong place anyway, Danny!” he chortled.
“What? We weren’t! It was the right place, I know it!”
“No.” Josh shook his head as he walked another yard and collected the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray bottles from under the oak tree. Up in the hole they could see the female owl back in her roost, sitting very still with her eyes half-closed. “She’s not silent. Nor is a male. They go t-wit—t-woo all the time, remember?”
“Don’t remind me,” shuddered Danny. “I’ll get the heebies every time I hear it from now on.”
“But what you won’t hear,” went on Josh, “is a barn owl. I mean, they do make noises—they can screech and hiss—but 95 percent of the time they are completely silent. They don’t go t-wit or t-woo. They are the quietest bird on the wing. That’s why they can hunt in daylight.”
“But the tawnies were out in daylight,” pointed out Danny.
“Just roosting, half asleep,” Josh said. “Not hunting. I mean, Tawny Mom didn’t hunt us, did she? She only woke up when we showed up, all delicious and defenseless. No—tawnies roost in trees and other places, having a bit of a doze through the day—but they usually only hunt at night. Barn owls hunt at dawn and dusk and sometimes even in broad daylight. Reeeeallly silently. Your marble . . .”
“Our marble,” Danny corrected. “The package and the message were for both of us!”
“OK—our marble,” Josh said, turning back across the wood and walking fast, “is in a barn owl nest. And I know exactly where to find one. I put it up myself.”
“You did what?” asked Danny, scooting up behind his brother.
“I went out on a Wild Things nature day last summer, and we put up bat boxes and bird boxes. I put up a barn owl box in Farmer Coggins’s barn. Just the other side of this wood. I even know where the ladder is kept for checking the box. I can undo the top. We don’t have to S.W.I.T.C.H. again.”
They reached the old barn ten minutes later. In the gable at one end, as Josh had said, was a stout wooden nesting box. And around the corner of the barn, behind some bales of hay and a couple of old steel drums, stood a wooden ladder. Josh eyed the ladder and then looked up at the box with a frown. “I really shouldn’t be doing this, you know,” he said.
“Of course you should!” argued Danny.
“It’s not good to disturb wildlife,” Josh said.
“Josh!” snapped Danny. “Wildlife has more than disturbed me today!”
Josh grinned. “True!” he said. “And there won’t be any babies . . . Hold it steady for me!” He set up the ladder under the owl box. Danny did, and soon Josh was detaching the top of the box. A sudden flurry of white and golden feathers rocked him back on the step. The barn owl was high in the air in three seconds. Josh gazed after it, enthralled for a moment, and then reached into the box. He felt about, grimacing, and then replaced the lid and came back down the ladder. “Yuck!” he said. “It stinks in there!”
And then he held out his hand. In it, with some gray goo and bits of feather stuck to one side, was a marble.
“Keep it still!” Josh said, glaring impatiently up at Danny. “I’ll never see anything if you keep waving it about!” He bent his head back to the lens of the microscope that he’d placed on the air hockey table and peered again at the magnified marble, held between Danny’s magnified thumb and forefinger.
On the way back through the woods, they’d squinted at the small glass orb time and time again, trying hard to work out if it was anything but a perfectly ordinary marble. The ribbon of colored glass threading through its core was blue this time, but aside from that it seemed very unexciting�
�considering they’d both nearly been eaten alive trying to find it.
But Danny was convinced it was something very important to their “destiny,” so Josh dug out his microscope as soon as they got back to their bedroom.
“Well, it’s very clear glass,” he murmured as he looked again. “Better quality glass than my normal marbles, I think.” He’d studied lots of his things under his microscope over the years. “But . . . hang on! Hang on, hang on! Hang . . . on!”
“I am hanging on!” Danny said. “What can you see? What is it?”
Josh raised his eyes to Danny, one of them a little pink from pressing against the viewer. “We’ve seen this before,” he breathed. “Look!” He took over the marble-holding duty, pinning the glass orb steadily to the plate beneath the microscope, and waved Danny in to look.
As his eye adjusted, Danny drew in a shocked breath. Inside the blue ribbon of glass within the orb was something else . . . There was a holographic image right inside the glass. It looked like a bat. And there were symbols . . . old, strange symbols too. “It’s a hologram and symbols—like in Petty’s REPTOSWITCH cubes!” he gasped. “The same! It must be another bit of S.W.I.T.C.H. code!”
“You don’t think Petty set this up, do you?” Josh asked, sitting back on the bed and rubbing his tired, sore forehead. “Maybe she sent us the first marble and the message . . . just so that we would get the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray and try out being reptiles in the wild after all.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Danny said. “She already knew we wanted to S.W.I.T.C.H. this time. She didn’t need to trick us into it. And she was the one who told us not to go outside. No . . . this isn’t Petty.”
“But it’s someone who knows about S.W.I.T.C.H.,” Josh said. “Because those symbols in that marble are just the same as the symbols Petty uses for the BUGSWITCH and REPTOSWITCH codes.”
“Check this one, too,” Danny said, holding out the yellow-centered marble.