by Sam Copeland
They all turned to look at Charlie, who was hanging off the top of the classroom door with one hand while scratching his bum with the other.
‘I need you to fix this, Flora,’ said Charlie. ‘And then we need to steal some gold.’
‘Steal some what did you say?’
Dylan had walked up to them when they weren’t looking.
‘None of your beeswax, Van der Gruyne,’ said Mohsen.
‘Yeah, if you think we’re gonna tell you about our plan to steal Charlie’s dad’s gold back from your dad’s office, you’ve got another think coming,’ said Wogan firmly.
Charlie, Flora and Mohsen all slowly turned their heads to Wogan, their mouths flapping like goldfish.
‘What?’ asked Wogan. ‘Why are you all looking at me like that?’
‘Brilliant.’ Dylan rubbed his hands together. ‘Thanks for that, Wogan.’
‘Thanks for what?’ asked Wogan. ‘Why is everybody acting so weird?’
‘Speaking of weird,’ said Dylan. ‘What’s with him?’ He jerked a thumb at Charlie, still hanging off the door.
Good question, Dylan. So what had happened? Why had Flora been so wrong? What had Wogan got right? And why was Charlie hanging off the classroom door scratching his bum?
Well, to find that out, we need to do a flashback. Strap yourselves in. Here it comes …
We’re going back in time …
One day …
Two days …
One hundred and fifty million years …
Whoa, that’s too far now. We don’t want Charlie changing into a diplodocus now, do we?fn1
So, let’s go forward in time a bit.
One hundred million years ago … Dinosaurs still munching everything …
Sixty-six million years ago … Still dinosaurs. Jeez, dinosaurs were around for ages …fn2
One hundred thousand years ago … Finally the dinosaurs have gone but there’s cavemen all over the place … Can’t stop there: Wogan and Mohsen would get hit on the head by big hairy club-wielding Neanderthals …
Seven hundred years ago … Still too far back: Mohsen and Wogan would probably catch the Black Death …
Yesterday … That’s much better. Hopefully there’s nothing around yesterday that would end up with Mohsen and Wogan reaching a sticky end …
***
Yesterday, Charlie was home and all was reasonably quiet. He had just got out of his seventeenth bath since the skunk incident,fn3 and was sitting in the lounge in his dressing-gown. Charlie could hear more barely restrained arguments from the kitchen between his parents about ‘company deficit’ and ‘cash-flow crisis’ and other boring stuff that Charlie didn’t understand but which still gave him a knot in his stomach.
SmoothMove was on WhatsApp with his new girlfriend. Charlie was considering whether to turn on the PS4 when his parents walked in.
‘Guys, can we just have a little word with you?’ his mum said.
SmoothMove glanced up from his phone and grunted.
‘Well, as you boys know, the house has been up for sale,’ his mum continued. Charlie’s dad just looked at the floor in silence, an unreadable look on his face. ‘And, in fact, we’ve already had an offer. We’ve been given some time to think it over, but we need to give the estate agent an answer by the end of next week. So we thought we should let you know.’
‘Do you think you’re going to accept it?’ SmoothMove said.
His dad looked up. ‘It’s a good offer, son. And we’ve spoken to Aunt Brenda and she’s ready for us.’
And just like that, Charlie felt his world fall apart. It was actually happening. He was leaving his house. Leaving his friends.
SmoothMove grunted again and went back to his phone.
‘You OK, Charlie?’ his mum asked.
Charlie nodded.
‘Sure?’ she asked, sitting down next to him and putting an arm round his shoulders.
He nodded again. But he really wasn’t. He wanted to shout out ‘No! I’m not OK! I’m scared! I don’t want Dad’s company to go bust and us to be so poor we have to move in with Aunt Brenda! I’m scared my friends will forget me! I’m scared that I’ll change to an animal and never change back! And I’m scared SmoothMove will get ill again.’
But telling his parents all that and adding to their stress wasn’t going to help matters.
Only one thing was.
He had to get his dad’s gold back. And quickly.
And that meant practising changing. Immediately.
Charlie spoke with confidence and positivity that he really wasn’t feeling. ‘Honestly I’m fine,’ he said, trying to disguise a little crack in his voice, and then gave his mum a thin smile. He rushed upstairs and blocked his bedroom door.fn4
He lay down on his floor, toys all cleared away. He propped the big mirror he had borrowed from his parents’ room up against the wall – he didn’t want to spend any time wondering what animal he had turned into.
It was time to try changing again.
He closed his eyes. He thought of all the stress in his life, which really wasn’t difficult. He thought of losing the house, which was fast becoming a reality. He thought of his parents arguing. He thought of rugby in his underpants in the snow. He thought of Mohsen, Flora and Wogan still being best friends with each other but slowly forgetting him …
Within a few seconds he could feel the now very familiar static crackle through him.
He started to grow thick fur all over his body. His fingers began to lengthen. He dropped down to all fours and felt his teeth sharpening. Most weirdly of all, he could feel his bum expanding.
As Charlie finished changing, he turned to look at himself in the mirror.
Despite everything he had seen before, what he found there shocked him.
He was a monkey.
But not just any monkey. Oh no.
A monkey with the brightest, biggest and bluest bum he had ever seen.
Ah, thought Charlie. Not a monkey – I’m a baboon.fn5
And wow, thought Charlie. My bottom really is extraordinary.
Charlie examined his enormous multicoloured behind in the mirror, fascinated, until he finally decided he was actually rather hungry.
A banana, thought Charlie. That’s what I want. A lovely, delicious, yummy banana.
He began to look around his bedroom, scratching his bum as he did so. Hmm, he thought. No banana. Want banana.
Charlie realized he needed a poo, and without another thought he squatted down and did one on the floor of his bedroom.
Poo smelly, he thought. Me no like!
Charlie jumped off his bed, and scooped it up in his hand. Me get rid poo. Me throw outside!
Charlie threw the poo, but it hit the closed window. It slid down the pane slowly.
Charlie watched it, confused, and went up to tap the glass. But he soon lost interest, and began checking himself for fleas instead. He found one and popped it in his mouth. It cracked between his teeth and he swallowed it.
Yummy.
Charlie-Mandrill looked at the top of his wardrobe and decided it looked like a very comfortable place to sit. He jumped on to his bed and swung up to the top of the wardrobe.
Me king of jungle, thought Charlie. Me swing on vine.
Charlie jumped off the wardrobe and grabbed the curtain rail, and swung back and forth.
A second later, the curtain rail snapped off the wall, and Charlie crashed to the floor, bringing the curtain and curtain rail down on top of him.
‘Charlie!’ came a faint call from downstairs. ‘Keep that noise down!’
Charlie-Mandrill’s ears pricked up as he pulled the curtain off his head.
What that?
‘Charlie! Cut that racket out and come downstairs – Doctor Who’s on!’
Who Doctor Who? Who calling Charlie?
Charlie …
Charlie …
He was Charlie.
In a rush it all flooded back to him – who he was, where he was, wha
t he was doing.
It had happened again. He had forgotten everything.
But now he remembered.
‘Charlie! It’s started! Are you coming?’
It was his mum calling him.
He had to change back fast. He tried to slow his breathing and his thumping heart.
He remembered happy things – laughing with Wogan and Mohsen. Flora. Everything about Flora. Finding out his brother was better again.
He began to change. Relief flooded his body. A moment later, Charlie was Charlie again, a normal boy in a normal bedroom with normal mandrill poo still sliding down his bedroom window.
He had been too close to getting caught – if his mum had decided to come up the stairs instead of shouting … Charlie put the thought to the back of his head. He had work to do.
‘Down in a minute, Mum! I’ve just got to do something!’ Charlie called.
A minute later, Charlie was ferociously scrubbing clean his window and carpet. He’d worry about what to say about the curtain rail later.
And every so often, without even noticing what he was doing, Charlie would stop to check himself for fleas, disappointed that he couldn’t find any. He was still feeling a little peckish.
***
‘Seriously, Charlie,’ said Flora. ‘Get down from there. Please.’
Charlie glared at Flora, then eventually let go of the classroom-door frame and dropped to the floor.
‘Yeah, Charlie,’ gloated Dylan. ‘Stop monkeying around.’
Silence greeted Dylan’s joke.
‘Yeah … and …’ said Dylan, thinking hard. ‘Aaand …’ said Dylan, still thinking really hard, his face going a little red. ‘And it isn’t time for acting like a monkey because it’s not half past ape.’
An even denser silence greeted Dylan’s second joke.
‘Half past ape … It sounds like half past eight,’ explained Dylan.
‘We get it, Dylan,’ said Flora flatly.
‘Are you OK, Dylan?’ said Mohsen.
‘Yes! I’m fine! It’s him who’s not fine!’ Dylan pointed at Charlie. ‘He’s clearly still a bit monkey, isn’t he?’
Once again, the friends were silent. They knew Dylan was right.
‘So you’d better sort that little problem out before you try breaking in to the international headquarters of Van der Gruyne Industries! Oh, and guys,’ Dylan continued, ‘I’ll be telling my dad to lay on extra security. And I’ll be watching you.’
And with that Dylan made a rude face and waltzed off.fn6
Wogan thumped his palm in frustration. ‘I don’t believe it! How on earth does Dylan know all about us breaking in to –’ He paused, as a cloud of confusion lifted from his eyes. ‘Ah. Yes. I see. Now I know why you were all looking at me weirdly before. Sorry about that, guys.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Charlie. ‘We can’t go through with the plan anyway.’
‘What? Why?’ cried Mohsen.
‘Because I’m never making myself change again. You don’t know what it was like. For a minute I totally forgot myself. I forgot who I was. Where I was. I forgot my mum and my dad and my brother. Everything. I even forgot about you guys.’ Charlie looked glumly at his friends. ‘The only thing I could think about was trying to find a banana.’
‘Flora,’ said Mohsen. ‘This is the bit where you say something clever to make everything better.’
‘That’s the problem, though,’ said Flora. ‘I haven’t got anything. I don’t know what to say.’
A grim cloud hung over the friends for about 3.1415926 seconds before Flora piped up.
‘Oh, actually … Hang on a minute. Charlie – tell me exactly what happened before you started remembering who you were?’
‘I’m not sure really. All I know is that one minute I was a monkey – or a baboon to be precisefn7 – pooing on the floor when I heard –’
‘You were whatting, did you say?’ said Wogan.
‘I was pooing on the floor when –’
‘It’s been a bad time for you recently,’ said Mohsen, full of concern. ‘First with the whole licking-your-own-bum thing, and now the pooing on your bedroom floor.’
‘Thanks for pointing that out, Mohsen. ANYWAY. The point is I was a baboon!fn8 Baboons don’t care where they poo. I wasn’t even slightly Charlie any more. And the next thing I remember was my mum was calling me from downstairs about Doctor Who.’
‘Hmm,’ said Flora.
‘Look!’ said Wogan, wide-eyed and pointing at Flora. ‘She’s hmming!’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Mohsen. ‘That’s always an excellent sign.’
‘Exactly!’ said Wogan. ‘She’s on to something. I can feel it.’
‘Well, yes, anyway,’ said Flora. ‘I think –’
‘Here it comes!’ said Wogan.
‘I was about to say,’ said Flora. ‘I think that –’
‘This is very exciting!’ squealed Mohsen. ‘What’s she going to say?’
‘STOP! INTERRUPTING! ME! I will – I will – WELL YOU DO NOT WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT I WILL DO!’ Flora shouted, red in the face. ‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’
Mohsen and Wogan immediately began nodding their heads as vigorously as they could, edging backwards nervously as they did so.
‘That’s better,’ said Flora. ‘What I was about to say was that I think Charlie’s mum was the key. When Charlie was by himself, he started forgetting who he was. But when his mum called, her voice reminded him that she was there. And so she reminded Charlie of who he was. Who loves him and who he loves. It was the same when you changed into a skunk, Charlie. You didn’t forget who you were because you were with your friends. And because friends are part of who we are.’
‘So, how does that help us?’ Charlie asked.
‘Charlie!’ said Mohsen. ‘Don’t interrupt her! Please!’
‘You forgot who you were, Charlie, because you felt you were by yourself. You need to learn to be strong in yourself, no matter if you’re completely alone. And until then, we’re here for you. You are not to change unless one of us is with you. I think you’re safe to change then. So as long as we stick together at the break-in I reckon you’ll be OK.’
‘You see!’ said Mohsen. ‘Every time she pulls it out the bag. But hang on … What about Dylan? He knows what we’re planning now, thanks to bladdermouth over there.’
‘I think you mean blabbermouth, Mohsen. Anyway, well, we’ll just have to deal with Dylan if necessary,’ replied Flora solemnly.
‘OK. So … are we back on for the breaking in and the stealing the gold and the saving of the McGuffin house just in time for Christmas?’ Wogan asked, looking pointedly at Charlie.
Charlie looked out of the window, his brow furrowed in concentration. The friends hardly dared breathe waiting for his answer.
‘OK,’ Charlie finally said. ‘We’re back on.’
‘Yes!’
‘Awesome!’
‘Well done, Charlie,’ said Flora, smiling. ‘You’re the best!’
‘OK, then,’ said Charlie quickly, trying to hide a blush. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Right,’ said Flora. ‘Here it is. We meet first thing Saturday morning –’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ said Wogan, holding his hand up. ‘Hold on there. I can’t do Saturday morning. I’ve got the Mermaid Club Christmas party.’
‘Mermaid Club?’ asked Flora flatly.
‘Mermaid Club?’ asked Charlie even more flatly.
‘A club … for mermaids?’ asked Mohsen. ‘But … you’re not a mermaid.’
‘It’s not a club for mermaids. It’s for people who like mermaids,’ said Wogan.
‘Since when do you like mermaids?’ asked Mohsen.
‘Oh, since ages ago,’ replied Wogan. ‘What’s not to like? You know, I like their … their … slipperiness. And stuff.’
‘Slipperiness?’ replied Mohsen.
‘Mmm-hmm,’ said Wogan uncertainly.
‘And would a certain Daisy be attending this Mermaid Cl
ub?’
‘Perhaps. But I really don’t see what that has –’
‘And are there actually any other members of the Mermaid Club apart from you and Daisy?’ continued Mohsen.
‘I am uncertain of the membership take-up as yet.’
‘Yes, well, anyway,’ said Flora, ignoring him. ‘Saturday afternoon? Can you do that?’
Wogan nodded his head.
‘It’s not going to affect your love life?’ asked Flora.
Wogan shook his head.
‘OK, then. That’s settled. So, here’s the plan. Get dressed in completely dark clothes, and then we meet on Saturday afternoon at two o’clock …’
It was Saturday afternoon, at ten past two. Mohsen, Flora and Charlie were waiting round the corner from Van der Gruyne Industries, all with small rucksacks on their backs. Flora had instructed them to each bring a bag with sensible emergency supplies. Flora’s bag contained a bottle of water, a torch, a compass, four apples and a whistle. Charlie’s had a four-pack of Mars bars and a small collection of pebbles that he’d forgotten to take out. All Mohsen had in his bag was a half-empty sandwich box that he’d been munching through on the way.
They were alternately looking at their watches and down the street. A few mangy-looking pigeons were pecking around them, hunting for crumbs.
The wait for Saturday had seemed interminable for the friends. The closer they got to the day, the more nervous they had become. And now the moment had arrived and their nerves were jangling.
‘I will absolutely LOSE my rag COMPLETELY if Wogan doesn’t turn up VERY QUICKLY!’ Flora seethed.
A moment or two later, Wogan tore round the corner, pedalling furiously on his bike.
‘Sorry I’m late, guys,’ he puffed. ‘I … erm … forgot I had to … erm … help my mum with the gardening. So I came straight from doing that.’
Flora eyed Wogan beadily. ‘You’re not late because you’ve been with Daisy all day then?’
‘No! No way!’ Wogan replied, looking indignant at the very suggestion. ‘I told you! I’ve been gardening.’
‘Wogan. Tell me. What’s that you’re wearing on your head?’
Wogan looked blank for a moment, then his hand shot to his head. On his head was a headband, and sticking out of the headband was a huge sparkly silver unicorn horn.