by Jo Simmons
‘I don’t know if you should go in as me tomorrow!’ said Jonny.
J2 looked a bit worried but didn’t say anything.
‘Well, let’s forget about it all for now,’ said Jonny. ‘How about I go to Charlie’s shop to get some sweets?’
‘Or we could just have a biscuit from the cupboard?’ said J2, looking … What was it? Guilty? Nervous? Jonny wasn’t quite sure. He ignored it and shook out his piggy bank and then ran off down the stairs, dreaming of bonbons.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
NAME AND BLAME
‘How dare you show your face in here again!’ Charlie shouted when Jonny stepped inside the corner shop.
Jonny froze. Charlie was nice, normally. He was friendly and helpful, normally. He never, ever yelled, normally.
‘Get out, thief!’ shouted Charlie, running towards him.
Jonny tore out of the shop, his mind a swirly whirl of confusion, his hair in his eyes and then …
CRASH!
He ran straight into Mrs Algernon.
‘Stop right there!’ she boomed. ‘I want to speak with you!’
She looked even meaner than usual. Oh stuffed-crust misery! thought Jonny. They’re all out to get me!
‘You deliberately let your dog off the lead today when you could see my cat was out on the front step,’ she growled.
Jonny had no idea what Mrs Algernon was on about. Cat? Front step? Today? Eh?
Charlie had caught up with him now.
‘He stole from my shop earlier,’ puffed Charlie. ‘A sherbet fountain and a couple of those curly sweets.’
‘Frizzy Pops?’ asked Mrs Algernon.
‘No, not them,’ said Charlie.
‘Corkscrew Curlers?’ suggested Mrs Algernon.
‘No,’ said Charlie.
‘Honeycomb Helix? Insanity Spirals? Midget Twists? Tupenny Twine Bars? Mint Crimps?’
‘Mint Crimps!’ said Charlie. ‘That’s them!’
‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Algernon. ‘You should never, ever steal Mint Crimps.’
‘But I was in school all day,’ Jonny protested.
‘No, you weren’t,’ said both the adults.
‘With my own eyes, I saw you walk into my shop, help yourself to my sweets and leg it,’ said Charlie. ‘Are you calling my own eyes liars?’
Jonny wasn’t doing that, no.
‘Your dog had my cat pinned down,’ said Mrs Algernon. ‘If I hadn’t given him a smart kick up the necessaries, he might have killed poor Stanley.’
Widget loathed Fat Stanley, and Jonny could easily believe that he would want to pin him down, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that none of this was Jonny. He had not been involved in any of this nicking and narkery.
‘It must have been someone who looks like me,’ said Jonny, guessing who was to blame here. This just made the two grown-ups do a sort of ‘don’t give me that’ laugh.
‘We know what you look like, young man,’ said Mrs Algernon. ‘We wouldn’t be fooled by anyone else.’
‘What’s going on?’ asked Jonny’s mum, arriving at the scene on her way home from work.
‘He’s been stealing and allowing his dog to menace my cat,’ said Mrs Algernon.
‘He called my eyes liars!’ said Charlie.
‘Really?’ she said. She looked at Jonny and then back at Charlie and Mrs Algernon.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Leave this with me. I’d like to speak to my son in private if you don’t mind.’
The two angry adults looked like they did mind, actually, but they stood aside as Jonny’s mum led him back to the house.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
IDENTITY CRISIS
In the kitchen Jonny’s mum quizzed him about the stealing and cat crushing. Jonny denied both. Then Widget came into the room. He was walking a bit funny, presumably thanks to Mrs Algernon’s size-seven foot making contact with his bottom earlier that day.
Jonny’s mum raised her eyebrows and pointed at the limping dog. Jonny still denied everything, begging her to ring the school if she didn’t believe him.
When she got through to his teacher she confirmed that, yes, Jonny had been in school all day, although he’d lost a house point for bringing a panda onesie instead of his PE kit.
‘So, what on earth has been going on?’ Jonny’s mum asked him. ‘What are Charlie and Mrs Algernon talking about?’
‘Don’t know. They’ve gone mad or blind or both or something,’ said Jonny, getting up and edging towards the door. ‘Bye!’
Jonny charged upstairs. Where was J2? Where was that little lookie-likie brother? Terrible twin more like, thought Jonny, as he threw his bedroom door open.
‘You just got me in another huge stinking pile of trouble,’ he fumed when he found J2 in his room. ‘Nicking sweets – what the flipping hecksters?’
‘I panicked,’ said J2. ‘I’m sorry. Being you was a tiny bit scarier than I’d guessed it might be. I suddenly thought Charlie had worked out that I wasn’t really you, so I freaked and ran out of the shop.’
‘Well, he hadn’t guessed!’ said Jonny. ‘Which is why I’m for it! They definitely do think you’re me! They don’t realise you’re not me, that you’re someone else who just looks like me and that only me is actually me!’
J2 smiled nervously.
‘What about Widget attacking Fat Stanley?’ Jonny asked. ‘Did you panic then too?’
‘Widget just pulled and got away,’ said J2. ‘I didn’t know he had it in for that cat. You didn’t tell me.’
‘I couldn’t tell you everything!’ said Jonny. ‘If you were my real brother you’d have known.’
‘Well, you swapped your real brother,’ said J2, getting cross now. ‘So it’s your stupid fault. If you want someone who knows everything your real brother knows, then you should have just kept your real brother!’
J2 had rather hit the nail on the head there. Swapping Ted had seemed like a beautifully simple idea. How wrong Jonny had been!
‘I thought a new brother would be better,’ Jonny wailed. ‘You must have done too, otherwise why did you put yourself up for a swap?’
‘I didn’t!’ shrieked J2, with an outraged face. ‘My brother Fred did. He asked for a new sibling. Just like you did with Ted. I didn’t ask to be swapped!’
Jonny felt a wave of guilt crash over him. He’d been thinking so much about finding a new brother, he hadn’t properly considered how it felt for Ted, or for all the brothers he kept rejecting. J2 was upset, but what about Mervyn, Hari, Henry, Alfie and Pete?
‘One minute I’m minding my own business,’ J2 continued, ‘next minute I’m in a big warehouse which smells of fish! Then I’m told to wait there until they find me a suitable swap.’
‘That’s where you saw Ted’s picture?’ Jonny asked. ‘Was he there too?’
‘Probably,’ said J2. ‘I was shut in a little room. I didn’t see anyone, then I was sent here. When I saw how similar we were I thought, OK, maybe this will be good, maybe this could actually be fun. I was trying to make it work. But I was wrong.’
The two boys were quiet for a few seconds.
‘So what are you going to do now?’ Jonny asked.
‘Not sure,’ J2 said. He looked a bit tearful. ‘You don’t want me, and neither does my real brother! I guess I’ll go back to the Sibling Swap warehouse and see if they can help me.’
J2 pushed past him and ran downstairs.
‘Wait!’ said Jonny, running after him. ‘Let me put things right!’
J2 had run outside and was climbing up the shed at the end of the garden, preparing to leap down on to the path beyond and leg it.
‘Stop! Please!’ yelled Jonny. ‘Don’t go!’
He felt as though his life was spinning out of control. All these brothers. All this failure. Ted gone. Hurt feelings all round. ‘Please come down!’ he moaned. But J2 didn’t budge, so Jonny upturned a bucket, stood on it and tried to grab J2’s trouser leg to stop him jumping off.
‘Get
off!’ said J2, kicking him away. Jonny lunged and grasped the other trouser leg, and again J2 kicked him off. On and on this went. Lunge, grab, kick, lunge, grab, kick. It looked like J2 was doing a little jig up there on the roof. Finally, he edged to the far end, preparing to leap to freedom. Jonny put his foot on the shed’s door handle and pushed up a little higher.
‘Let’s sort this out together,’ he gasped, gripping the shed roof with his fingernails. ‘Like brothers!’
‘But I’m not your brother,’ said J2. ‘Ted is.’
With that, J2 jumped off and ran away.
Jonny was left flattened to the side of the shed, clinging to its rough surface.
Ted is my brother, he thought. Only Ted. And on that bombshell, the door handle his foot was resting on gave way.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
WHO’S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY SHED?
CRASH!
Jonny’s foot smashed through the door, which swung open violently. His nails left claw marks on the edge of the shed roof as he tried to cling on, before he landed on his back inside the shed, with one foot still stuck in the door.
‘Welcome!’ said a voice.
Jonny looked up and yelped like he’d seen a ghost. Only he hadn’t seen a ghost. Not this time.
‘Pete?’ said Jonny.
‘Pip, actually. Remember?’ she said. ‘Or Pete-Pip. That’s fine if it’s easier. Whatever you like. Anyway! Good to see you! Do you want some help getting your foot out of the door?’
Pete-Pip was sitting at a desk that almost filled the shed. It was loaded with tech, including a laptop, several monitors and three separate keyboards.
‘Where have you … ? How did you … ? Eh … ?!’ Jonny spluttered. ‘Didn’t you go back to Sibling Swap?’
‘Umm, no, in the end, I didn’t!’ said Pete-Pip. ‘I was going to, then I realised I might be better off observing your next swap, rather than being one myself. Then I noticed your shed and got set up here! Thanks for the Wi-Fi, by the way. Here, let’s get your leg free.’
‘So are you going home?’ Jonny asked, sitting down now that his foot was liberated from the shed door.
‘Soon,’ said Pete-Pip. ‘I wanted to complete my research and see how your next brother panned out.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ he said. Jonny thought that was quite nice of Pete-Pip, although he didn’t like to admit it out loud.
‘Will you be getting another swap now that the other guy has gone?’ Pete-Pip asked, pointing at the shed roof.
J2! Jonny had momentarily forgotten about him. Then he shuddered, as if shaking off a bad dream.
‘Another swap?’ he said. ‘No. There won’t be another swap. This is over. Sibling Swap is over! Flipping swear word, it’s all over, over, over! It doesn’t work, and I want out. I don’t want any new brothers or ghost brothers or meerkat brothers or merboys or little crazy betting kids or a tech-mad brother who isn’t even a brother, he’s a sister or …’
‘What do you want, then?’ asked Pete-Pip.
Jonny blinked hard and thought for a second.
‘I want my real brother back,’ he said. ‘I want Ted.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
OH SWEAR WORD!
‘I want Ted.’
What a difference three words make! Suddenly, Jonny knew. He knew it all. He had finally realised that you can’t simply trade in your brother because he teases you or laughs at your climbing skills or gives you wedgies. You can’t swap your brother just because he’s older and bigger and sometimes bosses you around. It was all glaringly, painfully clear now. Jonny understood, but it all felt a bit late.
‘Good idea!’ said Pete-Pip. ‘Just log on to Sibling Swap and ask for him back. Here …’
She passed a laptop to Jonny. He logged on with shaking fingers and hit the ‘REQUEST A RETURN’ button. He suddenly felt excited. OK, he hadn’t worked out what he would say to Ted when he came home, but he knew now, very clearly, that he had to get him back.
A message flashed up in red.
SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION – ACTION DENIED
‘What does that mean? Site under construction? No!’ gasped Jonny, clicking on the ‘REQUEST A RETURN’ button again and again. Each time, an ‘ACTION DENIED’ message appeared, accompanied by a depressing thunk sound. The sound of failure.
Jonny stared at the screen in panic, then spotted a line of explanation at the bottom.
DUE TO MASSIVE LEVELS OF DEMAND, SIBLING SWAP IS BEING RESTRUCTURED AND HAS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. WE WILL RELAUNCH AGAIN VERY SOON.
That was it? The whole website had been shut down? Just like that? For ‘restructuring’, whatever that meant.
Oh, mega-droppings times five thousand. There was only one thing to do …
Jonny collapsed on to the shed floor and howled. What a mess! What a stinking, rubbish, ploppy mess! Thanks to Sibling Swap, his mum had been scared out of her wits, his neighbours had been upset and his dog had been kicked up the bottom. A whole bunch of possible brothers had been messed about too, and were now – what? – stranded in some warehouse who knew where. Worst of all, Jonny had lost Ted. His actual brother. What a miserable, horrible, stupid disaster!
‘I’ll never see him again,’ wailed Jonny. ‘I’ve ruined everything. Ted! Where are you? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! What have I done? What have I done? What have I –’
‘Made a fool and a ninny of yourself, that’s what, my lad,’ came a deep voice. ‘Now stand up and let’s make amends.’
‘Your Brilliantness!’ gasped Jonny. He scrambled to his feet, sniffing.
‘I could hear your bleating all the way over on the Other Side,’ said Henry. ‘What a carry on! Now, you wish to have your real brother back?’
‘Yes, but the computer says Sibling Swap has closed down,’ Jonny wailed. ‘I’ve lost Ted! I’ve ruined everything! I’ve –’
‘Nonsense!’ said Henry firmly. ‘You only swapped him. You didn’t chop off his head. There’s a big difference. Trust me, I know. Of course you can get him back.’
‘How?’ sniffed Jonny. ‘I don’t know how to find him!’
‘Use your friends,’ said Henry. ‘Gather your best people around you. That’s what I did. Do you think I ruled England alone? I had help, you know. You need loyal supporters, men you can trust as though they were your brothers!’
‘Umm, sorry to interrupt, but who are you talking to?’ whispered Pete-Pip, looking around the shed.
‘It’s the ghost of Henry the Eighth, you just can’t see him,’ said Jonny. ‘I can though. We were brothers for a bit.’
Then Jonny blew his nose and took a deep breath.
‘Henry, you say I need loyal supporters?’
Henry nodded.
‘Well, since Ted left I’ve had quite a few brothers,’ said Jonny. ‘Two of you are right here, and that’s a start. Will you be my band of brothers?’
Pete-Pip and Henry nodded solemnly.
‘Did he agree?’ whispered Pete-Pip. ‘I still can’t see him.’
‘Yeah, he nodded,’ said Jonny, then he puffed out a huge breath and looked serious.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to work!’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
TRACKING TED
‘First, we need to work out where Sibling Swap is,’ said Jonny. ‘J2 said it was a warehouse or something, and Alfie said it was on the edge of town. Did you ever go there?’
‘No,’ said Pete-Pip. ‘I was sent straight here. I’ve already tried to trace the site headquarters, but there’s nothing, which is really peculiar. No address, the website isn’t registered anywhere, no contact details. It’s ever so odd. But let’s have a look around town for anything that fits the bill.’
Pete-Pip then hacked into some of the town’s CCTV cameras, bringing up images of shopping centres and the ring road, and then …
‘What about this?’ she said. The screen showed an industrial estate.
‘Could be that,’ said Jonny. ‘There are quite a few warehouses ther
e, though. We’ll have to check them all out.’
‘The place is only about a mile from here,’ said Pete-Pip. ‘You better get going. I’ll keep an eye on the CCTV for anything suspicious.’
‘This is it, then!’ said Jonny. ‘Pete, I mean Pip, I mean Pete-Pip, call me if you spot anything. Henry, come with me. I might need some regal muscle. We need to find Ted and bring him home, and we need to do it right now.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
WHAT’S IN THE WAREHOUSE?
Twenty minutes later the pair were standing on the edge of the industrial estate. There were four warehouses scattered across weedy concrete.
‘I’ll start with that one,’ said Jonny, pointing at the nearest. ‘Henry, you case out the one next to it.’
Jonny pushed open the doors of the first warehouse and saw a security guard dozing by the front desk. A strong smell hit him. What was it? Dog food? Then he saw a sign. Premier Pies. This couldn’t be the right place. He ducked back outside and saw Henry wafting towards him, shaking his head.
‘Some sort of cabinetmakers,’ said Henry. ‘Nary a child in there – I checked everywhere.’
‘Let’s try over here,’ said Jonny, and sprinted off towards the furthest warehouse.
Inside, an unmistakable smell of fish hit Jonny’s nostrils. Henry spluttered a bit and curled his lip.
‘By the mass, what a stench! I’m more of a mutton man, myself,’ he said. ‘I’ll investigate outside.’
Jonny pushed through a door and into an area full of huge freezers. It was cold and smelly. No sign of any children. He tiptoed forward and pulled open the heavy door of one of the freezers. Fish fingers! Thousands of them, stacked up like breaded bars of gold. But that wasn’t all. Looking around the room Jonny saw towers of boxes piled in one corner. One contained flashing budgie collars, ‘So you can always spot your bird in the dark!’, and another was bursting with sachets of dehydrated shepherd’s pie. There was a sack full of battery-powered eye massagers and a couple of plastic trays with boxes of chocolate-coated sprouts, ‘A taste sensation’. What was all this stuff, and who would keep it here? The fish fingers, all these weird gadgets and gear: they all made a bell ring in Jonny’s head, but it was muffled, like the bell was inside a sock or under a bear.