Swap Over (3 page)

 

The bus pulled into its parking spot on the school grounds. Maddy scowled as everyone looked through her as they filed out of the bus. Even Brett, she noticed. Her head ached even harder.

It was only that nasty Bronwin's word that she had cheated! Why did he have to believe what Bronwin said?

“Come on, Maddy,” Miss Dewitt prompted. “Go to your locker and collect your bag. You are registered with the after school program this afternoon?”

Maddy got out of her seat without a word. Her throat hurt so much she didn't think she could talk anyway. She supposed it was misery that made her feel so bad. It felt as if the troubles of the world were on her shoulders and dragging every muscle of her body down with tiredness.

She was the last person off the bus. Miss Dewitt stood looking after her for a few seconds and then hurried off. The bus started up and drove out of the school grounds, edging into the traffic.

Maddy plodded over to the stairs and up to the lockers. Katrina and Rowena, who couldn't have heard of her disgrace, called cheerful farewells as they ran past. Maddy was too sunk in misery to answer. They both had wet hair and looked as if they had enjoyed their afternoon swimming.

She walked slowly across the school ground towards the aftercare building. The school ground was emptying fast and getting that deserted, creepy look to it. She reached the doorway and paused. She just wasn't going to spend her Friday afternoon in here! She would sneak off and hide until Mrs. Walton collected her.

If she were plain Maddy Matson, she would be bouncing home with her little sisters tagging after her; home to bread and jam sandwiches and glasses of milk and noisy arguments over whom had to clean up the kitchen. She looked at the clock over the door on the aftercare building and scowled. It was three-thirty and school was out. No one should have to do extra schoolwork after school.

She just wouldn't do it! She turned and walked away. There were the shelter sheds and the playgrounds she could hang around, or even the library. No one would notice her in the library. Then she stopped.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I want to swap back to being Maddy Matson,” she whispered, wishing as hard as she could.

She waited. She opened her eyes. She was still in front of the aftercare building. When she had made her wish, it had been Friday afternoon. Yet, this morning when she woke up it was still only Friday! She had been so excited about being Maddy Walton, she hadn't noticed she had woken up on Friday and not Saturday.

If only she could go back to her comfortable, boring life as Maddy Matson and Friday afternoon with her ordinary, boring Saturday ahead of her. Then she remembered! This was the Matson weekend for visiting Grandma!

The three Matson girls hated visiting Grandma. It was a long, boring drive as Gramma lived a long way away. Grandma lived in a big, dark gloomy old house. They weren't allowed to touch anything or do anything, or even go into the street to play, and she wouldn't let them watch television.

The yard was all vegie beds or flowerbeds and Grandpa yelled if they even walked along the paths. Lunch was always the same; corned beef, cabbage, and yucky mashed potatoes, followed by a runny bread pudding. And under Grandma's gimlet eyes, they had to eat every mouthful, and do all the piles of greasy dishes by themselves as the adults sat in the lounge room and talked.

Afterwards they were expected to sit and read, or do sewing until the dreadful afternoon finished. Grandma kept special cloths for them to practice sewing. She said all girls should be able to sew. It was the most wasted Saturday they ever put up with, but their mother made them go with her one Saturday every month.

Maddy decided that maybe she didn't want to wish herself home right now. After all, it was Friday afternoon. She wasn't going to have to worry about school for two whole days, and Jennifer's weekend as the most popular girl in the district and pony club on Sunday was ahead of her.

She turned around and walked into the aftercare building. She pushed open the door and went down the passage towards the kitchen.

Several younger boys were making chocolate under the supervision of a smiling Mrs. Potter. Sitting at the table drinking tea was a tall thin boy with freckles, ginger hair, and glasses. Maddy just glanced at him as she headed over to sit down. He didn't look very interesting. In fact he looked a real freak with those staring blue eyes behind the thick glasses.

“Hello, Maddy,” Mrs. Potter said. “Meet Roland. He will be here Tuesday and Friday afternoon for English tutoring. Do you want milk, tea, or hot cocoa?”

“Tea,” Maddy said, giving Roland a brief nod.

After drinking her cup of tea, and eating a slice of passionfruit cream sponge, Maddy felt more cheerful. She sneaked another look at Roland. Fancy looking like that and being bad at English as well! No wonder he looked so miserable. Still, he was someone to talk to.

“I haven't seen you around before?”

“Shifted into the district last week.”

“Where abouts?”

“Gibbon Street.”

“That's just around the corner from us.” Maddy was suddenly interested. “Are you near the house that has the big boat in the front yard?”

She and her two sisters had watched in awe with the rest of the neighbours as the big crane had swung the big boat over the small fence and in the big front yard. Nothing so exciting had ever happened in their quiet district before.

“Dad's outfitting a yacht,” Roland said.

“Wow!” Maddy became immediately impressed with the skinny, mournful Roland. “That is something else!”

“Yeah.”

Maddy waited, but he didn't say anything else.

“It's a nice district,” Maddy said. “We've got a skateboarding ramp over at the park, and a swimming pool, a good footie team, and there's a bike track around the creek. Have you met any of the local kids?”

“No.”

The chocolate makers were handing out samples of their work. Maddy chewed a chocolate-coated sultana thoughtfully. Maybe this aftercare program wasn't so bad after all! Roland shook his head at the chocolates offered.

“Do you like skateboarding?” Maddy asked.

“No.”

“Go bike riding?”

“No.”

“Play footie?”

“No.”

Maddy ate a chocolate-coated nut. Roland was pretty hard to talk to and sounded boring. No wonder he hadn't met anyone. None of the local kids would bother with him anyway.

“Maddy Walton,” a voice asked from the door.

“And Roland Townsend,” another voice asked.

“Francine and Jenny,” Mrs. Potter introduced. “Francine is Maddy's new tutor, and Jenny is helping Roland.”

Maddy and Roland exchanged identical expressions of surprise. Francine and Jenny were pretty girls hardly old enough to be prefects and certainly didn't look sour enough to tutor anybody in anything. The two girls grinned at their expressions.

Roland nodded to Maddy and went out of the room with Jenny. Maddy followed Francine into what she called the blue study. It was a small room with a table, two chairs, and a set of bookcases in it.

“Now about this arithmetic,” Francine said cheerfully as she spread out textbooks and paper across the table.

Being tutored by someone young and good-humoured was not at all painful, Maddy decided. Everything sounded so much simpler when explained by someone who wasn't irritable or bad-tempered.

“So that's how it's done,” Maddy kept saying, as her sums ended up correct.

Francine giggled and wrote up the next problem. It seemed hardly any time before Maddy looked up and saw Mrs. Walton waiting at the door.

“Francine is an ex-pupil here and at University, and she is so smart,” Maddy said as they headed towards the small red car Mrs. Walton drove. “She has showed me an easy way to do those beastly fractions.”

“Did you have a nice day and how are you feeling?” Mrs. Walton asked.

“Okay.” Maddy thought about her unpleasant afternoon and decided to forget it. “Just a bit tired, I guess.”

Maddy thought that over and frowned. Why was she feeling so tired? All she had done was sit around in school, sit around eating lunch, sit around playing draughts and sit around being tutored. She hadn't done a thing all day, but she still felt as tired as if she had spent the day digging ditches or something.

When they reached the Walton house, Maddy changed into her good quality, warm tracksuit just as Mrs. Walton came into her bedroom. Mrs. Walton examined the room and its little bathroom and raised an eyebrow.

The little bathroom was messy, with towels all over the floor. Maddy had forgotten to put the lid back on the toothpaste, or put back her toothbrush and hairbrush. In the bedroom, the bed was unmade, and she had dropped her school clothes on the floor as she had changed out of them.

“Hang up your blazer properly, Maddy. Put your dirty clothes in the laundry and take your shoes out and clean them.”

Maddy sighed but obeyed meekly. It was a bit silly cleaning school shoes that she wasn't going to need until Monday, but she did it. She tidied up the bedroom and bathroom. She had forgotten about how tidy Jennifer was.

It was nice living Jennifer's life, especially for the weekend, but not for a day longer. Why hadn't her wish to be herself and back home again been granted? Maybe there was something special in the Matson backyard that had caused her wish to be granted.

“Dinner will be ready soon,” Mrs. Walton warned, as Maddy went out the back door.

“Just going to talk to the Matsons,” Maddy said.

She didn't want to swap back right this minute, but it would be nice to know that she could.

 

Maddy stood at the kitchen door of the Matsons and knocked. The television was blaring and the shrill voices of her younger sisters were raised over it.

The Matson yard had a cheerful, carefree look with its shabby back lawn; its scuffed patches under the hammock; the untidy clutter of scooters and bikes under the overhang of the car port and the big rabbit hutch. It was nothing like the neat Walton yard with its green square of grass edged by flowerbeds.

Jennifer opened the door, and the familiar noise of the Matsons flooded out to welcome her. Jennifer smiled as she saw her.

“You're just in time, Maddy. We're cleaning up. Mum's worked today.”

“Hum,” Maddy said.

She remembered the days when her mother worked. It was always chaos, with lots of yelling to hurry up as they scrambled out. Their father left very early because he had to get to work by public transport so their mother could use the car on her work days. She then drove them to school and collected them on her way back, and they always came into the mess of the upheaval they had rushed off and left in the morning.

Merry and Milly were drying dishes and singing at the tops of their voices. The television was roaring in the lounge with no one watching it, the ancient stereo in their bedroom was belting out a song by their favourite pop group, and the vacuum cleaner roared up and down the passage. Maddy sighed blissfully. This was home!

“I'll keep collecting dishes, and you can take over washing them,” Jennifer said.

Maddy started to say she didn't come around to do other people's dishes, but the words stuck in her throat. She couldn't be nasty to Jennifer. Besides, she was actually glad to have the familiar chore of washing dishes in front of her. It had felt funny to be at the Walton's and never, ever do dishes.

There was a silence as Milly and Merry waited, tea towels poised. They had caught up with all the dishes, and the dish rack was empty. This was unusual as they usually dried dishes as slowly and resentfully as reluctant snails.

“Your turn to start the next round,” Milly said.

“And keep up with us, cause we can dry faster than you can wash,” Merry said happily.

“That's what you think,” Jennifer said. “Three blind mice,” she sang as loudly as she could as she crashed more dishes into the hot soapy water and flung them into the dish drainer.

“Three blind mice,” squeaked her excited sisters, as they dried dishes and clattered away the cutlery.

“Three blind mice,” bawled Maddy as she scrubbed down the table and benches and wiped down the chairs.

In no time, the kitchen was unnaturally clean and spotless and doing it had actually been fun. It was very odd! Maddy watched her sisters out of the corners of her eyes. Milly and Merry were being much more helpful than they usually were, and looked as if they enjoyed helping for a change.

Jennifer danced into their big, back bedroom off the kitchen, still singing. The others followed her. They had to sing even louder to be heard over the pop group. Maddy kept getting the giggles as the pop group beat muddled their tune. Jennifer sang even louder, trying to beat time with her hands as she shook out doonas and fluffed out pillows.

Merry picked up all the dirty clothes and trotted out to the laundry with them. Milly picked up and folded discarded pyjamas and tracksuits, and stacked away books and games. Maddy moved around making beds and folding the extra rugs and blankets away in the cupboard. Their bedroom had never been so tidy before.

The tape ended and they sang the last verse of “Three Blind Mice” with gusto. Except for the television roaring in the lounge room, everything was suddenly quieter.

“What were all the extra rugs doing out?” Maddy asked. “It wasn't that cold last night.”

“We were playing cubbies,” Jennifer explained.

“Wigwams,” little Merry said as she came in. “I was Pocahontas.”

Their mother put her head around the door. “You all make a very good team! Time for afternoon tea?”

They moved into the kitchen and sat around the table. Jennifer started putting out the plates and mugs and bread and jam while their mother poured the tea. This afternoon there were no scattered papers, unfinished sewing, over-looked shopping waiting to be put away, or any of the usual clutter on the table.

Maddy looked at the big refrigerator. There were only two school notices and Milly's last painting stuck to the big door. All the usual mess of outdated messages, school notices, and clippings were gone. On the top of the refrigerator the pot plant sat alone without the high pile of single thongs, slippers, sox, and bike pumps around it.

“It's homemade jam, Maddy,” her mother said as she cut the crusty bread. “Perfectly wholesome.”

Maddy's mouth watered. The bread was fresh and cut in thick, jagged slices. She had forgotten how much nicer a loaf of bread tasted than sliced bread. The jam was blackberry. It was made from blackberries she and her sisters had picked during the summer.

Her mother passed the mugs of tea around. Maddy sighed contentment. Today she didn't even mind her sisters. It was wonderful to be back home. There was something so comfortable about their big, old-fashioned kitchen, with its pantry and the old wood stove her father hadn't gotten around to taking out.

There were none of the usual squabbles over who had stolen whose slice of bread and who had taken the last spoon in the place. Everything was unusually peaceful and it felt nice and safe and homely.

“Anything interesting or unusual happen around here lately?” Maddy asked.

“The new rabbit escaped,” Merry said.

“And it was you that let it go,” Milly accused.

“What new rabbit?” Maddy asked.

“A white rabbit with pink eyes turned up in the hutch with the others one afternoon,” Jennifer explained. “We think someone must have sneaked it into the hutch when we were at school. Merry was cuddling it when it got away.”

Maddy felt herself go very still. She had been cuddling the white rabbit when she had made her wish. Was it the white rabbit that had caused her wish to be granted?

“Where did it go to?”

“Just seemed to vanish,” Jennifer admitted.

Jennifer still had the same happy and contented face. She didn't seem to be missing the private school, the expensive clothes, and her privileged lifestyle at all. She had settled in as a Matson very quickly! Why hadn't anyone noticed she didn't belong?

“Jennifer doesn't look at all like the rest of you,” Maddy said, looking at the black hair and dark eyes of her mother and her two sisters.

“Yes, she does,” her mother said giving Jennifer a fond look. “It's just that she's got the same coloring as Mr. Matson's mother. She was fair-haired and blue-eyed just like Jennifer.”

This might be true, Maddy thought. Grandma Matson had snow-white hair, fair freckled skin and faded blue eyes. It could have been Jennifer sort of coloring.

“Otherwise, she just looks like the rest of us,” her mother said.

Maddy looked around the table. Three glowing, happy, faces stared back. It was true! Jennifer did look like a Matson despite her coloring! Her face was rounder, and she now had the same bright pink cheeks as the others.

Maddy glanced across at her own face, reflected in the aging mirror by the back door. She hadn't noticed before, but her face was thinner than she remembered it and her skin much paler.

The fresh bread and homemade blackberry jam lost their flavour. She put it down uneaten. She was suddenly not hungry anymore. What if she couldn't wish herself back into her own family? Jennifer would gradually grow to be more Matson-like and she would grow into a proper Walton and their mothers would never know the difference.

“So how was your day?” Maddy asked Jennifer.

“Terrific! How was yours?”

“I'm going to do my assignment,” Milly announced. “Jennifer helped me get all the stuff I needed from the library at lunchtime, so I can finish it.”

“I thought you took your racquet to practice with lunchtime?” their mother said.

Maddy remembered Jennifer's expensive racquet she hadn't used when they decided not to play at school. Jennifer had gone from a school with its own courts and coach, to practising with the old racquet against the brick wall at the high school with the other kids. Was she resentful about it at all?

“Plenty of time for me to practice,” Jennifer said. “I wanted to help Milly find that material for her assignment.” She winked at Milly as she stood up and pushed the chair neatly into the table. “I like bragging about my straight A's, little sister.”

“And I like bragging about the most popular girl in the district being my sister,” Milly returned.

Maddy looked at Milly in surprise. Milly actually spoke as if she was proud of her new sister! In fact, everyone in the Matson family was much nicer to Jennifer than they ever had been to her.

“And Jennifer's been invited to Brett Havington's pool party next Saturday,” Merry said.

“Like most everybody else in the district,” Jennifer said, but she went pink.

Maddy stared at Jennifer in shock. Brett had invited Jennifer and not her! It just wasn't fair! Why did Jennifer always get the best of everything? She was living in Maddy's easygoing, comfortable house, in Maddy's easygoing, comfortable life, with nice little sisters to keep her company, and she had been invited to Brett's pool party as well!

She, Maddy, should have been invited to that pool party if it hadn't been for that nasty Bronwin. All she had to look forward to was being marooned in the uncomfortable, expensive house of the Walton's forever!

Maddy blinked. What was she thinking of? She didn't want to be envious or spiteful or jealous. After all, she was the one who had gotten herself into this mess by wanting everything Jennifer had!

“You all right?” Jennifer asked behind her. “Come on out and have a rest in the hammock.”

“I think I'd better head back home. Mum's having an early dinner,” Maddy muttered and fled.

She wanted to get back to the Walton house before she disgraced herself by bursting into tears in front of the Matsons. Was Bronwin the reason she hadn't been invited to the pool party, or was it still because nobody really liked her?