Body Switchers from Outer Space by R.L. Stine Page B

didn’t know what hit them!”
    â€œYeah. So?”
    â€œDon’t you think Will has been acting strange since Friday?”
    She was silent for a while. “He hasn’t tripped over anything or spilled anything,” she said slowly, “and he can catch the Frisbee without fumbling it, and he runs real good, and he’s way too polite.”
    â€œI bet he doesn’t call you Buckethead.”
    â€œNope. Not that I miss it!”
    â€œI bet he doesn’t know your birthday is May eleventh.”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œI’m Will. I know it’s hard to believe, Pep. But it’s true! I switched bodies with that guy Chad. That was me on the front porch yesterday. I can prove it to you. Ask me anything!”
    â€œWhat’s my favorite color?”
    â€œRed.”
    â€œHow would you know? I never told Will my favorite color!”
    â€œThat’s what color notebook you buy for school every year. That’s what color shirt you always buy, if Mom lets you. What else?”
    She was quiet for a long time.
    At last she said, “Tell me something only Will could know.”
    â€œI drew a mustache on your Cabbage Patch doll with Magic Marker when you were five.”
    â€œWhat?” she yelled. “That was you? You rat! You total rat! I knew you did it! I hate you!”
    Then she hung up!
    I dialed again.
    â€œHello?” a voice answered. My voice.
    â€œChad?” I yelped. “Chad, I don’t know if I can wait until tonight. Can’t you come over now?”
    â€œNo, I can’t come over now. Or later.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I asked nervously.
    I heard his mean laugh cackle over the phone lines.
    â€œGive it up, Will. I’m never giving you your body back. Never.”

14

    T he phone went dead.
    I stared at the cordless in my hand.
    Never!
    He was never going to switch back!
    I was stuck with these aliens, and they were sure to find out I was human!
    The shink was out in the shed, waiting for me to make one more little goof! And I, Will Kennedy, had a lifelong history of horrible goofs!
    No way! I wouldn’t let it happen.
    I would force Chad back here. That’s what I would do. I’d get him back into the shed—somehow.
    I went into the workroom and found Chad-Twostill sitting there. A bunch of weird equipment was spread on the floor.
    If I was going to get Chad over here, I needed some help.
    â€œWhere’s my merister?” I asked Chad-Two, remembering his net gun from the day before. It might be helpful in getting Chad to cooperate.
    â€œCheck your other pants,” Chad-Two responded, pointing to a door. I opened it and saw a closet full of Chad’s clothes.
    I checked through the pockets of the pants hanging there and found several strange objects.
    One of them was a merister, just like the net gun Chad-Two used on the rat the day before. I stashed it in my pocket.
    Then I checked out another gunlike object. It had a clear ball the size of a big marble on the end of its barrel and two touch pads, one blue and one pink. I held it up to look at it.
    â€œYou found your lifter!” Chad-Two said, noticing the object in my hands. “Good! Let me see if it’s still charged.” He took it from me.
    He tapped a touch pad high on the wall. A drawer the size of a piano opened, making a deep grinding sound as it slid across the floor. It sounded really heavy.
    Chad-Two pushed the round ball against the drawer and pressed the blue button twice. Then heraised the gun. The big drawer rose up in the air! And Chad wasn’t straining at all!
    He put the lump back down, tapped the pink button twice, and the ball came loose. “Works fine,” he announced.
    â€œYeah,” I said.
    He tossed the lifter to me.
    I wondered if it would lift cars! Or, say, that big bully Eric Rice in Miss Scott’s class.
    Or Chad-Two?
    I put the lifter in my pocket.
    â€œChad-One! Chad-Two!”