The Switch Read Free Page B

tugged at the two pins in his right ear. He let his hands fall and gazed at his palms. He knew, even without understanding why, that he had never seen those hands before. They weren’t his hands.
    Somehow, something horrible had happened. He had gone to sleep as Tad. But he had woken up as Bob.
    A few minutes later the curtain was drawn back and a woman came out.
    She was one of the ugliest women Tad had ever seen. For a start, she was so fat that the caravan rocked when she moved. Her legs, swathed in black stockings, were thin at the ankles but thicker than tree trunks by the time they disappeared into her massive, exploding bottom. She had arms like hams in a butcher shop, and as for her face, it was so fat that it seemed to have swallowed itself. Her squat nose, narrow eyes and bright red lips had sunk into flabby folds of flesh. Her hair was black and tightly permed. She wore heavy plastic earrings, a wooden necklace and a variety of metal bangles, brooches and rings.
    She took one look at Tad and shook her head. The earrings rattled. “Gawd’s truth!” she muttered to herself. Then suddenly she lashed out with her foot. Tad cried aloud as her shoe caught him on the hip. “All right, you,” the woman exclaimed. “If you’re not going to ’elp, you can clear out. Go out and be sick or something. That’ll straighten you out.”
    “Please . . .” Tad began, getting to his feet.
    “I told you that glue was no good for you. But would you listen? No! You get yourself dressed . . .” The woman snatched a handful of clothes from the top of the fridge and threw them at Tad. “Now get out, Bob. I don’t wanna see you again until you got your act together.”
    “No. You don’t understand . . .”
    But the woman had clenched her fist and Tad realized she didn’t want to know. Clutching the clothes, he scrabbled for the door, found the handle and turned it. Behind the woman, the man had appeared, now wearing a knit shirt and jeans and smoking a fresh cigarette. He saw what was happening and laughed. “You show ’im, Doll!” he called out.
    “Shut up!” his wife replied.
    Tad fell through the door and into his new world.

THE CARNIVAL
    Tad was standing in the middle of a carnival that had been set up on a patch of lumpy ground near a main road. There were about a dozen rides and the usual shooting galleries and sideshows. But everything was so old and broken down, with flaking paint and broken lightbulbs, that it didn’t look like fun at all. The carnival was completely encircled by a cluster of caravans and trucks, some with electric generators. Thick cables snaked across the ground, joining everything to everything in a complicated tangle. There was nobody in sight.
    Although the rain had eased off, it was still drizzling and this, along with the gray light of early morning, only made the scene more wretched. Tad felt the water dripping down his arms and legs and remembered that he was almost naked. Hastily he sorted through the clothes the woman had thrown him—a pair of jeans, faded and torn at the knees, a sweater, socks and sneakers. Holding them up in front of him, Tad knew at once that they were much too small. There was no way they could possibly fit him. But when he did finally pull them on, they did!
    Tad looked back at the caravan. It was one of the largest in the carnival. Once it had been white, but rust had eaten away most of the paintwork and dirt covered what little was left. The door was still firmly shut, but there was a buzzer next to it and below that a slip of paper under a plastic cover. It read:
     
    ERIC AND DOLL SNARBY
     
    Doll. That was what the man had called the woman. Next to the nameplate somebody had added three letters, gouging them into the side of the caravan.
     
    BOB
     
    Tad ran his finger along it and swallowed hard. Bob Snarby. Was that who he was?
    “I am not Bob Snarby! I’m Tad Spencer!”
    But even as he spoke the words, he knew that they weren’t true. Like it