Flip by Martyn Bedford Read Free Book Online Page B

unfastened the lead from its post.
    The homework (recasting sentences in the past, present and future tenses for French) was straightforward enough. Half an hour and it was done. Which left the rest of the evening to have a proper snoop in Flip’s room. He had to find out more about the boy he’d been paired with. Or uncover some clue, maybe—something odd in Flip’s life in the period leading up to the “switch,” as he’d come to think of it. As far as he could recall, there was nothing unusual from his own life back then.
    “Back then” being the day before to Alex, or the past December to Philip.
    He switched on the PC once more. E-mail and the Internet might be off-limits without a password, but he could at least trawl around My Documents, My Music, My Pictures and the memory stick from the schoolbag. Bits of schoolwork; a file containing a list of the Greatest Cricketers of All Time, divided into categories (bowlers, batsmen, wicket-keepers, allrounders); homework notes; a copy of a letter, dated more than a year earlier, from Flip to someone called Kevin Pietersen, asking which was the best guard to take: leg, middle-and-leg or middle. Alex had no idea what this meant. Flip’s My Pictures folder was empty, apart from the stock of desktop wallpapers. As for the music on his PC—and his iPod and the CDs in the rack on his desk—it was almost exclusively rap. Alex would’ve sooner punctured his eardrums with a kebab skewer than listen to any of it.
    The diary section of Flip’s planner revealed nothing unusual in the days before June 23, or six months earlier, when Alex had spent the evening at David’s, then legged it home. Searching the room, he only found more evidence of the differences between him and Flip rather than similarities, let alone connections. The books (very few) were mostly nonfiction: sport, true crime, the Viz annual, Windows for Dummies , ex-SAS memoirs. In the bottom of the wardrobe were a new-looking pair of in-line skates, a cricket bat, golf clubs, a tennis racket, various balls, dumbbells and— please, no —a skateboard. The clothes were okay. Cool. Expensive. The right brands from the right shops. Alex stripped off the school uniform and tried on a few combinations. They fitted. Well, of course they did. They looked great, too, in the full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe door. So did he, for once.
    Alex ransacked various drawers but turned up nothing of any use. He felt a brief flare of optimism when he came across a card for a Halifax account, but almost as soon as he imagined raiding Flip’s savings to get home, Alex realized he’d need the PIN.
    It did at least make him aware of what he wanted to do more than anything. More than solving the mystery of what had paired him with Flip in the first place. If Alex was unable to contact his mother, David or anyone from his “real” existence, then he must go to them. Go home. Make them see him for who he was. Beagle did. If a dog could tell this version of Flip from the genuine one, surely Alex’s parents, his brother, his best mate could sense that he was in there, behind this impostor’s facade.
    Somehow, Alex had to see Mum and Dad, face to face.
    This time he was underwater, running, feet sinking deeper and deeper into the seabed. The surface was within reach if he raised his arms, but he couldn’t get his head out of the water. He had to breathe. The compulsion to inhale was huge. But he couldn’t, mustn’t. Still he ran, getting nowhere, each frantic step burying his feet in the wet sand until he was no longer able to lift them. Finally, with one great gulp, he opened his mouth, his lungs to the flood of foul seawater.
    Alex woke. Sat up in bed. His heart was racing and he gasped for air as though he’d actually been drowning.
    Was this his asthma, back again? Twenty-four hours after the switch, had he returned to his own body? He fumbled for the bedside light, almost knocking it to the floor. The sudden