The Changeover by Margaret Mahy Read Free Book Online

lifted his eyes directly to hers as she went by, and gave her a look of amusement, caution and something else ... a look so complex she could not unravel, in the second of its duration, all its elements, but thought perhaps Kate would have called it ironic.
    It was not usual for Laura to collect Jacko on a Friday since it was not a late night, for Mrs Fangboner did not mind having him until twenty-to-six, but Kate had suggested she might make an exception on this particular day when he was off-colour. So after talking to a mixed group of boys and girls, her usual acquaintances, and playing a game of tennis with Nicky who lived close to the school, Laura turned up on the Fangboner doorstep and was greeted with unusual enthusiasm by Mrs Fangboner, for Jacko had had an unhappy day and she was glad to be relieved of him.
    "... like a different boy," she said, sounding bewildered. "Poor boy, I think he's going down with something. What on earth will your mum do if he's sick? She'll have to take time off and her boss won't like that, will he? I mean, it's not like a big shop where there's plenty of staff to take over."
    Jacko sat on a Fangboner stool, Rosebud smiling pink as ever out of his Ruggie, staring at Laura as if he could barely remember who she was. Then he got up and stalked over to her, stiff legged as a wind-up toy, dropped Rosebud and put his arms up, asking to be held. He wanted to be a baby again. Laura's eyes prickled with love, but it was of limited use, for he was too heavy to carry easily, and the walk to the shopping complex, usually gay and cheerful, was interminable today, for she had to make him walk at least part of the way and he grizzled in a dreary voice and continually dropped Rosebud who had to be picked up again and again. Laura struggled with her school pack on her back, history, maths and science, dragging at her shoulders, Jacko in her right arm, and his basket in her left. At last, in a moment of helpless frustration with the sheer difficulty of moving things around in the world, she gave him a small, sharp slap. He did not cry but simply bent his head against her.
    "Poor Jacko!" he said in a sad, hoarse voice. "Poor Jacko!"
    She meant to hurry him past the tiny, wicked shop with its miniscule objects in its cottage garden window, in case his nightmares revived, but Mr Braque himself was out on the pavement painting the words 'Brique a Braque' on the window, and doing it rather well, too. Laura crossed over to the other side of the road but was very much aware of Mr Braque. Even as she struggled not to glance at him, he was projected into her mind, an invader of inner space and, turn her head away as she would, she could still see him. Her eye had trapped his image, her brain would not release it, and she felt she was looking into his ancient eyes once more, crocodile eyes, tied to a crocodile mind, and seeing something that could wear a human body and make it move, as an entertainer might wear and control a puppet-glove. With a sudden flare of— of what? — she wondered, for it was gone before she could define it, the hidden computer wired into her everyday mind (the very one which had informed her that her father was going to leave her, had warned her of Sorry Carlisle and only yesterday of Mr Braque) struggled to inform her yet again. "Spirit!" it said. "Incubus! Demon!" She knew, without looking, that he had turned and stared at her across the street, knew that his skin was less shrunken, his smile a little less deathly. Something was changing him, and she hardly dared to guess just what it might be.
    It was late in the afternoon, but the bookshop was busy and Kate was selling a book to someone — a detective story.
    "It's quite intriguing, though I liked his first one better," she was saying, but the book was already sold and being slipped into a special paperbag printed with the bookshop's name so there was no risk in giving an honest opinion. Kate's eyes fell on Laura coming in at the door