Newt Nemesis by Ali Sparkes Page A

admitted Charlie. “But what if they never change back? We’ll get found out sooner or later . . . and then what will we tell people?”

    â€œOh, I dunno,” said Danny, rubbing his green ankles vigorously. “The truth?”
    â€œWhat?” said Charlie. “That your next door neighbor, who seems like a nice old lady, is actually a bonkers genius scientist with a S.W.I.T.C.H. spray for turning humans into creatures? And that she turned us into frogs yesterday? And this is . . . just an aftereffect? Oh. OK then. Nothing to worry about. Yeah—I’m sure they’ll all believe THAT!”
    â€œWell, trouble is . . .” said Danny, picking a small black beetle out of his scruffy, spiky, fair hair and absentmindedly eating it, “there’s nothing else that makes any better sense, is there?”
    â€œPetty Potts MUST have the antidote spray!” said Charlie. “I can’t believe she just lost it! She has to find it and change us back properly. I want to go rafting and—”
    â€œWell . . . actually . . . we did ask her to S.W.I.T.C.H. us, didn’t we? Begged her, in fact.” Josh could hardly believe these words were coming out of his mouth. Only a couple of weeks ago, he and Danny had vowed solemnly that theywould NEVER let Petty Potts S.W.I.T.C.H. them into anything ever again.
    After a summer of being S.W.I.T.C.H.ed into spiders, insects, and beetles, they’d really had enough of Petty’s Serum Which Instigates Total Cellular Hijack. Their cells had been hijacked way too many times.
    â€œI can’t believe we really begged her to S.W.I.T.C.H. us, this time,” muttered Danny. “I want to swim! It’s not fair! She S.W.I.T.C.H.ed us into frogs—she should S.W.I.T.C.H. us back again—properly!”
    â€œWe must have been insane,” said Josh.
    â€œIt was my fault,” sighed Charlie. “I had to go and ‘borrow’ that key, didn’t I? And then lose it in the pond . . . ”
    â€œYeah, but it was our idea to get Petty to spray us with FrogSWITCH and go frog diving for it,” admitted Danny. “We couldn’t let you get sent home in disgrace.”
    â€œIt’s never taken this long to wear off before,” Josh went on. “I guess it’s because we got a double dose when she sprayed us with the antidote, which turned out to be more FrogSWITCH. I thinkmy ankles are a
bit
less froggy. Hopefully, they’ll be normal again tomorrow. And maybe Danny will stop eating bugs.”
    â€œI’m NOT eating bugs!” Danny shuddered, a long brown feeler stuck to his lip. “As IF!” Danny loathed creepy-crawlies of all kinds. Even though he’d been quite a few.
    â€œWhat side effects did you get from being creepy-crawlies?” asked Charlie.
    Danny grimaced. “After we were houseflies, I kept trying to lick the trash bin. And I spat goo on my doughnut before eating it. And Josh’s.”
    â€œOn
my
doughnut?” squawked Josh. “You never told me that!”
    â€œSorry,” Danny shrugged.
    â€œAnd when we’d been daddy longlegs,” said Josh, after a short, doughnut-related freeze, “you know . . . crane flies . . . we kept staring at lights, and sometimes even running at them, for days afterward.”
    â€œBut those were all, kind of, in our heads,” added Danny. “Not physical stuff, like this. And they all wore off after a week.”
    â€œA week?” Charlie stared at her green shiny feet, aghast. “You mean this could last another five or six days?”
    â€œMaybe,” said Josh. “Unless Petty uses her antidote on us. The right one this time. We need to find her and get her on her own. I haven’t seen her all day—but her car’s still in the parking lot, so she must be around somewhere. Let’s go and find her.” He started to pull the socks back on again.
    Danny and Charlie did the