The Switch by Anthony Horowitz Page A

peered over his shoulder and grinned. It was Eric Snarby. He had a broken cigarette between his lips. In all the excitement he’d bitten it in half.
    “Keep your eye on the road, Snarby,” Finn snapped. “And your foot on the axe-hellerator. We got a long way to go!”
    Tad turned to Finn. “How did you find me?” he asked.
    Finn brushed broken glass off his shoulders. The whole of the window had fallen in, but fortunately it was a warm night—and a dry one. “I been looking for you ever since that little business in Nightingale Square,” he explained. “In fact I ’ad the ’ole network out. All over London. The street vendors and the traffic cops. The thieves and the beggars. The cleaners, the cabbies and the couriers. I was worried about you, you see, my boy. I was worried about what might ’appen to you.”
    “You mean, you were worried I’d be picked up by the police.”
    “I wanted to find you.” They drove past a streetlamp and for a moment the skin behind the spiderweb glowed a horrible orange. “And you’re lucky I did, Bobby-boy. If old Finn hadn’t come looking for you, ’oo knows what would ’ave ’appened to you. Shampooed to death, perhaps. Or bubble-bathed till you was insane . . .”
    Tad leaned forward. “You know about the Center!” he exclaimed.
    Finn smiled. “There’s nothing happens in London that Finn don’t know about,” he replied. “And the nastier it is, the sooner I hear . . .”
    Tad twisted in his seat and looked out of the broken window. The street behind them was empty. “Where are we going?” he asked.
    “You might as well lie back and catch a few z’s,” Finn replied. “We’re going to the country. Life in town’s a bit ’ot for old Finn at the moment. We’re going to join the carnival.”
    “Great Yarmouth!” Tad remembered the Snarbys talking about the move.
    “That’s right. Boring, snoring, rain-always-pouring Great Yarmouth. But we can lie low there and work out how to earn a dishonest penny or two.”
    “Your mum’ll be glad to see you!” Eric crooned from the front seat.
    “Shut up and keep your eye on the road!” Finn snapped. “And get a move on, for Gawd’s sake. You’re only doing a hundred miles an hour!”
    Eric Snarby slammed his foot on the pedal and the taxi leaped forward, racing into the night.
     
     
    The boardwalk at Great Yarmouth was a true, permanent, old-fashioned amusement park. It was more wood than plastic, more falling apart than thrilling. All in all there were about thirty rides, dominated by a huge roller coaster that stretched out parallel with the sea. There were bumper cars, of course, a leaky water flume, a cyclone and a ghost train so old that it could have been haunted by the ghosts of people who had once ridden it. Its most recent attraction was a Mirror Maze, a circular building mounted with speakers so that anyone passing could hear the cries and laughter of the people inside. But the Mirror Maze, like the rest of the park, was closed. It was seven-thirty in the morning. And, as Tad gazed up at the highest loop of the roller coaster, he was utterly alone.
    Eric Snarby had a caravan just across the road from the boardwalk and he and Finn had gone in to get a few hours’ sleep. Doll had not yet woken up. There wouldn’t have been enough room for Tad, even if he had been tired. But he’d slept in the taxi. He was glad to be on his own.
    He needed to think.
    It was still so hard to believe. His parents, Sir Hubert and Lady Geranium Spencer, running a business that used children in experiments? The brains behind a charity that horribly exploited the young people who needed its help? It was impossible, unthinkable. His parents were decent people. His father had been knighted by the queen! But as hard as he tried to persuade himself that his parents were somehow innocent, that they knew nothing, Tad couldn’t make it work.
    In the distance, the waves rolled and broke against the beach hidden behind the