DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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Copyright © 2015 by Ingrid Law
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Law, Ingrid, date.
Switch / by Ingrid Law.
pages cm
“Companion to the Newbery Honor winner Savvy.”
Summary: “Gypsy Beaumont's magical savvy switches to its opposite when she learns that her mean and decidedly non-magical grandma has Alzheimer's and is going to move in with her family”
—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-101-59395-0
[1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Families—Fiction. 3. Grandmothers—Fiction. 4. Alzheimer's disease—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L41836Sw 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2015006965
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Jacket art © 2015 by Brandon Dorman
Jacket design by Kristin Smith
Version_1
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To Rick and Shirley, devoted parents and grandparents
“PLEASE, MRS. FOSTER—I’VE SEEN your future, and you really don’t want to buy this soap.”
“Gypsy Beaumont! Stop making a scene and let go.”
It was the second Saturday in January, but red and green streamers still hung from the rafters in Flint’s Market. A little drummer boy continued to rum-pum over the loudspeakers. At the front of the store, a small table held what was left of the holiday clearance: mesh bags of crushed chocolate Hanukkah coins; flattened marshmallow Santas; a torn package of silver confetti; a few scraggly, wilted poinsettias. Meanwhile, halfway down aisle six, I was engaged in a tug-of-war with Mrs. Foster, my former Prairie Scout troop leader and the mother of my former best friend, Shelby.
As Mrs. Foster and I battled for possession of a small blue box of Suds o’ Heaven bath soap, Shelby pushed her mother’s grocery cart down the aisle, away from us. Pretending she didn’t know me.
Just like she’d been doing for the past four months.
“What happened to the good citizenship you learned in Prairie Scouts, Gypsy?” Mrs. Foster demanded.
“I’m trying to be a good citizen,” I said, wrenching down harder on the box Mrs. Foster and I gripped between us.
Mrs. Foster didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. She only tugged back harder. “I never could get you to conform to the conduct of the Prairie Scouts, Gypsy. You were always too flighty.”
Yank. Tug.
“Too daydreamy.”
Jerk. Pull.
“Too . . . too odd. Where are your parents?” Mrs. Foster pried at my clutching fingers, not letting go of the bar of soap that was, unbeknownst to her, as dangerous as an oily banana peel at the top of a staircase.
Hearing Mrs. Foster’s voice rise over the post-holiday rum-pa-pum-pums, I knew I was in trouble. By now, Poppa would have heard the shrieking. He’d be hotfooting it to aisle six, on the double. Mr. Flint would probably be heading our way too. The store owner always kept a close eye on my family when we did our shopping. Things had a way of going wonky when a Beaumont was in the aisles—from exploding cash registers and power surges, to an incident involving all of the ink pens and markers in aisle ten, to an unexplained rainstorm in the bakery that destroyed a dozen birthday cakes and gullywashed fifty loaves of bread into the parking lot.
Mr. Flint had already banned most of my older siblings from the store, for life.
It looked like I’d be next.
I hadn’t meant to make a scene. Seeing Shelby and her mother in the store, I’d followed them, slipping away from Poppa in the produce section. When I’d left him, Poppa had been scratching the old scar on his bald head as he sorted through a pile of fresh green beans, trying to pick the perfect ones for Momma. Momma could’ve grabbed handfuls of the very best beans without even looking, but today Poppa had volunteered to do the shopping. I’d asked to go along. Big mistake.
I’d followed Shelby, spying on her from a distance. I was certain that, if I looked hard enough, I might glimpse a future in which I was a super-mature, card-carrying teenager in Shelby’s new gaggle of gawking, squawking gal-pals.
No such luck. I’d seen Mrs. Foster’s future instead.
I could feel my glasses slipping down the short slope of my stubby nose. Not wanting to release my two-handed grip on the soap, I used my shoulder to push my glasses back in place. It was either that or close my eyes, and keep them closed. Otherwise things would only get worse.
If Poppa arrived in aisle six now, he’d know I’d been using my savvy again. I was supposed to be practicing control. I was supposed to be staying focused on the present. I was supposed to be allowing other people their privacy . . .
But I’d never been too good at remembering my supposed-to’s.
“Gypsy!” Poppa appeared at one end of the aisle, just as Mr. Flint materialized at the other. Both of them were frowning. At the same moment, the music inside the market changed. The drummer boy’s plodding pums faded away, replaced by a lively burst of violins and horns and spritely tambourine: the Russian Dance from The Nutcracker. Hearing the familiar melody, my mind filled with a fantasia of dancing thistle-men and orchid women. Lifting my spirits. Compelling my feet to move.
The zeal of the music, and the threat of the three adults closing ranks, bolstered my determination. With one great heave, I snatched the soap from Mrs. Foster’s grasp at last. I lingered just long enough to plow every last bar of Suds o’ Heaven off the shelf, into my arms. Then I sprang merrily away.
“Gypsy, stop!”
“I can’t, Poppa,” I called back. “Trust me!” Hop-skipping down aisle six, I hugged my hoard of soap tightly. I couldn’t afford to drop any of the slippery boxes; I had to keep them all from Mrs. Foster.
Overtaken by orchestral
glee, I only paused when I passed Shelby.
“Come on, Shel. Please?” I begged as I twirled and hopped around her. “You could help me.” All I wanted was to skip away arm-in-arm with Shelby, to giggle and cavort the way we’d done less than a year ago, when we were both still Prairie Scouts, and friends.
Shelby stared at the floor, bug-eyed and red-faced. Completely mortified.
I felt my shoulders droop. But I couldn’t dawdle. Mrs. Foster’s future was in my hands.
The Nutcracker’s Russian Dance only lasts a minute. That was all the time I needed. Before the final tambourine ting-TANG buzzed from the speakers, I’d found my way to the seafood section. By the time the others caught up to me, twelve boxes of Suds o’ Heaven soap were settling to the bottom of Mr. Flint’s empty lobster tank. Sending heavenly suds bubbling through the filters.
Poppa paid for the soap, the cost of cleaning the lobster tank, and our bag of green beans. Then Mr. Flint pointed to the exit. A dozen shoppers looked on, nattering behind their hands.
“Oh, it’s that poor man with the peculiar wife and children. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened again.”
“I can’t understand how someone as nice and as normal as Mr. Beaumont ended up with such wicked children. They’re always getting into trouble. It’s why they homeschool, you know.”
The yakkety-yak of the gossips jackhammered at my insides. We weren’t wicked at all! Sure, Rocket had sometimes shocked people on purpose, back when he was young and ornery. And Samson may have turned invisible at church the previous Sunday without meaning to, nearly giving old Mr. Popplewell a heart attack. But those things didn’t make my brothers bad.
Tears prickled the corners of my eyes, but I refused to cry. I’d done what I had to do. My savvy vision had been quite clear. If saving Mrs. Foster had cost me future shopping privileges, so be it.
Heading for the exit, Poppa and I brushed past the clearance table. I quickly scooped up a poinsettia flower that had fallen to the floor and tucked it into my hair band, dressing up my knotted mess of curls. Then, without even thinking, I ran my hand through the shimmer of confetti spilled across the table. I was hot in my coat, and my wild dance through the store had made me even warmer; the confetti clung to my sweat-dampened palm.
I couldn’t help myself. Soothed by the flower in my hair and the silver bits sprinkling from my fingertips, I momentarily forgot my cares and twirled in the direction of the exit.
“This is exactly why we can’t be friends anymore, Gypsy,” Shelby said as she and her mother passed me and Poppa, all of us leaving the store at the same time. “You are waaaay too embarrassing.” As Mrs. Foster pulled her daughter toward the parking lot, Shelby called back over her shoulder, loud enough for everyone in the store to hear:
“We’re thirteen years old now, Gypsy. Teenagers! Why do you have to be so weird about some stupid bar of soap? Why do you still act like a silly, dancing, flower-picking baby?”
Shelby’s barbs punctured my last bubble of confidence. Her meanness smashed all of the twinkle lights that lit me from inside. I stopped twirling. I hadn’t been trying to embarrass anyone. I’d been trying to keep Mrs. Foster from getting a busted elbow and two cracked ribs in a bathtub accident only I could see coming.
But how could Shelby understand? She’d stopped being my friend right before my most important birthday. Right before I turned thirteen. I’d gone away for the summer and lost Shelby to a group of older girls—girls who wore mascara and lip gloss, and skirts too short and tight to twirl.
I sighed as I watched Shelby walk away. It was no use. Even if she had still been my friend, I couldn’t have explained. Or told the truth. I’d wanted to share my family’s secret with Shelby since the day we met. But I’d always been good. I’d always kept silent. Even when Shelby asked why we Beaumonts were so different.
Different.
Embarrassing.
Baby.
The words knocked around inside my head like bricks. “I’m sorry, Poppa,” I said, shivering as we stepped out into the cold with our lonely bag of beans. Fat snowflakes had begun to fall, but I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue and taste them; Shelby might still be watching.
With a shudder, I brushed the last bits of confetti from my palm in a frenzy, as if the clinging bits had abruptly transformed into germs, or prickers, or cockroach eggs. I had to get rid of the sparkles. I had to quit being such a baby.
Poppa took my hand, stopping me. I stifled a sob as he hugged me close. And when he let go again, tilting my chin up with one finger so that I could see his smile, I knew he’d already forgiven me for the soapy scene I’d made inside the store. But there was something sad in his eyes.
“Don’t ever let other people’s fears or judgments change you, twirly-whirly girl,” he said, adjusting the poinsettia in my hair and giving me a wink. “Let’s go home now. We’ve got some beans to eat.”
Home. Yes. Home was the best place in the whole wide world—100 percent free from killjoys and party poopers. I was certain there wasn’t anything, or anyone, in the entire world that could ever change that.
But I would soon learn that sometimes it only takes one person to change everything. To switch things up.
IN FAMILIES LIKE MINE—SAVVY families—change can hit fast. When I was still teeter-tottering on tiny feet, my family moved away from our home next to the ocean. Momma and Poppa had no choice; my brother Fish had triggered a hurricane along the Gulf Coast on his thirteenth birthday, and we needed to live someplace where he couldn’t do as much damage with his storming.
My grandpa moved with us, which was lucky. Originally, my parents were going to relocate the family to Colorado. Closer to Poppa’s childhood home.
Closer to Grandma Pat.
Patrice Beaumont was the sourest, least-magical grandmother imaginable. But with the Centennial State still west of sunset, Grandpa Bomba got a twinkle in his eye and we took a detour. Before anyone could say Jack Robinson, Grandpa nudged Nebraska farther north and kicked Kansas farther south, using his savvy to move and stretch the soil. Just like that, we had our own bit of land, smack-dab in the middle of the country. We called our new home Kansaska-Nebransas, and we were happy there.
Grandpa Bomba was gone now, called up to heaven three months ago—right after I turned thirteen. Right after I got my savvy. But his room in our house still stood empty. Nobody wanted to disturb it. The air inside those four walls held too much love. Too much magic. I often stuck my nose into Grandpa’s room, just to remember what he’d smelled like; I grieved as the scent of sun-warmed sand and freshly turned earth faded slowly into the whiff of dust and memory.
After the fiasco at Flint’s Market, I hid in Grandpa Bomba’s room, locking the door to keep my little brother out. Still moping over my miserable afternoon, I remembered the last birthday card Grandpa Bomba gave me. He’d jotted oodles of X’s and O’s inside it. Beneath his hieroglyphic smooches, Grandpa inscribed a quote from Shakespeare, his penmanship wobbly and crooked:
Come what may,
time and the hour run through the roughest day.
Grandpa must have known that I’d have some rough days coming, now that I was growing up. I imagined what Grandpa Bomba would’ve said if he were still alive and sitting next to me. He might have smiled and kissed the top of my head, proclaiming, “How I love you, Gypsy girl!” or “You look like you need a good yarn to cheer you up.” Then he would’ve reeled off endless stories, his eyes shining bright. He would’ve told me for the hundredth time how Grandma Dollop had put up radio waves inside of jars the way other ladies put up peaches. Or maybe he would’ve repeated the story of our first savvy ancestor, Eva Mae El Dorado Two-Birds Ransom, the pioneer girl who fell into the Missouri River on her thirteenth birthday and climbed out covered head to toe in gold dust. Trawling gold, forever after. Generations of savvy folk had been having extraordinary t
hirteenth birthdays ever since; savvy families dotted the map like sprinkles on a sheet cake.
My savvy birthday had brought its own set of marvels.
On the morning of October eleventh, the sun had slumbered late beneath the deep-blue covers of night, slow to wake on my special day. Swimming up and out of dreamland, I’d wiggled my toes, too woozy and content to move any other part of me. The hum of my parents’ voices drifted up from downstairs. Momma was busy cooking a special breakfast. Poppa was setting the table with the unbreakable dishes we always used for savvy birthdays.
My sister, Mibs, would be arriving later in the day with her fiancé, Will Meeks. My oldest brothers, Fish and Rocket, were on their way home too. Fish was bringing his new wife, Mellie. Soon, Samson would come out of hiding, like a moth drawn to the thirteen tiny flames atop my cake, and Tucker would get to sing “Happy Birthday” as big and as loud as he pleased. There would be sparks and hugs and windy bluster as everyone helped me celebrate.
My grown-up siblings had all had their own savvy adventures. Even Samson had seen his share of excitement. Samson’s savvy gave him the power of invisibility, and more. Whenever my reclusive sixteen-year-old brother became as unseen as a ghost, he charged up like a battery, giving him a storehouse of inner strength he could pass to other people with a touch. During a particularly heroic moment the previous summer, Samson had given all his strength away, making it difficult for him to disappear again for months. Making him super-cranky too. By the morning of my birthday, Samson was still working hard to get the full power of his savvy back. But at least he’d gotten to see some spectacular Sardoodledom. Some thrilling drama and excitement.
Now, at last, it was my turn to have some fun.
Despite the slugabed bliss of my early-morning snooziness, I’d shivered in anticipation of what the day might bring. I imagined sprouting a pair of wings as beautiful as those of doves and angels. Or going fishing with Poppa and catching candy necklaces instead of catfish. I pictured myself dancing up to the clouds. Moonwalking to the glowing moon.