Switcharound

  Maybe even love would be the right word.

  But thinking that made her cry harder. Caroline couldn't come up with any solution to her problem; there was simply no way to undo what she had already done.

  Finally, in desperation, she crept down the dark hall and opened the door to the room that Poochie and J.P. shared.

  When her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could see that Poochie was sprawled, sound asleep, with his mouth open, on top of his covers. He was wearing his baseball glove.

  In the upper bunk, she could see J.P. also, sound asleep with the pillow on top of his head.

  Carefully and quietly, Caroline climbed the little ladder to the top bunk. She removed the pillow from her brother's head and whispered, "J.P.?"

  "Nnnnnhhhhh."

  "J.P.," she repeated a little more loudly. "Wake up. It's Caroline."

  "They must be on a LAN," J.P. murmured in his sleep. "I wonder what protocol they were using."

  Caroline shook him gently by the shoulder. "J.P.!" she said urgently.

  "The jogging shoes data base menu is up on one terminal," J.P. said groggily.

  "Wake up!" Caroline said aloud. Quickly she glanced down at Poochie, but he was still sound asleep.

  J.P. opened his eyes. "Is the tape drive on line?" he asked.

  "No," Caroline said, "the sister is on the bunk-bed ladder and about to fall. Wake up, J.P. I need you. Quit dreaming about computers."

  J.P. rubbed his eyes. "Whaddaya want?" he asked.

  "Shhhhh. Don't wake up Poochie. Meet me out back. I'm in serious trouble." Caroline climbed back down the ladder and tiptoed back across the room and out into the hall. Carefully she made her way through the darkened house, opened the sliding doors in the family room, and went out to the patio. She waited there, in one of the wrought iron chairs, for her brother.

  In a moment J.P. appeared in his baggy pajamas and bare feet. "It's the middle of the night, Caroline," he said. "This better be important. Because I don't get out of bed in the middle of the night for trivia."

  "It is important, J.P.," Caroline told him. "I've wrecked everything. It's much worse than when I flushed the asparagus down the john. I've caused a very major, major catastrophe this time."

  J.P. opened his eyes a little wider. "Was that YOU who flushed the asparagus?"

  "FORGET THE ASPARAGUS! I need help, J.P.! I need advice. Maybe I even need lawyers."

  "Why? I fixed up the computer situation, so Dad and Lillian aren't bankrupt. And you told me you fixed up the baseball team situation, so the Tater Chips have a shot, at least, at winning their game. What else is left?"

  "The babies," Caroline said miserably.

  "What about them?"

  "Ivy has an earache and a fever, and so Lillian is taking her to the doctor in the morning for a penicillin shot."

  "So? Big deal. Everybody gets penicillin shots now and then."

  "Some people are allergic to penicillin," Caroline pointed out in an ominous voice. " Holly is allergic to penicillin."

  J.P. sighed. "My feet are getting cold," he said. "Caroline, you're not making any sense. Holly's allergic to penicillin. Okay. If Holly had an earache, then, they wouldn't give her penicillin; they'd give her something else. But you already said that Ivy has the earache. So what's the problem?"

  Caroline began to cry again. "It isn't Ivy," she sobbed. "That was my revenge. I switched the babies!"

  14

  Caroline had expected, somehow, that when she said aloud what she had done, thunder would boom, lightning would pierce the sky, and maybe the earth would open and swallow her up.

  But none of that happened. The late-night breeze continued to rustle the leaves on the trees in Herbie and Lillian's yard. That was all.

  J.P. huddled on his chair and wrapped his arms around himself against the chilly air. He gave an exasperated snort, and Caroline could see the look on his face, even in the dark. It was his "Anyone could have told you that" look.

  "Caroline," he said with a resigned tone, "switch them back. It's that easy."

  "No," said Caroline, "it isn't. I wish it were."

  "Okay, so if you switch them back, then the one who has the earache is Holly. And Holly is allergic to penicillin. So you have to explain to Lillian that they were switched, and that's embarrassing, I grant you. But at least you don't end up giving penicillin to the wrong baby. That would be worse than embarrassing. That would be homicide, I think."

  "The problem is, I'm not sure which one is which."

  "Huh?" J.P. peered at her through the dark. "I thought you said you switched them."

  Caroline tried to explain. It had seemed logical to her at the time. Now it just seemed insane. "I made up my mind to do it so that I wouldn't know which was which. So that I couldn't change my mind and undo it."

  "How do you mean?"

  "It was yesterday morning. You were off at baseball practice, and I was feeling sorry for myself because I was home alone with the babies, and I'd been thinking about doing it, and you said you had already done your revenge—"

  "Yeah. When I wrote out my game strategy for tomorrow's game. I programmed them to lose."

  "—and so after their breakfast, when they had oatmeal in their hair as always, I gave them each a bath in the kitchen sink, and washed their hair, and then—"

  "Then what? Did you switch them or not?"

  Caroline sighed. "I put them both in the playpen naked. Then I went out in the back yard for a few minutes and looked at the bird feeder. And I went to the bathroom. And I watched a little bit of "Donahue" on TV. And then finally, after I'd ignored them for about half an hour, I went and looked. And I didn't know which was which. They weren't in the same places I'd put them. You know how they crawl around and roll and squirm."

  "So what did you do?"

  Caroline shrugged. "I picked up one and dressed it in yellow. And I picked up the other and dressed it in pink."

  "So they could be the right babies—"

  "—or the wrong," Caroline pointed out.

  There was a long silence. "Boy, Caroline," J.P. said at last, "I have to hand it to you. It was fiendishly clever."

  "And it can't be undone," Caroline reminded him in despair. "The guy at the store fouled up the computer as revenge—but you undid it. And you fouled up the baseball team as revenge—but I undid it.

  "But me" she said mournfully, "I fouled up the babies as revenge. And no one can undo it."

  "Wrong," said J.P. suddenly, and he stood up. "You've been saved by genius, Caroline!" He headed toward the house and pulled open the sliding door.

  "Where are you going? What are you going to do?"

  "Come on," whispered J.P. from the dark family room. "Let's see if we can do it quietly so that Dad and Lillian don't hear anything."

  "Do what, J.P.?" Caroline tiptoed into the house after him. "Ouch," she said, when she stubbed her toe on the leg of the coffee table. "Where are you? I can't see anything!"

  "I'm at the door to your bedroom," J.P.'s voice said through the dark. "I'm about to go in to the babies to conduct a musical audition."

  Caroline caught up with him as he opened the bedroom door. "What are you talking about?" she whispered.

  "Remember?" J.P. told her. "Only one of the babies can whistle. Holly can whistle. Ivy can only go 'Bpheeewwww.'"

  Caroline slept a little later than usual in the morning. For a change, the twins didn't wake her at dawn. Of course, the twins had been up from two to two-thirty in the morning, having their whistling tested. No wonder they were sleeping late.

  Caroline stretched and yawned and listened to the activity in the rest of the house. Poochie was singing. He had a terrible voice: off-key and loud. But it was a happy voice, at least; he was singing "Take me OOOUUUTT to the baaaalll game!"

  She heard her father call, "J.P.? I'm going down to the store to get Caroline's cap and shirt; you want to come? You could check the computer one more time!"

  She heard J.P. respond and leave with H
erbie.

  She could hear Lillian in the kitchen, talking to Poochie.

  Finally she heard the babies stir and wake. In the pink crib, the pink-gowned baby wiggled and peered, grinning, between the bars at Caroline.

  "Hi, Holly," Caroline said. "Give a little whistle?"

  Holly puckered up and whistled shrilly.

  "Good girl," Caroline told her.

  "Ivy?" she asked and looked into the yellow crib. Ivy was awake, too, but pulling at her ear again and whimpering.

  Caroline reached into the yellow crib and patted Ivy fondly. "You're going to the doctor this morning," she told the baby. "He'll fix your ear up.

  "Hey," she added, still patting the baby, "how about a little whistle?"

  Ivy tried. But she still could manage only "Bpheeewwww."

  Caroline got up, put her bathrobe on, and picked up the babies. She was so expert now at baby care that she could carry both of them at the same time, one balanced on each hip.

  "Morning, Lillian," she said when she got to the kitchen. "I haven't changed them yet. But I will in a minute."

  She put the babies in the playpen and went back to the bedroom for two dry diapers. In the bedroom, she stood still for a moment and looked at the two cribs, empty now. According to the whistling test, the babies had not actually been switched at all. Ivy was still Ivy. And Holly was still Holly. Ivy would get her penicillin shot and would be okay.

  But what if—

  Just suppose that—

  Caroline had to be absolutely certain. She loved the babies too much to take a chance.

  "Lillian," she said, when she got back to the kitchen. "I have a confession to make."

  Lillian looked at her quizzically. She was fixing the babies' orange juice.

  Caroline took a deep breath. "Yesterday morning," she said, "I gave the babies each a bath in the sink and then I put them into the playpen together—"

  Lillian handed a bottle to each baby. She took one of the diapers and began changing Holly. Caroline leaned over and started changing Ivy.

  "—and, ah, when I put them in the playpen together, they didn't have any clothes on yet. I mean, I hadn't yet dressed them after their bath," Caroline went on apprehensively.

  Lillian started to laugh. She fastened Holly's diaper, patted her padded behind, and stood up. "So they got mixed up?" she asked.

  "Yes," Caroline whispered, terrified. "And, Lillian, I'm almost positive that they're straightened out. I can't show you while they have their bottles in their mouths. But Holly can whistle, and Ivy can't."

  Holly, sucking on her orange juice, heard the word whistle. She let go of her bottle, puckered up, and whistled some orange juice into the air.

  Lillian chuckled, wiped Holly's chin, and said, "I do it all the time, Caroline. Don't worry about it."

  Caroline stared at her in astonishment. "You mix them up?"

  Lillian nodded. "Sure. It's inevitable. The pink and yellow clothes are handy. But let's face it—you can't keep them dressed every second. There's bound to be a mix-up now and then."

  "But how—?"

  "Oh, there are several ways to tell them apart," Lillian explained. "Ivy has a tiny mole on the back of her right shoulder. But that's a nuisance, because you have to take her shirt off to find it. It's a little easier to check the backs of their heads. Their hair grows in different directions. Here, I'll show you on Ivy—she's finished her juice."

  She picked up the twin in the yellow nightgown and gently smoothed the fine dark hair on the back of her head. "See how it grows around counterclockwise in a circle? This is Ivy, by the way, in case you were still worried, Caroline. Holly's hair grows the opposite way."

  Caroline stroked the baby's hair. "I was worried," she confessed. "It didn't seem good enough, relying on a whistle."

  At the sound of the word, Ivy puckered her lips. This time, instead of a "Bpheeewwww," she gave a piercing whistle, just as accomplished as her sister's.

  Poochie looked up. "She learned just in time," he said. "Now they can both whistle when I hit a home run!"

  15

  It was the top of the sixth inning of a game that was only six innings long, and Caroline was exhausted but exhilarated. The Half-pints were at bat, and the Tater Chips were ahead by one run. The score was 32 to 31. If the score held, the Chips would win. But the Half-pints were at bat.

  "I didn't know baseball games had such high scores," J.P. remarked. He was sitting beside her on the bench, as assistant coach. "I thought that was football."

  "It usually is," Caroline said. "But when nobody can catch, a lot of runs score. I forgot that the other team would be six-year-olds, too. They're just as bad as the Chips."

  She was whispering so that the three players on the bench wouldn't hear. But they weren't listening, anyway. They were yelling insults to everyone who was wearing a uniform: to the players on the other team as they came to bat and to their own players who were out in the field.

  "You can't catch, poophead Jason!" one little Tater Chip yelled to his own team's first baseman.

  "Can too!" Jason yelled back just as the Half-pints' batter hit a line drive toward first base. The ball went between Jason's legs and rolled toward right field.

  Eric the Beaver was ready for it. It was amazing. At every practice, Caroline had watched as Eric had missed ball after ball because he always seemed to be doing some odd sort of ballet out in the field. She hadn't understood it until she had read her brother's revenge game plan.

  "Eric the Beaver," his page had said. "Losing strategy: Supply with soda between innings. Do not suggest bathroom."

  Caroline had simply cut off Eric's Pepsi supply and had ordered him to the men's room after each inning. Now, instead of prancing and twirling in the field, the Beaver was alert and attentive. He had already caught two fly balls and had dropped only one.

  As she watched, cheering, Eric grabbed the ground ball. With his buckteeth firmly grabbing his bottom lip, he looked around for the runner, who had just passed first base. Jason, angry because the ball had gone between his legs, tried to trip him; but he missed, stumbled over his own foot, fell, and started to cry.

  Eric threw to second, where Adam Donnelly was waiting.

  "Adam Donnelly," his page in J.P.'s book had said. "Uses his brother's hand-me-down left-handed glove. Don't tell him he needs a right-handed glove."

  Caroline had simply convinced Adam and Poochie to trade gloves. Poochie was left-handed and hadn't known it. Adam was the reverse.

  Now, wearing Poochie's old glove, Adam leaned down and, with his left hand, scooped the ball successfully into the glove.

  "WAY TO GO, ADAM!" yelled Caroline. But Adam looked around, confused. He was quite a distance from second base. The runner ran past him and reached the grubby bag that was the base marker. Panic-stricken, Adam threw the ball at the runner. It missed and rolled. The runner headed on toward third base, and the ball bobbled haphazardly across the bumpy infield toward the pitcher, Matthew Birnbaum.

  Matthew was the Tater Chips star player. He could hit, throw, and catch. There were no losing instructions on Matthew's page at all, except: "This kid can do everything. Have him bat first, when no one is on base. And substitute a bad player whenever possible."

  Caroline had ignored that. She had made Matthew starting pitcher, and she had him batting cleanup, after three other batters, so that maybe he could help the others score. So far, in five and a half innings, he had scored twenty-seven other players, plus a few home runs all his own.

  Now he scooped up the runaway ball and yelled, "Heads up, Poochie!"

  Caroline cringed. Poochie was her third baseman. The sun was directly in his eyes, but it didn't matter, because Poochie was blind as a bat anyway. The only thing he had going for him was Adam Donnelly's brother's outgrown lefty glove.

  Matthew tossed the ball to Pooch as the runner closed in on third base.

  "COME ON, DAVID TATE!" Caroline bellowed.

  Poochie squinted toward the sun, squeeze
d his eyes completely closed, and held his arms up awkwardly. For the very first time, the ball landed in his glove.

  And the runner, who should have been out at first, but wasn't, and who should have been out at second, but wasn't, ran right into Poochie's outstretched arm. Out at third, compliments of David Herbert Tate. He stamped his foot angrily and stalked off the field.

  Two outs now. One to go, and the Tater Chips would win.

  But the Half-pints brought up their power hitter: Charlie Ping, a Chinese-American kid with a punk haircut and muscles that looked obscene on a six-year-old. Charlie Ping had already hit, in this game alone, five grand slams.

  Matthew Birnbaum took aim and pitched. Whoosh. Charlie Ping had his first strike of the day. Every other time at bat, he'd hit the first pitch.

  Whoosh. Caroline couldn't believe it. The parents and brothers and sisters in the bleachers were going wild. She could hear Herbie Tate's booming voice: "That's two, Birnbaum! Strike him out!"

  Matthew Birnbaum took a deep breath and pitched. But his pitching arm was tired, and his luck had run out. Charlie Ping swung a third time and connected with a splat that probably could be heard in downtown Cincinnati, three states and a large river away. The ball sailed up and away and over the fence.

  Ping jogged, smirking, around the bases while the scorekeeper recorded the run. At least no one was on base. But now the score was tied: 32 to 32.

  A little black kid with too big sneakers came up to bat, struck out, burst into tears, and was led away to be consoled by the Half-pints' coach.

  Now it was the Tater Chips' turn at bat, and one run would do it for them. One run. Caroline called a brief time-out and sent them, all but Kristin, to the men's room. All she needed was Eric the Beaver, who was up next, to start his ballet dance in the batter's box.

  He didn't. He swung with enough energy to send a slam to the next county, but the bat only caught the edge of the ball and hit an odd little bouncing drive toward first base. The pitcher ran for it, collided with the first baseman, and they both fell down. Eric the Beaver could have made it to first base in the confusion. But he tripped over an untied shoelace; while he sprawled on the baseline, the ball rolled past; Eric picked it up politely and handed it to the first baseman.