Chameleon Chaos (9 page)

Danny grinned in a slow scaly way, and led Josh and Petty along the path that wound into the woods behind the school. “Just a few more minutes will do it,” he said. “Petty—can you meet us across the other side?”

“Of course—but why?” asked Petty, clutching the antidote spray.

“Ooooh—I think it's time we started hanging about with Billy and Jason!” Danny said.

Billy Sutter and Jason Bilk had a routine. Every day after school they would go to the corner shop to buy sweets with all the money they'd managed to nick from the little kids.

It was a regular thing.

And after they'd bought their sweets, they liked to take them into the woods and scarf them in the branches of a big, easy-to-climb oak tree.

Danny and Josh knew this because they also liked to climb the oak tree but had been shoved off it several times by Billy and Jason. Although they fought back, after a while it was just too much aggravation, and so they didn't bother with the tree any more. Nor did anyone else from their school. It became Billy and Jason's tree. You could tell by all the plastic wrappers underneath it and
the big pink blobs of spat-out bubble gum stuck along its branches.

Today, though, Billy and Jason were going to share.

They crashed noisily through the wood and made straight for “their” tree. With blazer pockets full of booty, they climbed up and got onto a broad branch which was wide enough to sit on comfortably while eating with both hands.

Usefully for Josh and Danny, one of the things that had not faded away since their complete chameleon S.W.I.T.C.H. was their agility. Danny had always been good at climbing, but now he was brilliant at it. Josh had been average at it—but now he was brilliant too. Five minutes before Billy and Jason had arrived, the brothers had scaled the tree with ease.

As Billy and Jason settled on the wide branch, filling their faces with chocolate and Fizz Bombs, Danny and Josh hung upside down above them, their legs hooked over a higher branch and their heads visible through the leaves. They were perfectly still. They didn't even blink.

“I got popcorn!” snuffled Jason, pulling a bag of it out of his other pocket. He opened it up, and the sweet scent rose into the air. “Shame we didn't have it for when we was watchin' Josh Phillips on those ropes. He looked like such a punnet.”

“A punnet?” echoed Billy, opening a bag of Maltesers. “What's a punnet?”

“It's a … punnet,” mumbled Jason, screwing up his face.

“What—like you put strawberries in?” snorted Billy. “You've gotta work on your insults, Jase. You're goin' soft in the 'ead!”

“Where'd he go, though?” Jason puzzled. “After we hoisted 'im up? He just disappeared, like … and then came back, 'angin' off the light.”

“Stop tryin' to think, you dunce,” advised Billy. “You'll have a nosebleed. Gi's some popcorn.”

“Ge'off!” grunted Jason. “Eat your own stuff.”

“I'll have some,” Josh said, above. And he shot out his tongue and collected seven or eight bits of popcorn on it before pinging it back up into his mouth and munching with enjoyment.

Jason froze and stared into his popcorn bag with confusion. Then he looked up. And stared with more confusion. There was nobody there. Above him all he could see were branches and oak leaves. He turned to stare at Billy. “Did you just nick my popcorn?” he asked.

“No—
I
did,” Josh said. And he sent his tongue down again and got some more.

“What? Who said that?” Jason jerked his head up and down and from side to side, trying to work out where the voice was coming from.

“And I'll have some of those, please,” Danny said, sending his tongue down into Billy's bag of malted-milk balls.

Billy squawked with shock as the stretchy pink thing shot past his face and into his sweets, retreating with about six of them stuck onto it. He nearly fell off the branch as he twisted his head up to see who was there. But he could see nobody. Just branches and leaves.

“Bi—i—ill …” Jason said, his voice wobbling. “What's goin' on?”

“Shattup!” Billy hissed. “Listen! There's someone up here messin' with us … YOU GET DOWN HERE!” he yelled out. “Get down here and I'll smack your face in!”

“Not very polite, is he?” Josh said to Danny. “Do you want to go down there and get your face smacked in?”

“Oddly, no,” Danny said.

“OI! It's the nature nerd and the loser! I know their voices!” bellowed Jason. “Get down! Show yourselves, you maggots!”

“Say please,” Josh said.

Billy said something less polite.

“Oh, all right then,” Danny said. “We'll show ourselves.” And then he and Josh moved. That was all they needed to do. Their heads, poking down through the leaves, had been in plain sight the whole time anyway, just camouflaged and perfectly still.

“Hi, guys!” Josh said, waving.

Danny grinned and let his tongue flop down again to get some more candy. “Fanks!” he mumbled, through a mouthful.

Billy and Jason just
stared
for a few seconds at the upside-down boys with chameleon heads chortling and shooting long sticky tongues down towards them.

Then they started screaming and scrabbling to get away.

“Oh, don't go NOW!” called out Josh. “We thought you might like to hang out with us.”

“Aaaaaaaaargh! Aliens! Aliens!” squealed Billy.

“It licked me! There's toxic lick on me!” sobbed Jason. He fell off the branch, thudding on the leaves and sweet wrappers a few feet below with a “doof” and a whimper. Billy fell down next to him and rolled head-over-heels across the woodland floor, squeaking like one of Piddle's chew toys. They both scrambled to their feet and ran as if they were, indeed, being chased by aliens.

Their screams and howls echoed back through the wood for a couple of minutes, and then they were gone. Josh and Danny laughed so hard they almost cried. Except chameleons don't have tear ducts.

Five minutes later they found Petty at the edge of the wood, and after two quick blasts of antidote they were normal again.

“I won't even ask,” she said.

“We should tell her,” Josh said, standing up from his microscope, back in their bedroom. He held up the red marble and nodded. “More code,” he said. “And a hologram of a cat.”

“You don't think it really could be another kind of S.W.I.T.C.H., do you?” asked Danny. He peered at the other coded marble—the blue one—as it nestled in his palm. “This one's got a sort of bat thing in it—and that's a cat. These are … mammals!”

“It does look just like the code in the S.W.I.T.C.H. cubes,” said Josh. “Maybe Petty made it and lost it all, just like she lost the REPTOSWITCH cubes. And maybe the bit of her brain which she says was burnt out by Victor Crouch was
so
burnt out she doesn't remember.”

“But it still doesn't explain why somebody is sending us clues to find them,” Danny said. “If they want Petty to have them back, why not just send them to
her
?”

As if to answer their question, the bedroom door opened and Piddle ran in, looking very excited and important. Once again, someone had tucked something into his collar. A note with some familiar handwriting on it.

“RUN!” yelled Danny. “They must be right outside!”