Free Switcharound by Lois Lowry Page B

that she didn't like taking care of them. She found it boring. And it was true that she hoped
she
would never have twin babies—or maybe any babies—because she would much rather spend her adult life in Asia Minor, digging up fossils and prehistoric skeletons, and she would not have time to knit little sweaters and hats.
    But she did
like
Holly and Ivy. And Poochie:
David Herbert Tate.
And Herbie and Lillian, for that matter.
    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