CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

IDENTITY CRISIS

In the kitchen Jonny’s mum quizzed him about the stealing and cat crushing. Jonny denied both. Then Widget came into the room. He was walking a bit funny, presumably thanks to Mrs Algernon’s size-seven foot making contact with his bottom earlier that day.

Jonny’s mum raised her eyebrows and pointed at the limping dog. Jonny still denied everything, begging her to ring the school if she didn’t believe him.

When she got through to his teacher she confirmed that, yes, Jonny had been in school all day, although he’d lost a house point for bringing a panda onesie instead of his PE kit.

‘So, what on earth has been going on?’ Jonny’s mum asked him. ‘What are Charlie and Mrs Algernon talking about?’

‘Don’t know. They’ve gone mad or blind or both or something,’ said Jonny, getting up and edging towards the door. ‘Bye!’

Jonny charged upstairs. Where was J2? Where was that little lookie-likie brother? Terrible twin more like, thought Jonny, as he threw his bedroom door open.

‘You just got me in another huge stinking pile of trouble,’ he fumed when he found J2 in his room. ‘Nicking sweets – what the flipping hecksters?’

‘I panicked,’ said J2. ‘I’m sorry. Being you was a tiny bit scarier than I’d guessed it might be. I suddenly thought Charlie had worked out that I wasn’t really you, so I freaked and ran out of the shop.’

‘Well, he hadn’t guessed!’ said Jonny. ‘Which is why I’m for it! They definitely do think you’re me! They don’t realise you’re not me, that you’re someone else who just looks like me and that only me is actually me!’

J2 smiled nervously.

‘What about Widget attacking Fat Stanley?’ Jonny asked. ‘Did you panic then too?’

‘Widget just pulled and got away,’ said J2. ‘I didn’t know he had it in for that cat. You didn’t tell me.’

‘I couldn’t tell you everything!’ said Jonny. ‘If you were my real brother you’d have known.’

‘Well, you swapped your real brother,’ said J2, getting cross now. ‘So it’s your stupid fault. If you want someone who knows everything your real brother knows, then you should have just kept your real brother!’

J2 had rather hit the nail on the head there. Swapping Ted had seemed like a beautifully simple idea. How wrong Jonny had been!

‘I thought a new brother would be better,’ Jonny wailed. ‘You must have done too, otherwise why did you put yourself up for a swap?’

‘I didn’t!’ shrieked J2, with an outraged face. ‘My brother Fred did. He asked for a new sibling. Just like you did with Ted. I didn’t ask to be swapped!’

Jonny felt a wave of guilt crash over him. He’d been thinking so much about finding a new brother, he hadn’t properly considered how it felt for Ted, or for all the brothers he kept rejecting. J2 was upset, but what about Mervyn, Hari, Henry, Alfie and Pete?

‘One minute I’m minding my own business,’ J2 continued, ‘next minute I’m in a big warehouse which smells of fish! Then I’m told to wait there until they find me a suitable swap.’

‘That’s where you saw Ted’s picture?’ Jonny asked. ‘Was he there too?’

‘Probably,’ said J2. ‘I was shut in a little room. I didn’t see anyone, then I was sent here. When I saw how similar we were I thought, OK, maybe this will be good, maybe this could actually be fun. I was trying to make it work. But I was wrong.’

The two boys were quiet for a few seconds.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ Jonny asked.

‘Not sure,’ J2 said. He looked a bit tearful. ‘You don’t want me, and neither does my real brother! I guess I’ll go back to the Sibling Swap warehouse and see if they can help me.’

J2 pushed past him and ran downstairs.

‘Wait!’ said Jonny, running after him. ‘Let me put things right!’

J2 had run outside and was climbing up the shed at the end of the garden, preparing to leap down on to the path beyond and leg it.

‘Stop! Please!’ yelled Jonny. ‘Don’t go!’

He felt as though his life was spinning out of control. All these brothers. All this failure. Ted gone. Hurt feelings all round. ‘Please come down!’ he moaned. But J2 didn’t budge, so Jonny upturned a bucket, stood on it and tried to grab J2’s trouser leg to stop him jumping off.

‘Get off!’ said J2, kicking him away. Jonny lunged and grasped the other trouser leg, and again J2 kicked him off. On and on this went. Lunge, grab, kick, lunge, grab, kick. It looked like J2 was doing a little jig up there on the roof. Finally, he edged to the far end, preparing to leap to freedom. Jonny put his foot on the shed’s door handle and pushed up a little higher.

‘Let’s sort this out together,’ he gasped, gripping the shed roof with his fingernails. ‘Like brothers!’

‘But I’m not your brother,’ said J2. ‘Ted is.’

With that, J2 jumped off and ran away.

Jonny was left flattened to the side of the shed, clinging to its rough surface.

Ted is my brother, he thought. Only Ted. And on that bombshell, the door handle his foot was resting on gave way.